Do you try hard to stay “logical” or “rational” when talking or disagreeing with someone?  On the surface this looks like a good idea – we want decisions made on factual information, not just emotions.  But, as fans of Star Trek will know, this is a doomed enterprise (pun fully intended, with apologies).

What we usually acheive is the exact opposite of being rational.   When I talk in an “unemotional” way, what I actually do is disown and deny the feelings that are the motivation for my opinion.  Emotion researcher Karla Mclaren (https://karlamclaren.com) stresses that emotions are a fundamental part of our cognitive system.  In other words, emotions are another way our brain sends us messages just like our senses do. We can’t think without feeling.

When we present our ideas and opinions as if they were devoid of feeling we are often trying to position ourselves as “better” than our more emotional partner.  It is common to use the fact that someone has emotions about a topic as a reason to dismiss their opinion.  There are several things wrong with this approach. 

Firstly it is rooted in a competitive, “win/lose” view of disagreements that is toxic to intimate relationships.  If your partner feels strongly about something, that’s an opportunity for intimacy, for knowing them better.  Rather than dismissive, be curious about why and what it means to them. 

Secondly, kidding ourself we are emotionless obscures our motivation and deprives both ourselves and our partner of crucial information necessary to make any decision or conclusion valid.  When we are not looking at all the facts, our choices are likely to be misguided.

Thirdly an “emotionless” presentation invites misunderstanding of our intention – our partner is forced to guess where we are coming from.  Because of the way human brains are wired, their guess will almost always be more negative or catastrophic than our actual position.  Leading to their emotional response to us being off-kilter and confusing to us.

Finally, and most importantly, when we deny or suppress the emotional aspect of our being, we issue an unconscious invitation to our partner to take care of it for us.  This leaves us feeling unnecessarily vulnerable and out of control because we are NOT in charge of our own life.  Our emotional well being is in the hands of someone else. No matter how much they love us, they cannot know or give us exactly what we need.  Frequently this results in us feeling frustrated and angry with them because of their inability to do an impossible job.  This dynamic is a recipe for mutual hurt and cannot be solved unless we reclaim responsibility for our own emotional well-being.

By contrast, the truly rational approach is to accept that you, like every other human, are full of feelings and they represent important information that needs to be acknowledged and understood.  As such this needs to be part of what we think and talk about, especially when we disagree with someone else.   When we talk about and take responsibility for our own emotions and show interest and care in those of our partner, then we are finally acting rationally in service of our goal of having a good relationship.

The post Being “logical” isn’t always rational appeared first on Couples Therapy NZ.

This image encapsulates a really important lesson that many of us struggle to learn. If we want intimacy then we have to risk the vulnerability of authenticity, of being really honest. Among other things, being authentic means saying what is and isn’t OK for you. That’s what us therapist types mean when we talk about “setting boundaries”

The right-hand column in this picture is a good summary of what happens if we don’t do this. If we are not looking after ourselves by setting good boundaries we are likely to end up resentful and lonely. So why is it so difficult for many of us to set boundaries? Typically it is because (perhaps unconsciously) we don’t believe we are good enough, important enough, loveable enough or safe enough to get what we want. As a result of those kinds of insecurities about our worth, we fear that if we set boundaries we will be rejected or attacked.

That may have been true in the past, in our formative years, it may even have been true within your current relationship, but if you want the goodies in the left-hand column of the picture, then you are going to have to learn how to set boundaries with each other.

One key to setting boundaries effectively is to remember to talk about the positive side – what IS okay for you, what you DO want. So often we focus on what we don’t want (e.g. “Don’t fiddle with my hand, it tickles me”) rather than asking for what we’d like ( e.g. “I like that you want to touch me. Would you just hold my hand or rub it more firmly so I don’t get ticklish”).

Another approach I use, particularly when setting clean and clear boundaries represents a new way of operating in the relationship, is to say something like “I’m trying something new to help our relationship. Please bear with me if I don’t do it very well”. This signals my positive intention really clearly to my partner as well as giving them a warning that something new is coming their way.

Finally, remember that if you haven’t been taking the risk of setting boundaries and being assertive, it is going to feel uncomfortable but, as the diagram points out, that discomfort is minor and temporary compared to the lasting benefits that come from allowing yourself to be seen and known by your partner. That’s what intimacy is all about.

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Some people are really practiced at noticing what’s going on inside themselves, how they really feel, what they really want, owning how they behave and being able to explain why. For the rest of us, there’s therapy.

Whether it’s couples or individual therapy a big part of the process is recognising and accepting that quite a lot of what we do is outside our conscious awareness. Our mind is like an iceberg where the bit that we can see above the water (the bit we are conscious of) is only a fraction of all that is going on for us. Conscious thought consists of anything we can notice if we direct our attention towards it. We may not be aware of, say, a memory or a feeling until we focus on it, but when we do we can see it reasonably clearly.

If we can’t access it by focusing our attention, then it’s unconscious.  The point of the iceberg metaphor is that there is MUCH more hidden than what is above the surface.  For example, many of us have feelings or desires that we learned when we were young were not acceptable (for example through parental disapproval or teasing by our peers). So we trained ourselves to ignore, to suppress, to not even notice those feelings or wants. They went underground, into the bottom of our iceberg. But they didn’t go away and continue to influence our behaviour, our feelings and our expectations. So if we want to have some sense of control over our lives we need to learn about what is below the surface.

So how are we supposed to do that if it’s UNCONSCIOUS?? Well, we can learn a lot about the unconscious by reflecting on what we did and looking for discrepancies, for differences, between what we intended consciously to do and how we actually behaved.  So we learn about the unconscious by inference, by “filling in the gaps” between what we did and what we thought we were doing.

In my experience we often know, have a gut feeling or “felt sense” when the inference we are drawing is accurate.  It is by this means that we start to move things from the unconscious to the conscious, from the unknown to the known.  If we then hold on to that insight and notice if it plays out consistently we complete the shift and what was hidden to us becomes part of our understanding of ourselves and how we operate.  We then have the option of choice about whether we want to continue to operate this way or learn a different way to deal with things.

The post How can I change what I’m not aware of? appeared first on Couples Therapy NZ.

Lots of couples have one person who is more self-centred and one who is more self-sacrificing. It can be very hard to acknowledge the unhelpfulness of these tendancies as there is a lot of judgment about these ways of being.   Further more we have usually learned these ways of operating as a self-protection in our formative years and, as a result, just think these ways of being are “normal” and that being “selfish” or “selfless” must be more extreme than what I’m doing. 

To make matters even harder, if this is a long standing way of protecting yourself, it can be hard for us to imagine what the alternative is.  Typically we fear that we will become like our partner (whose behaviour hurts and frustrates us).  We fear that “If I’m not self-sacrificing then I’m being selfish”.  Or “If I’m not self-centred then I’m going to be a doormat”.   But there ARE other options.

If you are one of the many people who tends to be a bit self-centred OR a bit self-sacrificing then try and accept this about yourself without getting defensive or ashamed about it.  You are far more likley to change this behaviour for the better if you start with a compassionate self-acceptance.  

The table below is intended to help you get clear about what the middle ground of having a solid sense of your self looks like across a range of aspects of relating.  Not everyone will necessarily fit every attribute described here – but it gives a general idea.

These are just a list of words – they are only of use if you explore what these words mean for YOU.  For example if you think you have a bit of a tendency to be self-absorbed, caught up in your own feelings (OR if you have a tendency to be a bit self-less, caught up in the feelings of others to the point of self-neglect) what does it mean to you to be “connected”?  For one person it may mean being more aware of and giving more importance to the experiences and feelings of others.  For another it may mean connected with my own feelings and thoughts.   You can then think about what practical steps you’d have to take to get more connected.  One person might need to ask more questions about their loved ones inner world, while the other might need to schedule time alone to check in with themselves.

 If you can see there is room for you to grow and change in this way – then it can be interesting to see if your partner feels the same about themselves.  Then the two of you can explore what practical steps you can each take in the relationship to make it more grounded.

Nic Beets

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