Are your partner's needs being met?

Reactive patterns in your relationship can have you swirling about in arguments about little things. In a lucid moment you might pause in the argument and say, "Why are we arguing about coffee?!" Of course, you are not arguing about coffee at all. You are both fighting for deeper needs.

It is the reactive mind that keeps focusing on the detail of who was supposed to make the coffee and misses the truth of the deeper needs. Reactivity and arguments are symptoms that you and your partner's needs are going unmet. In the case of reactivity it is often the same unmet need that rises again and again.

When a need or set of needs shows up more often than other needs, you can safely guess that there is a bundle of hurt associated with those needs and a nourishment barrier in place to prevent more hurt. Nourishment barriers are reactions you have while someone is doing that very thing for which you have been longing. For example, your partner is offering appreciation, but you can barely hear her because you immediately think of all the ways she doesn't appreciate you. Or your partner is offering the affectionate hugs you asked for and you tighten rather than relax into the embrace.

With needs that are accompanied by a nourishment barrier, it can be helpful to think in terms healing and offering medicine. Just as a doctor prescribes medicine that you take on a regular schedule, so too you and your partner need emotional medicine on a regular basis.

When you are physically sick and you start to feel better, you might be tempted to stop taking your medicine, which is usually not what your doctor prescribed. When things are going along happily in your relationship, you might be tempted to think that you and your partner don't need the emotional medicine anymore. Unfortunately you find out the hard way, through reactive arguments, that sure enough you both still need your medicine.

If you don't know your own or your partner's medicine you can find out reviewing recent arguments and reactivity, naming the needs, and thinking about times when these needs were deeply met for you. Whatever your partner did in that moment of meeting those needs is the medicine.
Yesterday I had an opportunity to give my mom her emotional medicine. She called and wanted me to pick something up for her. With the help my housemate loaning his truck, I was able to respond immediately to her request. For my mom this action of someone responding immediately to meet her need for support is medicine. She was literally glowing when I arrived with the truck and the item she asked for. It was easy to see how this little action nourished her.

The medicine for your partner is usually something simple and concrete like this. While I can't always offer this medicine to my mom, I am consistently looking for opportunities to do so. With your partner, the hard part isn't usually offering the medicine, it's remembering to do so when things are going well. You might remember about the medicine in a reactive argument, which is great, but also the most difficult time to give and receive.

Practice
This week take time with your partner to name your medicine (e.g., need + specific do-able request) and commit to offering it to each other once a day for the next week (or a schedule that works best for you). Set up a reminder system so that you can offer it when things are going well.
LaShelle Lowe-Charde

 

Feelings that Blame

"I feel abandoned!" a woman says to her partner. I watch her partner as he stiffens slightly and a wash of hurt comes over his face.
I had encouraged the woman to express her feelings. Her face and body expressed pain and frustration, but her words expressed an evaluation of her partner which was easy for him to hear as blame.
In Nonviolent Communication (NVC), we bring awareness to feelings and needs to create a quality of connection in which a natural giving of the heart arises.
I have heard folks say that they have tried expressing their feelings, but it didn't work. What I have often discovered in these cases is that feelings weren't actually expressed.
There is a long list of words in our language that pose as feelings, but are actually evaluations. Take a look at the list below. Do you see some words you have used recently?
Behind each of these words are precious feelings and needs.
Choose three of the words below that you have used recently. For each word name the feelings and needs that were alive in you with the expression of each.
For instance, in the example above, when the woman said she felt abandoned, you might guess she felt pain and frustration because she had needs for trust, integrity, and reliability.

abandoned	abused	accepted	attacked
belittled	betrayed	blamed	bullied
confined	cheated	coerced	criticized
discounted	distrusted	disrespected	dumped on
harassed	ignored	insulted	interrupted
intimidated	invalidated	invisible	isolated
judged	left out	manipulated	misunderstood
neglected	overpowered	patronized	pressured
provoked	put down	rejected	ripped off
smothered	taken advantage of		threatened
trampled	tricked	unappreciated	unheard
unloved	unseen	unsupported	unwanted
used	victimized	violated	wronged

Notice that all these words require the action of someone else. That's how you can tell these are evaluations rather than feelings.

LaShelle Charde

 

5 Things NOT to Do When Going Through Change

By Roo Mulligan

Dealing with any kind of change can be scary. Even small changes like going to a new hairdresser can be nerve wracking; is she going to chop all my hair off and make me look like a character out of Les Miserables? Buying a new brand of coffee can make or break your whole week. It may be $2 less for a pound, but is it going to taste good and how will I deal with watery tasting coffee at 6 am when I REALLY need some good coffee?

 

These are just minor anxieties. The real fear kicks in when making major life changes. 

I have learned ways to deal with change over the years, ways to stay grounded and to handle all the stress. I have also made every mistake you can think of when it comes to remaining calm and centered. In order to spare you all the grief and hardship I have suffered from my inappropriate responses to change, I have put together a list of ways NOT to respond to change.

 

1. Do not stay up late drinking wine and crying over all your fears. This leads to headaches and puffy red-eyes the next day. Not a good job interviewing look.

 

2. Do not bury your head in a book and ignore the real world all day long. Your children and pets have to eat and need your attention.

 

3. Do not eat entire bags of Doritos or Cheezits or Tostitos or Pita Chips. The salt and crunch may feel great going down, but you will puff up into a chipmunk monster, and all your rings will be too tight.

 

4. Do not get out photos and letters from friends in your far off old hometown and moon over the fact that you have no friends. That will pretty much guarantee you will not make new friends. No one wants to hang out with Eeyore.

 

5. Do not bite your nails or shake your foot up and down in an abundance of nervous energy. These actions can easily become really annoying habits that are hard to break.

 

There are a multitude of ways you can respond to change, some of them helpful and some of them not so great. Changes will occur whether you decide to like them or resist them. Try to relax and give yourself a break. Realize that you can’t control every aspect of your life, and sometimes you just have to wait, absorb and immerse yourself in the change. You will be fine, and you can handle this. Help will come from unexpected places. Just be sure to keep your eyes open, and be willing to say yes. A glass of wine or a hot cup of tea CAN be a good relaxer, but it’s even better if you invite a new friend over to join you.

 

                                                    

10 Things to Remind Yourself on a Daily Basis

By Madison Sonnier

Bad days can be extremely overpowering sometimes. When we're having a bad day, everything feels wrong and the day seems to get even worse as we sink further into frustration and despair. By the end of the day, all we want to do is pull the covers up over our heads and block it all out.  

When I clawed my way out of a depressive phase last year, it was a daily challenge to keep myself from falling back into that phase again. I had to go through a process of re-building my self-esteem and re-evaluating my life. But there were days when I was not very successful with these things and the negative thoughts that stayed with me for so long would interfere again. 

 

It sort of felt like climbing up and over a steep hill and every time I let a negative or discouraging thought sink in, my foot would slip and I would roll all the way back down to the bottom of the hill and have to start all over again.   

On the bad days, I would feel like it would never end and that I would always be unhappy.  

To achieve mental balance, I have to make a habit of reminding myself of a few important things that I think we all tend to forget when there is a black cloud looming over our heads.  

1. Do not lose sight of what truly matters. Does that clogged sink signify the end of the world? Are you going to remember or even care that the stranger you smiled at in the coffee shop didn’t smile back? When we’re having a bad day, we seem to zoom in on petty things and complain about them. Next time you’re pulling your hair out over something, ask yourself if it really matters. 

 

2. It is okay to be alone or pull back from the world. Sometimes we just need to step back and re-evaluate a situation, a relationship, or just life in general. When I went through my healing period, I spent a lot of time alone as I tried to become my own best friend again. If you need to go into hiding for awhile and work on stitching yourself back up, take the time to do that. It is so important to pull back and spend quality time with yourself every now and then.

 

3. You are not always in control. You cannot predict when certain things will or should happen, or how everything will turn out. Sometimes you just have to stop pushing and let go.

 

4. What other people think is irrelevant. I was a miserable slave to the opinions of others. It got to a point where I was trying so hard to please everyone but myself. Don’t let your immediate reaction to criticism be to change whatever it is you’re being criticized for. Do whatever feels right to you, regardless of what other people have to say about it.

 

5. Don’t give up. If you’re fighting for something that means a lot to you, do not stop fighting whenever you happen to fall short. Remember why you are fighting for it.

 

6. You don’t have to know all the answers. No one ever has life all figured out. We are always learning and growing. Life itself is a mystery and it’s okay to feel clueless sometimes.

 

7. You are enough. All of us have had times in our lives where we have thought, “I’m not smart enough or pretty enough or strong enough or exciting enough to do _____.” Give yourself a chance instead of forming limiting beliefs.

 

8. Stay present. Try not to dwell on the past or worry about the future. Take everything one day at a time.

 

9. Your feelings will not kill you. I know that heartbreak, grief, depression, or resentment might make you feel like you’re dead and breathing, but you have the strength to get through whatever life throws at you. Hold on and see yourself through it.

 

10. You are human. This is probably the biggest reminder of them all. You will make mistakes. You will hurt other people and other people will hurt you. You won’t always feel happy and positive. Next time you feel the urge to beat yourself up over any of these things, remind yourself that you are an imperfect human being instead.

 

 

Don't Give Up