We Can Solve This

Often with our partners we get so wrapped up in our feelings that we lose the ability to find simple and reasonable solutions to basic problems.  From small things like doing the laundry, or leaving the toilet seat up to bigger things like how money is dealt with there is a fair, reasonable, and respectful solution to any problem when partners can collaborate with the goal of solving the problem.  To solve problems we need to allow ourselves to get unmired from all the repetitive, unproductive conversation of the past.  In these stagnant and frustrating conversations the intention of the couple is seldom actually trying to solve the problem; the goals are usually of a lesser nature like punishing, guilting, and attempting to force one’s point of view.  Collaboration is the answer.  By collaborating with goal of creating a system or solution that solves the problem for both partners, couples set themselves up to succeed.   Questions like, “How can we solve this in a way that is fair and supportive to both of us?” generate solutions that both partners can feel good about.

Christmas is at Our Throats

I am told my grandmother used to say, “Christmas is at our throats.”  A sentiment reflecting the dread many people feel around the holidays.  Holidays and visiting family or having family visit or not visiting family and not having family visit can be highly emotional for many reasons including financial stress, memories of loved ones passed, and negative memories of interactions. What the holidays mean to each of us based on our experience and perception effects our feelings about the holidays.  If we are to come through the holidays with our integrity it is essential that we not act like powerless victims.  We have the ability, the intelligence, and the creativity to make a plan that supports our emotional needs.  The old proverb, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” holds true here. You are not trapped as you may have felt as a child.  As an adult it is important to set the boundaries you need and get the support you need to take care of yourself emotionally.  By intentionally having a plan to take care of ourselves, we put ourselves in the best possible position to survive and thrive during the emotionally charged holiday season.

Understanding Our Understanding

Dr. Steven Pinker writes, “People hold many beliefs that are at odds with their experience but were true in the environment in which we evolved, and they pursue goals that subvert their own well-being but were adaptive in that environment.” (How the Mind Works, p.32).  While, the context of this quote is Pinker beginning to frame an evolutionary explanation of the human mind, it seems equally applicable to the personal everyday process of psychotherapy.

That is, generally we seek therapeutic help when our way of doings things becomes too painful or stops making sense to us.  Through the therapeutic process we seek to understand the context in which beliefs and their corresponding actions have arisen.  These beliefs and actions were adaptive to the emotional and in many cases physical survival of childhood.   It worked.  We survived.  

Pain emotional or physical is information.  It tells us, “Something is wrong.”  By coming to understand the adaptive origins of our beliefs and actions, we can make sense when feelings or actions are not in proportion to our current situation.  There is an expression in the recovery community, “If it’s hysterical, it’s historical.”   Change is possible, but it demands awareness and action; awareness of the gravities of the old system of beliefs.  Action is the rediscovery of free will.  We can choose to follow the pulls of old gravities or we can choose to do something else.  With awareness everything becomes a conscious choice.

The Problem of Fear

Fear is probably the greatest obstacle to understanding, dialogue and change.  Why?  Because, when we act out of fear we avoid whatever the issue is that we are afraid of (i.e. anger, addiction, money, relationships, etc.).  President Roosevelt put it powerfully and eloquently when he stated, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyses needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”  Fear seeks safety through avoidance, inaction, or violence verbal or physical.  It is defensive in its nature and therefore cannot listen, to be compassionate, and change to heal the issue that is causing suffering to the person, couple, family or nation.

Fear is a natural human feeling and appropriate when dealing with issues of physical safety.  Most of the fear we experience (those who are not in physically dangerous environments) is related to a sense of emotional safety. 

The seeming paradox is that in order to heal the area of suffering we must stop avoiding it.  That is, fear tells us it is not safe to look at or deal with our issues (whatever they may be, relationships, anger, addiction, debt, etc.).  If we refuse to act or change because of fear, we are settling for the safety of familiar suffering.  We are choosing known suffering over the unknown of change.  In short, if we wish to understand ourselves and others, we must allow ourselves to feel the discomfort of looking squarely at what we have avoided in order to heal in that area.  The very act of setting our intentions to stop avoiding begins this process of healing.

The Value of Keeping Your Cool

Stop trying to change your partner and own the role you play in keeping things the way they are.  Since you are the only person you can control, it is worth seriously considering how you feel about the way you act in any given situation.  Do you feel good about the way you handled yourself? Not did you get the result you wanted from your partner.  

Most people do not feel good about themselves when they lose control and act mean, aggressive, or spiteful in the heat of an argument.  While you cannot control your partner, you can control yourself.  The sentiment expressed by many a parents and teachers that, “It takes two to have a fight,” is true.  For example, if one partner is getting upset and starting raise their voice and become aggressive and the other partner rather than escalating the situation, can say something to the effect of, “Things seem to be getting revved up now.  Rather than continuing our old habit of being hurtful to one another, I’m going to take a walk.  Let’s try and talk calmly in an hour.”  By making this kind of statement change is happening on a number of fronts.  Ideally, it stops the escalation and the expression of hurtful sentiments for both partners. 

Perhaps most importantly, in being the person not “losing their cool,” you can feel better about yourself for staying true to essential decency and integrity.

Some Solutions for Addressing the Difficulty of Static Family Roles

What can be done when our family of origin expects us to maintain roles we have out grown or decided do not work for us as an adult?  Firstly, we can love, honor and accept who we have become and are becoming.  Know yourself and know that at the end of the day it is you who decides who you are through your words and deeds. 

There are two basic approaches, but the end the day it comes down to having boundaries.  That is, act in a manner that respects yourself and who you are becoming.  The first approach is to speak directly with people who you feel are treating you as if you are the role you had as a child or earlier in life.  Ideally they will be able to change their actions to recognize you for who you are now. 

This unfortunately, does not always happen.  Since the only person we can willing change is our self, sometimes we simply have to accept the limitations of others and understand that their limitations are not a reflection of us. 

Some Ideas about Why Visiting One’s Family of Origin Can Be Difficult

Roles are complicated because they serve a purpose to us and our families.  We are generally type casted early, good kid/ bad kid, social/antisocial, shy/ outgoing, athletic/ scholarly, etcetera. These roles are generally oversimplifications of a trait “needed” by the family and we are “rewarded” in some way or encouraged to keep the assigned role.

 But then we leave the nest in one way or another and redefine ourselves generally in a more expansive and dynamic manner.  Free to become coherent with our own ideals of who we are, and what we are becoming. 

Unfortunately, when we return to our families of origin we are expected to return to the role that we held prior to leaving the nest, one that is usually static and constricting.  It this experience of the incoherence between who we have become and are becoming and the expectation of us to play a static role, that causes many people to dread the holidays and visiting with their families of origin.