It feels terrible when we have the same arguments over the same disagreements, over and over again… Doesn’t it? It’s so frustrating to feel like we are living in the twilight zone, or that we are having a Groundhog Day experience… It’s tough to know that we’ll have the same conversation without resolution, yet again. Feeling like beating your head against the wall? Having repeating arguments, how you’re your relationship dynamics?
Having the same fight, or conflict, over and over might have to do with communication skills, but most importantly it has to do with your relationship dynamics… For you see something happens before a fight ensues, before a conflict is identified or sometimes even before verbal communication is started. And that is being triggered…
Being triggered means our sensitivities get perturbed. Or that core or old wounds or trauma get poked. The poking engenders strong emotions such as anger, fear, anxiety, sadness, numbness, or feeling out of control.
When these feelings come on strong, they are accompanied by higher activation of neurotransmitters in our brain and hormonal release. The cocktail floods us and monopolizes our brain activity, becoming less engaged with our higher executive functioning. This is where the amounts of skills or tools you have don’t matter as they become inaccessible…
Our getting thrown off might result in our isolating, shutting down emotionally, becoming argumentative, or becoming physically aggressive. At this juncture the partners resemble toddlers in their ability to manage themselves.
This is why it’s so important to do our personal development work. For healing and growing ourselves up, so we don’t walk around with gaping wounds and sensitivities that are easily triggered. And that drive our approach to life and our relationship, and our relationship dynamics…
In interactions with our partner, we have the opportunity for healing and growing ourselves up. This is the bonus benefit of being in relationship with our Partner and their perfect imperfections that perfectly complement our own…
It behooves partners to not lose sight of this gift, and to transcend the recurring dissatisfying patterns by addressing their triggers through the Relationship Enrichment Lifestyle™.
When getting triggered in our relationship, there is a built-in opportunity to now get what we didn’t get growing up (to heal)… And, for learning how to stretch ourselves to meet our partner’s opposing needs (to grow up, become whole)…
Once we integrate this into our relating, we are able to tap into our inherent relationship synergy… This is when the waters part, and life is our oyster… LOL
Learning what drives the dynamics (our and our partner’s triggers) and how to work with them for our evolution and more meaningful Journey, is a marvelous lens and mindset to embrace in our relationship. This is when we stop the power struggle and becomes allies. This is when we become a true Partnership…
This is then our conscious and intentional relationship. Being aware of our triggers and being mindful and intentional about addressing them, is the way to change the relationship dynamics and to create the relationship we want. This is the key to our transformation…
Changing the Dynamics
It’s very easy to feel stuck, frustrated and hopeless when it seems that we just go around and around in our conversations, if we even have them, without getting anywhere. The same issue/s keep creeping up and no matter what we do we can’t seem to crack the code. But with a little mindfulness and intentionality we have the keys to the kingdom.
The Reactivity
The key is to pay attention to the reactivity. Start noticing when you get prickly, what gets on your nerves or annoys you, what are you sensitive about, what touches your sensitivities, and such. Now do this by observing what happens to you, what comes up for you. Don’t do this by focusing on what your partner is doing or not doing, and taking yourself on a ride about them…
Then notice how you respond in the interaction or situation. What do you do outwardly and inwardly? What are your “emotional behaviors”? Shut down, withdraw, distance, dismiss, minimize, and the like? Or pounce, attack, pursue, nag, control, maximize, and the like?
The set of reactions you identified are your go-to Defense Mechanisms…
You can be on a spectrum from Distancer to Pursuer… The higher the conflict in the relationship, the more the polarization…
What are you feeling behind your defense mechanisms? Controlled, smothered, suffocated, cornered, unappreciated, inadequate? Or, abandoned, rejected, unwanted, unworthy, unsupported, alone?
These feelings are your Wounds…
The Distancer feels – Controlled, smothered, suffocated, cornered, unappreciated, inadequate
The Pursuer feels – Abandoned, rejected, unwanted, unworthy, unsupported, alone
Share the instructions with your partner and have identify their Defense Mechanisms and Wounds… I’m sure that by just doing your side, you can probably identify your partner’s as well. But it’s best for them to identify and own their own experience…
Regardless of how you arrive at identifying your partner’s side, I’m sure you’ll notice that you are opposites… A little or a whole lot.
Now, don’t let this scare you as Opposites Attract… And, once you start doing your work, you’ll become less polarized and learn to work with your differences to the satisfaction of you both.
Your Reciprocity Loop
Your dynamics is a reciprocity loop, a recurring repeating pattern. Actually, it’s a beautiful dance between the oppositeness…
You want closeness, they want space.
You want to discuss things to process, they need time on their own to think to process.
You want to be flexible, they want to run on schedule.
You want to do things together, they want to do things on their own.
And, so on…
Partners might get triggered in the face of the different preferences… Specially if there is already some disconnection and unappreciation going on at the moment…
The Looping: Something happens. Partner A gets Triggered and responds with their Defense Mechanism. Which Triggers Partner B, who responds with their own Defense Mechanism. Resulting in Partner A having their Wounds/Feelings additionally triggered, to which they respond with more of their Defense Mechanism. Additionally, triggering Partner B’s Wounds/Feelings. And on it goes…
Let’s say:
Partner B announces they’ll be away for the next three days.
This makes Partner A feel unwanted, rejected and abandoned.
They react by demanding why the partner is going away, asking a million questions about the trip, requesting a gazillion things get done before they go away, asking them to come back early, and such.
Partner B now feels controlled, nagged, and trapped.
They in turn don’t want to provide details on the trip, are evasive about the possibility of coming back early, forget to do some of the tasks requested, and such.
This makes Partner A feel more unwanted, alone, dismissed, unsupported. So, they become more controlling, demanding and such.
Now Partner B feels more controlled, unappreciated, and suffocated.
And it can really escalate…
Does this sound familiar? I know, you are not alone!
The Transformation
Without spelling out therapy sessions here, the first and most basic thing to do is keep your understanding of your dynamics top of mind.
So, when your partner does something that triggers you, you can put it in the right context for yourself and address what comes up differently…
And so, equally as important, is to be mindful to not operate or react in a way that triggers your partner…
Giving each other a different experience, especially a different outcome in the face of a trigger is what’s healing… These are reparative experiences.
Another way to be healing is to ongoingly and proactively do behaviors that are antidotes to the Wounds. So, what’s needed is provided without having triggers making noise to get needs met.
For example, build-in couple/connection/togetherness and individual/alone/separateness times into your routines…
The additional beauty here, is that in stretching to give our partner their preference, we grow… So, it’s a win-win.
And that’s how you do it. Hang on to this golden ticket my friend, play with this concept to transform your relationship. You’ll be amazed at what’s possible once you crack this code! Enjoy!
ASSIGNMENT: Make a concerted effort at becoming a conscious and intentional couple… Keep your dynamics and working them top of mind!
Identify your Defense Mechanisms and Wounds
Identify your Loop
Identify behavior and attitude changes to avoid Triggering each other
Identify and implement ongoing Habits to tend to the Needs related to the Wounds
As with anything, when you bring consciousness, focus and attention to something, Awesomeness happens. I wish this for you in your life and your relationship.
Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…
Copyright (c) 2021 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Couple Strategy™ that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly connection notes in your inbox with Personal Development and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com
We’ve been making our way through the 5 Elements of our Successful Couple Strategy™ to launch us into the New Year ready to create the best version of our relationship yet.
Today’s topic – The Same Thing Over and Over. Unless we make sure we don’t get stuck, that’s exactly what happens… When partners wing things in their relationship they will find themselves creating repeating patterns. That’s just the way of things. Even if they don’t necessarily “wing it”, but are not intentional, mindful, informed, and use Relationship Enrichment Skills this is still what happens…
What happens? What drives the repeating patterns? Why do partners get stuck here, no matter how smart they are? As I’ve said once or twice in session, this is not a logical problem to be solved with an intellectual conversation or approach, or as if it’s a riddle… No matter how much you kick it around in your head that’s not how you change this.
This happens because at some level we are looking to get what we haven’t gotten yet… It’s our unconscious mind at work, it’s a built-in mechanism to give us a second chance. A second chance at getting our needs met, at fully growing up, and at actually becoming who we are…
So even though it’s super frustrating to be stuck in repeating patterns, this is actually a Gift, a Blessing. This is an opportunity in disguise. This is a chance to give it another try! This happens FOR us not TO us.
This means our relationship is a gift, our Partner is a Gift… For in this context we have the perfect situation to do our work and have our human experience… It gives us the opportunity to practice, try again, and crack the code. How many situations in our life are as rich as this…?
Ok, so how do the frustrating things keep repeating against sometimes our bestest efforts and wishes? They repeat because is not the specific behavior or situation that is the issue or that needs to change, and that’s what the partners focus on…
Like leaving the toilet seat up
Like not getting up early to help with the children
Like not doing the dishes
Like always running late
Like telling white lies
Like leaving crumbs on the counter
Like not responding to texts fast enough
Like listening to the T.V. too loudly
Like not immediately picking up after the dog went in the yard
Like not buying groceries frequently enough
These are all real examples from couples I’m currently working with, and the list goes on and on. Any resonate for you? What is the thing that’s getting you?
Partners get stuck on items like this and what ensues when trying to address them… As you can see from the behaviors listed, the focus is on what the partner is doing or not doing! Right off the bat they are off in the wrong direction… The mere focus on these items as the partner being a perpetrator of some kind automatically affects one’s mood, state, experience and approach… And, it disempowers us…
The key with these and other similar focus items is to understand what they trigger for us… The trigger, the emotional response, is the hook… It’s not the behavior per se that’s so egregious, but what it does to us, how it makes us feel… As we are on the lookout to no longer get hurt in the same old way, to not feel that pain again, we are sensitive to any experience that might trigger it…
Some of the behaviors listed above wouldn’t bother someone else to the same extent if at all… Partners are not usually aware of the trigger, or get so triggered that they can’t help themselves, so they just get hang-up on the particular behavior for its own sake…
Partners then focus on correcting the infraction and getting their way. When faced with certain behaviors, we assign some negative meaning to them that triggers us. This by the way, happens at lightning speed where most of the time we are not even aware of our process…
And, then we react to the trigger, triggering our partner, who reacts to their trigger, triggering us some more.Fun times! LOL Thus, we go around and around, we create a repeating loop, we get stuck in a Power Struggle where both partners are focused on getting their way (getting their needs met and relieving their pain)… They end up creating repeating patterns, stuck dynamics. This creates stuckness in the relationship…
Changing the focus from our partner’s behavior in trying to take care of ourselves to caring of how we feel and what got triggered is how we shift the stuckness, change the dynamics and the patterns. When we change to this approach, we heal…
When we stretch to meet our needs appropriately, and our partner’s when addressing their concerns, we grow… When we intentionally work together we create a deeper understanding, more connection and greater intimacy…
This is how we create an everlasting bond, a rock-solid Partnership. This is what enables us to Flourish and create our Brilliant Life…
ASSIGNMENT: Take a moment to,
Identify the infractions, your partner’s imperfections, that you tend to focus on in your relationship.
Identify what they trigger for you, what feelings come up when faced with them. Note, that this is a pervasive feeling… It just gets exacerbated during certain times…
Identify what the feelings call for. What are the associated needs? What do you imagine you need when those feelings come up? This is where the focus needs to be, on the feeling and how to meet the needs driving it. And, the need is NOT, I need my partner to do the dishes! LOL
Identify ways to appropriately meet your needs- to address the pervasive feeling… And remember, it has nothing to do with the actual items that get you. They are just messengers…
Play with this to your heart’s content, heal yourself and grow yourself up. You’ll notice how much easier and beautiful your life becomes… Embrace the opportunities!
Complete the Assignment, and share your takeaway, insights, and results with a note in the Comments box at the end! I’d love to hear how you are using this content.
Happy Embracing
Copyright (c) 2019 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
… Newness generates inspiration, energy, motivation, momentum, new heights… How do you keep things Fresh in your life? How do you inspire and motivate yourself? How do you strive for new heights?
Building on our current Spring Renewal Theme, when we declutter, detox, spring clean and reenergize the outcome is a phenomenal spaciousness, surge, and drive… This generates a new perspective from which anything is possible…There is so much opportunity and beauty in this…
Spaciousness – When we don’t run around like a chicken without a head. When we don’t triple schedule ourselves. When we generously create transition, buffer, down/lazy, unscheduled/open, leisure time. When we allow for time to think, process, plan. We engage our creative juices, problem solving, healing, and other inherent human gifts.
Surge – When we refresh, replenish, and reset, we generate more and better energy. This allows us to connect with our desires and fuel our dreams, our vision, our Journey. This keeps us engaged, interested, curious. This keeps us joyfully in the game.
Drive – When we are properly resourced, we can effortlessly put in what it takes to make what we desire happen… Too often people are not properly resourced and quit midgame… Or, hey, they might not even get in the game. When we are resourced, the fuel allows us to leverage, to pick up momentum, to take off effortlessly.
Some of us operate from this state much more consistently than others, and boy, what a difference it makes. I’m sure you can pick out your colleagues, friends and families that operate from a resourced state vs not… These are the people in your life that are doing well, that seem to have it all together, that seem very lucky, that are effortlessly high producers, that seem to be creating and living the life they want, and more.
When we are resourced, we are able to have a better perspective and approach life differently… This is where the magic happens… Let’s apply this to our relationship:
When we are resourced, we can be the Partner we want to be… When we are resourced, we can show up better and interact with our partner more lovingly and meaningfully… When we are resourced, we can give more grace, be more openminded and more resilient (less easily triggered…). When we are resourced, we can appropriately meet our and our partner’s needs with ease.
Your Assignment this week: Play with the Spring Renewal Theme (see related links below) to resource yourself to the max, and keep playing with this for ongoing benefits… Keep tabs on how you feel, how you are able to show up differently, and how exchanges and outcomes turn out much better than usual…
Why go through your Journey on fumes, sputtering as you go, and potentially running out of gas?! What a terrible way to live. Start resourcing yourself better now and enjoy the ride!
Share your insights and impact by leaving a comment below! I’d love to learn what you are able to accomplish and create when you are resourced.
Copyright (c) 2019 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
We are in charge of how we choose to experience our life moments, and what we choose to do with them… This is a choice we can make about anything, at any time… Even in the face of trouble, chaos, crisis, and anything that we would usually consider negative life events. It’s all about the meaning we assign things… How we let them impact us… And, how we choose to address them…
The same goes for when others around us are having a moment… If they are spinning, we don’t have to spin with them… If they are feeling blue, cranky or mad, we don’t have to take on their feelings… If they are stressed, we don’t have to fix their stress… If they are ambivalent, we can stand in our Knowing…
We can have our feelings and experiences independently of others’. We can also choose to safeguard our wellbeing when those around us start to influence or impact us with their negative state. It’s not super easy to always stand still and not get sucked in…
It’s in our, and in our loved ones’, best interest to learn how to not get sucked in… I’ve had several sessions, and other experiences, recently where this was a prevalent theme. Partners get sucked into their partner’s mood, reactivity, and script allowing themselves, their emotional state, to be hijacked…
It’s already bad enough that we co-create our current patterns, our relationship dynamic, playing-out our unresolved issues so we have another go at them. It’s imperative we exercise more personal boundaries, self-soothing and regulating, and self-management to not take the bait and get hijacked. Consequently, this is also essential for changing the patterns themselves…
When you don’t take charge of your side of things and jump into the mud with the other, you perpetuate the negativity, collude with their perspective, entrench the limiting mindset, and create a life story riddled with dissatisfaction… You end up creating a mediocre life!
Jumping in the mud with them – trying to fix their issue, trying to make them feel better, trying to show them a different way, trying to rescue the moment and the like are all signs of Loving TOO Much… We can’t save people from themselves. They can only do this…
For when we fix things for them, we prevent them from experiencing the motivating pain, accessing their own resources, figuring it out, and possibly hitting the necessary rock bottom that would lead to the Light…
We have to be mindful not to get in their way. And, we have to be mindful not to get in our own way… When we take care of another in this way, we don’t take care of ourselves… Nobody wins!
Don’t take the bait. Don’t get on anyone’s ride. Focus on standing still. Reap the rewards!
Remember to complete the MetroRelationsip™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start creating your Successful Relationship and Meaningful Life…
Share your experience by leaving a comment below!
Happy Standing!
~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment
Take stock of when your interactions tend to go south in your relationship: before work, upon getting home, dinner, evening routine, bed time, Friday night, a particular time during the weekend, Sunday night, when food shopping, in the car, at weddings, at events, at in-laws’, etc.
See if you can identify a pattern as to when, and as a theme as to what about…
Do something to mitigate the when. Do something to address the what.
Add this to your Tool Kit…
Copyright (c) 2019 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
As we continue to settle into September, Back-to-School and the Hectic/Q4 Season, it is paramount that we are in tip top shape to handle the demands and opportunities of the Season. We all have different expectations for ourselves, our relationships, our family, our home, and our business.
We all have different ambitions, wishes, and dreams. We all have different definitions of what being in tip top shape means as well. But most importantly, we all have different motivation, energy, resources, skills, support and such. We are our own worst enemy and usually hold ourselves back if we are not intentional about our approach to our life…
In your quest to get yourself in better shape to gracefully and joyfully navigate the Season, you might want to address and clear feelings that might be driving and glitching your “operating system”…
Some of these feelings include: guilt, shame, anger, resentment, rejection, loneliness, abandonment, sadness and grief. The energy generated by these feelings course through our body and inform our state. They even lodge themselves in our body when left unprocessed. This causes the body to function poorly and eventually break down, causing dis-ease (ungraceful aging and a shorter life-span to boot!)…
The issue with this is that it’s not as simple as getting over the feeling… Our thinking patterns keep generating the same feelings over and over!
Our thinking habit is the culprit. The way we choose to interpret the events in our life, the way we give up are personal power, the way we allow others to take advantage of us, the way we allow others to take us for granted, the way we plow through inconsiderate of others and the like, all generate feelings that we don’t process or address properly.
A lot of times we are aware of the feelings but continue to go about our situation the same old way in the pursuit of resolution. The same approach will always create the same result! So, unless we are proactive, intentional and mindful in our attempt to take care of ourselves and do right in our life, not much will change. If we have lofty dreams, they might go unrealized… And, what a shame that would be!
When we are habitually angry and resentful – we are the only ones hurting with our insistence of holding on to these feelings! This habitual state of being means you are processing your world with a victim, poor me, I don’t matter and the like kind of lens that generates these feelings. This lens needs cleaning and your boundaries need reinforcing…
When we generate guilt and shame feelings we are filtering our life by beliefs that don’t serve us – guilt has to do with doing what we consider a good deed, shame has to do with what we consider being a good (worthy) person… We might have all sorts of funky beliefs driving these… We need to set clearer and more compassionate expectations… Also, we might be great at guilting and shaming others. Ugh! Clean this up immediately.
We don’t want this done to us, so why would we do it to others. Through mirror neurons, what we do to others we also are actually doing to ourselves… Stopping this relational habit is the quickest way to start cleaning up the negative related energy running through our bodies…
Rejection, loneliness and abandonment are similar to anger and resentment. We can choose how we perceive the event, and most importantly how much meaning and power we give to it… We can also go about getting connection, belonging, and acceptance needs met differently than how we are expecting them to be met currently that is dissatisfying…
Sadness and grief usually follow a loss of some sort. Sometimes the loss is not so obvious, or what we traditionally would consider a loss… These include things like – loss of childhood, youth, success, progress, outcome / certain experience, what was, what could have been, etc. Transition periods cause this inherently, even when the transitions are positive.
Here our role is to honor the feeling. Rituals, traditions, processes, and the like are excellent for relieving this.
It is imperative to make sure we are in tip top shape to smoothly, effectively and productively tackle our Autumn Agenda. Addressing our feelings and our habitual feeling state is a must to get out of our own way, and ensure a peaceful, delightful and rewarding Season. Minding our feelings clears the way for a better way of Being and an enriched life. Go ahead, you’ll be super happy you did!
Remember to complete the MetroRelationsip™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start creating your Successful Relationship and Meaningful Life…
Share your experience by leaving a comment below!
Happy Minding!
~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment
Identify what is your habitual way of feeling…
Anger, resentment
Guilt, shame
Rejection, loneliness, abandonment
Sadness, grief
Start cleaning up your lens/script/beliefs, how you interpret events, how you allow events to impact you, how you choose to feel, how you choose to respond, how you are proactive about addressing your circumstances…
These feelings are your friend. They guide you to where you need to make changes…
Add this to your Tool Kit…
Copyright (c) 2018 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
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Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT has been in the mental health profession in varying capacities for the past 20+ years. She is the Founder and Director of metrorelationship.com a psychotherapy and coaching practice specializing in working with busy professional and entrepreneurial couples who are struggling getting on the same page and feeling connected. The work helps couples create a radiant and successful relationship and meaningful life by becoming a strong partnership and increasing their connection, intimacy, and fun. Emma is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Relationship Strategy™.
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