Archives for childhood

Old Hurts: How Being Mindful Can Help You Move Past Them

October 27, 2014 by admin in Emotions, Family, Relationships, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Woman Looking at a Man Sitting Beside HerThere are many people who think that their past doesn’t have any influence on them today.  They may feel this way because their childhood was years or decades ago, or perhaps because they’ve created a different life for themselves now.  Others might discount the importance of their childhood on their present because they no longer live with their parents or may have told themselves they moved beyond it.  However, it is not accurate to believe our past is completely in the past.  Why?  Because our crucial development took place in childhood and hurts or events from our past can have a negative influence on our current relationships without us even being aware of it.

Our brains, how we think, feel, and behave, were largely being formed between birth and our teenage years.  More development continued into adulthood, but the majority of our learning and molding occurred in childhood. During these early years, we learned basic, crucial life skills, like trusting others, exploring our world, coming to know ourselves, being competent, having concern for others, and learning to be in close relationships.  If we had deep or repeated hurts during this time, it left a scar on us emotionally and may have prevented us from fully learning certain skills or completing certain developmental tasks.  Our purpose here is not to blame our parents. They probably did the best they knew how to do at the time.  Instead, the reason for looking back to our past is to determine how past hurts are showing up in the present day and learn to move beyond them.

Being mindful can move us beyond past hurts.  Mindfulness means being aware of what is happening inside of you in the present: right here and right now.  When we are not mindful, we are reacting.  Reacting happens when you do or say what your initial impulse is, often without even being aware of what you’re doing or saying.

When we are not mindful, our past hurts can creep into present day situations and influence how we see and react to things.  How do you know the present situation is colored by your past?  It’s when you freak out or shut down or otherwise feel very unsettled where others around you remain calm.  In your intimate relationship, these are the areas that deeply upset you.

Here’s an example of how childhood hurts can crop up, and how being mindful can help you release painful feelings, move on, and improve your relationship.

Imagine two married women were talking (not difficult to imagine, I’m sure).  One women casually mentioned that her husband was planning to golf all day that coming weekend.  The other was surprised to hear that her friend was okay with that.  She certainly wouldn’t be okay with her husband doing the same thing!!  She wondered to herself, “How can she be all right with her husband making those plans?!”  The surprised feeling was a clue that imagining her partner’s absence for the day was touching on something from her past.  It was a trigger for her: her past was intermingling with present day circumstances.  Her usual reaction when her husband planned all day outings was to get very upset with him.  Without thinking, she would accuse him of doing something wrong.  “How can you even think of planning a day of fun and relaxation for yourself and not consider me!?”  He would say “It’s not a big deal! I’ll be home by 4:00 and I’ll be home all the next day!  You want me around ALL the time.  You’re so demanding!”  They would end up in a big argument.

When she chooses to be mindful instead of just reacting angrily, the outcome can be very different.  Being mindful is slowing down, noticing what’s occurring inside of you, and choosing a different reaction.  In this scenario, when her husband made plans the woman actually had to stop herself from accusing her husband.  In fact, she couldn’t talk to him at the moment those feelings came up because she would have reacted angrily.  Instead of reacting, she paid close attention to the thoughts in her head.  She realized she was telling herself, “He should want to be home with me and the kids on weekends.  What right does he have to go out and have fun all day?  He doesn’t really want to be with us.  He doesn’t truly care about us.”

Remember: she didn’t say these thoughts – that would have been reacting/doing.  She did nothing on the outside.  She asked herself what she was feeling.  Feelings are one word each.  She felt jealous, rejected, angry, and lonely.  Next, she connected it to the past.  It came to mind that being home on weekends with her father when she was a girl felt similar, somehow.  He was home but unavailable to her because he was working on his model train hobby for hours each day.  They had no interaction.  She didn’t know it at the time, but she felt lonely as a child.

Now back to the present: even though the circumstances weren’t exactly the same, there was a link between past and present.  Naming the feelings and coming to know she felt lonely allowed her to make this connection.  What did she do with these feelings?  She did exactly the right thing.  She ‘sat’ with them.  She allowed herself to feel them, even though it is difficult and painful to feel jealousy, rejection and loneliness.  She let them come up as opposed to trying to stuff them down.  She noticed where they appeared in her body instead of distracting herself from them (by blaming and accusing her husband).  She sat and experienced them until they subsided.

She was mindful in the sense that she decided to become curious about herself.  Rather than doing or saying anything in the moment, she went inside of herself to explore what was coming up.  Instead of telling herself that her husband was the cause of her anger, she made the conscious choice to see what was inside of her that was the source of her anger.  It turns out that imaging that her husband was going out was just the trigger that touched on the past hurt.

Now here’s the next big step: deliberately choosing to have a different reaction.  In this case, the woman decided to find a new way to react to her husband’s plans to leave the house.  Now that she realized that it was loneliness underneath the upset, she could find a better way to get the loneliness soothed.  She asked for two things: a hug right then and for time together when he got home.  This was a HUGE shift because she moved away from blaming him.  She stopped making him out to be the bad guy.  She now could see that him going out golfing for a day wasn’t abusive or neglectful.  She could remember that there were, indeed, many other times that he made plans to be with her and many other times when he reached out to hold her when they were home.  She came to know that her initial upset had much more to do with what she experienced in childhood than it had to do with her husband going out.

Amazingly, because she recognized and could ask CALMLY for what she really wanted, her husband WANTED to be home with her more.  I see this often in my work with couples: as one partner becomes calmer, the other partner is drawn to be with them.  A shift in one spouse brings about a positive shift in the other spouse.  Not necessarily right away, but over time, partners inch closer to one another.

Being mindful is the key to getting relationship problems resolved.  In every moment with your partner, you have the ability to be curious about yourself and make a conscious choice to act differently.  This is what brings about change in your life.  Being mindful means you stop and notice what’s going on inside of yourself BEFORE doing anything.  Being curious about yourself and deciding to do things differently will bring about healing for you AND will enable you to get your needs met.  As you do things better in the present, you are leaving past hurts behind.  You will begin to create the marriage you’ve always longed for: loving, supportive, and a safe haven for you both.

Maintaining a happy, healthy, long-term relationship can be so difficult with all the pressures and challenges in today’s fast-paced world.  Maybe you’ve tried counseling before with little to no results.  Maybe you ended up more frustrated or things improved a little, but only temporarily.  The therapists at Couples Therapy Center of NJ can help.   We’re all specialists in the area of intimate relationships.  We can give you the support, new perspective, and tools you need to have more love and excitement in your relationship. Can’t get your partner to come in with you?  No problem!  We see individuals, too. Call us at 908-246-3074 or email getsuppport@couplestherapycenterofnj.com now to schedule your appointment.  Don’t wait any longer.  Start making positive changes today.

What Was THAT All About?! Why Your Partner is Freaking Out Over Nothing and What You Can Do About it

April 7, 2014 by admin in Emotions, Relationships | Leave a comment

smallincidentstriggerHave you ever seen someone have a very strong reaction to something that seems minor? From your perspective, you’re wondering what the big deal is. Why are they getting so upset?

Of course, this happens all the time in marriages and other intimate relationships. We see our spouse “freak out” over something small. Often, we don’t even know what triggered their anger or upset. When one partner witnesses the other get upset about something that seems trivial, it can be very confusing. Many times, people in my office will tell me that their partner got very upset – and they had no idea why.

So, why ARE they getting so upset? It boils down to this – their apparent “overreaction” is actually 20% triggered by whatever just happened and 80% triggered by something from the upset person’s past. In other words, the incident that just occurred touched upon something deeper inside that person. It may have brought to the surface an old hurt that hasn’t been worked through fully. This old hurt could be something that happened earlier in the current relationship, during a former relationship, or during childhood. As gifted Imago Master Trainer, Maya Kollman M.A., taught me, “if it’s hysterical, it’s historical.”

This may help the witnessing partner to keep things in perspective. It’s likely that when you see someone very upset, her/his own past issue has been activated. Of course, the exception to this is if you did something to intentionally hurt your partner, or did something that was abusive, neglectful, or unacceptable to them. In these cases, the level of upset would be proportionate to the level of pain you inflicted and is quite different from what I’m discussing in this article. What I’m describing here are those times when a partner has intense reactions to minor events – where the reaction is way out of proportion to the actual incident.

So, how does knowing that the reaction may be rooted in the past help your relationship? What do you do when your partner is having a strong reaction to something that seems minor to you? Use the basic Imago tool of mirroring. With mirroring, you paraphrase your partner’s comments back to him/her. For example you would say, “I hear that you’re very angry that the dishwasher was loaded that way.” Mirroring is different from agreeing. Just because you reflect back what was said doesn’t mean you agree. OR, you may decide to acknowledge your 20% responsibility for the trigger by saying something like, “Yes, I did try to fit as much as I could in the dishwasher and the dishes didn’t come out clean.”  When dealing with a very upset person, the most important role you can take is that of a calm witness and understanding presence. Try to stay with them through their upset (unless they are attacking or shaming you).

Realizing that they are not just reacting to the dishes, but also to something from their past that hasn’t been resolved yet will help you to remain a calm witness for them. In this example, perhaps your partner grew up in a filthy house and hated that filth because they felt uncared for. Having dishes come out of the dishwasher dirty would touch upon that historical hurt and cause a major reaction to a minor incident. Keeping the historical perspective in mind will help you to stop taking things so personally and help you begin to understand your partner better. Knowing the reaction was triggered by something out of your partner’s past will help you to stay calm and mirror your partner’s words. In turn, your unruffled presence and mirroring will have a calming effect. This is one more way we can show love to our partner.

To schedule an appointment or to learn more, call 908-246-3074 or email getsupport@couplestherapycenterofnj.com

Relationships Are SO DIFFICULT At Times: Does It Mean We Chose The Wrong Partner?

March 10, 2014 by admin in Emotions, Relationships | Leave a comment

Woman Looking at a Man Sitting Beside Her

At times, your marriage brings joy and fulfillment. At other times, it can be full of frustration, conflict or boredom. During these difficult times, you may wonder, “Is this all there is?” or “Why is this so hard?” These thoughts or feelings can be especially discouraging when you compare this to a time earlier in your relationship when things felt wonderful. Rest assured – there is more to marriage. In fact, through these conflicts and difficult times you can grow to experience a hidden reward of marriage: it can help you grow into your whole self. That’s right; one reward of your unique partnership is that it can actually help you grow as an individual.

The early euphoria of the relationship, and the times of conflict in marriage, are often rooted in the same thing – aspects of our true selves that were lost to us during childhood. With our partner’s help we can recognize and recapture these lost qualities, grow as individuals and strengthen our marriage. Using the principles of Imago Relationship Therapy, we will begin by briefly describing how what we learn in childhood affects our marriage.
When we are born, our spirit becomes housed in our body. And our body has four ways of expressing our spirit to others: thinking, sensing (our bodily senses), feeling, and acting (moving our body and taking action). One duty of parenting is to help children develop all four of these areas of expression. A parent does this by noticing and encouraging a child to express him/her self by thinking, sensing, feeling, and acting. Unfortunately, many parents directly or indirectly discourage their child’s expression in one or more of these areas. When this happens repeatedly, these forms of expression can become lost to us. Each of us still has the capacity to think, sense, feel, and act, however, as children we may have learned that it’s not OK to express ourselves that way. We may have only developed the parts that our parents encouraged us to.

In adulthood, we become involved in committed relationships. During the first stage, the Romantic Stage, we feel wonderful, we feel loved, and we feel loving. Some of this attraction is because the other person has access to the parts of ourselves that are lost to us (and vice versa). For example, one partner may love the fact that his wife takes action and is accomplished because his “acting” is all or partially lost to him. At the same time, the wife may love that her husband is intellectual because her “thinking” is all or partially lost to her. Men and women in the early stages of love sometimes say, “He/she completes me”. This is because when we’re with our new partner, we have access to all four ways of expressing ourselves again. It is safe to experience thinking, sensing, feeling, and acting.

During the second stage of the relationship, the Power Struggle, conflicts enter our relationship and we feel hurt. We wonder, “What happened? Things used to feel so great.” We then revert back to what we learned in childhood: only using those parts which were approved of. In addition, we disapprove of our partner for using the means of expression that have been lost to us. Since using those forms of expression resulted in disapproval when we were children, we now disapprove of others who use them. As a result, you now hate the very thing that you used to love about him/her.

A committed relationship provides you with a unique opportunity to grow into your whole self. Your partner is inviting you (unwittingly) to regain the parts of yourself that were lost to you. First, your partner notices what is lost to you. He or she often presents it in a negative way. For example, when your partner may mutter, “Why are you so ditsy?”, he is noticing that “thinking” is lost to you. Your partner can also be the one to show you how to develop it. In this example, your partner may carefully think things through. He can be a model for how you can grow this lost part. Although no one likes to have shortcomings pointed out to them, these situations are actually opportunities to grow into an individual who is effective at using all four means of expression.

You may notice that your partner has already helped you grow as an individual. You may also notice that some areas have been more challenging for you or are hot buttons in your relationship. We are trained in helping individuals identify their lost parts, overcome obstacles, and grow into wholeness. Our therapists are skilled in assisting couples as they talk this out together in order to turn conflict into a growth opportunity.

Remember, your marriage is an opportunity for you to grow into all four ways of expressing your self and to be whole again.

To schedule an appointment to learn more about how feeling gratitude for your partner can greatly improve your relationship, call 908-246-3074 or email getsupport@couplestherapycenterofnj.com.