Are you tired of having those long-winded, intense fights late at night that get you nowhere? Or are you ready for your partner to stop walking out on you in mid-fight? We get it. Those moments are brutal and need to be prevented. If you think of a baby mobile, if you pull on one end, the entire thing moves. This is the same for conflict. If you react differently in conversations, the more likely it is for your partner to respond differently.  

The New Year is a time to start fresh and contemplate your intentions for the year ahead. Why not do the same for your relationship? Consider us your relationship experts using emotionally focused therapy strategies to help you and your partner set up a harmonious year ahead! Emotion-focused therapy (EFT) is important to turn to when needing relationship advice because 90 percent of the couples who try it have success with it (Seiter, 2021). As couples therapists, we like those odds! 

It’s common to want to resolve conflict when it happens, but why not try and prevent it from coming up in the first place? Here are our top three tips that can lead to less conflict and more balance in your relationship in 2024.  

1. Know your negative cycle, and catch it before it takes over!  

In EFT, we call your cycle your back-and-forth set of behavioral and emotional reactions you have with your partner. You know that feeling you get when your partner makes one move at the beginning of a disagreement, and you go, “Here we go again…” That’s the signal of the start of your negative cycle! Maybe you make a comment, your partner makes a defensive comment back, and then you feel hurt and lash out more, so they feel hurt and try to walk away. Ugh. It’s painful! Most of the couples that we work with can predict the exact behaviors of what each of them will do in an argument, move by move. Knowing your cycle is one of the most important steps of stage one of EFT couples therapy.  

Try writing down your cycle in the format of, “The more you ___, the more I ___.” Watch what happens! Try coming up with a name for your cycle: “the tornado,” “the spiral,” etc. Be creative! Now, the next time you begin to notice that first move of your negative cycle and can feel it starting up again, practice stopping your cycle. You can say to your partner, “The tornado is here!” and both you and your partner agree to not let it tear your connection apart. Press pause and have the conversation in a new way.  

2. Keep your side of the street clean: Starting and maintaining calm waters. 

As mentioned above, the negative cycle is what starts and ends conflict. The initial, first interaction is what can either ignite or prevent a fight. Consider two cars moving along a road, each with its designated lane. Just as cars avoid straying into each other’s lanes for a smooth journey, couples are the same. Couples need to maintain their side of the street, uphold their responsibilities, and ensure they contribute to the relationship healthily and positively.  

Now that you know the negative pattern of your cycle from step one above, try and pause before you even reach out to your partner. How you handle the moment of initiation is the most influential part of preventing fights. Your major goal is to make conversations safe. Start the conversation with calmness, respect, and ownership. Breathe deeply, and don’t get caught in the reactions you typically would in your cycle. Fight the urge to react in the blame/defend/explain/question stance, and instead do something different.  

There are many ways to incorporate trying something different to keep and maintain calm waters before your cycle even begins. For example, be sensitive to when you start a conversation: “Is okay for us to talk, or would another time work better?” Or you can let your partner know when you need something different: “How you feel is important to me, but yelling isn’t working for me. Let me know when you are calm so we can continue.” Or do a check-in with your partner, “Does this feel okay? Is this overwhelming? I want to go as slow as we need to go and pause if it is getting to be too much.”   

3. Make sure you A.R.E. there for your partner!   

When conversations happen, you and your partner are taking a courageous leap of vulnerability, and it is critical to show up for one another in a noncombative way. 

Sue Johnson is the creator of EFT, and she has identified a key ingredient to long-lasting love and connection in relationships: Accessibility, Responsiveness, and Engagement (A.R.E.). She has couples ask each other this pivotal question: A.R.E. you there for me? 

There are two sides to a coin, and both relationship experiences matter. Being A.R.E. with your partner shows them you are accessible when they need you, and you’ve always got their back. Press the pause button to allow space for your partner to talk, track what they are saying, and show that what they say matters. Respond when they share, through the good and the bad. Be engaged with them—responding, connecting, and expressing when they are communicating verbally and nonverbally with you (sending a message of what you experienced matters to me).  

If you’re exhausted from the constant conflicts, implementing proactive strategies to create a sense of security is key. As we step into 2024, focus on your reactions, and find new ways to show up with one another that prevent your partner from having to be reactive to you (think of that baby mobile from earlier)! Here’s to a year of growth, connection, and a renewed commitment to building lasting and resilient relationships.  

Seiter, T. 2021. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mindful-relationships/202101/the-most-effective-couples-therapy-by-far 

Jacqueline Wielick, LMFT, is a licensed marriage and family therapist and owner of her own private practice, Therapy by Jackie. She has a master of science in marriage and family therapy, and degrees in both psychology and sociology. With a focus on couples, relationships, attachment, trauma, and emotions, Jackie’s passion is helping people find deep joy in themselves and in their relationships using her advanced training in research-based theories such as EFT and Gottman Method Couples Therapy. Jackie previously worked at The Gottman Institute for five years, one of the world’s leading research institutes for couples and relationships, where she was exposed to their revolutionary research on love and relationships. Learn more at www.jackiewielick.com.

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In a recent conversation with a colleague, we discussed the way in which a broken relationship had caused them overwhelming distress, and that they carried a deep burden of mistrust toward themselves and their ability to trust their judgment about relationships. 

This colleague, however, was engaged in health care and giving support to others, and their inner burden was not apparent to those they helped with a high degree of effectiveness. The clash of this outer responsibility and inner turmoil was almost overwhelming them. And a highly critical inner voice kept taunting them. Physician, heal thyself! 

These words are an ancient challenge meant as an insult to one who was purported to have healing powers. It is an insult that many in the healing professions secretly express to themselves, given the pressures they face in their professional and personal lives. And given the high stakes and risks that are inherent in the provision of health care, this insulting self-talk was a deep distraction—undermining their sense of confidence in the ability to make good health care decisions. 

Yet this is, as many insults are, based on a truth. At its core is the truth, that whatever medicine, surgery, or other marvel is used to start the process of healing—any of those things at best are helpers to the natural processes of healing that already exist within us. Our sense of pain is a natural prompt for the body to heal. So yes, we do heal ourselves. We are all our own physicians, both in body and mind. 

When we experience pain, it is an indicator of what we need to attend to, so we can heal. As for our body, so for our mind. Our emotional pain is a pointer toward our need for healing. And in this healing, we can discover a pathway to our purpose.    

For my colleague, their mistrust of themselves was causing them deep pain, and their awareness of this opened them to a pathway to healing. 

They were able to uncover a story about themselves—a story that they were a person who was weak and unable to make good decisions about relationships. 

When asked whether they would make the same judgment of a good friend if they had a breakup, my colleague saw themselves and their experience from a different perspective. 

When asked what had changed when a different perspective was held, it showed their values about healing also applied to themselves as it would be for a good friend. This value of healing revealed a pathway toward taking steps to recover from heartbreak and distress and to rebuild trust in themselves. 

They allowed themselves to explore ways to follow this pathway with openness, interest, and curiosity. One way they enjoyed was to journal their internal dialogue and consider what was said from various perspectives. Each perspective gave a different point of view and sometimes meaning to a thought, emotion, or event. Another was to give the harsh internal criticisms a funny voice. This gave a comic dimension to what the internal critic had to say, and they wondered how they could have previously taken such criticism so seriously. Another was to consider whether they would consider this internal criticism good advice if they were ten years older. Each way had its own healing purpose and allowed them to get more agile with their emotional playbook. 

Having done this work, my colleague realized it was time to forgive themself not only for the breakdown in that important relationship, but more importantly, to forgive themselves for how they had treated themselves since that time. They realized self-forgiveness was much harder than forgiving others as in the case of our internal critic we live with 24-7—often with three o’clock in the morning being the worst time. However, having made a lot of effort to engage in their internal healing, they knew it was time to forgive themselves. 

After a time, they realized how much had been given up over the period of grief and self-punishment, and made a decision to start reengaging with life and the chance to explore new relationships. Having learned so much about themselves and having used a variety of techniques that allowed for a respectful internal dialogue, they commenced to engage in the trial and error of seeking new experiences with care and insight. 

They found a new, enriching relationship—and in the new relationship, many reminders came up of previous challenges and let downs, hurts and recovery. Each reminder was a chance to apply the skills of self-forgiveness with compassionate introspection. 

They learned that in both their personal and professional life, the skills of self-forgiveness were an essential guide on the pathway to healing in response to pain. 

This journey has ultimately been one of growth and increased satisfaction in their life and their capacity to create new opportunities to live the life they want to live—and to help others to live their best lives. 

Grant Dewar, PhD, is a Life Educator, work health and safety adviser, and trainer from Adelaide, South Australia. After losing his father to suicide, Dewar embarked on a life journey to seek better responses and solutions to the devastating effects of self-harm on individuals and the community. Work in the community, public service, and later in life as a health professional has helped him to develop, research, and apply his work on self-forgiveness.

The post A Reflection on a Friend’s Journey appeared first on New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

Your past experiences shape your brain’s many memory networks and teach you how to respond (whether positively or negatively) in future situations. Your belief system, self-esteem, and self-worth are also directly formed from these past experiences (Shapiro 2018).

Yet the idea of change and exposing your pain can feel damning or hopeless. The fear of reliving these past memories and emotions can keep you constricted in your day-to-day life. Maybe you don’t even know how or what to do to confront them. This is where EMDR comes in. It enables you to put to rest the painful emotional intensity of your negative past experiences. EMDR allows your brain to process your memories associated with past traumatic events by decreasing your brain’s response to unnecessary triggers. It enables distressing memories and sensations to get unstuck in the brain so that they no longer rule your life or thoughts (Shapiro 2018). Think of it as a technique that jump-starts your brain’s natural healing process.

Using EMDR skills to confront your trauma, you will gain clarity on your past experiences, learn about the nature of your perceptions and fears, and gain insight into the subconscious survival techniques that you have been clinging to in order to preserve yourself emotionally and physically.

EMDR was founded and researched using eye movements that mimicked our REM (rapid eye movements) during sleep. Many studies have shown that during the REM sleep cycle, your eyes move from right to left under your eyelids very rapidly. Research involving brain scans, sleep studies, and other methods has shown that during the REM cycle of sleep, your brain filters the experiences it had during the day. It stores what is useful (positive memories like an engagement or birthday) and discards what is meaningless (the outfit we wore to work or the drive home in the car). The REM cycle also allows the brain’s natural healing process to engage and help the brain repair itself.

Traumatic memories tend to get stuck in our brain and are stored in their own trauma memory network. Researchers found that if they used the same natural healing process that occurs during REM, while focusing on a traumatic memory, the brain will be able to access, process, and resolve these memories. Research has shown that EMDR helps your brain resolve upsetting memories, lowers your stress level, increases insight, improves self-worth and self-esteem, restores confidence, and allows the brain to function more wholly. This process allows for a decrease in PTSD symptoms (Shapiro 2018).

Although EMDR was first developed using eye movements, ongoing research and continued clinical findings have shown that a variety of bilateral stimulation methods (stimulating the right, then left side of the body, which is similar to what happens during REM) are just as effective as eye movements.

The techniques drawn from EMDR can help you address past experiences, understand and manage current triggers, and assist you with facing future anticipated challenges. By working with the past, present, and future (called a three-prong approach in EMDR), you will open new pathways in your brain that have been closed off or constricted. Your brain will be able to properly store what is useful in a way that is healing, helpful, and positive.

Megan Boardman, LCSW, ACADC, CCTP-II, EMDR-C, is a licensed clinical social worker who specializes in treating trauma and addiction. She owns and operates her own clinical practice, and provides supervision and consultation nationally and internationally to clinicians and businesses seeking ongoing trauma training. She provides clinical training in eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), trauma, and addiction to mental and behavioral health professionals throughout the world, and is a proud training member of the PESI and Evergreen Certification family. She is a certified EMDR and CCTP II clinician, as well as an EMDR and CCTP II trainer and consultant through PESI and Evergreen Certifications. Megan also serves as an expert witness at the State and Federal level for her expertise in areas surrounding trauma.

The post How EMDR Works with PTSD and Trauma appeared first on New Harbinger Publications, Inc.