What if this is as good as it gets?
And I think sometimes when we're really in a difficult place in our relationship,
We ask ourselves that.
And today we're going to go through a guided visualization and some reflection questions to really turn towards some of the hard questions that we want to look at in our marriage that really steps away from anything related to blame.
I think sometimes we might engage in,
Let's call them venting conversations with dear friends,
Trying to make sense of it.
And sometimes that's not the best way to get to clarity.
Sometimes when we vent to our friends,
They are wanting to protect us.
They love us.
They don't want the same patterns and arguments and challenges to be what we're faced with.
And so they'll say the fastest thing that they can think of to get us out of pain,
Which is,
Oh,
You know,
Eye roll.
You've said this to me before.
You should just leave this relationship.
And they don't have the context of either your partner's family system and you have yours,
To make sense of why the pattern is happening,
To make sense of why that same argument keeps coming up.
And I think that that is a very wise consideration because in 20 years of couple work,
I can promise you,
If you leave John because of XYZ pattern,
Find it again in Dylan.
And if you date Billy,
It's going to be there again.
Our relationships show us what is unresolved inside of our heart,
What patterns are repeating.
And I think I can say that with such certainty because of how many years I've worked with couples who truly feel stuck in that same painful place.
And sometimes it can catch us by surprise because we sort of lean back into what's good in the relationship.
And then that conflict rises up,
You know,
Sometimes it seems like it's just come in out of nowhere.
And then we can get into secular,
Maybe not even arguments,
Like just cyclical ways of sort of biting back at each other.
That doesn't lead to a resolution.
And that can make it feel so impossible because it feels like we're cycling around the same things,
But it's leading us nowhere.
And what I want to bring to today's conversation is the approach that I share with my clients that really aims to get way beneath the surface of,
Well,
We just have to have this communication strategy,
And then we'll crack the problem.
Or talking in circles round and round about,
This hurts me because,
Or the joke about long-term therapy.
About that as if that's going to get us to the finish line,
As if that's going to provide resolution to the thing that keeps coming up.
And what we're going to focus on today is some of these emotional patterns,
You know,
What you bring,
What your partner brings,
And to recognize how much that's inherited.
I call it a family imprint.
And of course it was there long before you ever partnered,
Long before the two of you ever came together.
And so often what might look like.
What continues to hurt you about your partner,
Or maybe what you might even call,
Ooh,
Like that's my flaw,
Or that's where I keep getting tripped up.
It's often what I might call a survival strategy or something that's been brought forward from inside of your family,
A pain point that gets triggered the moment your partner gets critical or the moment you guys reach maybe a financial stress point or something comes up with one of your children and he's got his idea of how to handle it and you've got yours.
And to be honest,
They couldn't be further apart.
And so in today's workshop,
We're going to explore some of these deeper questions,
Some of these deeper set points.
That I think just come up in long-term relationship.
They just feel like they're a part of it.
And we want to begin to explore what might create the distance so that whatever it is,
Whatever step,
Whatever action,
Whatever conversation you might choose to have next,
You're choosing it from a place of,
You know,
Eyes wide open clarity.
Instead of I guess redoing,
Going over a familiar pattern,
Returning to a place that sadly you've been before.
And if we could be radically honest with ourselves,
A place you probably most likely don't want to return to again.
And so let's begin.
I just sort of put together some of the key points that I see in my practice that come up relatively commonly in the couples that I support.
I tend to notice that long-term relationships don't usually lose a sense of closeness,
A sense of ease,
A sense of things really clicking in the way that we want them to in one,
You know,
Grand dramatic moment.
It's much more common that we lose our deep sense of connection in,
Let's call them like a thousand small ways,
Like a bunch of paper cuts that hurt every single time,
You know,
You salt accidentally gets in it.
And it's a lot like that.
We've got a paper cut,
And then we go into an argument,
Which is a lot like salt on that wound.
Because it exposes a hurt that was never repaired,
Or maybe a really meaningful need that keeps getting minimized,
Or a joke,
You know,
I'm going to put that in quotes,
A joke that landed wrong and left a bunch of hurt feelings because it kind of pointed to a really tender spot.
Maybe a fight that ended in silence instead of bringing it all the way to a place of understanding of what really just happened there.
And so over time,
All of these small moments,
It's like another brick in the wall.
And neither person remembers maybe who placed that brick or why that brick is still there.
But before you know it,
There's this metaphorical wall between the two of you.
And it's not just as easy as saying,
OK,
Let's get over that.
Let's get through that.
Because it's on top of all these other bricks.
And so a question for you to really bring that Back to you,
Back home.
Can you remember?
Either a small moment or that proverbial brick in the wall where something happened,
Whether it was a hurt that never repaired.
Or an expectation that just sort of never went,
Never got met,
That you now realize you haven't been able to let go of.
And it does sit in this sort of space between you,
Like it's some sort of block.
Some sort of block that you're not sure how to get over,
How to get through.
Let's go on to the second thing I notice.
To be honest,
I notice it quite often,
Is that the way we learn to handle closeness in our first home,
Our family of origin,
Becomes what I call the template.
Some people might call it a blueprint for how much closeness,
How much love we can actually let in as adults.
And so if you grew up in a home where love was really steady and safe and closeness was readily available to you,
It's going to feel more familiar and like something you can sink into in your relationship today.
But if you grew up in a home where love was much more conditional.
Or where conflict was frightening because voices were raised or things got broken,
Or it seemed that mom or dad could kind of change on a dime.
Or maybe even one parent disappeared emotionally when things got hard.
I call it a body memory.
And it's in this place where something early.
Learned about what happens.
When you get close to people,
When you count on them,
And then they disappoint you in these really meaningful ways in points of tension or conflict or disappointment.
And so it's important to understand that,
Of course,
Nobody taught this on purpose.
This is more that we absorb it,
Like a child absorbs everything.
And why I refer to it as a body memory is because whether we're two months old or two years old or 17,
We often don't have words for it.
We don't know how to make sense of it or name it.
It's just,
Oh,
Dad gets really mad,
And he goes completely silent.
Then he's unreachable.
Or mom gets angry and then starts slamming doors.
And I better not ask her to sign the permission slip and give me the $10 to go on the school trip.
That this is not the time to ask for what my natural need might be.
And so once again,
If you consider how this is for you in your life,
In your relationship now.
What might change if you started to see your partners withdraw or even exaggerated anger?
Or maybe you're the one that goes silent and goes inward and quiet.
What if you started to look at it as a survival strategy from childhood?
Instead of what typically happens is we then take it personally.
We make it about their limitation or their capacity,
Or we make it about our own overreaction.
We might go in to self-blame.
And so once again,
What do you notice is going on inside of your home?
In your relationship,
In your own mind.
A lot of the times when I work with couples,
I can feel so surprised in a way.
Of how each of them describe their relationship.
It's almost like if I was working with them individually,
I might never guess they're actually in the same relationship because the perspectives and the ways of describing what's going on are so vastly different.
And so this is what I mean about that brick wall that gets built,
You know.
Hurt by hurt,
Emotional injury by emotional injury,
We're living on opposite sides of that wall and we have very different perceptions of the relationship.
And so how can we come together in a place of really talking about the same thing.
When we're coming from such opposite sides.
And I think that's why many of us kind of sidestep it.
I don't have time for this.
And we want to start to recognize that,
Let's say,
A difficult conversation comes up this afternoon,
Or some sort of trigger point from the outside world comes into the relationship,
To recognize that we,
As that couple,
Are facing this difficulty,
This decision,
This challenge from the place of the buildup of all those paper cuts.
And so to start to recognize,
We don't want to sit down and address 101 paper cuts,
But we want to be able to drop into what are the themes here.
Oh,
I think my theme is,
I don't feel heard.
It feels like my normal natural needs are somehow minimized.
And so if I were to take those 101 paper cuts,
Wow,
75 of them belong to this theme.
And so that's what we bring up.
That's what we look to address.
Because inside of long-term relationship,
Of course there will be these paper cuts.
And some of them are,
Let's be honest,
Wide open gaping wounds that is gonna require a bit of a different repair,
A bit of a different conversation.
But ignoring them,
Tucking them under the rug.
You know,
I can't tell you how many couples I've worked with where the rug is somewhere up at the ceiling.
Because there's just so much stuff stuck under there.
And we're trying to navigate the waters of today,
Navigate the stressful decisions in the now on the top of this rug filled with hurt,
Resentments,
Misunderstandings,
Misperceptions.
And this is why I think when I'm in the work I've done and talking with two sides of the couple,
They have such different concepts of what's happened and who's hurt,
Who and why,
And what needs have been missed and what resentment have built up.
So the third piece that I wanted to share with you all is when your partner pulls away during a hard conversation.
Or if you find yourself keeping things at,
You know,
Kind of surface level,
Just,
I don't want to rock the boat.
I don't want to initiate some kind of blow up.
This is not always about your partner.
And it's also not always about you.
It's often these two patterns that meet each other,
You know,
Inside of that same difficulty or where we're crossing in the kitchen at a moment where the,
You know,
The pot's boiled over,
The child is crying,
The mother-in-law needs something.
And it's just the buildup of what's happened in the moment.
And we want to look at what are your coping strategies when stress hits when stress rises up.
And so my question to you is you kind of bring this home to your own heart.
What did this pattern?
Of not rocking the boat.
Not engaging when it feels tense.
What did that perhaps protect you from as a child?
And is it the same thing that's going on?
That might be present in your marriage or your relationship today.
And so if that pattern that kept you safe at,
Say,
Six years of age is still running the show at 45.
What might it be costing you inside of your relationship right now?
It's kind of like updating our responses or coping strategies.
And of course,
What worked as a child inside of whatever the family situation was is not going to be the same thing that supports or works inside of our marriage today.
And so giving yourself a little moment here,
Because this is a bit more of a,
Of a complex consideration that what strategies did I use?
Did I feel like I had to keep the peace?
And am I doing that,
The not rocking the boat concept,
Not bringing up the thing?
It kind of connects to the question we were just speaking about,
Because if we don't address it,
It does go under that rug.
It does become another brick in the wall.
It is another paper cut.
Added to all the rest of them.
And so to begin to consider how can I support and love myself in another way that supports expressing what I feel I really need to,
To feel heard and to build more emotional safety inside of my relationship.
Because I promise you,
The moment you can put your finger on the pattern,
This is where you start to get momentum towards change.
So if you're driving,
Maybe you have the chance to pull over.
If you are rushing around doing things while listening,
Maybe you want to find a comfortable seat.
And if you are in a space where you can kind of lay down and let your body rest and let the sensations of your body speak to you,
This is the time for it.
Let's just take a moment and drop into our body.
Where the deepest truth about this whole conversation gets a chance to speak to you.
And so I'm just going to invite all of you that are listening.
To get really comfortable.
In whatever way feels right for your body.
And closing your eyes.
And just dropping in to listen to the body.
So that as you settle into this space,
You can just simply notice your breath and there's no need to change it in any way.
I just want you to notice the natural rhythm that's been with you for your whole life.
And that there's a beauty of your own rhythm of that in.
And out.
And that you may find as you keep noticing that breath.
That it begins to slow down all on its own.
That actually there's nothing that you need to do.
Your body already knows how to guide you into deep relaxation.
Into a place where you can metabolize stored emotion.
That'll bring you very carefully,
Very intentionally to clarity.
Noticing your jaw softening.
The muscles around your eyes,
They soften too.
And with each breath out.
You're allowing yourself to sink down just a little further.
Into whatever is supporting you,
Wherever you may find your body resting.
To really deepen into this calm.
An easy place.
I want you to imagine yourself standing at the beginning of a path.
It doesn't even matter what your path looks like.
It could be the path down a beautiful curated nature's path.
It could be a path in the wild where you're moving in between wildflowers.
It could be the path inside a large,
Spacious castle.
Where you see so many doors up ahead of you.
Allowing yourself to just notice what your path looks like and whatever comes to mind is exactly right.
As you begin to walk along your path,
You notice what feels safe here.
That nothing can reach you here.
This is your place.
This is your path.
And this is where you're accessing insight in the privacy of your own space.
Let that sense of safety open a softening.
That moves down your forehead and your whole face as if it had the ability to smooth out Creating ease.
Down into the areas of any tightness in the jaw,
The neck,
The shoulders.
No need to hold anything right now.
So that there is this deep sense of relaxation.
A softening that really releases anything held in the shoulder.
That there's an awareness here,
That your shoulders may have been carrying something for a long time.
Abrasing a protecting,
Maybe even holding a weight that was never yours to carry.
See if you can really,
With intention,
Let them drop.
Just a little further.
Than before you started.
A little more space there in the shoulders.
Noticing your chest as the breath moves in and out unhurried.
Letting your chest soften a little more with every breath.
That there's an intentional releasing of any tightness.
Of any holding.
Of any breath you've been unconsciously holding back.
Bringing your attention and maybe even placing your hand on your belly.
This is often where we hold worry or we might even brace for what would happen next.
See if you can let your belly soften a little bit more.
Letting it rise and fall freely with your breath.
That there is absolutely nothing to brace against in this moment.
Letting that ease and release.
Move into your lower back.
Into your head.
So much gets stored here.
It's like,
Um.
.
.
Old effort,
Maybe old vigilance.
A bracing,
A protecting also can live in here.
Let it soften.
Let it be supported completely by wherever it is you now rest.
And letting that same wave of release move through your legs,
Down through your knees,
Especially in behind the knees.
Calves.
All the way down into your feet.
Completely at ease.
Taking a moment now to notice your whole body from head to toe.
Resting,
Supported.
Just as you're supported in life.
And in this rested space,
I want you to notice something as if you can explore with a flashlight the inner workings of where your body may have been holding tension.
Attention that's become so familiar.
That you've just begun,
Gotten used to waking up with it there.
It's a tension that didn't begin today.
And it didn't begin with any one conversation within your relationship.
Maybe you've carried it.
Longer than you'd like.
Longer than you'd even like to admit to yourself.
Without ever being asked if you wanted to carry it.
And in this moment,
We don't even have to track back where it came from.
You just have to notice that in this moment,
You have a choice.
To set it down.
To let it go.
And with your next breath out.
Imagine releasing a little more of what you've been holding.
You don't have to force it.
You don't have to intentionally explore it.
You're just really allowing.
First allowing the acknowledgement of it,
And now we're allowing the release of it.
And once again with your next breath out.
The release of that next exhale.
Imagine releasing a little bit more of what's been held all this time.
In the way you would let something heavy.
Slip gently out of your hands.
As you're breathing in.
And letting go.
Letting it be natural.
Tuning in to notice how your body feels.
Maybe there's a sense of calm or ease.
Maybe there's a growing confidence in how you'll handle your next conversation.
Maybe a feeling of being a little more centered.
A little more you.
To know that whatever might come next from here.
Maybe it's a conversation later today.
Maybe it's time that you take to reflect on a pattern,
On a hurt,
On how you want to decide on something.
Maybe it's beginning to really feel in to these familiar moments that you replay with your partner.
And if you notice that any of this old tightness tries to return.
I want you to come back to the calm that you created in your body.
And that you can remember that your body already knows how to soften.
Already knows how to connect.
Pain,
Disappointment,
Or reactivity from today.
Has its roots from back there and back then.
And your heart's work.
Towards the love you deserve.
Is to connect what it's actually about.
So that you can respond more from the here and now.
Instead of replaying old pain.
With your next breath.
Taking your time coming back into the room.
Coming back into the present moment.
So that with that centered clarity,
We can explore together.
An exercise I have created for you.
So just giving yourself a moment,
Shaking your fingers and toes,
Coming back into full presence.
So that we've settled the mind and welcomed the body.
So that I can.
.
.
Asks these questions and it comes more from the truth of your experience.
The depth of your body.
I want you to think of one moment that keeps repeating in your relationship.
So not the biggest fight you've ever had.
But just that theme.
That keeps coming back again and again.
And maybe it shows up in a different way,
Like over a different topic.
And I want you to take a moment.
To either grab your journal,
Or reflect on what that moment usually looks like.
Is there something that typically starts it?
And in the exchange,
What gets said?
And I think an important thing to add into this reflection is how does it usually end?
Does somebody storm off with their own version of what happened?
Does the argument escalate to the point where you're now yelling at each other?
Does somebody get defensive and gets very blamey in their language?
So this can offer so much insight.
When we start to look at what is that theme.
And what typically sparks it?
What starts it off?
What gets said in the exchange.
And then how does it typically end?
So I'm just going to be quiet here for a moment while you are jotting it down or reflecting.
Go back to the last time this happened.
And I want you to slow it down.
What did you feel in your body?
In the moment right before that conversation turned really difficult.
Strictly triggering really hard.
Is it a tight chest?
Do you drop in your stomach?
Is there a flush or a heat in your face?
Is there this urge in your body to just leave the room,
Just get out of here?
Make a note.
What do you notice that happens in your body?
Less of what's going on in the mind here.
I want to get curious here about what's happening physically.
And I just want to be sure I'm understanding blissful lights question here.
It feels that there's been a lot of betrayal to trusting my heart.
And so this question might be really difficult to.
Well,
Let me say it in a different way.
We leave ourselves.
When we are over there trying to make it better for the other.
And so we leave.
Are the truth of our experience of being clear because we know it's going to be hard for our partner to hear.
We don't want to make them feel ashamed or triggered,
Or we don't want to make the disconnection feel worse.
And so sometimes we can lose trust in ourselves for what we need,
For what we want to have that clarity.
So you've been rejected when you trust.
This is exactly what I mean.
So I'm glad to hear that you trust yourself.
And sometimes the other person can't be with how they've hurt us because it reminds them too much of their own pain,
Of their own limitation,
Of where they need to grow in order to be in a healthy relationship.
And so our role is to be as authentically clear as we can.
As human beings,
We have two basic needs,
And the one is belonging,
And the other is authenticity,
Really to be true to ourselves,
To be clear with our needs.
And when they are in competition with each other,
Belonging wins.
The relationship than really being clear with what you need.
So if we are,
Our growing edge,
If we have to choose between belonging and being authentic,
Is to choose being authentic.
That even if that means the partner or the family member or the friendship closes down for a while,
Because it puts them into a shame spiral,
Or it puts them into defensiveness,
That that's for them to work through.
It's almost like you are inviting them to rise,
Inviting them to grow.
Yeah,
And Ginger talks about the feeling of needing to suppress anger due to fear of damaging their relationship.
And so this is why,
And I'll probably talk about this in the boundary class,
That we never want to set a boundary or we never really want to express ourselves when we're so triggered it could erupt into a huge argument.
We want to be able to.
.
.
To express ourselves when the other can really hear us,
So that we're calm and self-regulated,
And we are sharing the important thing that needs to be said so that the other person can hear it,
So that we can have change inside of our relationship.
That's why this second step is so important,
So that in your memory of the last time things got difficult inside of your relationship,
Feel in your body.
And so Ginger really articulated that I feel heat and a surge of energy from my chest and through my arms.
And so if it is often that you're suppressing anger in order to not,
You know,
Light the whole relationship on fire,
What we want to be able to do there.
Is in a quiet moment.
Say,
Hey,
I was really giving some thought to that argument we had last Tuesday,
And I I'm ready to talk about it now.
You know,
Do you have bandwidth for that?
I just want to share with you what came up for me so that in a calm and articulate way,
You can be authentic without risking your belonging.
And so this third point digs a little bit more into that,
That in the moment,
You want to also begin to ask yourself,
What do you need?
Not.
What the issue is about in the moment.
It's more about what's underneath that.
And so as you know yourself,
Is there really a need to be heard?
To be reassured.
To feel respected,
To feel that even if you disagree about whatever it is,
That you can talk about the difference of opinion with ease,
That you need some more space inside of the dynamic.
That I had a couple I was working with and he said his greatest challenge was feeling like he was being chased down after the argument and he really just needed space to process what was coming up.
Maybe,
Maybe your partner goes into blame and there's a sense of,
I just,
I don't want to be blamed here.
I want to be heard and understood.
And so to really get some clarity,
What's underneath your reaction or your trigger?
What's the deepest need that you have in the themes that keep coming up inside of your relationship?
What's underneath?
The repetitive challenges or arguments or issues.
What is a need that you have that may continually go unmet?
And I think this is one of the follow-up question to this inquiry.
Is what tends to really bring understanding.
Is to now connect it.
To when is the first time in your life that you remember not getting this exact need met.
So did your parents always shut you down?
Is it a sibling that you felt?
Either unsafe with,
Or in competition with.
Was it in a previous relationship where trust was broken?
And so trust has become a really big issue in today's relationship.
That it has its home,
Its imprint in a grandparent and a parent.
And this is often the case.
And so the way that we take it out of being personal,
If we keep it as being personalized,
You know,
You shut me down.
There's not a lot of movement for the current relationship.
But if we can understand,
Ah,
This is my pain point,
This is my tender piece,
That allows us to know what we need to work with for ourselves.
And so here's the truth about long-term relationship.
What if it's never about what the other person is doing or isn't doing?
And what if it's always bringing us back to ourselves and the deeper healing that we need to do about how they're responding and what it brings up in us.
And that's where we get the relief.
That's where we get the resolution.
That's where things begin to change.
And so the last consideration here is when you look at everything you've just reflected on or you've just written down,
Does that moment in your relationship feel like it's really about your partner?
Or does it feel like an old need?
Might be finally getting a chance to be heard.
A deep,
Deep pattern might finally get to heal.
And that's what the gift of love and relationship is.
I believe at the highest level,
That's why we're brought together with another person to heal what has felt so deeply painful inside of us.
And oftentimes that can be what we've inherited from our family of origin or a pain that we lived through our childhood.
And so as you really explore everything you've reflected on or written down,
Maybe you begin to have a sense in your body to really explore the need underneath.
And where it first went unmet.
That's the work.
That's the pattern exposed.
And so if it's not your partner's fault and it's not your fault,
It's just this deeper pattern that's finally visible.
And it supports you in knowing what you need to do.
Notice that we didn't spend this exercise pointing the finger at your partner,
And certainly not on blaming yourself.
We want to spend the majority of our time in understanding.
And that's the difference between managing the same argument for another 10 years or actually changing what's underneath it.
