Yesterday was Bank Holiday Saturday (as you know) and I spent early afternoon walking round my favourite lake near where I live in the sunshine. There were lots of couples hand in hand enjoying the sunshine and it was all very warm and lovely.
Engrossed in listening to John Welwood (Perfect Love Imperfect Relationships – highly recommended) on my iPod, I was caught unawares by a lady behind me who said loudly ‘are you that woman from the Wright Stuff’? Now this does not often happen to me, so I turned round in surprise (removed my earplugs) and said ‘yes!” And she said ‘oh good, then you can sort out an argument that we are having’ and she pointed to her partner who was sitting on a log, looking a bit sheepish.
Well, I wasn’t quite sure what to do. This did not seem the most professional of environments especially as I had previously slipped in the mud and my right trouser leg was covered in nasty stuff. But unable to leave a couple in distress, I graciously enquired what the problem was and if they ‘both’ wanted to solve it. Having got both their permission we all perched on the log together and the woman began.
She said they’d been going out for three years and he said, ‘no, I think its only about 2 and a half years’ and she said ‘you see, this is exactly what happens. Whatever I say, he corrects me’. Then he said, ‘that’s because she exaggerates and I have a better memory than her and I think it’s important, if you are going to say something to say it right’. Then she said ‘it doesn’t matter if it’s not exactly right, it’s his patronizing attitude that makes me feel like I’m stupid or something’. And there it is in a nutshell.
You may not be any the wiser right now, but let me explain. This is a common communication problem.
When our partner says something that causes our emotional temperature to rise it’s because a past association has triggered us. It could be something from way back during childhood or early adulthood, but it’s a place, situation or circumstance where something similar has happened and we had felt unable to defend ourselves or articulate our feelings because either we believed it wasn’t safe to, we thought it may cause further upset; it could cause us pain; we would not have known how to articulate what we were feeling anyway, or any other variation that would lead to an unpleasant consequence for us. So, when our partner presses our ‘emotional buttons’ and we react either defensively or from a place of self righteousness or indignation, you can be sure that we are associating what has been said, or done, with something we were unable to deal with effectively in the past.
So here is today’s thought for you. Anytime your ‘buttons’ are pressed for the next week, and your emotional temperature starts to rise, ask yourself, ‘what does this remind me of? What happened in my life to create this trigger? Take some time to think it through.
When I work with couples and individuals who are challenged in their communication, this is a vital key in uncovering how they react to each other when they get triggered and how much of what is actually said is often misinterpreted as each partner goes back into old associations. If this sounds familiar, get in touch and lets talk about it (in a way that is ‘trigger free’ of course!) and you can receive my Miracle Communication Skills which are guaranteed to change the way you talk and listen in all you relationships.
Have a great bank holiday, and I may even blog again tomorrow.
Love Francine
