Hello again! After not writing for a while maybe it's time to start writing again. Hopefully I can find some time to do this more often again. As we all know life gets crazy and you begin to feel like everything's a chore. I am passionate about my profession though and love to be able to share information that hopefully can help some.

Today's topic will be on couples.

It is just a brief note that comes up a lot when working with couples. It is the idea of being able to hold you partner's anger. So many times people cannot just be ok with someone being mad at them. And this isn't true for just a couple, but really for any relationship at all. If you can start to just allow someone to be mad at you, see what changes can occur. What I see happen is that we want to get defensive or tell them they shouldn't be mad or even that we just can't accept that we hurt someone, and maybe we didn't even mean to hurt them but it did and we just can't hear that we hurt them and now they are mad at us. Just try this, the next time someone is mad at you let it be ok. Let them be mad at you. It is ok. Say to them I see you are mad at me. Say to yourself it's ok that they are mad at me. Really just start with that and begin to see the changes that follow. There is more that you can do after this, but I just want to start with you feeling the difference in yourself when it can be ok for someone to be mad at you. (When I say mad, I also mean hurt as usually what is under the anger is hurt.)

Boundaries - Part II

The second part to begin the process of setting and maintaining boundaries is to say or do anything. After awareness of whether or not you believe what is being said either implicitly or explicitly through someone overstepping your boundaries, the next step is to then say or do something, anything! It doesn't have to be in a defensive manner, it does not have to be a conflict or confrontation. There are other ways.

It can just be a question - What does that mean? (Of course, with a non-defensive tone)

It can be a statement about what you are experiencing now - I'm a bit confused?, I don't know what to think about that?

It can be an action or gesture of doing something different than you normally do - walking away if you normally stay in emotional reactivity; staying in the conversation if you normally walk away and cut-off. Or it can be not letting the other person change the subject and saying, "Let's go back to that."

The point is saying or doing anything in response to a boundary violation will help to set and maintain your personal boundaries.

Boundaries Part I

I have been thinking a lot about boundaries and how important they are for relationships. I know that if you let someone take advantage of you, they will. And I know that we teach people how to treat us, how to communicate with us, and how to relate to us. So how does this all happen?

I know it takes time and that the dynamics are constantly changing and the relationship is constantly changing. Everything in life is a constant practice. So what about boundaries?

Well, there are many parts to setting and maintaining boundaries. Today I want to focus on how maintaining boundaries can also mean lowering our emotional reactivity.

When people are emotionally reactive and their feelings and emotions and sometimes even identity are dependent on another person, this can be called enmeshment. An assumption of this is that the person who is emotionally reactive is not maintaining their personal boundaries.

In order to do this, one cannot just say "You can't talk to me that way", or "You can't treat me this way". We have no control over the other person. What we do have control over is how we let it make us feel and how we react. Let's look at that first part.

We control how it makes us feel. Is this entirely true? Yes and no. It depends on how much we believe what the person mistreating us is saying or doing. Do you believe you should be treated in that way or spoke to in that manner. If there is a part of you that does, it feeds on that and you begin to associate you identity with what the other person is saying, thus emotionally reactive and enmeshment- no boundaries. However if you do not believe what they are saying then you can begin to separate yourself from their words or actions, not get emotionally reactive, and will be able to scan your emotions and then make a conscious decision on how to proceed.

Separating yourself from others is a huge growth and empowerment transition.

Incompatability vs. Differences

So many couples focus on the differences between them and talk about how that means they are incompatible. What then can begin is a whole new pattern of looking at the negatives or to be more exact looking at the differences as negatives.

For a successful relationship it is important to look at the differences and appreciate, accept, and respect them. What can be learned in therapy however, is to uncover the differences that are underlying the conflicts. As examples how the two of you may process things differently, you may learn in different ways, you may make decisions in different ways, etc. These are the important differences that need to be explored and understood instead of focusing on the negatives and leaping straight to incompatibility.

New Technique for Nightmares

I was just watching a news show last night, and I am sorry but I don't remember which one or what channel.

Anyway, it was talking about nightmares and a new technique for eliminating them. It talked about actually re-narrating your nightmare during the day, over and over again, with the ending that you want. You still keep the majority of the story, just change the ending at first. Retell the new story to yourself as much as possible during the day and then also right before you fall asleep.

Can't hurt to try it!

Nightmares and Flashbacks

What does it mean when you get recurrent nightmares or flashbacks or even obsessional thoughts that interfere with your life?

Generally this means that you have unresolved feelings and emotions about either a traumatic event or a very distressful event. If you read some of my previous posts there is some information about effectively processing your emotions. What happens to us when a stressful event happens, is sometimes we cut off or suppress some of those emotions. We severe that connection between mind and body. And then what happens is our body builds up so much emotion that we are trying to not feel. We think we are controlling it with our thoughts, staying with facts, trying to forget about it; but they come out in nightmares, flashbacks, and obsessions.

When this happens the best thing is to forget about you trying to control anything over your body and let your body experience and go through what it needs to. In effect process your emotions.

Emotional Reactivity and Communication

I talk a lot about emotions. I want to continue some of the discussion on communication.
If you read back in previous blogs, I discuss the importance of processing your emotions and learning about increasing your self-awareness.

The next part, is realizing your control of your expressive language of your emotions or your emotional reactivity.

I have said before that we do not have control over our emotions. And that is true. Our bodies react to what we perceive and we cannot control that. What we can control is how we express that emotion.

What happens in relationships is that just due their nature and being emotionally involved with someone, our bodies are reacting to the other person all the time. It is important for you to really look at that, be aware of it, and take note of your bodily reactions, but to not react on them.

Communication is nearly impossible when emotionally driven! Yet that is when people expect the most out of it. It's not going to happen. Nothing is going to get resolved when both of you are just reacting emotionally.

The best thing to do, is to let each of your emotions process, saying it plainly- take a time out, and give yourself and your body time to really process your emotion. Make sense out of what you are experiencing. Then when you have both given yourselves time to do that, you can come together and communicate more effectively.