When someone is angry, to some degree there are usually thoughts about “I am right, better than, have the answer.” “Or they shouldn’t/ should …”.  Or similar … this thinking  blocks creativity and it often blocks understanding and effective action.

Most of us do get annoyed, irritated or straight out angry at times.  And this isn’t necessarily a bad thing unless we don’t know how to handle it and create distress in our relationship and those around us.

Anger includes everything from irritation to annoyance in my view.  These are shades of the same kind of thinking and emotion. And I think all traces of anger are too valuable to ignore.

So it’s also important in my view to recognise that anger doesn’t always involve loud and shouting at each other.  It can display itself in cool disinterest and withdrawal too.

Whatever way you currently ‘hold/ express’ anger, the main thing is to  go beyond it! The place to go is down underneath it – picture subterranean streams of life and feeling flowing beneath the hard shield anger supports.  That’s where you want to head.  Down there is the juice that can feed your relationship.  Up at the irritation, sullen smouldering resistance or outright anger it is hard to get hold of something that will really shift you forward.

How? To go beyond the initial flush of anger find your breath, however you like to do this.  Maybe you do yoga, walking, running, sit and have a drink.  Breathe and centre.  Breathe and settle.

Note: These activities are not so you can distract yourself from the anger and then brush it aside.  They are to help you not go and act on the initial burst of anger.

In the quietness of your breath, descend underneath anger and discover the real feeling layer.  What feelings are here? Sadness, anxiety, distress, grief? Under these deeper more informative feelings, is a stream of wisdom and information that is trying to help you move forward, to open up and grow, find a new perspective.  So, what are you now aware of? What is critically important to you? Connection? Anger is often a protest about disconnection.  Security and safety?  What’s  this turmoil really about?

In our anger we don’t have to go to the truth of what is in our heart.  So sometimes we resist calming down and cutting through to this deeper layer. Perhaps because we have already decided what the next step would be and we don’t like that.  Often though, once you really get down to it, a whole new vista opens up.  Which can be quite different to what you expected.

So be ready to receive a new perspective when you get in the flow of this quieter energy within.  Then approach the issue or person that sparked your anger in a way from clarity, calmness with the intention to connect and understand each other.

warmly

The willingness to love – to regard each other as equals – is the essence behind all miracle making.

Paul Ferrini

“It’s so easy, why can’t you just do it?” he says exasperatedly.   Implied is “you should be able to do this’.  This resentful expression of what is important to him, is very hard to take in.  Her eyes smoulder and glisten. Angry?  Sad?  She interprets his exasperation as saying she is stupid and less together than she should be.  She makes no reply.

As soon as demand comes through, it is difficult for most of us to willingly move toward our partner – emotionally or physically.  The other part of the message that makes it hard for a willingness to love, to arise here, is the unsolicited education that follows “if you were more like this … or that … (insert your own words) then everything would be good here” .

He means to be helping them. However trying to educate our partner invariably meets them more like an authoritative parent and shuts out the miracle of connecting.

As soon as we start correcting, educating without permission, or making ourselves smaller to appease another – inequality is at play, disconnection occurs and conflict follows.

If each of us knew ourselves to be of equal value and significance, imagine our respectful, caring, creative world.  Let’s create this one relationship at a time.  Starting with taking responsibility for our part in perpetuating inequality in our families.

May you experience the miracle of true understanding and connection in yourself and your family.  Merry Christmas.

“I’ve have never heard that before.  I had no idea you felt so alone and shut off, now I understand that what you need is to know you are truly loved and accepted, just as you are.  I always thought you were angry with me”. – she said

“When I hear you saying how desperately you want to feel supported and to know that you have someone to lean into, I want you to have that.  I want to give that to you.” – he said

Our interactions shape our relationships and these examples above are of moments where a relationship is realigning and changing shape in the direction of closeness and deeper love.  These precious moments are like the tip of a new green shoot – soft and brand new.

They emerge when a couple is able to slow right down and listen deeply to their interactions and discover what is really going on.  This is the level at which emotional connection spontaneously shifts, healing and relationship growth happen.

Here are two short question you can ask yourself to check on the pulse of your relationship, perhaps take it to your partner and ask them.

How would you describe the space between yourself and your partner?
Is it calm and a bit flat or cold and a bit scary?  Or is it light, open, safe and warm?  How is it for you? A relationship is intangible so it is helpful to turn our attention to the intangible and tune into the quality of the space between us.

How would you like this space to be?
Answering this enables a the essence of a new quality of relating to be named and shared – free of blame.  Jot your answer down.

What gets put into the space that is a relationship?
Lots of things!  This space is an interesting and valuable territory to explore and nurture.

Small events that hurt get stowed away in the space and result in a veil or barrier to opening up and loving with all of our heart.  Toxic sharp comments or criticisms can also be loaded into the space.  These can be covering the hurt and sadness, maybe longing to for more contact and significance to your partner.

You make your relationship a safe, loving and warm place to live and grow in by:

• Cleaning up hurts or resentments, promptly if you can and if not, taking the time to revisit slowly, thoroughly and with care.
• Being responsible and conscious of about what gets put into the space. Is it loving and honest?
• Putting into the space loving words and actions, fun, rewarding times that are deeply satisfying for both of you.

It takes ALL three of these.  Focusing on one doesn’t usually outweigh the others.

Is there a hurt that you can clear today? Or an action you can take on one of the above points?

If you have a bit of a backlog or you’re out of balance with these three points, you will likely need help to clear and warm the space between you and your loved one.

Love all-ways

Usually emotions run strong in us and between us, until we might numb out to them.  These emotions can seem to be a threat to the very close connection and happy times you would like to increase with your beloved.

Don’t think emotions need be loud to be hurtful, quiet and withdrawn energy is just as impactful and full of emotion.  The dissolving of the destructive cycle happens as we bring full attention to the emotional energy that is powering it.  Really feeling it and sharing it, instead of turning away from these feelings, trying to brighten things up or avoid being honest with each other.

We humans are delicate creatures, even the noisiest of us and infact sometimes especially the noisiest of us.  Inside the upset, minor or major is invariably a gift of deeper understanding and empathy for each other.  First make it safe to talk and share your feelings with each other.

A client recently commented that his family had been the ‘sort to disconnect everytime emotions rose to a certain level’.  In order to create the closeness and intimacy he longed for, he decided to consciously move toward his emotions and find ways to express them. Without feelings and letting them out, life seems to get colder and lack friendship, camaraderie and initmacy.

To deepen your intimacy try being with feelings, yours and your partners. Get support if you need this, organise a babysitter or finish work early – share at this level constructively and gently recieve each other – the destructive cycle dissolves through new understanding of each other.

Next time I’ll share with you what fills the void left when the destructive cycle is no more!

Until next time, much love

We have a very big challenge on, in order to respond, rather than just react out of this energy.  Our reactions from this emotional space, even still endeavouring to stabilise and find secure and loving connection with our partner, usually don’t create this and can damage the bond between us.  We can repair that but it takes a toll.

My last post  “only love turns things around” led a reader to ask – how?   I’m going to answer this over the next few blogs.

A really important first step – and infact it is the focus of the first phase of the work of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy – is to become aware of the destructive cycle you slip into.  That’s what you may go into when you feel that an emotional bomb has just gone off in you.

So notice specifically what triggers your upset.  It’s usually a combination of something outside of you that then leads to an internal triggering of your fears, pain and angst.   So become a scientist watching a chemical reaction between two substances as neutrally as possible and explore further eg. “This happens and then I feel and then I do and … what do you feel? …”

Summary
Step one – become aware of what triggers you AND how you then react Is it with:

• fighting back which includes criticising or defending?
• fleeing and withdrawing, includes getting busy with other matters, pulling back to talking about superficial matters?
• freezing and going numb? Which is where we go when we are exhausted by the above two steps.  So is a VERY important sign to sit up and take action if you haven’t already.

Many people try to stop the destructive cycle by pulling back and yet unwittingly add another layer to the cycle which might work temporarily but  ultimately doesn’t support the warmth, closeness and connection desired.

You can stop your destructive cycle.  It’s the destructive cycle that’s the problem, not you or your partner.

So that’s my first step to answer “How do we invoke the energy of our love to help us turn our relationship in a more positive loving direction?”.  Next blog I’ll share how you can get down to the deeper emotional connection and why that is essential to create a positive cycle.

with love

This sort of action and any act we take from fear, revenge and guilt is not the source of new, better and stronger community and society.  That’s my view and I like the way Dr. Martin Luther King, expressed similarly:

(this came via my colleague Miki Kashtan,  from another the metta center for nonviolence education).

In the words of Dr. King:

“Love is creative and redemptive. Love builds up and unites; hate tears
down and destroys. The aftermath of the ‘fight with fire’ method… is
bitterness and chaos, the aftermath of the love method is reconciliation
and creation of the beloved community. Physical force can repress,
restrain, coerce, destroy, but it cannot create and organize anything
permanent; only love can do that. Yes, love—which means understanding,
creative, redemptive goodwill, even for one’s enemies—is the
solution…”

Same goes for our families and workplaces…

warmly

We thrive on it and experience it when we are involved with each other’s lives; when the other person is interested in us in a way that is free of blame, judgment and or assumptions.

In togetherness there is a relaxed-ness (made up word) a trust in each other – we are confident that our wellbeing is equally important and that we matter to each other.

What gets in the way and leads us to feeling alone – even though we are in a relationship?

Thoughts of “What you do is not right.  What you should be doing is … what you want or ought to do or not do”. ” What I’m doing is wrong, I’m not a worthy partner”.  In other words the underlying thoughts are there is a right way and a wrong way things should be and I or they should be.

Those are the thoughts that lead to experiencing separation, isolation and create distance.

Can you have too much togetherness?  Not enough distance between yourself and your beloved?

What works for you and your partner is what works.  Finding that balance and closeness is part of the dance.

We usually want to neither be swamped nor swamping, invaded nor invading of each other’s internal or external world. This shows up when we talk over the other, speak for the other, predict responses – invading mental, emotional, physical space, are not engaged in our own lives as much as we involve ourselves in our partner’s interests.

Here is a useful picture to hold.

Imagine you are visitors with each other in this journey of life.  With a visitor we are curious, interested, not pushy instead welcoming and sharing.  We ‘play’.  We organise something interesting to do together.

That’s important to highlight. Playing, sharing and creating together are a big part of really being together.  In many ways much more so than running family logistics and problem solving.

Have a look at what your togetherness with others revolves around …. what is it?  It might be different in different relationships.  If it’s not the basis for the kind of togetherness you want to have with that person.  What can you do to change this?

It’s really worth tending to untangling or re-setting the basis of your togetherness – let me know if I can help.

“What can I do when I hit one of those flashpoints and lose it?”  asked Pete*, a young father recently.  It could easily also have been a woman in a 20 year relationship referring to herself with regard to her husband.. we have all experienced the zzzzzt of primal deep emotions bursting out.

Your internal alarm system doesn’t operate from logic, when it gets triggered by primal needs for connection, inclusion, significance, safety etc.  it just goes off!  Blended families can be particular hot spots for these deep needs and confusion about safe secure connections.

In the case of Pete, his wife Natalie* had heard in their session what was going on for him – how he hit flashpoint when he felt scared that she would be angry and ‘have a go’ at him for example for – not having the children settled in bed, as she had asked.

On the surface it looked like it was just about tiredness but Pete knew his reaction was over the top.

Natalie heard how much Pete needed reassurance that she loved and appreciated him even IF the kids weren’t in bed as planned, reassurance that he and she are’ good’ – they are connected.

Pete realised Natalie could help him by simply touching him on the back or taking his hand and standing beside him – even when he had reached flashpoint and that this could disarm the inner alarm and reassure him.

Anger is a 200lb shield (we are all capable of picking up) to avoid our own vulnerability.   But it doesn’t create the connection we crave nor does it bring us the support, security or joy we long for.

Flashpoints aren’t really to do with not getting children to bed, not having being phoned about running late etc!  They are expressions of deeper concerns.

So, if it’s you who has reached flashpoint – create space instead of crashing through the PANE (I know that isn’t how you spell pain but perhaps it will help you remember flashpoint = PANE (:

1. Pull back, step back – physically step back or to the side.
2. Announce what you are experiencing – “I’m feeling really distressed and disconnected right now”
3. Name – “This has touched sore spot of mine”___
4. Express - “This sore spot is about my needing eg. to know that you are there for me, support and help, to feel adequate and lovable).

You may only be able to do steps 1 – 3 in the heat of the flashpoint and even that may take practice.  Each step is likely to be very helpful.  No. 4 may well come later at a separate time from the flashpoint event.  For instance …

AFTER a flashpoint has arisen – sort through it like caring, loving, scientists.  What set it off, what was going on internally, what is the sore spot really about and then plan, should the flashpoint arise again, what you would like your partner to do e.g. please take my hand and squeeze it.  Or you to do – perhaps points 1 – 3 above?

If you need help unpacking a sore spot – let me know.

warmly

p.s * Not their real names

The truth is that every conversation has two threads to it – the topic or content and the RELATIONAL needs of both people. Our relational needs show up as our feelings and deeper human needs .

To ignore the relational thread e.g. a person’s longing for understanding, appreciation, connection etc. and keep on batting the topic back and forth, can lead to circular or repetitive conversations.  That’s because those relational needs that are flying under the radar, are not going to quit trying to get met!!

An alternative that makes for a more nourishing and holistic conversation is to switch focus from purely the content (e.g. the destination for our holiday, the problem at work, the roster, household jobs etc.) and to expand the focus:

• “let me really hear and understand your feelings and needs, before I contribute what I have to say”
  
• ” Let me share myself wholeheartedly here – including stating my feelings and what matters most to me about the topic we are discussing”.

These latter two are COMPLETELY different to focusing purely on the content. They OPEN the dialogue into the realm of connection at a whole person level and have a natural flow.  They also tend to lead to a sense of satisfaction as opposed to irritation, isolation or disconnection such as the focus on  whether I agree or think you are right or wrong, good or bad for saying what you are saying, is inclined to do!

I like this video clip as an example of how connection is a dance of taking turns to fully express and receive.  It is literally a dance!  See if next time you are talking or listening with someone you can feel the flow of taking turns and create your own dance of connection.

twin-babies-have-a-conversation-dj0

What do you think? Pretty cute too :+)

There are times though when skipping and skimming becomes a part of an “I’m busy, can’t stop, it’s all good …” way to ignore ‘stuff’.  I know, I know, who wants to have ‘stuff?”  This stuff is usually precious tension or sadness that we don’t know quite what to do with.

We are programmed from an early age to want the easy, happy times and not the tricky moments where we are arguing or distant – those situations are uncomfortable and even dare I say – scary.  Yes?

So, what to do when you want both a peaceful, happy connection and also a deeply passionate, loving partnership in which you feel safe, loved and accepted?  Preferably free of ‘stuff’? Here are three choices I recommend you make.

Firstly – Choose to shift your thinking about conflict (includes tension, angst, ‘issues’).  “Stuff’ coming up is fuel for creating the richer relationship you want.  It is one of the most profound opportunities to build a deeper connection and bond with yourself and your partner.  So, flip your thinking, find ways (for self connection) to support yourself to walk into it, not away from it.  :+) Remind yourself – “this is ok! Here is a chance to become closer in our connection!”

Secondly – Choose to do your best to be emotionally available.  Through our emotions we really receive and connect deeply with each other.  Without being willing and present emotionally to ourselves or our partner, connection is centered in the mental, physical or perhaps spiritual arena. The emotions can act as a doorway to these other three levels.

Thirdly -  Decide to speak up and be vulnerable.  The more your inner-most voice is heard and expressed, the more fully you are participating in the relationship.  If someone is not willing, able or open – perhaps doesn’t feel safe enough to do this, you’ll notice this in the amount of closeness you experience.  What can you do to make the relationship a safe haven? or to find your voice?

Related links
Private sessions: Awakening Connection