“Show Notes”
Zuzana Mukumayi is Life and Accountability coach for business owners and freelancers with feet in different countries.
Zuzana believes, that not only you don’t have to choose between healthy habits, amazing relationships, fulfilling work or great health, but that you deserve it all.
Zuzana is there to help you to achieve your dreams by getting stuff done while feeling confident, happy and focused.
Zuzana has had her feet in different countries and continents for over 15 years and she lives in Zambia with her husband and son.
When not coaching her clients, she writes, reads, admires flowers and experiments on becoming her best possible self. Website, Instagram.
Relationship Revolutions is presented & hosted by Alan Watts – The Love Engineer. Alan is a relationship & dating coach, working with divorcees and singles who have come out of a long term relationship, and would like to move forward in to a healthy, loving and lasting relationship.
Alan also works with couples in crisis to turn their relationship around and bring deeper connection, more passion, understanding and intimacy. Alan can be found on all FB, Instagram, Ticktok and linked in. Links can be found on his linktr.ee Or email directly to relationship-revolutions@theloveengineer.rocks
“Show Transcription”
Alan
G’day and welcome to the latest episode of relationship revolutions where today I’m
joined by my guest Zuzana Mukumayi so first two questions for you
Zuzanna how are you and where are you?
Zuzana
I am good thank you though it was a bit
cold today only 22° which brings me to where I am um I am in Zambia and that it
will be my 10th year this year so it’s anniversary
year
Alan
Zuzana you say that’s your 10th year there where were you
Before?
Zuzana
I was in Uganda for two years and before that Sweden and that brings me to
my home country Czech Republic that’s where I come from
Alan
interesting so you you’ve certainly
moved around a bit
Zuzana
yeah it was not a plan but that’s what
happened
Alan
which has been your favourite country to live in so far
Zuzana
that’s a tough question so I
really love Sweden that’s my love country uh I really hope I will be back
at some point then I love Mongolia I live there for six months I didn’t
mention that um that was always my dream country I have no idea why but I
completely loved living there even though when I arrived it was minus 30 degrees and Zambia is a good country I
came for work I never managed to leave so I think it says something but as I keep staying longer there are some
things that I don’t like that much but I guess it happens with every country
Alan
so you mentioned you’ve gone to Zambia for work what is it that you
do at that time
Zuzana
I was in humanitarian Aid and development so that was the work
I spent my entire life uh working on humanitarian and development projects
and that’s how it got to uh to Zambia and then eventually what I’m doing right now mostly I do life and accountability
coaching so I shifted when my child was born as it happens with many women
we change when our children come
Alan
yeah children change many things in
in life if irrespective of uh of gender but um so what’s what area of life
coaching is your speciality at the moment
Zuzana
yeah so it was a bit of soul
searching and perhaps it’s not complete yet I started with uh coaching uh in
Intercultural relationships and I guess that’s what we will talk about today but
eventually I realised that relationship is just part of being happier so right
now what I’m doing with my clients is that I look at the areas of life that
are important to them so usually we talk about creating their businesses uh
having time for their important relationship and of often with most of my clients we talk about creating habits
for better productivity and better health and most of my clients like me
they have feet in different countries so that’s what I love about the group of my clients we are all in the same
Point
Alan
yeah I can relate to the having feet in different countries there
the there’s a big part of me that’s kind of stayed over in Australia and New
Zealand after went backpacking around there a long time ago I’m not going to
admit how many because it scares me although in some ways it feels like
yesterday
Zuzana
yeah and backpacking that’s was what I did first time I ever
traveled I went by truck to Sweden from Czech Republic I hit hike it was in my
early 20s and I can’t believe now when I’m in my mid 30s now I feel old that
now I wouldn’t do it I would be scared but in 20s it was the most amazing
experience
Alan
yeah I must admit when I did it I was in my 20s but um I was
still scared but it’s one of those things that
when you do it and reflect back on it and it’s in many ways it has been
lifechanging
Zuzana
definitely and for me I remember I was going this long stretch
from yorg to Stockholm and I jump it was a taxi I it was like three guys from
Somalia and for me coming from Czech Republic we don’t have and back then it
was even less we don’t have that many people from abroad so it was first time ever I was meeting people from Africa so
then I went to one Festival I lived with Nigerian Ugandans and it was the first
time ever I interacted with African people and even though I didn’t plan to
live in Africa that maybe it was the first kind of seed of what will happen
later
Alan
yeah so would you say the traveling
experience affected your decision to go into Intercultural life
coaching
Zuzana
I think back then I didn’t think that far I just loved it I really
uh loved interacting with different cultures I was really curious and I
think what it impacted is that then with my partner who was also from different
culture my ex partner he was from Italy he loved Africa I followed him and like
all this excitement about different cultures and discovering and eventually
we did not work out we got married we got divorced um but when I started
dating my current husband who is Zambian I continued doing things the same way as
I was used and because he was completely different he was like hey what are you
doing like you can’t be in a relationship like this and I think this was the moment when I start being
interested in thinking more about relationship thinking more about myself and when I decided to start business is
that’s why I decided to do Intercultural uh relationships because I
didn’t want women to go through the same mistakes I did
Alan
yeah um what were some of those
differences for you
Zuzana
well there were many um I like
sharing it’s my favourite one about the TV like our biggest arguments with my
husband were about the TV and I come from a family we would have one TV in
the house you would just switch on uh when you wanted to watch a movie and that was it when the movie was over
you switch it off so when we moved in we had not many things in the apartment
basically it was mattress gas stove and a TV and I felt that TV was stealing the
attention from him that was supposed to be mine right and we had lots of arguments about this and I think it took
months or maybe even years to realise that I had it completely wrong because
for me a TV was something that was stealing attention uh for him uh in Zambia the
perception of the TV is completely different than in Czech Republic and specifically for him it was about the TV
was symbol of home when his parents moved together they got to TV because
that meant they are serious together and for him I moved in quite quickly um it
was quite unexpected for him and he wanted me to feel home so he put on the TV even though we didn’t have even a TV
stand and he wanted me to make home to be home but I interpreted it completely
different way so this is just like the one small thing which I love remembering
we still have the same TV and he still makes joke about it uh but we made it
through it
Alan
yeah um as I when I got married, I
married a lady from China and I can certainly relate to the cultural
differences most of them I wasn’t really aware of when we got married just these
little things keep coming up even more so once we’d got children because our
our upbringings were so
different and I one of the things I look back on now and think well how
different would it have been if there had have been some kind of guide or we’d have known how to have those
conversations in the beginning because it’s it is almost like
um you both grow up on different planets and then you get put in the same box
together and your expectations are very
different
Zuzana
yeah and as you said often it’s in the small things right I once
remember I we were somewhere in public and what I did is I touched my husband on the head just like this and he didn’t
react but then when the event was over he was like what did you do like why would you do that it’s like I just
touched your head it was like a gesture of affection I was like no that means if you do that you think I’m a small boy so
you kind of treat me badly and you know these kind of things like we wouldn’t even think about it because we grow up
certain way and um where wherever and anyhow how we grew up we think that’s
normal and we don’t realise that other people might have different uh perspective until we get in contact with
somebody who has a different perspective
Alan
yeah yeah and I’ve spoken to a
lot of people few people about um Intercultural relationships and having
relationships with somebody from a different country and they say what do you
think about it I says well are you having a relationship with somebody from that country because you want a relationship from that country or have
you happened to meet somebody who just happens to be in that country that you’ve got that deep connection
with
Zuzana
yeah that’s a different uh that’s interesting distinction and I actually
got also people asking uh me often this question if I wanted to have a partner
uh from abroad and I am on the side that I never planned it I kind of never cared
about from where my boyfriends were so for me it was the second uh way you
mentioned that I just happened to meet somebody who was from Zambia or Italy or
Iceland Australia before it was since I was like dating I always had guys from
abroad but it was never planned um and I think um this when people go
consciously for somebody of certain country it can create lots of problems
because then it’s not really about the person often but about the idea the
people have and I in the beginning um when I started first time I was doing
my courses it was in Czech so I most I was mostly working with women from
Czech Republic who had partner from abroad and naturally many women came to me who had also partnered from Africa
and there like it was uh you could see not everybody but you see some where
more like in relationship with the idea than with the
man
Alan
yeah yeah when I was going through the dating process after the
divorce on you get the all these adverts flash up on social media and Google
about finding a new wife or a new girlfriend or whatever that’s either in the Ukraine
or somewhere in Eastern Europe maybe Colombia or the Philippines and just think why would
someone choose to just go to a country where they don’t
speak the same language they have a different culture they have different
upbringings and it’s just going to work whereas what I find is even with people
couples that have grown up in in the same town their upbring is are different and it can cause conflict so I mean
just it’s crazy but at the same time if like yourself where you’ve been
traveling and met somebody there why not give it a go
Zuzana
yeah and I think it’s a bit
problematic as you said like the countries um you’re from UK and it was offering you women from
Ukraine or Eastern Europe or Colombia those are all countries that are poorer
than UK and then that’s when the question of inequality comes in and
like you know all these things about are they dating me for me are they dating me
from where I come from and I don’t know if you have watched the show it’s on TLC
much me abroad um it’s I watch it few times because um
it’s exact it’s about I think seven Americans and they are matched with people from Colombia surprisingly there
is Czech Republic and I think Morocco or somewhere in Northern Africa so it’s
exactly I was wondering the same why did they pick up these countries which are
not on the same level and I think that’s it was picked on purpose because it will bring more drama but um it’s that it’s I
and I don’t say the relationship can’t work they 100% can and I know couples
that work out but there is this added layer of not being at the same level and
kind of the added danger of that one in the couple might not be there for the
love
Alan
yeah um what that’s another thing I did after I kept seeing these ads I
thought well this is very interesting but what’s behind it so you actually
look at the business structure behind it and what it seems to be doing is
targeting wealthy Western English and American men and kind of offering them a
pretty girl to sit on their arm and to me that’s not really what relationships
should be about
yeah then when I travelled around Ukraine actually saw the country for myself and
thought okay not all the women look like those adverts which in a way is quite
refreshing because they’re just normal people like you and me and but also I
I’d got this illusion of Ukraine being so say poor but at the same time you
walk through the High Street in Kiev and you’ve got the same Louis Von you’ve got Ferrari shops and all this kind of thing
where you don’t buy anything unless you’ve got money so there are people in that country with money and at the same
time there are also people there that haven’t and I think they those
businesses Target a lot of pretty students that want to get earn some extra money while they’re going through
University and just go out on these dates with um foreign men and a
translator and that’s where most of it stops it just seems to be a bit of
a money pit
Zuzana
yeah I agree and I mean I
think it doesn’t matter from which country you are but usually like at some
point you will be on that end which is uh about like attracting some stereotype
right so I’m from Czech Republic it’s right in the middle of the Europe we
were not the part of the Soviet Union as some people still thinking and when I went to Italy uh as I said my ex partner was
Italian I got this uh stereotypes you know all about coming from the poor
country when we are normal country as Ukraine was let’s say before the war um
and all the misconceptions like that Czech women or east European women are easy
like you wouldn’t like you know just sitting on the bench alone in a park couldn’t pass without somebody coming to
me and asking me questions and think just like not letting me alone sit and
read a book and um yeah it’s sad that it still happens but yeah I guess this will
never die
Alan
yeah I think some of some of that comes down to just having that little
bit of a difference to what they what the people they were used
to
Zuzana
yeah I got a job in Italy because I had a blonde hair I remember I was
looking for a job as a waiter I was still studying so I wanted just something for three months I could not speak Italian
I just learned the sentence hello I’m looking for job I got a job in two weeks
then we had an Italian friend who was a waiter she could I could I mean up to
now I can’t carry like more than two plates in my hand she could not find a job I got it just because of the
hair crazy isn’t it yeah I mean it was good for me at that time but um if you
look at it generally it’s crazy
yes
Alan
yeah so what some of the biggest challenges
that your clients have faced with an Intercultural
relationship
Zuzana
well I am thinking the one that comes to mind and that’s more
specific to women who have a partner from Africa usually the biggest
challenge would be around money and money being sent back to the African
family in case they lived in the US or in the Europe uh because this is something I think that’s a big culture
difference uh we have as like when it comes to giving money supporting
relatives with money uh loaning money like the area I come from maybe it’s similar
in the UK I don’t know you will tell us but if you go and borrow money from somebody it means you must be really in
trouble and you would go to very close people you wouldn’t go to somebody you
just met or you know you are not on very close terms meanwhile this is different
in Africa and I mean also generalising Africa I don’t want to do that because there are over 50 countries and it’s
really different and in each country it’s really different but let’s say it’s more common that people once somebody
has a job they not only they support their immediate family but they support
maybe the kids of the brother to go to school or some cousins uh they borrow
money to the friends so it’s much more like it’s um this could be for a long
discussion also we discuss it many time with my husband and I would say we did not have this challenge luckily because
he’s bit different in this and his family is very small but it’s it can
really drag one person down like uh it’s not like everybody in Africa is poor but
it’s really hard to get official job people usually hustle much more and this
is again we have this stereotype about Africa people don’t work but in my experience people work much more because
the opportunities are less and people really need to have two three four
streams of income to make living so they work really hard so when somebody starts
to do better uh then it’s really hard like to keep it and keep growing if you
have 20 relatives distant relatives who have their own families supporting. So
the women I work with usually they have challenges with this because they are like hey we have a family like what
about our savings What About Us like you know planning for apartment while the
partner would be sending lots of money back uh to relatives and friends in
Africa
Alan
yeah whereas over here firstly a lot of us are taught or
conditioned from an early age you don’t talk about money so I could see how that would
bring a few challenges especially in the culture where so much life is about
buying stuff you can’t buy your stuff if your partner sending all the money back to Africa or
wherever
Zuzana
yeah yeah that’s a good point and it comes also to the Love Languages
right and that’s something what yeah um we had issues around with my uh with my
husband because I was like am I ever going to get flowers and now I know that probably
happens like once in five year and if it happens it’s a fake flower like not the
real one uh because then like his love language would be the service so he
would make sure that the car has fuel or he would repair the car or on the way
home he buys bread and tomatoes and these kind of things and you know I
don’t think uh when I chatted with my like woman female friends like they’re not interested in flowers so this is
also very cultural um like we would like to receive this flower there nice things
and here it’s more about things you can use in real life like talk time for the
phone or um going to the hairdresser and these kind of things
Alan
yeah yeah love languages are
a fantastic tool certainly helps a lot of couples work things out um
although when I was married it’s like what is your love language
it’s a lot of the time it felt like the only love language he had was
money
Zuzana
and yeah I mean what I’m am thinking maybe that
could be considered as service because money is for something but it again
leads to the same discussion of like is somebody in the relationship for the
love or for money and this is also interesting culture difference right because In some
cultures marriage it’s economic relationship it’s not the way we
perceive it and I think it’s good that I think we brought it up it’s
because coming from Europe I think your one will be similar to mine is we marry
for love right we don’t care about the money we don’t care about these things we marry for love and we somehow think that if
somebody marries for money it’s less better but it’s just different it’s different culture and like just
comparing the two like our one is better that’s just being Superior and that’s
what we don’t want to do but I think it’s important actually uh when it comes to Partners maybe from
two different continents or completely different culture actually talk about this because uh you may be in a
relationship and you like I love children and your partner say I love children too and then you’re like great
he’s perfect we can have children and then you get married and he’s like I don’t have to have children but you said
you love children yes like I love playing with my nieces like you know like these things like we really should
go deep and uh not to take everything at the face value but really go deeper
what does that mean and this is valid to all the people right even if you are from the same town just uh we can have
misunderstanding but especially when it comes to completely different culture it’s um communicate community
communicate
Alan
yeah absolutely yeah I think um well there
are four or five big topics we talk not to talk about money sex
religion and politics whereas those things tend to
can be the biggest dividers so why not find out of there your potential partner
is aligned before you get married
Zuzana
yeah
I mean that would be great if people did it and I think they would save themselves lots of
troubles um though I’m also a believer that
sometimes when we overthink it’s also not helpful and I can talk of specific
example of religion so I don’t have any religion I wouldn’t say I’m atheist
but my husband is Catholic and like he is Christian right so and these are the
things we will probably never agree on we will never agree on the question if Jesus died for us or not but um as we go
and as we figure out our challenges uh and it’s now I’m missing the name of the
famous author who says that it’s okay to have some uh disagreements which
are not solvable and um yeah this is something like if
you know that probably you will manage to live with it it’s okay to have some
things you will never agree on same with Dinosaurs we will probably never agree on the end of the dinosaurs but it
doesn’t really affect our daily life so it’s fine but
Alan
yeah if you would imagine
situation when you get married and then your husband is really religious and then it you know he expects you to
convert or change to his religion or follow like the rules and then you were not ready for it then it becomes a
problem
Zuzana
yeah yeah if you can’t accept your partner in that instance whereas
he’s accepted you as you are he’d have come to you and said well if you’re going to marry me you’ve got to become a
Catholic you’ve got to believe this you got to do this all of a sudden it feels like a very different
Dynamic
Alan
yeah yeah and often this is not talked about and it’s only discovered
after the marriage
Zuzana
and people get surprised and I love watching um I don’t
know if you heard of psychology of Seattle it’s Dr Honda he has a podcast and he does the analyses on the 90 Day
Fiancée which is built or about like this kind of relationship like somebody from America going to some like poor country
usually different religion and then people get married in 90 days and you are like
why did you get married in the first place so
Alan
yeah yeah, I remember had a couple of dates with um I think she was a Muslim
and she says well if we go um further down this road together at some point you’re going to be circumcised
I’m like I’m out goodbye thank you very much
Zuzana
yeah so it’s good
you know that you found out during dating not after getting married
Alan
yeah
yeah definitely I don’t think there would be a marriage without it so
but um no cuz I don’t see myself as religious either spiritual yes but
that’s a very different thing and I like what um David Bowie says where he
says um religion is for those who fear hell, spirituality for those
who have been there
Zuzana
okay I like that because I would say also I’m spiritual not
religious
Alan
so what direction do you see your
business going next do you see it staying in the general life coaching
area or expanding or revolving
Zuzana
I think uh now I’m staying
where I am because I really enjoy it and I still talk about relationship and
dating with my clients it’s just you know when our relationship sucks
everything else sucks if our job sucks everything else sucks so it’s like kind of once we don’t have those pieces which
are important um in life together usually we are not that happy um as we
could be so I really like the holistic perspective because it often happens um
clients come to me oh I want to find a better job but we end up uh talking about uh you know breakups
and relationships or somebody comes to me about their business and we ended up
talking about their marriage so it’s always connected and as my coach used to say whatever problem you have in
business it’s personal so it’s always you know as at least as they say men are
able to separate things more but actually what I see my clients it’s also connected but especially also for us
women like if one area if in life is not working then yeah it’s not
happening
Alan
I think women notice the differences emotionally a lot faster
than men because we do believe that um oh we keep everything separate and I
remember one of my coaches told me years ago he says the thing is a lot of people
especially guys think that life is like a barbecue he says you have your work
sausage you have your business sausage you have your family sausage you have a social sausage whereas reality is it’s
more like a stew and if one of those sausages is off they all taste off
Zuzana
yeah
yeah and the that made me reminder of um one another food metaphor but I wouldn’t
vouch for it it’s more like it was funny for me because coming from different culture one of my colleagues back in
Uganda uh you know they eat the basic Ugandan deal is like kind of Penta and
then you have vegetable beans um different things and he would be like
you know relationship it’s like eating the food you can’t just have the penta
with beans you need to have vegetables and you need to have these other vegetables meaning that you need to have
a wife and then different girlfriend so as I said I’m not vouching for it but I just remember this food metaphor which I
thought it was funny like how people use metaphors for their own
means
Alan
yeah yeah in the BDSM and kink
environment I was talking to somebody about that re recently on the podcast
and they said well people who are not in that environment they get described as being vanilla because all you have is
vanilla ice cream why not have some variety into it that can be with the
same partner or it can be with various it depends on your own beliefs and
desires I guess yeah but we do as human beings we
do need some kind of variety in life and there’s no rules for actually
how you should get that
Zuzana
yeah and it’s an interesting
point actually because when it comes to relationship uh especially maybe if you
live abroad like sometimes we Mis display things right like we start to
get bored in relationship yet it’s not actually about relationship but it’s
about the community you live in um and sometimes like what we need is another
friend not another boyfriend and but the way we are used not to deal much with
our emotions and we often don’t really you know how many times you heard people saying like how do you feel and they’re
like I don’t know like I don’t know what I want and that’s how we are I
think it’s natural also but it’s also a skill we can develop so often I think
relationship don’t work out because we misplace the needs we have and maybe if
we did something different the relationship would be still there yeah and I think a lot of the time
we’re not actually consciously aware of these needs we kind of feel like there’s
there’s something missing but I don’t really know what it is maybe that thing over there will get it fill the hole or
that thing over there will fill the hole or that thing behind me will fill the hole it’s only when we actually look
inside ourselves and say well hang on a minute what is this Gap in me that feels
like it needs to be filled and often I would say it’s really
difficult to find it uh find the answer when we are in that moment and often we
see it only as the years passed because uh when as I said I got divorced and it
was me who wanted to get divorced and um if somebody asked me I gave them some
responses but then I knew it was not the real one not the one which went to the court because also myself I didn’t
really know I just knew like I was not that happy I didn’t want
to be and it was a process of two years I mean it took me two years like to get to that point when I said finally let
let’s divorce and it’s complicated and
sometimes I think we just have to go through our mistakes to learn something and I am really as a coach and as a
human being I believe that whatever happened in the past even if it looked terrible and we felt terrible it’s
probably part of our journey I like the metaphor of perfectly written novel
right that we are maybe on the page of 136 out of 279 and that happy ending
is there and we just don’t know what is going to happen but it’s like it was written there and maybe it’s not true
but I think it just gives us more positivity and confidence and that’s what’s
important
Alan
so what did you learn about yourself going through the process of
divorce
Zuzana
I think I learned about that I need to think
less about myself because I was really everything was about me um we did
always what I wanted and I learned to start thinking how whatever I say or do
impact the other person because naturally I’m the kind of person I talk a lot I talk quickly you saw how I
jumped into your were talking in the beginning of the podcast and it’s just
like I have the high energy and sometimes I act much faster than thinking so I think this is what I
learned is like one thing like really try to think how the other person might
be impacted and then maybe this is not learning from the divorce but from the
beginning of my relationship with my husband now is that there are different
ways how we deal with conflict and they are both okay so I need to
learn how to respect the way my partner deals with conflict and uh I don’t know
how many arguments we would have an argument but then we would end up arguing because I felt like I can’t go
and sleep when the argument is unresolved I need to talk about it and we need to go to every detail about it
and then we can go and hug each other and sleep but my husband is like I need
to be quiet I need to think about it tomorrow I will be okay so in the past
if I would just shut up he would be fine in the morning but what I did I kept talking we would talk up to like 3:00a.m. I would be crying the entire time and then we wouldn’t talk for the next five days because I didn’t give him the
space just to be quiet and think so this is what I learned like if we argue and I
really have to say the arguments which would last like five days in the past now it’s done in 30 minutes
is really a great Improvement but I just learned like okay I’m going to read my book it’s not meaning that my day is
ruined it doesn’t mean that our relationship sucks it doesn’t mean we are divorcing I’m just going to read my book and he’s going to be
fine
Alan
yeah there men do tend to take a little bit of time to process what
you’ve said and work out what it means and sort of see sort of see your side of things as
well which a lot of women will do that in the moments but men because we’re men just
take a bit longer with that and it’s okay we just need to kind of learn it I
guess yeah and I think not only do we have um different Love Languages to
other people sometimes we also have different fight languages
Zuzana
yeah I’m thinking how what is my fight language
now I mostly fight in my head because and I think that’s what I’m so grateful for like doing the coaching because it’s
not only as they say you teach what you need to learn yourself right so now like
most of the fights which in the past would happen between two of us they just happen in my head then I give myself a
space and then I am able to be bit more rational in like those things are actually not fair what is running in my
head so then most of the time I don’t say it in the moment and if there is
something that is like bothering me still then I say it after couple of days when I really uh thought about if it’s
fair because when we are in the argument we say things which are really
unfair uh we tend to blame the other person for everything and if there is one thing I learned from coaching it’s
we have to First Look at ourselves like uh what is going on with us
uh what why we are reacting in certain way and then to engage the other person
the I don’t think I is there some book on the five languages or are there some
five languages as for the Love Languages
Alan
um well I don’t know about
anyone else but I have put um uh I think it’s seven languages in the um yellow
book back there which is uh going to be released sometime this year so um
Zuzana
yeah then I need to get a copy but I wanted to say I don’t know what seven you identify but I guess my husband’s
language would be silence
Alan
yeah so the different languages
like um there’s the boxer where you just continue exchanging blow for blow initially just verbally but what
happens if you get pushed too far and then another would be the yogi that just
wants to sit there and think about it and then the Sprinter that just wants to run away from every argument and all
these think different things like that so um it’s quite an interesting thought
process to go through
Zuzana
yeah and especially and that’s how it happens with the Love Languages we usually don’t
find the person with the same language right we usually find somebody with
different language and that’s when we need to start doing the adjustments
Alan
and I guess the love
languages are kind of like being in Intercultural relationship as well
yeah and even if you do have a partner with the same love language both me
and my partner our top language is physical touch but we have different dialects whereas when I touch her if I
just gently stroke her back or something to the point where it’s almost tickling
or whatever and she loves it she does that to me and I’m like get off stop
that I hate that, just like it’s a sign of affection like bloody
not for me
Zuzana
yeah that’s funny I never thought of the dialects so but I yeah I guess it’s
true also when it comes to the gifts right somebody would expect a watch and other person would expect I don’t know a
handmade painting um so it’s interesting how
can you only spend 10 pounds on me you should if you love me you should spend at least a
thousand yeah and this is also quite interesting
I as I continue growing and as I said I started with Intercultural relationship
and I at that time I talk a lot about the cultural differences and communication but I think eventually um
when the relationship progress in the beginning it might be about cultural differences then it kind of merges
differences men versus women and then like the next the last stage is about
our self-development and how we work on ourselves as a human being and uh I
wanted to say like about the culture differences for me I am the kind of person I identify cars by colour I don’t
care if it’s I don’t know what, what, or what I don’t see the difference I
don’t care and you know here if you drive certain car it means something I guess that’s probably in Europe it’s
just I never cared about um the cars but again like that’s the dialect and that’s
how on the first maybe the first one year or two years like these culture
differences can play a role but as you get to know each other you work things out then it becomes less and less cultural and ultimately that’s what I really believe it’s all about us as humans and what we can do to grow
ourselves to understand um the other person
Alan
yeah
definitely yeah have so it’s amazing how us as just human
beings nothing has any meaning at all unless we give it a meaning yeah that
could be a car a book the words that somebody says it’s
like if I say something that’s really really rude and obscene in Japanese it’s
not going to bother you at all but if I say the same thing in English or Czech
it’s going to have a very different meaning how can you say that to me
Zuzana
yeah and I mean I make a note here
because I it’s an interesting topic to talk uh to talk about uh when it comes to
meaning because especially as you said like the languages they make a huge
difference but then also it’s about us ultimately as a human what we decide
like how do we decide that we want to show up in the moment and that’s I think it’s the personal development route
like we have always the choice how we react and if our partner says some uh
something we feel offended or we think he’s being rude we always have the
option to react in our best possible self and maybe just let it go
or not say the first thing that comes to our head and you know I don’t know how
many arguments I would say uh save to ourselves uh if I would just comment on
some things I didn’t like and I am sure it’s same for my husband if he would comment on everything I do and he
didn’t like we would probably be non-stop arguing but I think at some point both of the couple we need to pick
our fights and we need to choose what is important because honestly if you if I
ask you do you remember what you were fighting with your partner year ago you
won’t remember most of the fights right so why we should bother
Alan
yeah well luckily we’ve not had too many fights arguments or disconnects we
did have one um just recently between Christmas and New Year um it’s one of
those days I’ve sense something’s not quite right and get the typical of answer
of I’m fine no you’re not and then at
the end of the day when we the kids had gone to bed we just relaxing and I says
um I’m getting a very heavy feeling what’s going on and she’s like oh well you know that point earlier in the
day and then this happened and I’m very disappointed with you but what I also
realised because I’ve processed it is it’s not really got anything to do with you but I’m still feeling it and so we
dug into it a little bit and a lot of it went back to um when she was married and
at a time where she didn’t feel seen and respected
and also her upbringing that says oh you’ve got to put other people first and
they’ve got to and think about them and not everyone comes
from that place and after we’d actually had that conversation the energy completely
shifted
Zuzana
and you see you had a conversation you didn’t have a fight and
and that’s I think what we were talking about that like once we allow ourselves
to have the time for processing it like we react completely differently
also seems like Christmas is perfect time for conflicts so me and my son we were going for two days for a trip and I
think two months ago my husband told me like don’t worry about the transport I will organise the car for you so I was
like okay then the two days before going I was like so how we are going and he was like I didn’t find any car yet just
call a taxi and I was like I didn’t say anything I was
very disappointed I was upset like it was going on in my head it’s like how does he promise me to take care of the
transport and then he tell me to take a taxi to the bush like we are talking about Africa it’s not like we are
talking about taking taxi from one place on the tarmac road right we were going to the bush and no taxi would be taken
there so I organised my own car and then as I was processing I was um got back to
the topic that I since I was growing up I felt like I have to do everything alone and like this kind of incident it
hit this pain I have in myself So eventually it was bit about him but most
of it was about my luggage and what happened I didn’t say anything we went
on a trip the first day I felt like I don’t want to even text him anything uh but I mean then we came back
and then I told him look I was really disappointed that you didn’t organise
the car because you said you would and that that was it like we um didn’t have
any argument because in the past what would happen we would argue about it would ruin our
holidays and wouldn’t be helpful so now I just chose not
to
Alan
yeah it’s amazing how on this journey of growth or adventure or
whatever we call this thing how we deal with things today and
you look back in the in the past and think it’s how you dealt with the things
back then and it’s completely different yeah still feel like the same
person
Zuzana
yeah I can’t really imagine like those nights in the beginning of our
relationship we would live in the same country but I was working on the side on the other side of Zambia which
here you know it’s like 32 hours on the road it’s not the distance is Big so we
would meet every three weeks and the arguments we would have on the phone like we spend like I would spend whole
night crying messaging and I can’t really imagine doing as I said like our
arguments now are very rare and it happens like 30 minutes one hour and
it’s done and I guess it’s really also
about recognising that this is a skill we can learn communication is a skill and
this is not to say that we should allow somebody to walk over us and kind of
go beyond our boundaries like that’s super important like to know our boundaries and they say stop when it’s
over uh but just like learning how to let go things that are not important or
ask yourself what is more important for me like prove that I’m right
now or have a nice evening with my partner
Alan
yeah
definitely so if anyone’s listening to this or watching the video somewhere in
the online space um and they would like to learn more about you where can they
find you what’s the easiest way for them to reach out
Zuzana
so either I would say
LinkedIn or Instagram under my name Zuzanna mukumai and I have the website of
the same name so if uh somebody’s interested learning more about you I
think most information is about the website more about and then if you if you feel like
you would want to explore working together I am always up for a call to get to know each other because I
think being a good match is super important um and yeah I will be happy to
hear from you uh who is listening
Alan
excellent and final question
for today it’s a question that I ask everybody I just don’t tell them about it and that is as this podcast is called
relationship revolutions what is one thing from your perspective that would bring a revolution or Evolution to the
world of dating and
relationships
Zuzana
I think what would really help is that people were learning more
about themselves and their luggage and not taking it on the person they are
with currently because we all have luggage we all have past relationship
and that’s not only romantic relationship but the way we grew up the way we were at school but we take
everything to the relationship so if we learn to differentiate that and not
blame name the partner from our luggage I think that would made a huge
difference alongside with the rule of communicate communicate
communicate
Alan
yeah definitely and also helps if you’ve as a couple or a team you’re
willing to help each other process this baggage or the past stuff and just get
rid of it because we don’t need it
Zuzana
yeah we don’t need it and also this might be interesting culture difference
right because with my ex partner he was from Europe as well we would talk about the past relationships and it was normal
but with some cultures the men don’t want to hear about it so it’s also important to pick
up on these things because I remember in the beginning with my husband we talk about it and he was like how did you
tell me that I didn’t want to know like why would you do that and so this is also maybe a small tip like just to
know like what’s common in the culture and of course it’s different with every person but something sometimes what is
normal for us like talking about past relationship being very detailed and specific might not be helpful in some
relationships
Alan
yeah yeah it’s good to know that they’ve got a past but you don’t necessarily need all the details
and on that note I think we are done thank
you thank you for coming on.