Do you have a friend or two in the personal or professional development industry who you'd call a bit of an emotional warrior when it come to owning and processing their stuff? Maybe you are already wearing the badge of honour of being one? Have you ever also seen anyone going a bit overboard on the emotional processing bit, for whatever reason/s, or seemingly getting lost in the emotional depths? Or maybe (and hey, I'll own it, maybe like me) you've been that person too, who's had to remind yourself to slow down cowgirl/boy and give your body, not to mention loved ones and the external world at large time to catch up to and reconfigure in line with the awesome speed with which one can process insights of all kinds and hence, transform? This week, i've been thinking a lot about how to process our stuff in healthy, manageable ways and why that's so important. It starts a bit like this.

One way to think of processing our emotional stuff is that its a bit like diving. Doesn't matter wether it's snorkelling or scuba diving, the reality is that humans, as we are right now, have evolved to breathe oxygen and live on land, or on the water's surface. We can dive into the water, taking a deep breath or a tank of air under with us. But the breathable oxygen within it, relative to the accumulation of carbon dioxide on exhalation if you're holding a breath, is finite. More than that, the deeper you go, the more pressure and the more pressure, the faster you use up your air. But more concerning again, under the weight of that pressure the deeper you go, the spaces in the body filled with air begin to collapse/are crushed, thus we can't stay down there for long periods without serious consequences to our health.

​Why is it the same for humans processing emotional "stuff?" Processing our past and present stuff also is physically stressful upon the body and our available energy levels. And the longer that stress persists, the greater the impact on our health and the risk of the development of further chronic emotional and physical illness. Generally speaking, the more traumatic the experience is perceived to be by the individual who experienced it, the more activation of the HPA axis (Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal Gland) occurs, eg the stress response pathway that involves both the brain and body, as well as the different hormones they each make, and the greater the physical changes in things like respiration, heart rate and metabolism occur in the short term to ready one for fight or flight and divert energy away from non survival essential functions in that moment, like digestion.

In the short term, your body putting "the pedal to the metal" so to speak to generate huge volumes of energy fast (requiring an equal discharge if not immediately utilised) depletes you, after the initial high of activity. When you're experiencing a challenge or threat, that energy is also potentially experienced as emotional discomfort eg fear, anger, overwhelm. The more overwhelming the threat is perceived to be, the more likely one will progress all the way to the freeze response; the state in which your body has both been activated at level 10 ready for action and then goes into a state of disconnection, collapse and worst case, loss of concsiousness at the same time. While the body can operate often in fight flight mode, the human body is not designed to operate continually in this state and needs downtime to return to functions like rest, digestion, cellular regeneration and waste removal, eg to do appropriate maintenance on itself.

When the massive amounts of energy are generated but not immediately utilised, our body has a natural shake response that kicks in, in the hours after a stressful event, that allows us to physically release the energy and tension built up during the event. Where that shake/and or emotional release is not allowed to occur/is repressed, trauma develops in the body and left undealt with ongoingly, can manifest as any number of mild physical ailments, like tiredness, headaches, digestive upsets, colds or flu, numbness, rashes, mild aches or pains, sexual dysfunction. Or emotional concerns, like depression (or as i like to call it, repression) or anxiety (attempted expression). Or for greater trauma, more complex physical illnesses like CFS, Fibromyalgia, MS or worst case, cancer and can manifest as PTSD and automatic freeze (survival) responses.

Because the brain can't tell the difference between a present event and experiencing a past one, processing your past stuff in the present via any number of somatic or expressive therapies or cathartic means can be experienced as no less physically impactful/stressful as a strong threat in the present moment, like someone taking a swing at you. And it's for this reason that processing our stuff needs to be considered a bit like diving. Because it's so potentially impactful, we need to be careful to do it in manageable doses:

• so that we don't burn ourselves out and make ourselves sick
• so that we still have available internal resources to cope with the normal demands and stressors of every day life
• and so that we maintain our ability to participate in everyday working and financial life, family, relationship, social or recreational life

What a manageable dose is, is considered different for everyone. For some people, 10mins might feel like a lot. I personally, after decades of working at this, find that i can easily handle up to a 2hr session at a time and that's my limit and know several Psychosomatic therapists who, certainly when it comes to processing childhood trauma, agree. By the end of that, i'm starting to feel physically shaky and emotionally irritable and that's my final cue that i've had enough and need to rest and integrate. (But since i've perfected my highly intuitive process to be a lot faster than that now, and or bypass a lot of unnecessary extra irrelevant detail, I can complete any process feeling relieved, peaceful, complete and balancing back out into the positive emotional spectrum.)

The other thing about processing that's worth noting, is that, at times, it also becomes trickier underwater, than on the surface, to, say, see or hear, right? Because our eyes and ears aren't as well adapted to water, like, say, a dolphin's are. Plus, if a sudden undercurrent from some nearby rocks, or something like a shark disturbs us (and certainly when we're in the depths of feeling the feels,) it can sure feel like we're getting bounced around in a washing machine and we forget which way is up. Up of course being the exit. But the point is, especially where it's dark or murky, we can start to lose ourselves and perspective down there. So it's important to build something into our processing that reminds us to check our oxygen supply and come back up to the surface. That might be putting on a playlist that you know runs a certain amount of time. That might be setting reminders in your phone about an end time. Or planning to process for the length of a workout. Or it might be asking a friend or hiring a Therapist of some kind who does somatic, expressive or energetic work to help hold the space for you to do the process and guide your process. Just so long as we have a process that, by the end of it, guides us back to the surface. The surface in this instance, being the vision of living a professional and personal life we love and the living embodiment of action taken towards it's ongoing realisation, as well as making time to stop and smell the roses and be present to life's everyday gifts.

Until next time, have fun, take care.

Dr Aimie Apigian, Stuck Survival Responses in Attachment Trauma, May 18th, 2017
http://draimie.com/stuck-survival-responses-in-attachment-trauma/

Dr. Aimie Apigian, The Effects of Trauma on the Different Body Systems, January 11th, 2018
http://draimie.com/effects-of-trauma-on-body-systems/

Dr Aimie Apigian, What Happens to Our Bodies When We Get Overwhelmed, May 30th, 2018
http://draimie.com/what-happens-to-our-bodies/

GCSE Science/Breathing and Respirationhttps://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/GCSE_Science/Breathing_and_Respiration

Lonardi, S, How Long does a Scuba Tank Last?, Elite Diving Agency, December 6th, 2013
​http://www.elitedivingagency.com/articles/long-scuba-tank-last/

National Institute of Mental Health, Coping with Traumatic Events
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/coping-with-traumatic-events/index.shtml

University of Illinois Department of Physics, Q & A: If you're at the bottom of the ocean or in space...7th September 2014
https://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=2266

14- Regret/Remorse

​I remembered recently, one of the single biggest de-escalators of conflict, which again immediately can shift a return to heart when we’re getting caught up in the friction of conflictual “stuff” is to be vulnerable and honest long enough to let it show when you genuinely feel like crap for whatever just happened, or you just did. If we look apathetic or are highly objective in that circumstance, many people perceive that as equating to you not giving two hoots about them or showing adequate remorse for the impact of your 50% of the equation.


Rather than hide how upset we may really be feeling at the realisation of having hurt someone that we care about or have a responsibility to care for, it facilitates healing and reconnection to actually let your concern, tears or your pain (depending on the context of the relationship) in whatever form it sits within, show. We can fear doing this because we fear it gives the other power over us and we lose positioning on anywhere where we too may have a part of the story we think the other should be accountable for. But this can be the difference between someone taking an exit because they think you’re apathetic to or haven’t acknowledged their pain and suffering, to reconnecting in the depth of love and care you really have for each other, relative to the vision you as a team share. And like I said above, it has to be backed up with re-commitment to the team principles, vision and plan. 


Now, in business, or even in a family crises, there will be time where we just don’t have the luxury due to the urgency of a situation to go there for lengthy periods of time in a particular moment, we just need to get it done and THEN take stock later. But at some point, it definitely helps the healing process to admit and let one’s regret show. 




15-Universal Compassion and Trusting in the Greater Purpose and Timing in all things

To take the understanding of the greater purpose we serve in each others lives and the “seeing through our heart eyes” bit a step further, In her book Scared Contracts, world renowned Medical Intuitive Carolyn Myss talks also about the concept that each of us comes to Earth with a predetermined growth roadmap/journey of life and experience in mind and that we have set up a series of agreements with many many other souls, who have agreed to be a part of those same scenarios for their learning and growth too (the understanding that we are all souls here to learn in experience, what are we trying to learn.) It is proposed that we do this for each other out of love, potentially even across lifetimes, a bit like in the movie Cloud Atlas. While this one may not be for everyone, time and time again though, I’ve found for myself and many people I’ve worked with, there is a certain comfort and a heart re-aligning perspective to be gained in the painful moments of relationships of all kinds, remembering that, beyond however angry (which is really hurt) we might be at someone in any given moment for whatever reason, on a soul level, you have a love so strong it transcends and endures through lifetimes and all manner of good and wrongdoings. Remembering that can catalyse a massive shift in a conflict in the click of your fingers. A perspective check of sorts, that is like the stickers on your rear vision mirrors that remind you that objects may be larger than they appear. The pain that we feel right now may not be the only possibility that exists, the “real” ultimate picture of the truth may appear differently than we think.




16-Cultivating our understanding of the ways in which men and women operate differently, cope and respond differently. And how can we better support each other within that.

This one admittedly is one that is very close to my heart and is one that fascinated me for decades. So much so that my best friend in high school literally, at one point, staged an intervention and confiscated “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus” from my possession, until I rejoined the land of the living. But I digress, it’s easy to understand first hand as the representative of one particular gender what it’s like to BE that gender isn’t it, but quite another to try and get in the head of the mysterious others. It’s one of the greatest ways we can express care for each other is to try and develop and intellectual, as well as the previously mentioned actual present time experience of how it actually IS to be them. Care then, for the women you work with, can be NOT loading them up with 26 extra tasks that require highly logical  and rational thought two days before they’re about to bleed, when the natural order of that moment, is readying to end a months worth of business, death and letting go and her hormones aren’t wired for zen. Or that you load her up with touchy feeling tasks when she’s bleeding and shitloads of social activity and can expect the most productivity when she’s ovulating and needs something to channel all that creative energy into. For women, like the charming video with the nail in the head, it’s understanding that woman language means acknowledging how crap the experience is to have a nail stuck in her head, rather than jumping straight to finding ways to get it out.
 
Likewise, for men, that means knowing little male nuisances like, that request for sex for the 16th time in the last 3 days and the 3rd in the last hour, on top of your mad pile of kid tasks and housework and client admin that needs to be finished, wasn’t actually just about an orgasm at all. It was one of the few ways society has deemed it acceptable for him to receive the deep intimacy, that desire just to be held that he’s deeply craving, but Western Culture told him he was “weak” to actually ask for. So he’s asking for sex, but really he just wants to hold you and feel your gentle presence and love until everything feels ok again. Or understanding that he may have grown up WITH that orgasm, and the associated hit of dopamine, being one of his primary coping mechanisms to handle stress and emotional overwhelm. And now if you hadn’t had sex in two weeks, and he’s trying to hold out, but he’s experiencing the male coping overwhelmed equivalent of PMT, maybe there’s a reason he’s losing his shit a little. Maybe its not the lack of sex that’s really the issue, so much as the perceived "withholding" of his coping strategy that has now been given over to his partner, by way of relationship/marriage, the perception of the partner having the power over? So what does he need in that moment to help him cope if it can’t yet be sex?

Or that men don’t often stop to cry in the middle of the workday because, from an evolutionary hunter standpoint, stopping to acknowledge one’s emotional fragility before a Lion’s about to eat you for dinner, may not have been wisest use of available time and survival strategy when your family were depending on you to put dinner on THEIR table. Hence his brain is literally wired to divert focus FROM the experience of feeling and sensation at those times. And when they do get upset, it takes them literally twice as long to slow their heart rates and breathing and calm back down again. For women though, we can burst into tears and reset to smiles in under a minute, so you don’t try and stop her crying, you let her cry and trust that, aside from a pothole or two, she’ll be fine shortly and it’ll be smooth freeway cruising again on the other side. 


If we know more of these kinds of little things about each other, we don’t find each other so incredibly frustrating all the time, do we? Suddenly we start to have compassion in new ways for the opposite sex, and their fragility and maybe a laugh or two about how simultaneously fascinating and and yet a little cray cray we are at the same time :-) Bless.



17- Limitation of Values 

So in part 1, we talked about the importance of visual and relational roles and values. But values also can have a flip side when it comes to relational longevity. Do you end a relationship every time one is transgressed? If we do, then relationships would and do have a very limited shelf life. And if our emotional threshold, or the emotional bank balance as Stephen Covey put it, is cumulative of more of the transgressions, but the bank statement is not showing the deposits, we might just be in trouble.

We have to thus have a good understanding of what our non-negotiable values are to set from the start of any given relationship and be true to those from day one. But to survive in a working or a personal relationship long term, one also has to capable of forgiveness, the natural cycle of letting go, death-rebirth and recovery when a value IS at some point transgressed, because it is ultimately, wether we meant it or not, inevitable as humans that we’ll drop the ball at some point. In which case, our values become like a GPS route to our recovery in those moments, and the transgressors conviction and commitment to the journey may be the determining factor of us staying on course. 

But values can equally be the scapegoat someone uses as justification to give you the flick, guilt and abandonment free by using values to making us the bad guy, as opposed to actually just owning that they want something else now and speaking to that, even if it means the working relationship or personal one will come to an end.

And sure there might come a limit if someone says that they are in alignment with your values, but in reality, experience proves time and again that they can never meet you on that whole honesty upfront thing, or that fidelity or that not drinking at hitting you thing, or them following through and them doing the 20 remote hours work you’re paying them to do thing, suppose they never actually gets respected in action, maybe there should be a statute of limitation in the relational contract, if the person shows no willingness to honor your values with action? Ultimately, its up to each to decide for themselves as per that relationship and team vision.  Such are the ways that values can hinder, as well as aid our growth.



18- Balancing Safety with Adventure

Firstly, the willingness to get out of our comfort zones at work. Believe it or not, that’s a thing.

At work, in teams, this is about getting over the need to only have a time full of like-mindeds, in favour of getting out of one’s comfort zone and recruiting the kind of diversity that will be complimentary to your own weaknesses or the tasks you wish to delegate. It’s also about making your workplace a little fun as well as a place with structure for getting important shit done in a timely fashion. My working life last year was as much an educational laptop lifestyle experience into the amount of work one can get done in the carpark of a lighthouse or at a cafe by a beach, and making some time to go play with whales, as much it was an exercise of creating enough routine and structure that I could get my sales calls in AND get an event organised to the A+ standard I desired to deliver through my business. Balancing safety with adventure has it’s place at work for sure. It makes for more fulfilment and work life balance.


Finding the balance between our safe zone and our adventure zone in romantic relationship

If you saw Esther Perrel’s 2013 TED talk on the subject, you’ll remember the million dollar question that is inherent to all long term romantic partnerships of the modern day. How do we simultaneously fulfil our need for safety, stability, security, reliability in order to build trust and deepen the connection, while simultaneously satisfying our need for adventure, novelty, spontaneity, surprise? Because both are needed for maintaining a relationship over the long term.


If you were to take the whole blog series so far from a romantic perspective so far, you’ve got a great recipe for creating love and safety. It is  the effort over neglect piece that helps grow and maintain the garden that is relationship over the long term. But this blog wouldn’t be this blog unless it also included desire. As I worked with hundreds of clients on their intimacy stuff over the years, I too found that I certainly wasn’t alone in my complete terror of what happens when the desire dies in the ass…and what does that mean, anyway? I gave you part of the answer when I talked about authenticity, right?


But, I’d known for as long as I could think about relationships that ultimately we also need a) ample distance and room to observe our partner from a distance so that we can remember and appreciate why we felt so drawn to them in the first place b) time to ourselves to be able to again imagine, experience the fantasy of what it’s like to be with them so that we have ample room to both miss and hence desire what we don’t currently have again and c) the freedom and room to feel ourselves and explore ourselves as a sovereign, independent being and what floats our boat, as well as to then reconnect as a part of a couple.


If the other can’t cope though with us having that distance to do all of that, the neediness and dare I say it potential mistrust and fear that plays out can just as quickly kill that desire again. Just as can the expectation that our partner needs to be the whole village of people for us and then some, because it’s exhausting. 


People assume sometimes that, because I’m not married at 36 that I must completely suck at romantic relationships, but that’s not what all the feedback has been. Every man I’ve ever been with has named me as one of the best friends and the easiest relationships he’s ever had. And for the most part, all of my longest relationships have been conflict free. I’ve got the love and safety piece down pat. On the first one though, the desire (really the authenticity) died the second his ex put herself back on the table and intellectually, he chose me, the smartest and safest option, while in hindsight, I think our bodies told the greater story of he left his hearts desire on the table when he didn’t choose her and mine told the greater story that HE left safety for me on the table when he wouldn’t quit drinking and trying to stuff the giant hole of having not gone after his heart and having lost temporarily his sporting life purpose. I could create all the safety in the universe but only he could chose to remedy that and when he didn’t, I left. All that and the next guy who had the same need for healing thing going on, taught me this, no 1, I actually rock at relationship, no 2 I needed to let go of any investments I had in needing a guy who needed to be healed and to let him take responsibility for his life purpose and maintaining his own wellbeing no 3) I need to finish healing and creating safe boundaries for family in my world 4) I needed more than ever the possibility of travel in my work and maybe even to have the option of living in a second house, so that I had the freedom to maintain my sovereignty AND come back crazy loaded with desire  AND 5)  no one person CAN be the whole village for a particular person, its exhausting. 
And that, is my final point:



19- Living a life of work tech life balance

A healthy relationship is better supported by viewing it as an ecosystem than a single garden plot. The garden needs some signage and a lockable gate, clearly indicating that you are the custodian of that garden, that you need to be willing and able to protect and defend when people come sniffing around wanting to dig out all your plants and plant their own, in your garden. You both get to decide when the garden is communal and request when the community help you maintain it and when the gate gets locked and it’s private property, no trespassing.
Which means in practice, you need both the connection with your partner and each of you needs independent support people, e.g. friends, maybe occasionally professional support people, family IF they’re totally FOR your relationship, other people who can take care of the kids where and when needed so that you can maintain the relationship safety vs desire piece, plus people you share common interests or hobbies with just for fun. 


Each person also needs a secret garden within that is independent of the other. A place where you cultivate your own experience, grown your own independent purpose and reason for being in the world, where you grow your own desires, where you love and care for yourself and care take the wounded part of you and maintain a sense of who you are, separate to the romantic relationship you’re in and any other relationships you participate in in life. 

That means having an active life purpose you love, working with and for people you love.

That means having a clear sense, a clear boundary around when you leave work at work and step into either of personal, relational or family time and making good use of your ability to handover and delegate to your support team.

It means having some recreational things you do alone, just for you. Yes even in family. Especially in family. And not just alone moments spent hiding in the toilet, the walk in robe or the drive to pick up some more milk.

That means having a detailed self care plan for ourselves and our independent holistic wellbeing.

That means maintaining sovereignty over your own body and maintaining a sensual and physical, at times sexual relationship to self that your partner has no ownership of. In addition to the times and the agreement you have to share yourselves with one another.

That means not getting to caught up in the seriousness of life and the routine all the time, but cultivating ways to share constant laughs and playfulness with your partner in a thousand little ways, especially in life’s challenging moments.

That means getting away from tech and social media addiction and connecting with nature and real people where you can.

That means having friends with whom you grow, feel like more of you and feel expanded, as well as ones with whom you can have a whole bunch off fun. And having good clear emotional boundaries with them at the same time where needed.

And maintaining balance in all so that no one particular dominates over the others and thus you maintain some degree of work- tech- life balance


I could go on, but as I thought about some of the things that have worked for me in romantic relationships of the past (the one thing all of my past partner do agree upon is that we were amazing best friends, they were one of the easiest relationships they’d ever had and the most conflict free. But for each of us, there were things I outlined in this blog that, had we both known to do at the time, maybe we would have growth through and maintained the whole thing. But it is by the virtue of those moments of having not put all of myself on the table, trauma and all, through experiencing those moments where neither of us had enough support, through having learned that the care-taking role I had grown up having as normal in a childhood where a woman, my mother was dying and then learning how to UNlearn it in the trust that men can find their OWN life purpose and care for themselves, through later having connections that allowed me to go all in with the exploration of the exclusive and non exclusive desire piece and thus confront ALL my stuff about self worth, jealousy and possession) and then through all my work with clients over the years, both business and leadership related, community service related and relationship related, I’ve come to have an exceptionally detailed understanding of what, does and doesn’t work when it comes to maintaining relationship over the long term.


But then, so does each of us who’s ever lived a human relationship of any kind. Every single relationship has been a source of immense growth and learning for us all, right? Because that’s the beautiful thing that commitment to any given relationship affords us, through the depths of the resulting intimacy and safety, is the possibility to grow in a way that doesn’t quite happen in the same way on your own. There is a power we have, personally and professionally, when we work together that affords us the opportunity to get way more done, as well as understand on so many levels what it truly means to live a life you truly love. 

What wisdom would you add to the long term relationship longevity picture?

​Until next time, have fun, take care.

​Covey, S.R., Principle Centred Leadership, 8th Edition, Simon & Schuster, London, 1992
https://www.amazon.com/Principle-Centered-Leadership-Stephen-R-Covey/dp/0671792806/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525068672&sr=8-1&keywords=principle+centered+leadership

Drexler, P. Why Cant Men Love Like Women, Psychology Today, Sep 14 2011
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/our-gender-ourselves/201109/why-cant-men-love-women

Perel, E, The Secret to Desire in Long Term Relationship, TEDSalon NY2013, February 2013
https://www.ted.com/talks/esther_perel_the_secret_to_desire_in_a_long_term_relationship#t-1039862

​7- Self Awareness (Mindfulness in Motion)

Self awareness is the means by which we can dig deep. It’s the means by which, in any given moment, we can scan our whole consciousness, inward sensory system and workings, plus the incoming sensory input to be present with what is really going on in this moment. both for us, and for others. Its the practice we learn to do in meditation, it’s the subject of the practice of mindfulness and our challenge is to make every waking, relating moment an experience of walking mindfulness, of presence to the real people and the real world in front of us, as well as to what’s really going on within us. And its the practice by which we become 100 fold better at both love and honouring ourself and our own needs, thus it helps us get better at self love and self respect. 

Plus it helps us be that much more effective at what roles we play in life, at being better friends, partners, parents, colleagues and bosses, through improving the quality of what “material” we have available to communicate to one another authentically. The greater our self awareness grows, the more capable we become of discerning "us" from any given other person (where we end and they begin), of being able to merge with the energy of the people we love when we chose to and then separate out to be the expression of “us” we’re here to be in the world when we have to, of discerning past from present, head from heart and soul, of recognising wishful potential from present reality and thus creating the quality of connections we REALLY want to be creating in life.



8- Presence

Because the better we become at listening to, to hearing what’s REALLY being said right in front of us. But more than that, the more we learn about non verbal communication and verbal communication skills, the better we become at making sure what our mouths, or bodies and energy are actually saying match up with what message we wish to express and better interpreting what others verbal and non verbal communication is really saying to us (wether they’re consciously aware of it or not.). It’s seeing their body language as well as their words, its feeling their vibe to work out what’s really going on right now. More than that, the more time we take to notice and take in what’s going on with someone else, what’s truly most important to them and the finer details of what makes them tick, what makes them light up like a Christmas tree and what makes them cry and commit it to memory to be mindful of, the more closeness it creates. When we go beyond mentally attempting to empathise with how things must be with someone, by using our whole sensory system and our hearts to become attuned to and present with what's actually going on with them, like Jake and Nateeri in Avataar, we come to know people, connect with them, plus be able to move in sync with and work in harmony with them more-so than ever before.



9-  Acknowledgement

Arguably one of the moment important qualities of all for successful communication and deepening trust and connection in our relationships of all kinds, not to mention resolving conflicts, is acknowledgement. As I was saying in a Facebook Live earlier today, being able to acknowledge and validate what’s really going on for the other person in any given moment, can literally be a make or break point in relationships of all kinds, depending on wether we choose to practice it or we don’t. When we do, people feel heard and understood. When we don't, particularly when a boundary of someone's has been transgressed and a hurt or betrayal incurred, as Belgian psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author of The State of Affairs and Mating in Captivity Esther Perel puts it, to not acknowledge the gravity of the experience for the person who feels hurt can literally be the point on which the majority of people will terminate a relationship, on the belief that the other doesn't care and or doesn't care to take responsibility for the impact of their behaviour on the other, in which case, their ceases to be emotional safety within the relationship. In the case of the healing and empowerment journey from abuse, acknowledgement is a whole step in itself of the healing process, which involves an element of self acknowledgement of what has happened, and an asking for support and acknowledgement of the people involved, as well as potential partners in healing (like members of a women's or men's circle for example) who may be key in witnessing and holding space for the abuse healing journey.

As per the 5 step communication infographic i posted in last week's blog, acknowledgement thus is a key step in successful communication. In the words of Stephen Covey, first seek to understand and THEN to be understood. Particularly when someone else is highly upset, and even when they’re happy, it goes a long way to acknowledge first the point the other is attempting to make. Before trying to make our own, to fix, point out where they might be wrong or suggest solutions , we first need to acknowledge the significance to them of what they just shared. Then we find out if there’s anything further we need to clarify to understand and then ask them how can we meet or support them in getting what they want or need. And it’s so important its like the windscreen and windows of the care we're travelling in on this roadtrip of life, themselves. For us mere mortals who don’t have computer driven cars and still drive ourselves, receiving navigational support from our partners, we need to be able to see what is going on in the relationship landscape of the highway with the other drivers to be able to drive in sync with others and stay on the road, or we’d likely crash. Acknowledgment is just that important.



10- Discernment

Which brings me to the next quality, discernment. Intuitive discernment is knowing when to put your foot on the break and slow down as may be situationally required. Combined with it’s cousin self discipline, which is the actual break system itself.

When we’re driving our car along in a relationship next to someone and the person in the other car, yells something aggressively out the window about our driving or theirs, that leads us to believe it would be best to take this immediate exit to the town, “SAFETY” and hence to a destination away from our original destination “THE NEXT STAGE MANIFESTED OF OUR SHARED VISION”, intuitive and cognitive discernment is the means by which we can ask one fundamental question that will save us and our relationships necessary heartbreak and detours away down the exits of conflict and that question is:

“What’s REALLY going on right now?” Followed by a refocus to “What do you really want or need?” As opposed to playing in the cathartic indulgence that it sometimes is to floor the emotional volume on our own pain when we need to make or defend against a point in a discussion, or perhaps, when we feel hurt and want the other to endure equal pain to the suffering we believe they've caused us. In doing that, we have to be careful, not to be like a screaming toddler in the back seat, screaming what they want at all costs in an attempt to immediately alleviate or have alleviated their discomfort, demanding what they want at all costs, when in actual fact, they’re a grown adult driving on a freeway in traffic. What happens to the moving car and surrounding cars if they slip into the toddler seat in the back while the cars are in motion? Discernment + self discipline is what we practice to stay in the drivers seat to the deepening of connection within the relationship and continual motion towards the realisation of our relationship visions.



11- Respect and Honour

It’s also the means by which we can figure out, relative to our past recollection of what is and isn’t important to this person or people, and what they might have just said, wether what we’re about to say is situationally appropriate and in heart centred integrity with how we want to respect the person or people in front of us. Is what we desire to say or do right now going to help, relative to the relationship or team vision, role descriptions and code of honour we hold for this relationship? Or is it going to fast track us further towards an exit right now? Will it be a little like reading instructions for how to exit to “RE-TRIGGERED GHOSTS OF RELATIONSHIP PAST” or ‘CHILDHOOD TRAUMA” from page 30 of the Street Directory, which lead us to want to plot a course for page 50 E4, “SAFETY IN SOLITUDE” right now, when you’re actually both needing directions and to take action on how to stay on route to page 70 G3, “SAFETY IN CONNECTION?”


And early on, while we might sometimes interpret the desire to do something AS intuition (because it FEELS good or right), there’s a feedback loop in our hearts, that wires back to our intellectual understanding/memory of what is and isn’t important to and in the vision of the person or people in front of us, that feeds back to the pit of our stomach to tell us when we are and aren’t respecting someone’s and our own code of relationship honour (wether knowingingly, or unconsciously.) Learning to listen to it, to the intuition red flags when your intuition tells you “look again” or puts a particular person’s face square in your minds eye, along with that gut feeling, and then honour that knowledge that we may be about to shit on their boundaries and values, takes discipline at times. But when honouring the work or personal relationship in front of you and looking for the win win, you win a lot more friends over the long term than you make enemies of people we didn’t take the time to love and respect, to whatever growth or whatever end, with the love they deserved and maybe we do too.


Respect for the other’s wellbeing, as well as our own ends up being like the oil in the car engine that keeps it running smoothly, as opposed to seizing up and overheating with unwanted friction. It’s essential to each engines function, just as it is to the longevity of relationships of all kinds.



​12- Reflection & Ownership

It also involves the willingness on our part to self reflect on our own behaviour, relative to what they just said. Do they have a point? Is there something we neglected to do or something that was within our realm of responsibility to manage, wether it was putting a bin out or getting a Facebook ad out, wether intentionally or not, that we may need to rectify or adjust our future course on? Or, knowing ourselves as we do, does it NOT ring true for us what we were just asked to take responsibility for (e.g. maybe we were just accused of something we weren’t somewhere at that time to have done, maybe someone expressed to us that they think we feel some way about them that we DON’T actually feel or think about them.)  It involves taking 50% of the responsibility for what I have personally done to contribute to the picture/experience that now is? And what is within my power to now do to come into alignment with the relationship vision, role statements/code of conduct? And can I do to help get us out of this traffic jam and back on the road, taking action to creating the quality of relationship moment to moment that we defined we wanted in our original relationship vision, relational mission statement and expected code of conduct? What do they need and what do I now need to do based on that, to do my part to keep this relationship on course?

It might sound so obvious when I write about it now, but when the emotional heat is on in the middle of a tense discussion, it’s amazing how fast we can forget and fall back on self defensive coping patterns while we feel like we’re under attack and they feel like they’re in a fight to be acknowledged in the validity of a wrongdoing against them. In the evolution of that discussion, nobody’s really listening to each other any more, so much as honking with their cars pointed at each other, trying to make a point. Gottman and Nan refer to this as a form of what they call “gridlock” e.g. that’s when both parties get locked into a place of trying to make their point and end up talking AT each other, pointing at each other (from your cars stuck in a traffic jam on the freeway) without any forward movement whatsoever. Because they're not actually listening to or working together, so much as just trying to prove their own point, with little impact. Taking a second out to self reflect, take ownership of what they can do now and then starting with acknowledgement, seeking to understand the other person’s point and address their concern, followed by bring up one’s own, is the next part of the pathway to getting out of the traffic jam. The ability to do so is essentially to the growth and longevity of relationships.




13- Heart Centred Resolve (commitment to action)

Finally for this week, this is also one of the most important points for relationship longevity of all. There’s little point talking through all of the above, working through all of the above, just to return to old habits and do things the exact same way that created the exact problems one just got so upset about. To do so is akin to accelerating up to 110km/hr and aiming our vehicle at the concrete pillars at the base of the overpass ahead. Nobody is perfect, sometimes it takes time to change and change our ways of being. But to knowingly not follow through on purpose, well that's potential relational suicide, or homicide, depending on what we do or don't ultimately do. When we agree to a new way of being with someone, to behaving in new ways in relationship, we have to be willing to commit to the follow through into action, even when it’s crazy uncomfortable and puts us out of our comfort zone.

Relationships and teams are the fast track to personal growth because they show us all the places where we’re not yet exceptionally great at relating, communicating and delegating, as well as the ones where we excel. But we have to be integral in following through to action on the discussions we just had, relative to the relationship or team vision. Because doing so, again creates trust and safety within the relationship, whatever kind of relationship it is. And relationships where there is perceived safety and room for growth and to be all of ourselves, and the ones that go the distance. All make sense?

Next week, in part 3, we move onto extra points for conflict prevention and helping heal, post conflict, before a few extra points of keeping the the fun and the fire in relationships of all kinds.

​Until then, have fun, take care.

Covey, S.R., Principle Centred Leadership, 8th Edition, Simon & Schuster, London, 1992
https://www.amazon.com/Principle-Centered-Leadership-Stephen-R-Covey/dp/0671792806/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525068672&sr=8-1&keywords=principle+centered+leadership

Gottman, J.M. & Silver, N., The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, HARMONY BOOK, United States, 2015
https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Principles-Making-Marriage-Work/dp/0553447718/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=8RYAM958JCN4W76EKREJ

Gottman J.M. & Silver, N., What Makes Love Last, Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, New York, 2015 
https://www.amazon.com/What-Makes-Love-Last-Betrayal/dp/1451608489

Perel, E. The State of Affairs Rethinking Infidelity, Harper Collins, New York, 2017
https://www.amazon.com/State-Affairs-Rethinking-Infidelity/dp/0062322583/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501045724&sr=8-1&keywords=state+of+affairs