It seems counterintuitive but it's true. When women are upset or angry with their male partners, it triggers all kinds of emotional responses.
It dates back to those primitive cavemen days when men had to go out and hunt for food and women stayed home and looked after the children.
The fight or flight response was necessary for survival, so when faced with threat or danger, the male's nervous system would be flooded with cortisol and adrenalin, ready for battle or to run away.
Neither of these reactions are probably helpful when his female partner wants to be comforted and reassured because she is upset about something and he shouts at her, or when she wants to talk things through and he walks out on her...but these are often the results of that emotional response.
So recognise that pattern next time you get caught up in a frustrating emotional interaction and give yourselves some time to calm down before you revisit the topic of conversation and see if you can work out a solution when you are both in a more rational state of mind...
xxx
Showing posts with label acceptance power relationships love communication depression need feelings problems heart pain suffering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label acceptance power relationships love communication depression need feelings problems heart pain suffering. Show all posts
Friday, 10 February 2012
Friday, 3 December 2010
The problem with stuffing...
The problem with stuffing, is that there is only so much 'stuff' you can stuff away before it starts to stuff you up!
Ok, that's a lot of 'stuff' in one sentence, but you get what I'm trying to say...
Suppressing your feelings
If you learnt how to suppress your feelings as you were growing up, and stuff them down inside of you instead of expressing them as you feel them, sooner or later they will have to come out in some shape or form.
The problem is that by this time the feelings have usually warped and transformed into something much bigger than it orginally began as and is much more difficult to deal with.
After holding it in for so long the way you voice your feeling may come out as an accusation, complaint, criticism, whining or just plain old drama.
Under attack!
Your partner then feels attacked, caught unaware and unprepared to deal with this outburst and may then become defensive and withdraw or attack back.
This then leaves you feeling even more angry because you don't feel heard.
Loop the loop
How many times have you been round this loop and gotten increasingly more frustrated and stuffed more of your feelings away in order to avoid the confrontations, only for the stuff to eventually come out anyway?
The fact is, if these are the results you are coming up against time and again, it may well be the way you are communicating your feelings.
Shut down
You may think that you are offering useful and helpful advice, but if you are not talking about your feelings and are just telling your partner what they have done wrong to hurt and upset you and what you want from them, these are really just your opinion and solutions to your own frustration and discontent.
Your partner hears it as them being at fault and being told what to do and will shut down to it, which may leave you feeling resentful, hurt, confused and unloved.
Setting boundaries
It may be that you need to work on setting healthy boundaries for yourself on what you are willing and not willing to accept.
If you are not happy about doing something, learn how to politely and assertively say no. Don't do things you don't want to do and then get angry about it later.
What don't you want?
Learn how to talk about what you don't want rather than asking for what you want.
It sounds counter-intuitive, but if you can say what you don't want, you are not asking or demanding anything of your partner or making them feel pressured into doing anything for you.
Rather you are letting it be known what is not acceptable and laying down the boundaries within which you will feel safe and happy.
Your partner will feel more comfortable as they know where they stand with you and will have more respect for you.
Feel your feelings
When you are communicating with your partner avoid blame and stick to the real feelings. Be willing to feel your feelings and own them, these may be mad, bad, sad, glad, scared, confused, lonely...etc.
Learn to recognise what these feelings are in your body and tune into them, rather than push them away.
Yoga and meditation can be useful ways to tune into your body, get in touch with your feelings and relax your body mind system so you can see things more clearly.
Open yourself to learning
Rather than being accusing and attacking and angry, try to explore the feeling fully and express it in it's purest form.
Instead of yelling why didn't you call me? You never listen! Or you always do this! Try finding the feeling and saying, I feel unimportant, unheard, frustrated, what do you think?
Open yourself up to learning about your own and your partner's feelings and work as a team to get through it because you are both in this relationship together.
Ok, that's a lot of 'stuff' in one sentence, but you get what I'm trying to say...
Suppressing your feelings
If you learnt how to suppress your feelings as you were growing up, and stuff them down inside of you instead of expressing them as you feel them, sooner or later they will have to come out in some shape or form.
The problem is that by this time the feelings have usually warped and transformed into something much bigger than it orginally began as and is much more difficult to deal with.
After holding it in for so long the way you voice your feeling may come out as an accusation, complaint, criticism, whining or just plain old drama.
Under attack!
Your partner then feels attacked, caught unaware and unprepared to deal with this outburst and may then become defensive and withdraw or attack back.
This then leaves you feeling even more angry because you don't feel heard.
Loop the loop
How many times have you been round this loop and gotten increasingly more frustrated and stuffed more of your feelings away in order to avoid the confrontations, only for the stuff to eventually come out anyway?
The fact is, if these are the results you are coming up against time and again, it may well be the way you are communicating your feelings.
Shut down
You may think that you are offering useful and helpful advice, but if you are not talking about your feelings and are just telling your partner what they have done wrong to hurt and upset you and what you want from them, these are really just your opinion and solutions to your own frustration and discontent.
Your partner hears it as them being at fault and being told what to do and will shut down to it, which may leave you feeling resentful, hurt, confused and unloved.
Setting boundaries
It may be that you need to work on setting healthy boundaries for yourself on what you are willing and not willing to accept.
If you are not happy about doing something, learn how to politely and assertively say no. Don't do things you don't want to do and then get angry about it later.
What don't you want?
Learn how to talk about what you don't want rather than asking for what you want.
It sounds counter-intuitive, but if you can say what you don't want, you are not asking or demanding anything of your partner or making them feel pressured into doing anything for you.
Rather you are letting it be known what is not acceptable and laying down the boundaries within which you will feel safe and happy.
Your partner will feel more comfortable as they know where they stand with you and will have more respect for you.
Feel your feelings
When you are communicating with your partner avoid blame and stick to the real feelings. Be willing to feel your feelings and own them, these may be mad, bad, sad, glad, scared, confused, lonely...etc.
Learn to recognise what these feelings are in your body and tune into them, rather than push them away.
Yoga and meditation can be useful ways to tune into your body, get in touch with your feelings and relax your body mind system so you can see things more clearly.
Open yourself to learning
Rather than being accusing and attacking and angry, try to explore the feeling fully and express it in it's purest form.
Instead of yelling why didn't you call me? You never listen! Or you always do this! Try finding the feeling and saying, I feel unimportant, unheard, frustrated, what do you think?
Open yourself up to learning about your own and your partner's feelings and work as a team to get through it because you are both in this relationship together.
Wednesday, 20 October 2010
Predicting Relationship Failure
Award winning research scientist, therapist and author Dr John Gottman has been studying couples' relationships for over 35 years and is now able to determine with 91% accuracy whether or not a couple will still be together in 5 years by simply watching them have a 15 minute conversation about a conflict.
He highlights 4 behaviours which amount to failure of the relationship and calls these, 'The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse of Marriage'!
What you will find is that these behaviours cause problems in all relationships, not just our romantic relationships, but also with our friends, family, work colleagues and everyone we meet. So it's worth taking these on board and having a behaviour check with yourself to see whether or not you do these things and how they are working for you in your relationships.
1) Being defensive
When someone is trying to share with you how they are affected by your behaviour, or talk to you about the dynamic of your relationship, being defensive is a rejection of their feelings and tells them they are wrong and their feelings are wrong.
Even if in your opinion the person is being irrational and illogical, that is how they feel and by telling them they are wrong or arguing with them about why they should not feel that way, we are not listening or showing respect for their feelings.
We all have difficult irrational feelings from time to time and this can make us feel very vulnerable to start with, so when your partner deflects your feelings it is even more painful and means we don't feel heard, accepted or even loved.
If you feel yourself becoming defensive, try to step back from the issue and be genuinely curious. Ask your partner why they are upset and be empathic and solution focused. This is not being a doormat or letting them have control over you, it is being kind and supportive and a good friend.
2) Criticising
Complaining is valid, but criticising is hurtful and destroys good will between you. No-one likes to be told they are wrong or bad, but if you have a genuine issue with something your partner did, or didn't do, as the case may be, you do have a right to bring this up and complain about it.
However stay with the point and don't use words like, 'always' and 'never', you know what I mean, 'you never call when you say you are going to' or 'you are always late to meet me.' Is that sentence strictly true, or is it more like sometimes, or often?
Making sweeping statements is demoralising and offensive to the other person, perhaps they are just doing the best they can. Recognise the times that they have got it right and acknowledge those, then tell them why you were hurt or upset by the situation you are complaining about. Whatever the situation was, stick to what happened in that situation and don't make this into a character assasination.
3) Stonewalling
This is when you ignore and shut down to your partner. This is very painful for your partner because they are unable to get through to you and can make them feel that you don't care or you're not interested in how they feel.
The Gottman research found that 85% of people who do this are men and suggest that this is because physiologically men become more aroused than women during a conflict and shut down in order to cope with the flood of fight or flight hormones released in their bodies.
Letting your partner know this is what you need to do shows respect for their feelings and needs. Tell them you will be able to talk to them about this when you are calm and have had a bit of time and space to sort yourself out rather than just shutting them out without any indication as to what you are doing.
4) Treating each other with contempt
This is the worst behaviour of all and shows a basic lack of respect for your partner. Being condescending, sarcastic, name calling, telling them to shut up, rolling your eyes, making faces, sighing, looking away, shaking your head, preaching, teaching, patronising. I don't think I need to say too much more on this one.
* Next time... I will be looking at the 4 predictors of relationship success.
He highlights 4 behaviours which amount to failure of the relationship and calls these, 'The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse of Marriage'!
What you will find is that these behaviours cause problems in all relationships, not just our romantic relationships, but also with our friends, family, work colleagues and everyone we meet. So it's worth taking these on board and having a behaviour check with yourself to see whether or not you do these things and how they are working for you in your relationships.
1) Being defensive
When someone is trying to share with you how they are affected by your behaviour, or talk to you about the dynamic of your relationship, being defensive is a rejection of their feelings and tells them they are wrong and their feelings are wrong.
Even if in your opinion the person is being irrational and illogical, that is how they feel and by telling them they are wrong or arguing with them about why they should not feel that way, we are not listening or showing respect for their feelings.
We all have difficult irrational feelings from time to time and this can make us feel very vulnerable to start with, so when your partner deflects your feelings it is even more painful and means we don't feel heard, accepted or even loved.
If you feel yourself becoming defensive, try to step back from the issue and be genuinely curious. Ask your partner why they are upset and be empathic and solution focused. This is not being a doormat or letting them have control over you, it is being kind and supportive and a good friend.
2) Criticising
Complaining is valid, but criticising is hurtful and destroys good will between you. No-one likes to be told they are wrong or bad, but if you have a genuine issue with something your partner did, or didn't do, as the case may be, you do have a right to bring this up and complain about it.
However stay with the point and don't use words like, 'always' and 'never', you know what I mean, 'you never call when you say you are going to' or 'you are always late to meet me.' Is that sentence strictly true, or is it more like sometimes, or often?
Making sweeping statements is demoralising and offensive to the other person, perhaps they are just doing the best they can. Recognise the times that they have got it right and acknowledge those, then tell them why you were hurt or upset by the situation you are complaining about. Whatever the situation was, stick to what happened in that situation and don't make this into a character assasination.
3) Stonewalling
This is when you ignore and shut down to your partner. This is very painful for your partner because they are unable to get through to you and can make them feel that you don't care or you're not interested in how they feel.
The Gottman research found that 85% of people who do this are men and suggest that this is because physiologically men become more aroused than women during a conflict and shut down in order to cope with the flood of fight or flight hormones released in their bodies.
Letting your partner know this is what you need to do shows respect for their feelings and needs. Tell them you will be able to talk to them about this when you are calm and have had a bit of time and space to sort yourself out rather than just shutting them out without any indication as to what you are doing.
4) Treating each other with contempt
This is the worst behaviour of all and shows a basic lack of respect for your partner. Being condescending, sarcastic, name calling, telling them to shut up, rolling your eyes, making faces, sighing, looking away, shaking your head, preaching, teaching, patronising. I don't think I need to say too much more on this one.
* Next time... I will be looking at the 4 predictors of relationship success.
Tuesday, 5 October 2010
Acceptance
There is so much power in acceptance...we can easily forget this.
Just being present and listening with an open heart can be all that is needed to alleviate someone's pain and suffering. Telling someone it is ok to feel the way they do can really work miracles.
You don't need to solve their problems for them, explain, rationalise, reason their feelings away or be annoyingly positive and optimistic in the face of difficulty.
Empathy can be as basic as a hand on your arm, a smile, a look, a nod...no words need to be spoken at all. Sometimes less really is more.
Just being present and listening with an open heart can be all that is needed to alleviate someone's pain and suffering. Telling someone it is ok to feel the way they do can really work miracles.
You don't need to solve their problems for them, explain, rationalise, reason their feelings away or be annoyingly positive and optimistic in the face of difficulty.
Empathy can be as basic as a hand on your arm, a smile, a look, a nod...no words need to be spoken at all. Sometimes less really is more.
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