Do You Feel Alone When You're Together? How to Deepen Your Connection With Your Partner

A lot of couples show up in my office because they don't feel deeply connected.  Often, one member of the couple feels like she can't connect with her partner and is lonely in the relationship.  Couples describe intimate relationships that contain a paltry supply of real intimacy.  In light of this, I wanted to offer something I witnessed recently, which was truly beautiful, and which reminded me of the divine ingredients of connection and how simple (but not easy) it can be to get there. 

John is a highly educated man and was vigorously expressing a lengthy and well-defended case against the validity of the whole phenomenon that is the Me too movement.  His argument extended to issues of race and gender as well, specifically, how all of the now-prevalent identity politics is overblown, unnecessary, negative and destructive. 

When he did pause, just for a moment, I snuck in an observation, namely, that the identity movement seemed to make him feel defensive and angry.  He denied feeling defensive but shared that as a teacher, the new politic did force him to be hyper-vigilant about the words he uses with students, to have to watch everything he does so as not to be wrongly accused.  I empathized with his experience and how hard it must be to be a teacher these days.  He then went back to his well-constructed case for what was faulty about the movement. 

As this conversation was going on, I was also keeping an eye on his partner, Nel.  As John went on with his narrative, Nel’s expression glossed over; she had checked out, lost interest in even trying to stay present.  I understood her experience as there was nobody there, really, for her to be present with.  The possibility for connection was gone, lost behind the steel walls of intellectual content.  

But I was hopeful as I had seen an opening; a little piece of John had emerged as he talked about the difficulty for teachers just now.  And so I inquired, hoping that I could get a little further than John’s teacherexperience. 

“What does it trigger in you personally, having to be in the thick of it, required to participate in this dialogue and all the forms and training sessions you probably have to be part of?”  And for some reason, with that very simple invitation, within the safety of our relationship, John showed up.  In an instant, his entire facial expression shifted as if he had also not been present and now, suddenly, he was there.

John then expressed how toxic the whole thing felt for him, that he was not interested in any of it and yet was being forced to be in a conversation that was not his life, not valuable to him.  He felt terribly put upon and trapped by the whole environment of identity politics, in a constant fight about issues that he didn't resonate with, having to prove he wasn't guilty of something that didn't in any way belong to him. The specifics of what he felt are less important than what happened in the couple as a result of this fresh truth that John was able to share.

Suddenly Nel was there in the room.  It literally felt like a wave of energy had wafted through the space; it was palpable.  Nel had returned, literally reentered the space behind her eyes.  In that moment, for the first time, I could see real empathy for her husband spread across her brow.   They were sharing the same space, perhaps for the first time in a decade.  Nel was looking at John with an entirely different expression, really looking at John.  Tears welled up in Nel's eyes; connection was happening.  At last, what had been separating them all these years, all her husband’s ideas, were out of the way and she could feel him, be with him, be truly together, in real company.  

John had been honing his ideas and intellect his entire life, using his arguments to validate what he was experiencing, but sadly, because of his own psychology, not even knowing or inquiring into what he was experiencing.  He had gotten quite skilled at proving his rightness, but all his ideas came at the cost of connection.  John didn’t get to feel connected to anyone or, for that matter, allow anyone else to feel connected with him.  He was an island in every way, surrounded by an ocean of mind.

Many people remain stuck in the land of contents—with the context underneath the contents rarely (if ever) reached.  Men particularly seem to get locked in their thoughts, information, and ideas, which shuts them out from their own hearts and shuts everyone else out in the process.  The feeling of being with such individuals is that of not being able to touch them, of being trapped in a corridor with no door, no way to be together, held at bay by the thoughts, opinions, and arguments, the armor that protects their hearts from ever being visible, or vulnerable. 

As the partner, you are not able to connect deeply, not below the neck, beyond the layer of intellect. Since it’s not possible to join them in their experience, empathy has to happen from a distance, via an idea of what they’re experiencing but without getting to feel it with them.  For the partner of such individuals, being together is an experience of loneliness, separation, hearts that can’t actually touch, a life that can’t actually be profoundly shared.

When John expressed his personal experience, not his narrative around it, not his justification for it, not all that he knew about it, just his truth in its raw, real, and alive form, simply what he was living on the inside, as it was coming freshly in the moment, Nel felt connected to her husband, like she was at last with him.  They were together in the same now.  His intellectual defenses had stepped out of the way for a brief and blessed moment. Nel could then experience the sensation of being in true company—not being alone together. (She later confirmed this to me in an individual session.) 

Couples spend decades trapped, like flies in spider webs, inside the arguments of content, and particularly who’s right, who’s justified in feeling the way they feel about the contents. They get caught, sometimes for good, in the ongoing battle for whose experience is deserving of empathy. This happens for many reasons, one of which is that we mistakenly believe that we are our thoughts and opinions.  Proving our rightness is thus a life and death struggle to ensure survival.  But such is a topic for another day.  In the interests of word count here, it’s my intention to simply point out that ideas and opinions, the stuff of mind, the generalized narrative and intellectual defense system, can serve as a non-navigate-able obstacle to connection. 

If you’re feeling that you can’t reach your partner, like you’re alone when you’re together, as if you can’t find the key to being truly with each other, notice, is your couple trapped in the land of contents—of mind—with no access to each other’s hearts.  Is your communication stuck in the land of opinions, ideas, and whether what’s happening is right or wrong, good or bad?  Notice if your relationship is waylaid in the purgatory of commentary, the airless box that it is to always be commenting on life to each other, but never in it with each other, forever a step away from your felt experience, and from each other.

If what I describe resonates, consider offering questions to your partner that contain an intention to reach the heart and uncover the real felt experience--not the story of it.  And, offer yourself the same invitation, to deepen your connection with yourself as well.

Questions that invite feelings:

-What is the experience like, for you, in that situation?

-What does that situation trigger in you?

-What does it feel like when you’re in that situation?

-What’s the worst thing, for you, when you’re in that situation? 

What makes it so hard, for you, when you’re in that situation?

And, when describing your own experience, try modeling the communication style you want to receive from your partner.  For example, “For me, when that happens, I feel (such and such)” “What makes it so hard for me is…” Actively model talking about your feelings, your personal experience, rather than your narrative about the situation, maybe even naming that distinction so that your partner can hear the difference, regardless of whether he knows how to do it.  Furthermore, remember that when your partner is able to express his direct and personal experience or a fresh perhaps newly discovered feeling, be sure to offer him (or her) a safe space and supportive response. Don’t correct or dismiss his truth, no matter what it contains.  Each time he moves from the known storyline to the unknown felt experience, he is growing, taking a baby step forward.  When you respond lovingly and with acceptance, you are encouraging more steps in this direction and thus inviting a deeper connection.  True connection happens when we can communicate from our vulnerability, our hearts--not our stories and protective mental layers.  It happens when we dive into life together rather than standing on the shore, safely commenting on it. The most important journey we take in relationship, and life, is from our head to our heart.     

What is Forgiveness, Really?

What is forgiveness and how does it happen?  We talk so much about forgiveness, throw around so many slogans, and yet it seems that we all have radically different ideas about what it actually means. We want to know how to forgive and yet it can be very hard to achieve or practice something that we don’t really understand. 

We often hear the idea that forgiveness is a gift, an act of kindness for ourselves, as the forgiver, that forgiveness is not for or even about the one we are forgiving.  It’s said that if forgiveness benefits the one we are forgiving, then that’s an added benefit, a gift, but not really the point. And yet, one of the obstacles we face in forgiving someone we perceive as having done us harm is not wishing them well, not seeing their benefitting from our forgiveness as a gift, and in fact, wanting them to suffer because of what they did.  The idea that the other person would somehow feel better as a result of our forgiveness is challenging and precisely what we want to prevent.  We imagine that not forgiving then is a form of punishment, a way of forcing the other to continue suffering, a way of being in control of a situation we didn't feel we had control over.  At a primal level, we imagine that not forgiving is a way of taking care of our wound, proclaiming that our suffering exists, and still and forever matters.  Not forgiving, paradoxically, is a way of validating and honoring our own hurt. 

So too, when the one we believe caused us harm is unwilling to take responsibility for their actions or insists that they did nothing wrong, we conclude that it’s even more necessary to withhold forgiveness.  Not forgiving then becomes a way of holding on to our rightness—remaining justified in our version of the truth, and the sense of having been treated unjustly.  Our non-forgiveness, as we imagine it, continues to prove the other wrong, which legitimizes our pain.  And indeed, it is the validity of our suffering which above all else we’re trying (often desperately) to confirm and have confirmed.

Furthermore, we think that forgiving the other somehow implies that we are now okay with what the other person did, and maybe even one step further—that what they did is okay on a grander scale. Our perception is that forgiveness announces that what happened is no longer relevant, significant, or alive.  It's as if we're allowing the past to be done, and thus to move out of mind and heart, which can feel intolerable. 

Perhaps most troublesomely however, forgiveness, as we relate to it, is letting the other person “off the hook.”  We equate it with absolution—excusing the other from blame, guilt or responsibility for what they did.  We imagine it as symbolically setting them free from having to carry the burden of suffering that we believe they caused. 

And so the question follows, What actually is forgiveness?  And its partner inquiry, What is forgiveness---not?

Forgiveness is Not Saying... 

-You were not hurt by what the other person did.

-Your pain is gone.

-You are back to being the person you were before it happened.

-Life can now pick up where you left off, you feel the way you did before, as if what happened never happened.

-You no longer believe the other person was responsible for causing harm.

-You excuse the other person’s behavior.

-You no longer view what happened as important.

-You share the blame for what happened.

-You can ever forget what happened.

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The way we view forgiveness, in many ways, is flawed.  We say “forgive and forget,” but when we forgive we don’t forget.  Forgetting is by no means an inherent part of forgiving, nor should it be. So too, we refer to forgiveness as “burying the hatchet.” But when we bury the hatchet, the hatchet is still there, just under a bunch of dirt, or we could say, a bunch of denial.  Buried or not, we still need to find peace with what's happened.  So too, we're flippant about forgiveness, encouraging ourselves and others to “just let it go!”  But again, forgiveness is no small affair and we cannot rationalize, intellectualize, manipulate or bully ourselves into feeling it. 

Forgiveness is different for every human being that lives it.  For some, it comes on suddenly, blessedly, without having to think about or try and create it.  For others, it’s a more deliberate process that requires effort and practice.  And for others, it’s a permanent destination and once discovered, never slips away.  But it can also be a feeling that comes and goes and ebbs and flows.  There’s no right way to find or live forgiveness; any path to and version of it will do.  And yet, despite the fact that there are infinite paths to and colors of forgiveness, certain key components exist in its sentiment, aspects of forgiveness that essential to its basic nature.

What Forgiveness Is

Forgiveness is, in part, a willingness to drop the narrative on a particular injustice, to stop telling ourselves over and over again the story of what happened, what this other person did, how we were injured, and all the rest of the upsetting things we remind ourselves in relation to this unforgivable-ness.  It's a decision to let the past be what it was, to leave it as is, imperfect and not what we wish it had been.  Forgiveness mean that we stop the shoulda, coulda, woulda been-s and relinquish the idea that we can create a different (better) past. 

Forgiveness also suggests an openness to meeting the present moment freshly.  That is, to be with the other person without our feelings about the past in the way of what’s happening now.  Forgiveness involves being willing and able to respond to what’s happening in the present moment and not react through the lens of anger and resentment, the residue from the past.  In meeting now, freshly, we stop employing the present moment to correct, vindicate, validate, or punish the past.  We show up, perhaps forever changed as a result of the past, but nonetheless with eyes, ears, and a heart that are available to right now, and what’s possible right now. 

A primary component of the forgiveness process also includes our attention and where we choose to direct it.  The process of forgiveness invites and guides our attention away from the other person, away from what they did, haven’t done, or need to do.  It takes the focus off of them; off waiting for and wanting them to be different, and moves towards ourselves, our own experience, our heart.  We stop trying to get compassion or acknowledgment out of the other, stop trying to get them to see and know our pain, to show us that our suffering matters.  Forgiveness means that we lose interest or simply give up the fight to have the other get it, get what they’ve done, get that we matter. 

We stop struggling to get something back from the other in part because we take on the role of our own caring witness, decide to offer ourselves the compassion we so crave, that we’ve tried so hard to get from the other.  True forgiveness means acknowledging that our suffering matters—to us, the one who’s lived it—whether or not the other person ever agrees with us.  We say, you matter—to our own heart.  And it bears repeating… we do all this with or without the other’s awareness.  Forgiveness is an inside job.

Forgiveness, ultimately, is about freedom.  When we need someone else to change in order for us to be okay, we are a prisoner.  In the absence of forgiveness, we’re shackled to anger and resentment, uncomfortably comfortable in our misbelief that non-forgiveness rights the wrongs of the past and keeps the other on the hook.  And, that by holding onto that hook, there’s still hope that we might get the empathy we crave, and the past might somehow feel okay.  When our attention is focused outward, on getting the other to give us something, so that we can feel peace, we’re effectively bleeding out not only our own power, but also our capacity for self-compassion.  What we want from the other, the one we can’t forgive, is most often, love.  Forgiveness is ultimately about choosing to offer ourselves love—and with it, freedom. 

Choosing Love Not Fear

Choose love not fear.  This is a popular refrain and wonderful advice.  Many believe that there are only two primal emotions in the human being, love and fear, and that we cannot feel both at once.  And that, in the same way that light removes darkness, love can remove fear. 

The choice to reject fear and choose love can feel like something that only applies to moments of crisis, when we’re leaving a marriage, starting a new business, preparing to climb Mount Everest.  But in truth, the opportunity to choose love and reject fear presents itself in the smallest moments of life, and specifically, in relationships with those closest to us.  Love over fear is a choice every time someone tells us something about ourselves or has an experience of us that we don’t want to hear.

We hurt each other in intimate relationships—intentionally and unintentionally—that’s a fact. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, we discover that we have hurt the other person when they come to us and share their pain, express their experience, and verbalize what we said or did that upset them.  But often we discover that we have hurt the person through a different avenue, that is, when they criticize us or tell us what (they think) is wrong with us.  In these cases, we generally feel blamed or attacked, and as a result, it can be more challenging to listen, imagine the situation through their eyes, and often impossible to empathize with their pain.  We have a tendency in these situations to strike back (the best defense is a good offense) or alternatively, defend ourselves and prove the other person wrong.  It’s a survival instinct and indeed, it can feel as if our very survival is at stake. 

What’s at stake is not our physical survival, but the survival of our version of ourselves.  The person we are being characterized or experienced as is not the person we think or believe ourselves to be.  And so, we try to protect the identity of the good self, the self who is innocent, not to blame for what is being accused.  

It’s a healthy instinct to question accusations that feel unfair or unwarranted. It’s also important to be able to set boundaries that prevent others’ projections and deflections from landing on us.  If you are being assigned intentions that don’t belong to you, it’s important to be clear about your truth.  It’s also healthy and necessary to protect yourself from pain that takes the form of emotional attack.  Emotional attacks and insults, meant to harm, are not okay, and need to be stopped.  This is not an article about learning to be a doormat in service of some false spiritual goal. 

And yet, there is an enormous opportunity in these relational moments, when someone we care about is hurt, and when (whether we understand it or not) we seem to be a part of their pain. There is an opportunity in these situations to choose to respond from love rather than react from fear. 

When we feel emotionally attacked, blamed, or criticized in some way, we experience fear, even if we are not consciously aware of it.  Our ego is threatened.  Our identity is threatened.  Our narrative on our self is threatened.  Conflict feels dangerous to the survival of the ego organism.  When we are accused of being responsible for something negative, it implies, usually, that someone is experiencing us in a way that is different from either how we experience ourselves or how we want to be experienced by the other.  As a result, we react from the place of fear, which means defending our ego or attacking back.  Fear, as a primal emotion, can sweep over us like a tsunami and cause us to react without thinking or consulting our more evolved and loving self.  Our reaction is often out of alignment with how we feel, in our heart, about this other person.

If we want to choose love over fear as a life practice, we don’t have to wait to leave our marriage, scale Mount Everest or start a new business.  We can simply use the opportunity presented in these tiny moments that happen every day, at all different levels—when the person we imagine ourselves to be, see ourselves as, doesn’t align with how we are being seen in that moment.

To choose love in these situations is to first, pause and take a full breath before doing anything.  It is to stop and get quiet, to do our best to actually hear what the other person is saying without defending our version of who we are or what we think happened.  It also means refraining from attacking back with a criticism of the other, or with something that they did or said (related or unrelated) that hurt us equally.  It is to just listen—without conditions.

Operating from love is to set our own ego aside long enough to listen to the experience of the other, to be courageous enough to be willing to try and understand what the other person is experiencing, no matter how radically different it is from what we intended to happen, think happened, or believe was the cause of what happened.  It is to have the strength of heart to understand and open our heart to what the pain is that the other is skillfully or unskillfully trying to express.  A response (not reaction) that comes from love is listening to the other’s upset as if we were just ears hearing, ears alone, not ears attached to a head, attached to an ego, attached to an identity, attached to a person intent on remaining intact and unchanged. 

To live from love not fear, on a practical level, is to shift from a goal of protecting our ego, being right, winning the argument, being not to blame, and move into actually being kind, being loving—in our actions.  It is to be willing to stop proving that we’re a good person and actually be that good person—to be courageous enough to open our heart and be love even when our ego is screaming in fear.   

And amazingly, in the moments when we have the strength to choose love over fear, we are rewarded not only with the knowledge and confidence that we have done something incredibly challenging and beautiful, but also, with the gift of experiencing ourselves aslove, and something infinitely more than just the small, fragile ego we thought we were and so desperately needed to protect.  We are rewarded with a freedom th

Source: Richard Lee/Unsplash

at surpasses all other freedoms.  Ultimately, it is through our willingness to stop defending our idea of ourselves that we discover our true and indestructible self.   

When We Need an Apology But Are Never Going to Get One

Why is it so hard for some people to say "I’m sorry"? It’s remarkable how difficult these two simple words can be to say out loud. I’ve been gifted with my share of never-sorry people over the years. I say gifted, because not getting the "I'm sorry" I’ve craved and (I thought) deserved has forced me to investigate the psychology of apologies, as well as my own relationship with apologies and the absence of them.

I’ve spent a lot of time wondering why some people refuse to say I’m sorry even when they know they’ve done something that caused harm, and even when the offense is small and seemingly not a big deal to take responsibility for. Recently, I was confronted with a friend who refused to say she was sorry for having misplaced an object she borrowed. It wasn’t there when I needed it, so what? A simple "I’m sorry" would have put the whole thing to bed in the number of seconds it took to say those two words. But those two words were never going to happen, and I, in my less-evolved incarnation, kept at it until I was exasperated, angry, and demanding an apology for something I didn’t really care about. 

Boiled down, to say I’m sorry is to say that I did something wrong. For some people, admitting that they did something wrong is not possible, even when they know it was wrong, and even when they feel bad about doing what they did. It’s odd to witness, but this never-sorry person can actually be sorry and still refuse to utter the two words that would both acknowledge their remorse and right their wrong. 

To be able to admit that we’ve done something wrong requires a certain level of self-esteem or ego strength. People who are deeply insecure can find it challenging to say I’m sorry in part because a single mistake has the power to obliterate their entire self-worth. The idea that they could make a mistake and still be a valuable and good person is unthinkable for someone whose self-esteem is severely lacking. An apology is an admission of fallibility, which can trigger the vast reservoir of inadequacy and shame they carry, and thus threaten the fragile narrative they’ve constructed about themselves. For a person with a damaged sense of self-worth, acknowledging error can be tantamount to annihilation.

So, too, there’s the person who was blamed relentlessly as a child, who from a young age was told they were responsible for every problem that arose and punished accordingly. As adults, such people tend to go in one of two directions. Either they apologize for everything, even things they haven’t done, or they refuse to apologize for anything, even things they have done. For those that end up the latter, they decide, consciously or unconsciously, that they will never again accept blame of any kind. They’ve closed the door to anything that holds a whiff of it. For this sort of person, saying I’m sorry puts them in touch with the feelings attached to their early experience of being deemed inescapably guilty and bad. Having been unfairly and indiscriminately held responsible for everything wrong, there simply isn't any psychic space left for responsibility, even when it’s appropriate.     

And then there are those who refuse to say I’m sorry, because they lack empathy and don’t actually feel sorry that you were hurt by their actions. They believe that an apology is only appropriate for situations in which they purposefully caused you harm. There’s no sorry deserved or indicated when the pain you felt was not intentionally caused, and thus not technically their fault. Your hurt, in and of itself, has no particular value.

I’ve touched on only three aspects of the never-sorry individual, but there are many more reasons why some people cannot or will not offer those two important words to another human being. To be able to say we’re sorry is to be able to be vulnerable, which is too scary, sad, dangerous, or any one of an infinite number of too's for some people. To say I’m sorry is also to acknowledge that I care about how you feel, care that you were hurt. I care enough about you, in fact, to be willing to put my ego aside, stop defending my version of myself for long enough to hear your experience at this moment. I care enough about you to be willing to admit that I’m imperfect.

To receive a sincere apology is an incredible gift. We feel heard and acknowledged, understood and valued. Almost any hurt can be helped with a genuine, heartfelt I’m sorry. When another person looks us in the eye and tells us that they’re sorry for something they did that caused us harm, we feel loved and valued; we feel that we matter. 

When someone apologizes to us, we also feel validated and justified for being upset. The apologizer is taking responsibility at some level for the result of their actions, intended or not. And when that happens, our insides relax; we don’t have to fight anymore to prove that our experience is valid, that we are entitled to our hurt and that it matters.

I recently told a dear friend about something she was doing that, for me, was damaging the friendship and making me not want to spend time with her. I was nervous to tell her given that I’ve been around more than my fair share of never-sorry people, who react to hearing anything negative about themselves by attacking the one bringing it. But this friendship is important to me, and I couldn’t just let it go; I needed to express what wasn’t working. I had to take the chance that telling her my truth, kindly, might lead us to a better place. 

What happened was deeply healing. I told her my truth, how her behavior was painful for me. She listened, and then she said something amazing; she said I’m sorry. She was sorry she had caused this hurt, even if it was unintentional, even if she didn’t know it was happening. She went on to say many other love-infused things, but she didn’t need to, she had me at I’m sorry.

This is not an essay on how to make the never-sorry person say sorry. For the most part, I’ve failed at that task so far in my life (I'm sorry to say). What I've gotten better at, however, is accepting the things I cannot change and putting less energy into the fight for an apology from someone who doesn’t have the capacity to offer it. And I’ve gotten better at honoring my craving for an apology when it arises and providing myself with the kindness and legitimization I’m seeking. The more I practice awareness in the absence of apology, the less I need the apology to validate what I know to be true. 

When hurt by another, our bodies are hardwired to need an I’m sorry in order to relax, move forward, and let go of the hurt. But sometimes when we can’t get the I’m sorry we think we need, we have to learn to relax on our own, without the other’s help. Trusting and knowing that our pain is deserving of kindness, because it is, and that our truth is justified and valid, because it’s our truth, is the beginning of our independent healing process.     

In this season of giving, receiving, and gratitude, consider the profound value of a simple and sincere I’m sorry. When you’re lucky enough to receive a genuine apology, take it in, feel the majesty of what this other person is offering, receive their willingness to be vulnerable and accountable, to take care of you instead of their own ego. That’s big stuff. So, too, when you recognize an opportunity to say I’m sorry and mean it, relish the chance to give that experience to another, to step up and perhaps out of your comfort zone, to let go of your me story and be generous. And when you can, honor the profundity of the gift you’re giving. I’m sorry and thank you are really two sides of the same coin.  

Can a Relationship Recover From Resentment?

As a relationship therapist, I am often asked: “What's the biggest problem couples face?” The easy answers are money and sex, but neither would be exactly true or at least not what has walked into my office or my life. The most common problem I see in intimate partnerships is what I call, the battle for empathy. 

Paula tells Jon that she’s upset and hurt by something he said, a way he responded to her opinion on a family matter. She asks if, in the future, he could say that same thing with an attitude of kindness and/or curiosity and not be so critical, simply because her opinion differed from his. Jon reacts to Paula’s feelings and the request by aggressively inquiring why he should offer her kindness and curiosity when last month she had shut down his experience over a different family matter and treated him unkindly. Paula then attacks back, explaining why she deserved to behave the way she did in the interaction last month, and why her response last month was a reaction to what he did two months ago, which she believes was unkind and aggressive. Jon then barks that he was entitled to his behavior two months ago because of the unkind and critical thing she did three months ago…and back and back in time it goes, to a seemingly un-findable place before the hurting began.

Couples do this all the time. They fight for who’s deserving of empathy, whose experience should get to matter, whose hurt should be taken care of, and whose experience should be validated. Often, partners refuse to offer empathy to each other because they feel that, to do so, would mean admitting that they are to blame and thus giving up the chance to receive empathy and validation for their own experience. Boiled down, if I care about how my words hurt you then I’m admitting that I'm to blame for causing you that pain. And perhaps even more importantly, the truth of why I said those words or more accurately, why I was entitled to say those words, will never be validated or receive its own empathy. Empathy for you effectively cancels out empathy for me...

Read full article: http://nancycolier.com/blog/

How to Love Yourself When Those Around You Can't

I had been working with Mary (not her real name) as a client for several years. It was the loneliness in her marriage that initially brought her to see me. She was struggling in the relationship, but didn't want to leave. She described how sharing anything with her husband about her real experience took enormous effort and involved intense strategizing and emotional stress. She worried about how to present her truth so that it would be understood and received by her partner — not rejected, attacked, or minimized. As a result, she was starting to keep important experiences out of their relationship, only presenting what was factual or impersonal, which was then creating more isolation and intensifying her loneliness.

In my first session with Mary and her husband, it became clear to me why she felt so isolated and disconnected from him. I saw within a few minutes how her husband’s way of responding to her was entirely out of sync with what she needed to feel understood, supported, and loved. Regardless of what Mary shared, he began his response with the word "but," telling her why she was mistaken and what she was doing wrong that made her feel the way she did. He then frequently followed up his criticisms with what he knew to be true about her experience, based on his greater wisdom. I watched as he trampled on her truth again and again, and demonstrated his unwillingness to allow her to have the experience she was having, to just hear how it was for her without any "but." What I witnessed is not uncommon, however, and most of us have experienced Mary’s loneliness, frustration, and stress in trying to get what we need in similar kinds of relationships.

There are people who listen with and from the word “but,” with “but” always in between their ears and your heart. No matter what you present, they seem intent on proving you wrong or pointing out the holes in what you're sharing. Perpetually in search of the fly in the ointment, they invalidate your experience and simultaneously demonstrate that they know more or better.

Like Mary’s husband, this kind of person relates from their head and their intellect, but not their heart. Their responses protect them from taking in or feeling your experience — feeling you — or, as it can sometimes seem, allowing you to even exist. Knowing more, being the expert, keeps them from having to try to understand or empathize with what you’re expressing. Their "but'" keeps them from having to venture outside their comfort zone, to be vulnerable, or to really listen or learn. They are quick to shut down your experience with dismissive phrases like “that’s just such and such” or “I get it already,” which are further attempts to stuff your experience into a box that they can control and dismiss.

When someone relates to you in this style, you may feel that you are not being listened to — not being loved. It feels as if the other person is not on your side, not curious about or interested to know you, not offering your experience the care and nourishment that it (and you) need to grow. The other’s mission is not to understand you or help you know yourself more deeply, but rather to win the case against you and keep you under control.

There is no place for Mary’s experience with her husband, and so, understandably, relating feels like a fight, with her on the defensive, trying to force a space in which her experience will be allowed to land.

Expressing yourself in this kind of environment takes enormous effort, fending off the other’s intellect and resistance, and fighting to be heard and acknowledged, to not have your experience butchered, reduced, boxed, or denied. At the end of a conversation, you feel exhausted, or as one woman expressed it, "nailed into a coffin." Communication is an experience of loneliness and frustration — sadness and anger. Connection cannot happen, because your experience is fundamentally not allowed into the dialogue.

The tendency, when in relationships with such people, is to shut down and stop sharing, and sometimes to stop feeling altogether, to go numb. And sometimes to fight back and try harder, constructing new strategies to get your experience heard properly. But none of these options offers much lasting relief. So how can you be with the “but” heads in your life, some of whom are family or others you can’t avoid, in a way that keeps you feeling alive and well? How can you be in their company in a way that leaves you feeling good about yourself? 

The best way to stay well and on your own side in a such a relationship is by employing the skill of fierce awareness. While it is painful to have your experience constricted and rejected, you can stay grounded and feel good about yourself by staying vigilant as a witness, watching your own experience as the relational event unfolds. You can relate with such a person carefully, mindfully, with great self-compassion. First, by simply noticing what’s happening inside you as you even approach a topic that matters to you. And then, paying fierce attention physically, mentally, and emotionally to what is arising as the other responds. You may notice a feeling of desperation or franticness rising up, a tightness in the belly or throat, a feeling of rage, dizziness, tears, numbness, or who knows what else. But regardless of what appears, you keep noticing that which is happening inside you, staying vigilant in your awareness — and most importantly, staying kind and compassionate with your own experience. 

You may also become aware of a blaming or shaming, a criticism you inflict on yourself, that you should be able to express yourself in a way that’s understandable, should be able to get the other to reflect you properly, to want to know you, that you are somehow failing because you can’t get your truth across in a way that feels satisfying. Whatever arises, you keep listening and loving inside, telling your self-judging super ego to step outside, as it is not helpful and not accurate. Awareness and self-compassion are your protection from getting swallowed up and identified with your instinctive reactions. Awareness can also guide you as to when it's time to exit the conversation and/or shift it somewhere else, which is another way that you can be self-loving and take care of yourself within such a relationship. 

You cannot control another’s responses or the experiences that arise within you, but you can stay awake to what's happening within you, you can offer unwavering kindness towards yourself, and you can determine for how long you will continue watching and working with an experience that doesn’t work for you. Indeed you can love yourself in any kind of company.

Epilogue:

The response I received from the above blog was enormous. In reading the responses however, it became clear to me that I left out an important step in the process of loving yourself. I had mistakenly assumed that, like my client Mary, by the time you were reading my article, you had tried everything else to get yourself heard properly, and thus were ready for the practice of fierce awareness, on its own. While vigilantly and lovingly staying with your own internal experience is always useful when in the company of others who are not supportive, there is also a relational strategy that may be useful and empowering in such situations.

The strategy is this: ask for what you need, specifically and clearly. When your partner dismisses your truth, argues against your experience, or consistently responds to you with the word "but," ask him if he would be willing to simply listen to what you are saying without responding at all, to say nothing and just absorb what you are expressing. Or, ask him if he would be willing to repeat back to you what you had shared. Or, ask him if he would be willing to respond by rephrasing what you had said in his own words. Ask yourself what you would really need from your partner's response and ask him, gently, if he would be willing to provide just that. You might also let him know, if it feels right, what the kind of response you are requesting would offer you, what it would provide in your own process. The key here is to ask your partner with kindness, a kindness that is for both you and him, with the words "Would you be willing..." leading the way.

This strategy can always be used, no matter where you are in the relationship. It can be used again and again, regardless of whether it has been successful in the past or not. It makes a perfect handshake with fierce self-awareness and in fact, the knowing and asking for what you need arises precisely out of fierce awareness.

Asking for what you need may in fact get you what you need from your partner, and make you feel more understood and loved. And, staying with your own experience with awareness and self-compassion, before, during and after you ask, will undoubtedly get you what you need from yourself.

4 Steps to Stop Blaming

This is the third blog in a series on blame. I wrote the first two blogs to help those who feel consistently blamed, while this installment is for those who do the blaming. It was not my original intention to write a piece for blamers, but I was inundated with (and inspired by) emails from readers who self-identified as blamers and asked for help in stopping their behavior.

Let me say first that in some situations blaming is helpful and healthy—it's not always a dysfunctional reaction. Assigning blame where it is appropriate can empower and protect you, and stop harm in its tracks. But the kind of blaming that I am addressing here is the unhealthy and chronic kind. It is the habitual and reactive sort that blocks your personal growth, damages your relationships, and gets in the way of your own well-being.

Try the following test:

1. Would it be normal for you to respond to someone with a problem by telling him why he is to blame for his problem?
    
2. In relationships with friends and family, do you often find yourself pointing the finger? Do you tell others how and why they are wrong, using phrases such as You did it, or, It’s your fault?
    
3. When you confront difficulties or inconveniences, is it common for you to identify and ruminate over who or what is to blame?
    
4. When you are upset or in a difficult situation, do you frequently blame someone for making you feel the way you do? 

If you answered yes to any one of these questions, you are a blamer. If you answered yes to multiple questions, then your blaming behavior may very well be compromising your relationships, your well-being, and your personal evolution. That said, keep reading: Blaming is a habit and awareness is the first step toward breaking it.   

First, I want to congratulate you on your willingness to look honestly at your behavior, and to address what may not be working in your life. It’s hard to investigate the parts of yourself that need improvement; such awareness takes courage. In addition, I congratulate you on the aspiration to grow and improve, which comes from your highest self. The intention to evolve is already evolved—just by continuing to read, you are doing something remarkable. 

Your blaming, when it began, was probably an innocent defense mechanism meant to protect you from harm. If your sister was to blame for eating the cookies, then she would be punished—not you. But sometimes, blaming takes a turn toward the dysfunctional, when blaming becomes your default reaction to life, causing harm to you and others. 

Blaming, when dysfunctional, is a way to avoid and deny feeling what you are feeling. While it may not be conscious, blaming is something you do to get away from the feelings you do not want to feel. But I feel lots of things when I blame, you might argue. And it is true that you do feel when blaming, but you feel something other than what you would if you could not blame. In this way, blaming conceals and distorts your real truth—you replace your feelings about what you are experiencing with feelings about who caused it. 

At its core, blaming is a form of self-abandonment and self-betrayal.

Case #1: "Jon"

Jon (not his real name) is driving his teenage daughter to a gymnastics meet. Traffic is dreadful and they are going to be late for this important event in her life. Jon goes to his default response—blame—accusing his daughter of dilly-dallying before getting in the car and related crimes. He spends the entire trip angry; berating her, explaining why it’s her fault that she is not going to make her meet on time. Later, as I unpacked the event with Jon, it became evident that underneath the blame, he was in fact experiencing many emotions. He felt sad and guilty about not being able to get her to the meet on time. He felt powerless that, as her dad, he couldn’t take care of her, which is what he really wanted to do. He felt anxious because he thought there might be a better route to take, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. He felt heartbroken because he knew what the meet meant to her, and how hard she had worked for it.

Under all of the blame was actually love and pride for his daughter. As Jon and I re-scripted the event, reliving it in a new way, we replaced Jon’s blaming script with acknowledgment and expression. He revealed all the juicy feelings that he had not allowed toward his daughter or even in his awareness. Together, we invited in Jon’s actual truth. We re-framed the traffic jam as an opportunity not to determine blame or rightness, but rather to connect, create intimacy, and meet the truth of the moment. With the need to assign blame set aside, there was an opportunity for Jon to touch his actual experience. He could feel the depth of his vulnerability and love, which, thankfully, he was later able to share with his daughter.

Blaming is a way to uphold your self-image and protect your self-esteem. Your partner is the cause of your relationship problems, your boss is why you are not successful, the government is to blame for your lot in life. Someone or something else is to blame. This allows you to avoid having to look at your own participation—and, potentially, aspects of yourself that conflict with your self-image. Blaming keeps you safe from having to look at the gap between who you believe yourself to be and who you are. But in so doing, blaming also prevents you from being able to grow and change. Pointing the finger is a way to avoid responsibility, which ultimately keeps you stuck at the place from which you point.

Blaming is also a strategy (albeit usually unconscious) to keep from having to make changes or address your actual reality. As long as the problem is someone else’s fault, you can stay busy and focused on trying to correct the blame—that is, fix that person or situation that is at fault. You pour your attention into what you have determined to be the source of that fault. As a result, you turn your back not only on your actual experience of the situation, but what you might need to do—given that the situation is the way it is. 

Case #2: "Maggie"

Maggie (not her name) had been in a relationship with Phil for a dozen years. For 10 of those years, she had been talking about how and why he was to blame for what was not working in their marriage. She focused her attention perpetually outward, on changing him: He was to blame, so she needed to fix him. And when she fixed him, she would be happy in the marriage. She believed that blaming and fixing would set her free. In fact, it was paralyzing her and keeping her stuck, with her life balanced on a potential future that didn’t exist. 

After much suffering, Maggie became aware of how the blaming was prohibiting her not only from directly experiencing her unhappiness but also from honestly addressing what needed to happen because of it. If this was the state of the marriage, what then? Thankfully, she was finally willing to stop the cycle of blame, turn her attention away from Phil and his faults, and focus it back on her own heart. She was then able to see and take the next right step.

Recovery: how to break the blaming habit?

Step 1: Set an intention (make a decision) to stop your blaming behavior. Identify what it is you want and hope to experience as a result of moving out of blaming (better relationships, more peace, freedom from anger, less time ruminating, etc.). Write down (or tell a friend) about this decision. If possible, begin a journal dedicated to your evolution from blaming. 

Step 2: Start paying attention! Make a conscious effort to become more mindful of your blaming behavior. When you are able to catch the impulse to blame (before it happens), create a pause, be silent, and take two deep breaths. Then, make a different choice.

Remember, however, that breaking the blaming habit is a process that takes time. You will not be able to catch yourself before you blame on every occasion; it may be quite a while before you can catch yourself at all. That’s okay. It is a huge step just to notice your habitual reaction to blame, even if it is after the fact. But the more you practice, the more you will be able to interrupt the process before it happens and ideally respond in a new way from a different place.

Step 3: At whatever stage you notice your blaming impulse (before or after), ask yourself the following questions (and journal on what you uncover):

1. If I couldn’t blame in this situation, what would I have to feel?
2. What about that feeling is hard to feel?

Step 4: Honor yourself for making the commitment and doing the work that emotionally and spiritually evolving requires. A Final Note

Be gentle with yourself: This is not an opportunity to blame yourself for not getting yet another thing right. Practice these steps and when you forget to practice them, remember and start again. If you commit to making this effort, you will grow in ways you can’t yet know, and so will your relationships and your life.

Read more on the topic:

• What to DO About the People that Blame You for Everything
• When You're in Relationship with a Blamer
• The #1 Most Important Relationship Skill and How to Learn It
• How to Heal Defensiveness in Close Relationships
• "And" Not "But": The Secret to Healthy Relationships