The Serenity Prayer, also known as ‘the Acceptance Prayer’, helps us remember the importance of serenity, acceptance, courage and wisdom.  It reads:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Serenity Prayer, I’d like to offer my perspective on the important concepts in it and how they apply to the coronavirus pandemic.

It’s not by chance that the first word in the prayer is ‘God.’  ‘God‘ refers to your personal source of guidance and can be whatever you choose it to be.  For some of you, it may be the traditional image of God or your own personal representation of what God is for you.  For others, it might be your Higher Self or something in nature, an energy or a light.  Whatever you use, I hope you feel a personal connection to this unconditionally wise, loving and compassionate source.

‘Serenity’ is valuing and being in the intention to love yourself and others.  When you are serene you are feeling your Guidance’s love, compassion, wisdom and unlimited strength flowing through your body.

What does it look like to ‘accept the things we cannot change?’  This means being willing to feel the loneliness, helplessness and heartbreak that comes up when we stop trying to control people, places and things.

What are the things we cannot change?  We can’t control the reality that our world is under attack by an invisible enemy and that currently there is no vaccination or proven treatment for the virus.  We can’t control having feelings of loneliness from not being able to physically spend time with our friends, family and loved ones.  We can’t control feeling the heartbreak of people dying and becoming ill from and because of the coronavirus, and all the other losses in our life as a result of the pandemic.  And you can’t control not feeling outrage over how the world did and didn’t respond to knowing about the coronavirus.

What does it mean to have ‘courage’?  Courage goes hand in hand with loving yourself and others.  Courage is being willing to risk losing others rather than lose yourself.  Courage is having faith that your Guidance is always there for you and is constantly guiding you to what is in your highest good.  Courage means taking loving action in the face of fear.

You take loving actions ‘to change the things I can‘.  You only have control over your own thinking, feelings and behavior.  You can change how you respond to the pandemic rather than react to it.  You can learn how to manage anxiety, depressive feelings and feeling overwhelmed and replace them with peaceful and joyful feelings.  You can change how you typically interact with others by deciding to follow the social distancing, quarantine and wearing masks orders in place.  You can take loving actions to spend more quality time with your family.  You can change personal habits that haven’t been so helpful into new patterns of taking more loving care of yourself.  You can change taking people, the environment, your health and your lifestyle for granted.

So, where do we get ‘wisdom’ to know the difference from what we do and don’t have control over?  Experiential wisdom comes from your own personal life and from learning about others’ experiences.  Spiritual wisdom comes from connecting to your personal source of Guidance.  This is your ‘gut feeling’ and your intuition.  It doesn’t come from your mind it comes through your mind.

The Serenity Prayer isn’t going to make the coronavirus go away today.  It’s not going to turn back time so you can have your previous life back again.  It’s not going to bring back all the people who have died and become ill from the coronavirus.  What it can do is give you a guidepost to help you get through this crisis, one day at a time.   The Serenity prayer can help you tap into your inner strength to transcend the toll the pandemic is taking on each and every one of us.  The Serenity Prayer can help you feel connected to yourself, your Guidance and everyone else.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

Hoping you find your serenity in the midst of all this chaos.

Michael

How many times have you mumbled under your breath, “I don’t like my partner.”  Come on.  Admit it.  We all have at one time or another right?  Well if you don’t like your partner then why are you with him?  If you truly don’t like who your partner is in his core then you might want to explore why you’re staying with someone you believe has an unloving heart and a hurtful mind.  I’m guessing this isn’t what you believe.

You fell in love with your partner because you connected to him on an emotional, intellectual and spiritual level.  So how could you possibly even be thinking you’re not with the right person?  Let me give you a different way to frame what’s really going on.

It’s not that you don’t like your partner, it’s that you don’t like the part of him that isn’t being loving.  You heard me correctly.  It’s not who your partner is, it’s a part of him that learned to become who he is when he is unloving.  I know this sounds like a lot of mumbo jumbo.  Let me unravel it for you.

When we’re born we’re born perfect.  Think of infants you’ve been around.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with them, right?  So, your partner too was born perfect.  You’re probably resisting that thought right now and thinking the only thing he’s been doing perfectly is all of his behavior that’s been pissing you off!

So, where is your partner’s perfect child self that I’m talking about?  All your perfect child self wants to do is play with your partner’s perfect self just like you did when the two of you first met.  Maybe your partner allows his true self to come out once in a while and at other times maybe you’re able to coax out that loving part of your partner.  Yet here you are not liking your partner.  So, consider this.

When your partner is acting in unloving ways towards himself and you, he’s not in his perfect child self.  He’s allowing another part of him, his wounded child part to be in control.  This is only a part of him and is not his true core self.  It’s a part of him he learned to become in in order to try to get the love he didn’t get in the way he needed to as a child.  I haven’t met anyone who was loved in the exact way they needed to be loved by their caretakers.  As a result, we all have a wounded child part that tries to control getting love, creating safety and avoiding the painful childhood feelings of loneliness, heartbreak and helplessness.  Your challenge is to not buy into the wounded child part of your partner who is acting out in controlling ways that piss you off.  Instead you can choose to look into your partner’s heart and see his true core self, his perfect child self.

So, the next time your partner acts out in unloving ways to himself, to you or to others, see if you can envision him as a wounded child still trying to get the love he didn’t get as a child and that he still hasn’t learned how to give himself.  Then remember that your partner has good reasons for having created this wounded child self and move into compassion for him.  Then look into your partner’s heart and see his true perfect core child self.  The part of your partner that you fell in love with and will always love.  Then engage this part of him rather than getting distracted by and reacting to the controlling behaviors of his wounded child part.

When you’re able to consciously respond from your perfect child self, you give your partner the opportunity to respond in kind rather than staying stuck in his unloving wounded child part.  You might find that instead of mumbling under your breath how much you don’t like your partner, you’ll be spending more of your time liking and sharing your love with your partner.

Have you ever said any of the following to your partner: “I’m angry.  I’m hurt.  I’m defensive.  I”m anxious.  I’m depressed.  Or I’m not good enough?”

I’m guessing yes.  And it’s true.  Well part of it is true.  Yes, you are feeling either angry, hurt, defensive, anxious, depressed or not good enough.  That part is true.  Those are your feelings.  Now the other part.  It’s not true.

What???   Michael.  I thought you just said the feelings were true?  Now you’re saying it’s not true that I’m this way.  What’s up with that.  Make up your mind already!

Well it’s true!  (I know another true.)  These statements are all true for a part of you.  It is true that a part of you is feeling angry, hurt, defensive, anxious, depressed or not good enough.  And it is also true that this is only a part of you.  It’s not all of you.

I know you’re thinking this is just semantics so get over it Michael.  I don’t agree.  From my perspective when you start off expressing your feelings with an ‘I’, you’re not only telling your partner but you’re also telling yourself that all of you is this way.  Then where do you go from there?  I mean if all of you, is angry, hurt, defensive, anxious, depressed or not good enough, then you’re stuck.  There isn’t any part of you that can help yourself.  There is no other part when you say, ‘I’ because ‘I ‘is singular.

What if I told you that in this case, ‘I’ is plural?  I’m sure if I had told Mr. Schmidt my amazing 8^th  grade English teacher this, he would have looked at me like I was still in elementary school.

What if there isn’t just one part of you?  What if besides the part of you that is having these difficult feelings there is also a part of you that can feel these feelings without becoming these feelings?  A part of you that is willing to take 100% responsibility for either causing these feelings or take 100% responsibility for learning how to manage these feelings.  A part of you that can connect to your source of strength whether it be your Higher Self, a Higher Power, nature, or an energy and bring through compassion from your source of  guidance.  A part of you that can move into an intention to learn about your good reasons for having these feelings and then explore these good reasons.  A part of you that can identify the truth about your beliefs and identify and take the loving actions to make you feel higher self-worth.

When you acknowledge that only a part of you is feeling these unhappy feelings, you give yourself the opportunity to shift into another more loving part of you that can stay in control of your feelings rather than allow your feelings to control you.  A stronger part of you that can comfort and heal the hurting part of you.

If you had a child who was throwing a temper tantrum, you wouldn’t throw a temper tantrum too right?  You wouldn’t become your child.  As your child’s parent, you would have the inner strength to not take your child’s behavior personally and to feel compassion for the hurt your child is covering up with his tantrum.  You can do the same for the part of you that is hurting too.  You can embrace, love and calm the part of you that is being triggered.

So the next time you’re feeling angry, hurt, defensive, anxious, depressed or not good enough with your partner, try saying to your partner, “A part of me is feeling angry, hurt, defensive, anxious, depressed or not good enough and there is a larger part of me that wants to learn why I’m feeling these feelings.”  Then either on your own or with your partner explore your good reasons for having these feelings.  Then when you have learned what you need to learn and are back in control of your feelings, you can share with your partner what you learned about yourself and your relationship.  Then sit back and notice if not only you feel higher self-worth but also if your partner is able to listen to you without getting triggered into his angry, hurt, defensive, anxious, depressed or not good enough part.

When both of you are able to stay in this healthier, stronger, connected and more loving part of you, then you can share love and work together as a team to co-create your life together.

I want you to imagine that you have a young child that you’re responsible for.  One day your child comes to you because he is very upset.  What do you do?  Do you ignore your child?  Do you get angry at your child for interrupting your favorite TV show?  Do you tell your child to get over it?  Do you tell your child to go find your partner and let her deal with whatever’s going on?

Probably not.  If you choose any of these behaviors, your child will probably feel unappreciated, uncared for, not valued and unloved.  So, what might you do differently?

As your Higher Self, you might hold your child in your arms comforting him letting him know that he’s safe and cared for by you.  You might tell him you’re there for him no matter what he’s upset about and that there’s nothing he could ever do that would make you not love him.  As he begins to calm down, you ask him why he’s so upset.

He tells you that there must be something wrong with him.  He’s a loser and a failure because he wasn’t invited to one of his classmate’s birthday party.  Again, what do you do?  Do you tell him he’s right?  Do you say that the only way he can be happy and worthy if he’s invited to the birthday party?  That he needs someone else’s approval to make him feel good?  Do you advise him that he can only feel appreciated, cared for, valued and loved when others behave in a certain way towards him?

Probably not.  If you choose to tell your child any of these statements, he’ll believe that his worth and happiness are dependent on how others treat him.  So, what might you say differently?

From your Higher Self, you let your child know the truth that no one can give him his happiness, and no one can take his happiness away.  He gets to decide what and who makes him worthy.  You remind him of his essence which is kind, caring, thoughtful, curious, funny, playful and loving and you help him know he is responsible for his good feelings.  When you do this, you help him not take the situation personally.

Yes, he’ll still feel sad that he wasn’t invited to the party, helpless over not being invited and lonely because he couldn’t be part of the celebration with his classmates.  You let him know that these are natural feelings based on the situation.  You help him release these feelings so he can move on.  Then you show him some other things he can do that bring him and express his joy.  He can get together with another friend he enjoys spending time with.  He can focus on one his hobbies or go with you to his favorite playground because you know how much he loves going on the swings.  All of these loving actions let your child know that he is appreciated, cared for, valued and worthy by YOU!  He doesn’t need anyone else to validate his worth because you as his Higher Self mirror that for him.

See you already know how to do this with a young child.  You know how to show up as your child’s Higher Self and be there unconditionally, mirroring your child’s essence and helping him to not take other’s behavior personally and to identify the loving actions he can take to feel higher self-worth and happy.  Now you need to show up for yourself in the same way in your relationship.

Rather than going to your partner when you’re feeling sad, lonely or helpless, you can attend to your own feelings.  Imagine your Higher Self holding, comforting the part of you that is having these difficult feelings.  With the support of your Higher Self you can feel these hard feelings and then release them.  Listen to your Higher Self reminding you that you are kind, caring, thoughtful, curious, funny, playful and loving person no matter what.  Then ask your Higher Self what are the loving actions you need to take to make yourself feel appreciated, cared for, valued and loved?  Then take those actions.

Feel the happiness that is a direct result of you taking personal responsibility for your own feelings rather than making your partner responsible for your worth and happiness.  And when you do this, you can experience the joy that comes from sharing your happiness with your partner.

So now you know you have a very wise, loving and compassionate Higher Self whose only intention is to help you know your inherent worth and learn how to love yourself and others.  That’s a beautiful thing!  So, you’re good right?  Well yes and possibly.  Yes, because you have this awesome internal power to guide you into being the person you want to be and create a joyful life with your partner.  Possibly, because you still have to consciously connect to your Higher Self and choose to follow your Higher Self’s guidance rather than allowing a misguided part of you to react out of fear with your partner.  That’s a lot of consciousness!

So how do you get yourself to a place of consciousness where you are able to communicate with your inner guidance?  One way is by learning and practicing the Inner Bonding process to learn how to take loving care of yourself.

The first step of Inner Bonding is to notice throughout the day if you’re having any unhappy feelings such as feeling unappreciated, uncared for, unimportant and unloved.  If you are then you want to be aware of what you’re telling yourself, doing or allowing that may be causing these difficult feelings.

Once you’re willing to feel these feelings and take personal responsibility for causing your unhappy feelings the next step is to move into compassion for yourself rather than judging yourself for having these feelings.  One way to do this is by telling yourself, I must have good reasons for you having these feelings.  You’re not saying that it’s good for you and your relationship to have these feelings.  You’re acknowledging to. yourself that it’s understandable based on who you have become as a result of your life experiences why you’re having these feelings.  Then you can shift into an intention to learn by saying to yourself, And I truly want to learn what these good reasons are.  These are the first two steps of the Inner Bonding process which help you consciously open up to and connect to your Higher Self. 

When you’re willing to feeling your feelings, take personal responsibility for them, move into compassion for yourself and open to learn about your good reasons for having these feelings then you consciously shift into a state of mindfulness; being fully present in the moment. And when you’re in the here and now and in the intention to truly learn what’s loving to yourself and your partner, you’re connected to your Higher Self.

In my next post I’ll show you how to learn from your Higher Self what it looks like to appreciate, care for, value and love yourself rather than trying to get your partner to make you feel happy.

Do you want to feel appreciated?  Valued?  Cared for?  These are feelings most of us want to feel because when we experience having them, we’re happier.  We feel loved.

Now think about if there’s any way that you rely on your partner to make you feel appreciated, valued and cared for?

If you’ve made your partner responsible for you to feel lovable, how do you feel when your partner doesn’t appreciate, value or care for you?  You probably feel unappreciated, not cared for, unimportant, abandoned, not worthy and hurt.  You might even become angry, anxious and depressed.  I’m guessing you feel unloved.  And there’s definitely no happiness going around.

You’re giving your partner a lot of power here.  If you’re dependent on your partner for your happiness, then you’re going to do whatever you have to do to try to control getting what you want and need.  This might look like you manipulating, shaming, blaming, punishing your partner, or losing yourself with your partner so that he gives you what you’re not giving yourself.

What if there was another way to have what you’re trying to get from your partner?  A source that is always here for you, so you don’t have to give yourself up or change who you are in order to feel appreciated, valued, cared for and loved?

We all have access to this unconditional and ever-present source of love and there’s nothing you have to do to deserve it.  And there’s only one thing you have to do to get it.  Open up to it.  That’s all.

Some of you might already have a personal relationship with a Higher Power that you can go to instead of your partner to know that are already worthy and to feel loved.  For those of you who don’t know what this feels like to have a spiritual connection you can use a very wise part of yourself as your source of happiness.

Can you remember a time in your life when you made a very a very good decision for yourself?  When you chose to take this loving action, you were connected to your Higher Self.  Your Higher Self is the part of you that wants what’s best for you and knows what’s in your highest good.  Your Higher Self can help you learn how to give yourself what you’re trying to get from your partner.  You can learn how to make yourself happy and then share your happiness with your partner.

In my next post, I’ll help you learn how your Higher Self can help you create your own feelings of being appreciated, valued, cared for and loved.

Relationships work really well when both partners stay on their side of their relationship fence.  Let me share with you what I mean by a relationship fence and why it’s important to stay on your own side.

I want you to imagine that there is a boundary between you and your partner.  You can picture the boundary like a fence in the picture above.   Maybe you grew up with a similar fence separating your yard from your neighbor’s property.  It was a way to know where your land ended and where your neighbor’s land started.  Each of you were responsible for taking care of your own back yard.  In other words, your neighbor wasn’t cutting your lawn or watering your flowers every week.  That was your job.

So, you’re probably wondering what does a fence, your childhood home’s backyard and your neighbor not watering your flowers have to do with your relationship.  Everything.  Your relationship benefits from the personal responsibility you and your neighbor had for your own back yards.

In your current relationship, both you and your partner have your own ‘back yards.’ Your back yard include all the aspects of your life such as your thoughts, feelings, behaviors, choices, responsibilities, passions, causes, family, health, finances and friendships.  When you’re taking personal responsibility, you accept the job of taking care of yourself, being accountable to yourself, managing your own feelings, creating your life, knowing what you have control over and what you are helpless about, taking loving actions to feel higher self-worth and learning how to love yourself and others.  What you’re not doing is focusing on your partner’s behavior and telling your partner what to do differently.  If you find yourself trying to control your partner, you might want to notice if that’s a way to avoid focusing on some aspect of your ‘back yard.’

A good way to start staying on your side of your relationship fence and focusing on taking care of your own back yard is by using ‘I’ statements when you talk with your partner.  When you use ‘I’ statements, you’re keeping the focus on yourself rather than blaming your partner.  An example of an ‘I’ statement is, “When you don’t clean up after yourself, I feel disrespected.”  This is very different from saying, “You are a disrespectful person.”  It’s a lot easier for your partner to hear you and not get defensive when you use ‘I’ statements.  You’re not judging, criticizing, shaming, accusing or blaming your partner when you use ‘I’ statements.  You’re owning your feelings and letting your partner know that he triggered you.

When you use ‘I’ statements you’re letting your partner know that you accept responsibility for either causing your feelings by how you’re interpreting your partner’s behavior or that you’re needing to manage the difficult feelings of loneliness, heartbreak and helplessness coming up for you as a result of your partner’s behavior.  Either way you’re going to stay in your back yard and address whatever you need to take care of.

When I first meet with a couple, I ask each partner to share with me what they would like to accomplish with counseling.  Often, I’ll hear one person speak for their partner by saying “We want to” or “We feel that”.  I immediately mirror back how I heard the partner assume that he knows what his partner is thinking and feeling.  Then I asked him to repeat what he just said only this time speak for himself.  I’m asking him to stay on his side of the relationship fence and only share information about his own back yard.  Sometimes I’ll ask the other partner to give feedback on how it feels when her partner talks for both of them and presumes to know what she is thinking, feeling, needing and wanting.  Let’s just say that after the feedback is given, the assuming partner stops ‘We-ing’.

If you take another look at the picture above, you’ll notice there are some beautiful flowers that are on both sides of the fence.  Just because both you and your partner set loving boundaries for yourself by focusing on your own back yard, that doesn’t mean both of you have to always stay apart in your own back yards.  You will find that you give your relationship the opportunity to bloom when you take loving care of yourself.  The more you take responsibility making yourself happy by focusing on your own back yard, the more happiness you’ll have to share with you partner.  And when both of you bring your best selves to your relationship then you allow your relationship to blossom and together you have the opportunity to co-create the beautiful bouquet of your life together.

So, is it really possible not to react to our partner’s triggers?  Can you even imagine what that would look like?  Most of us didn’t have this modeled to us growing up so we never learned how to be in control of our feelings.  Now as an adult you can reparent yourself and teach yourself how to manage your feelings so that instead of your feelings ‘making’ you do something i.e. react, you can take your feelings into consideration and make the best decision for you i.e respond.  So, let me share with you one way to do this.  It’s called Inner Bonding.

Inner Bonding is a process which when practiced on a consistent basis, helps build and strengthen the part of you that takes loving actions that are in your highest good.  This part of you is called your inner Loving Adult.  I’m sure you can identify areas of your life where you currently make good choices that are thoughtful and caring about yourself and others.  When you act in these ways your Loving Adult is in charge.  Your Loving Adult never reacts when triggered unless you perceive there is a real and present danger.  When you are consistently in your Loving Adult your life flourishes.  You feel more joyful and connected to your partner and you support your partner’s highest good.

The part of you that reacts is a very young part of you which we call your Wounded Self.   This part of you perceives everything as a threat even when there isn’t a real and present danger.  This child part of you only wants to avoid difficult feelings, get love and feel safe.  Your Wounded Self tries to control achieving these objectives by using strategies such as getting angry, shaming, criticizing, judging, withdrawing and caretaking.  When you hand control of your choices to your Wounded Self, you feel anxious, depressed, alone and disconnected from your partner.

By learning and practicing Inner Bonding, you can strengthen your Loving Adult so that you can live a more joyful life and have a more connected, passionate and loving relationship with your partner.  This is what practicing Inner Bonding with your partner looks like:

In every interaction with your partner, notice what you’re feeling and take responsibility for your feelings.  They’re your feelings and they’re either feelings like loneliness, helplessness or heartbreak that naturally occur from being in a relationship or they’re feelings you’re creating by what you’re telling yourself or what you’re doing.  These made up feelings include anxiety, depression, shame and frustration and they only get in the way of having an intimate relationship.

Now that you’re connected internally to your feelings, imagine a very wise part of you that has at one time or another made good decisions for you.  This is your Higher Self.  This is the part of you that knows the good reasons why you’re having these feelings and what to do about them.  Your Higher Self will help you learn the truth about how to respond in a loving way to your partner rather than react in unloving ways to your partner.

With the support of your Higher Self, say to yourself that there must be good reasons why you’re having these feelings and you want to learn what those reasons are.  Then notice what you’re telling yourself about the situation with your partner.  Ask yourself how you are interpreting their behavior.  Are you taking it personally?  Do you believe that it means they don’t care about you?  Do you believe you are a failure?  Unlovable?  Unworthy?  Are you thinking your partner is going to leave you?  These are examples of your beliefs.  If you’re in your Wounded Self, you’re going to think your beliefs are true and then you’re Wounded Self is going to react.  If you’re in your Loving Adult, then you’re going to keep an open mind and want to learn if they are true.

If you’re Loving Adult is in charge, you’ll move into an intention to learn with yourself and to find out the truth about your partner’s intention.  Instead of misinterpreting your partner’s behavior from your Wounded Self, you’ll find out the truth from your Loving Adult.  Instead of telling yourself lies about your worth from your Wounded Self, your Loving Adult will ask your Higher Self the truth about your lovability.  If you allow your Wounded Self to misinterpret your partner’s behavior, you’ll react in unloving ways towards your partner.  When you access the truth from your Higher Self, your Loving Adult will know how to respond in a loving way.

Once you know the truth, then you need to take loving action.  This means doing something in the moment that makes you feel more worthy and reinforces your innate value.  It might mean setting a loving boundary with your partner by letting your partner know that it doesn’t feel good to be around your partner when you feel blamed so you’re going to leave until you feel respected.  The loving action might mean taking accountability with your partner for your acting in a hurtful way towards your partner.  Or you might decide the loving action is to support your partner in the way they’re asking you for even if it’s a stretch for you to do this.

The more that you practice responding from your Loving Adult rather than reacting from your Wounded Self, the more you’ll feel connected to your own peace and joy and the more connected you’ll feel to your partner.  The more you practice the Inner Bonding process the more you’ll realize that you don’t have to react with your partner.  You can feel your feelings, take personal responsibility for them and move into an intention to learn about the good reasons you’re having your feelings.  You can find out the truth about the situation, identify the loving action you need to take to feel strengthen yourself and your relationship and then take those actions.

When you follow these steps, you’ll know that every Wounded Self reaction is always an overreaction because you have the ability to always choose to consciously respond rather than react in any situation.  And when you respond from a place of truth and love then you create a new way of interacting with your partner that helps lead both of you towards a deeper and more joyful intimate connection.

I’m sure at one time or another your doctor tapped you right below your kneecap and your leg kicked up.  Doctor’s refer to this as the ‘pateller jerk’ which is what you and I would call the normal ‘knee-jerk’ reflex.  What’s happening is that the tapping sends an electrical impulse to our spinal cord which then sends back a message to our thigh muscles to contract resulting in our leg kicking out.  Our brain is not part of this process so there’s no conscious decision on our part to kick out our leg.  It’s an automatic reflex.

Partners often believe that their reaction to each other is an automatic reflex.  They tell me how they ‘had’ to get defensive or critical or that it ‘just happened’.  They share with me how their arguments ‘naturally’ escalated from situations.  Partners share their experience of how their reaction felt like it went from zero to one hundred in no seconds flat.  I often hear them say, “this is just the type of person I am”.

Partners usually don’t agree when I suggest they don’t have a type.  Blood has a type.  It’s either one of the common or rare blood types and very rarely changes.   So even though each partner may be inclined to behave in a certain way, it doesn’t mean that they’re stuck with that type.  The difference is that we have free will.  Then I tap my knee, kick my leg out to demonstrate what an automatic reflex looks like.  I point to my brain and suggest that our free will allows us to choose most of our feelings and behavior.  Needless to say, I don’t get a lot of head nodding when I inform couples that they’re actually choosing most of their thoughts and feelings even if they don’t know it.

I suggest that automatic difficult feelings include loneliness, heartbreak and helplessness.  And easier automatic feelings include joy, excitement and peacefulness. We don’t have control over having or not having these feelings.  They’re our core feelings which are hardwired into our bodies.  And one automatic feeling, outrage which occurs when we see an injustice, actually moves us to take action.

Other than these, our feelings are not automatic like our knee-jerk reflex because our brain has control over them and our resulting behaviors.  These include feeling unworthy, shame, frustrated, depressed, anxious and anger that is controlling or punishing.  Our choice behaviors including shaming, blaming, controlling, attacking, taking other’s behavior personally, withdrawing, avoiding, judging, criticizing and caretaking.

What our feelings and knee-jerk reflex do have in common is that both are initiated by a trigger.  Our doctor is tapping on our leg below our kneecap while our partner is saying or doing something that pushes our buttons.  However, the difference is where the message goes when our partner acts in an unloving way towards us.  It goes directly to our brain which then interprets it which can cause a difficult feeling or an unloving behavior.  And that’s what’s really going on when couples tell me they automatically react.  They’re not aware that it’s a choice how their brain interprets their partner’s behavior.  And very often it’s a misinterpretation.  So rather than it’s a ‘I have to’ feeling, it’s an ‘I’m going to’ feel.  And rather than it’s a “Of course I had to’ act that way, it’s an ‘I chose’ this behavior.  When we misinterpret our partner’s behavior, we usually act in unloving ways to ourselves and our partners.

So, what’s the alternative?  If it’s not a physical reflex and our brain directed unloving feeling and/or unloving behavior isn’t serving us positively what’s a partner to do?   Respond.  Consciously respond.  In my next post, I’ll share with you what it looks like to consciously respond to your partner’s unloving behavior and how this creates positive opportunities for you, your partner and your relationship.

The first thing I have new couples do when I meet with them is to share something each partner appreciates about the other.  Sounds simple right?  All you have to do is tell your partner something about them that you are thankful for.  Think about all the time you have spent together and pick one moment that stands out for you and share that gratitude.  Eventually I’m sure you’d come up with a specific action like coming to counseling or taking out the dog or making dinner for them.  This is a good start, ‘start’ being the operative word here.

You can try this at home.  Over dinner, share one behavior that your partner did for you that you appreciate.  Notice how it feels when you thank your partner.  Is it purely an intellectual thank you or do you feel the emotion behind it?

If you’re on the receiving end of your partner’s gratitude, notice how that feels.  Are you able to bring the appreciation down into your body and feel it in your entire being or does it goes directly to your brain and stay as a thought?  Do you believe what your partner is telling you?  Were you aware of the positive impact you have on your partner when you act this way?

As I mentioned earlier, identifying helpful behaviors your partner does is a good start.  You can also add in behaviors that your partner is consciously not doing because you asked him to stop doing them.  This might include no longer looking at his cell phone or TV while you’re talking to him or not leaving the dishes in the sink for you to clean up when you come home late from work.

Besides verbally appreciating your partner you can also express your gratitude nonverbally.  Why not give your partner a warm bear hug?  How about doing something your partner’s been asking you to do that you keep putting off  or surprise them with something you know would bring them joy?

After you’ve mastered noticing and appreciating your partner’s actions, it’s time for you to go deeper.  What do you appreciate about your partner as a person?  Not what your partner does or doesn’t do but who your partner is.  This can be a little more challenging because you have to see past their unloving behaviors which is why you agreed to come into counseling in the first place.

So, take a deep breath and look past their critical, defensive or controlling behavior.  See your partner’s essence.  The core of who they really are not the part of them that they learned to be. See the person you fell in love with.

Do you appreciate your partner’s kind heart?  His generous spirit.  His warmth, hopefulness, and playfulness?  Do you feel blessed having someone in your life who genuinely cares about others and the planet?  Someone who goes out of their way to help those who are less fortunate.

I can’t tell you how powerful sharing appreciations is especially when you make this a daily practice.  Communicate your gratitude first thing in the morning or before you go to sleep.  Text you’re a partner an appreciation during the day or call him with one during your lunch break.  And if you can’t reach your partner then leave him a voice mail or send him an email.  And throughout the day tell yourself how much you appreciate your partner, feeling the contentment and peaceful feelings that come along with doing this, and then send him positive energy.

Over time I see the transformation in my office that comes as a result of partners exchanging just one simple sentence with each other.  Couples who initially couldn’t get past their disconnection and their hurt, frustration and resentment, become more thoughtful, compassionate and caring partners.  Often, they’re holding hands and looking directly into each other’s eyes as they share appreciations straight from their heart.   And it all started with a simple thank you!