Dr. Bill's Blog: Insight on maintaining healthy relationships and living a more fulfilled life

Why Psychotherapy?

"Just get over it, I can do it myself, pull yourself up by your bootstraps." Common sense or crazy, it's out there in the culture. We are independent folk, we like to do things ourselves, make our own way. Getting help is viewed as weak, needy and wallowing. Our hero's are silent types, fighting the good fight and enduring difficulty with aplomb and certitude.

So, that's the fantasy, what's the reality? The real deal is that for millions of years we organized ourselves in tribes, with hierarchy, shamen, wise old people and plenty of relatives to take over. They had rights of passage that helped young men and women to learn the secrets of hunting and childbirth. We had the support of the group. That no longer exists except in some cyber reality. Cyber space lacks the human touch but certainly helps many people get through the day. We live in two or one parent homes, with family spread out and largely unavailable on a daily basis. Our friends have their own troubles and cannot afford to listen to our travails.

We then get back to psychotherapy. What are we trying to do? Some think that we try to relieve responsibility by blaming the parents. Others believe that it is self indulgent to sit there and talk about ourselves. The truth is that we are about relieving pain. Emotional pain in the form of anxiety, depression, anger and low self esteem are at the heart of the causes of emotional unrest. Unfortunately we are too close to the subject to know what to do. The missing link is another person, an objective observer, non judgmental and non critical voice who can help build skills for relieving internal tension, bad relationships and experiential pain.

Yet another thing that is missing in people's lives is someone who will listen for an hour to our difficulties, stresses and fears. I often talk to CEO's, business people and young people trying to make it in this competitive world but have no skills to do it. We have lost our tribal roots, we are emotionally adrift in large cities and fall victim to our loneliness and inability to see what is needed to get through life in a good way.

Psychotherapy is the good parent, the supportive partner and another pair of eyes. We are on your side with the knowledge of how we work and what has gone wrong along the way. We are creating a corrective emotional experience, one that was missing, with emotional supplies and knowledge to go out into the world and make our lives work better. It may sound like I am the psychotherapy evangelist but you know what, someone has to stand up and tell the truth. MIght as well be me.

The Importance of Intimacy in a Relationship

"The married are those who have taken the terrible risk of intimacy and, having taken it, know life without intimacy to be impossible." - Carolyn Heilbrun

For most of us, the word intimate conjures up romantic images of candlelit dinners, slow dancing, and long passionate kisses. Romantic gestures are certainly a dominant theme of intimacy, but there is more. Intimacy in the real world is the result of expressing our feelings, our personal secrets, and our deepest truths to each other. It arises when we feel cared about, accepted, and loved for our own sake, warts and all.

The word intimacy originates from the Latin word intima, which means “inner” or “innermost.” Thomas Patrick Malone writes in The Art of Intimacy, “The outstanding quality of the intimate experience is the sense of being in touch with our real selves. It allows us a fresh awareness of who, what, and how we are.”

Ideally, intimacy is a blend of emotional closeness, spiritual connectedness, and an open heart and mind. Its origin lies in intellectual collaboration and familiarity, especially with one another’s culture and interests. It may also involve shared religious or philosophical beliefs. Finally, intimacy can be an emotional response to knowing someone well by virtue of shared experiences. When we think of the word intimate we see both the word in and the word mate. That is kind of how it works: being inside another person in a way that feels as though we psychologically mate with him or her and in that way become intimate.

When we share details about our life that usually remain hidden, we are connecting in an intimate way. The extent to which we can disclose deeply private personal feelings and experiences is proportionate to how safe we feel, so safety is a requirement for intimacy as well. Of course, intimacy means different things to different people, and its meaning for us may even change over time. It can be linked with sexual closeness, but not necessarily; intimate feelings arise from shared moments of emotional connection as well as from sexual encounters. Whatever its particular nature, intimacy is the product of relationship work and the result of feeling emotionally connected to our loved one. It’s the operating principle for creating love.

As Thomas Patrick Malone eloquently makes clear, intimacy is not only about the other, it is about who we are. And the most powerful and profound awareness of who we are comes when we open our hearts to others, allowing them to touch our deepest sensitivity. In the act of risking our tender inner world, we become more of who we are because we feel touched in an untouched place.

Intimacy takes courage because we must risk expressing our deepest sense of self to create it. We may be apprehensive about opening our hearts and minds to another for fear of being judged or rejected. But the reward is immense. It is the antidote to painful loneliness. It reaches into our hearts, providing love that satisfies our need for emotional food. Our ability to establish and maintain nurturing intimate relationships is not only gratifying, it nourishes us and ultimately helps keep us sane. Our survival as a species requires that we seek connections with others and open our own inner world to them. Intimacy breaks into our isolation and intertwines our souls and, if done with tenderness and care, creates safe and secure attachments. This ability to intimately connect with others is the backbone of civilization. Intimacy is what makes us human.

 

Getting Through Worry

What is the song, "Don't worry be happy?" Were it so easy we would all be better off. Worry is instilled in us from a very early age. We worry about money, jobs, love, friends or whatever else might come up. Worry is like a light that we shine on different things but the worry is the same. The financial downturn, rising prices, the demands of daily life give rise to constant stress and worry. It appears out of thin air like an odorless, tasteless gas, invading our thoughts.

Where does worry come from? It originates with our parents. If they worried all the time then they couldn't teach us how to understand life better or how to cope with the difficulties that it presents. Worry can also be cultural.

Worry is magical thinking. We believe that it does something to us that helps us. Like our worry makes us more vigilant or if we worry hard enough it will keep our loved ones safe and the plane they are flying in won't fall from the sky. Worry is a useless waste of good energy and provides nothing except more worry.

The only thing there is to do is to focus on what makes our lives work better which takes concentration on events occurring right in front of us that we can actually do something about. To rid ourselves of worry is near impossible. If it is going to occur we must develop an objective view of the universe rather than everything revolving around us. Worry is essentially fear. To not be fearful requires that we take action either by learning something, doing something or becoming a better person.

A Code for Creating Love

For couples, the development of moral processes and belief systems helps relationships run more smoothly and provides an important steadying influence. To develop our moral code we must question, scrutinize, evaluate, and enunciate those values we hold to be important. These earnest efforts to create shared values are the bulwark of relationship stability. Establishing values we agree upon is like reaching level ground where a relationship can find its balance and keep moving forward.

Lasting love is supported best by principles, opinions, feelings, ethics, and morals that represent what is important to both people—and that both people are willing to make a priority. As I sit with couples who are fighting about an issue that seems so crucial at the time, I often say, “What’s more important, your relationship or being right?” They usually stop fighting, because what I am saying rings true. They see that they’ve gotten lost in their own hurt, in being self-righteous, in trying to win. When writing a code for a relationship, we can set rules of engagement, like how to show respect and concern during discussions and how to include different points of view, that help keep our viewpoints from diverging into conflict.

AT PEACE WITH OURSELVES

Love over time grows from understanding two things: how we have been shaped by our life experience, and how we interact with our partner in regard to his or her feelings and needs. To put it another way, lasting love arises from a deep knowledge and acceptance of who we are and who we are with. Only when we come to this knowledge—and accept, even forgive, the wrongs of our past—can we take responsibility for the outcome of our own lives. We cease blaming others for our misfortunes and clear a space where love can thrive.

Melanie Klein, who worked closely with Sigmund Freud and contributed many classic works to the field of psychology, wrote:

A good relation to ourselves is a condition for love, tolerance and wisdom towards others. This good relation to ourselves has . . . developed in part from a friendly, loving and understanding attitude towards other people, namely, those who meant much to us in the past, and our relationship to whom has become part of our minds and personalities. If we have become able, deep in our unconscious minds, to clear our feelings to some extent towards our parents of grievances, and have forgiven them for the frustrations we had to bear, then we can be at peace with ourselves and are able to love others in the true sense of the word.

The words of Melanie Klein ring as true now as when she wrote them so many decades ago. She goes on to say that:

Part of the process of loving someone is to make peace with ourselves, our history, and our upbringing. To find those inevitable similarities and differences is the beginning stage of relating to another person without losing who we are and what is truly essential about us. How love is made not only involves how we behave towards our partner but how we are towards ourselves. How can we love someone else when we have no love to give?

When we can weave together what we need to do for ourselves with what we need to give to and get from our partner, we create a richer, more satisfying, and ultimately more contented life. What we need to do for ourselves is to create our own self-esteem, advance in our work or career, and take care of our health and our personal issues. What we need to give to and get from our partner is love, affection, comfort, support, sex, and companionship. When successfully married couples are asked the secret of their success, invariably they answer, “It takes work.” It does take work, but we must remember that it is love’s work, and when we give ourselves to it we are rewarded with sweet serenity and a sense that love will last because we make it so. We make love last when we create a vision for our relationship that we live by and we do the work of sticking to our promises. Then we know we can reach out to each other in difficult times and help each other and be good to each other, happy together as the years go by.

Falling in love is a mystery, but loving that same person over a lifetime is the ultimate personal challenge. For love to last, vital elements need to come together: an ongoing sex life, a satisfying lifestyle, the ability to connect deeply through compassionate honesty, even just working out a way to get through daily life. Lasting love requires that each person be fully committed and willing to do the work that produces an emotional connection. Both partners must feel safe and secure, so that they can express themselves without judgment or criticism. Their daily conversation must contain active compassion, empathy, understanding, and kindness.

For Your Inter-Reflection

How Love Is Made

1. What do you like about your relationship? When you are the most happy with your partner, what is he or she doing?

2. What would you like to change about your relationship? When you are the least happy with your partner, what is he or she doing?

3. Can you identify the confluence of pain in your relationship?

4. What about your relationship would you like to be different from the way you grew up?

5. Try writing an ethical code for your relationship. Ask your partner to do the same, then share your thoughts. Work toward agreeing on the principles that you feel are essential to maintain peace and harmony in your relationship.

6. Make a wish list for your future together.

Exerpted from Happy Together by Bill Cloke

 

 

Should We Blame The Parents?

The problem of blaming the parents remains a very difficult one for psychotherapists and patients because our need to be loyal to our parents naturally leads us to lay the responsibility for our problems on some essential flaw within us. But the fact is that though parents try to do their best, they may not provide the necessary emotional connections, support, or nurturing we need and as a result may unintentionally harm us. Most parents are doing what they know and what they learned from their own parents, who might have been very limited in their emotional resources and even abusive. When we can understand that a series of negative experiences is what has created our negative self-image, we can eventually build a true sense of who we are. Not that we must reject or even confront our parents, but in accepting them as human beings we humanize them and ourselves.

To develop emotional health we need to understand that self-blaming and the shame it causes can be toxic to us and to our relationships. The key point in looking at the role our caretakers played in our identity formation, or the lack of it, is not to blame them or use them to excuse our behavior, but simply to see clearly how they affected us. Understanding our history not only helps us alleviate self-blame, criticism, depression, anxiety, and violence, but also provides important insights into the workings of our present intimate relationships.

Whatever we do not understand about ourselves and our past will be transported into our present. If we deny our essential wounds, they will surface without our knowledge and drive a wedge into our relationships with others. Our understanding of what has shaped us allows us to make contact with the love that lies just beneath. Understanding what we feel, want, and need makes it more possible to be intimate with our mate. This awareness allows us to distinguish between ourselves and our mate so when disputes do arise we can understand what our contribution to the problem actually is.

When psychologists ponder the psyche, they are most interested in studying the causes of sychological conflicts and what promotes healing. Their main focus is on what it means to be healthy, and specifically what may be preventing people from actualizing their potential or their true selves. The
reason we look to family and childhood as a basis for psychological health is that children spend so much time with their parents and siblings when they are the most sensitive, dependent, and vulnerable. If we can take the negative out of blame and connect the cause with the effect, then we shift from self-blaming to a cause-and-effect reality that’s based on the experiences that have made us the way we are.

Leon Wurmser writes in his classic study The Mask of Shame that the child is an “omnipotent masochist” because he feels responsible for causing his own pain. If his parents were cold and withholding, he experiences this as “I am inadequate and unlovable.” If his parents were angry and rejecting, he believes that he is bad and useless. If his parents punished him for being angry or left him alone, he will be forced to hold in his anger and direct it at himself in a quest for perfection and redemption in his parents’ eyes. If his parents were fragile and he happens to be angry, this fragility might cause him to withhold his anger or deny it altogether.

In an article in the Journal of Counseling Psychology, Gershen Kaufman writes, “Even though the aftermath of shame can be severe, the way to a self-affirming identity yet lies in the deeply human capacity to be fully restored, in the knowledge that one individual can restore the interpersonal bridge with another however late it may be and in the awareness that human relationships are reparable. Through such restoring of the bridge, shame is transcended.” These wise lines express the central theme of what it means to be human. When we experience concern, interest, and caring, we’re affected positively, and this is what restores our true nature. If it’s uncaring people who inflict wounds, then we need loving people to heal them. In this process we see what love and care from others means to our lives and for our very soul.

This is an excerpt from the book Happy Together by Dr. Bill Cloke.

About Our Blind Spots

Working with couples over the years there are two central themes that emerge over and over again. The first is our inability to see what our partner is saying to us about our behavior and the second is that we may not be able to see what we are doing at all and instead see ourselves in an entirely different way than we actually are. Both are some form of blindness.

There can be many reasons why we are blind. First off we have natural defenses to feeling pain. We have endured experiences that wounded us. If anyone gets near that pain then our system will invent a way to make sure we don't get near it. Let's take the need to be right as an example of blindness. What is that? Why do we need be right at the expense of our relationship. The overwhelming statistic is that 80% of failed marriages are based on not accepting the influence of the other. Accepting the influence of the other means that we set aside our need to be right in order to listen to what our partner is saying to us. Listening and acknowledging does not mean agreement, but simply that we hear what is being said. Being right precludes listening, it is a defense. Against what we may ask? Well, if we need to be right so badly then we must be defending against what it means to us to be wrong. Being wrong means we are weak, stupid, even unlovable. So, how can we fathom being wrong when we think that it's a confirmation or our inadequacy. To that end we will die in the effort to not touch that wound.

So how in the world are supposed to find out how to accept our partners sense of what is happening, then understand who we are and apply that to a problem solving process that involves compassion, understanding, respect and empathy? Not so easy when we have those painful memories. It's the same with being good, proud, busy, distracted, compulsive or addicted. They all involve blindness. How do we then come out of this state of disconnection to see what it is that we cannot? It takes courage, perseverance, passion and determination. We must be willing to entertain what it is that our partner is trying to tell us. That also may include a competent therapist as an objective observer.

There are no easy answers to this very difficult state of being other than taking the first step. That step is to allow ourselves to take a leap of faith to acknowledge that we may have blind spots. That we need feedback from others so we can see more clearly. We need to trust those people who love us to tell us the truth, then we have to take it on the chin and learn something about ourselves. In the end it only creates more love. Seeing clearly is the most important skill we can learn as adults. To do that we must find out what it was that made us blind in the first place, then we can come to a better understanding and pull the curtain back. Opening up our mind to our past and how it affects our present provides an opportunity to be fully present. And what could be a better present than presence.

Is Criticism Ever Constructive?

Is there such a thing as constructive criticism? Not really? Criticism seems more like a punch in the stomach than a helpful hint. Complaints are a different animal altogether. The major difference between a criticism and a complaint is that a criticism is a personal attack and a complaint is about who we are. Criticism creates defensiveness. How could it be otherwise? Defensiveness is a knee jerk response to criticism; it’s payback. A complaint on the other hand aspires to loftier goals; it’s about your inner world.

In my work I have to say things to people that are really hard to hear. I must provide insights without judgment or criticism. Otherwise, they are up and out the door, never to be seen again. Criticism is always about the past but complaints can be about the future. You did the wrong thing as opposed to this is what I want moving forward. Whenever you express your complaint as a wish, need or a want, you are creating the possibility of a positive outcome. Criticism is always negative whereas a complaint can be quite positive. Complaints give your partner something to do whereas a criticism paints them into a corner. They are bad and there is no way out. A proper complaint is an exit strategy.

John Gottman, the author of The Seven Principles for A Happy Marriage interviewed over 12, 000 couples. He describes the “four horsemen” of a failed marriage as criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling. Highly critical couples are doomed to failure because criticism is a disconnect and ultimately a shut down.

The difference between a criticism and a complaint might look like:

1. Criticism: “If you could ever think of anyone besides yourself you would know that I needed your help today. You bailed and left me holding the bag.”
2. Complaint: “Next time we have a function in our home could we sit down and plan, so we are on the same team. I need your help.”
3. Criticism: “Are you so selfish that you can’t even remember my birthday. You can’t get anything right?”
4. Complaint: “I know how busy you are, but it really would mean a lot to me if next year on my birthday we worked out a plan so we could celebrate, it would mean the world to me.”

Criticism and complaints have one thing in common, they both relate to differences between people. Differences create conflict which is natural and unavoidable. Differences can be about  life-style, culture, past experiences, morals and values. It’s not that we will never get angry or have conflicts; it’s about how we handle them.

There are steps you can follow that will allow you to steer clear of criticism and develop a positive complaint style.

Step 1. De-escalate. When a conflict erupts your first response is to be angry, critical, righteous and retaliatory. You are convinced that you are right and they are wrong. But maybe you are blind to your part in it. It’s a good idea to cool down and think about what made you mad. Anger is informative and complex, it can be about five or six different things. Anger let’s you know that something is up, some internal land mine has been triggered. Take a beat and consider what made you angry. Is this an old wound? What do you want, need and value moving forward? What were they thinking? When you feel calmer and have a better idea about what pissed you off, then set up a time to talk or wait for an opportune moment.

Step 2. Acknowledgment. Conflict and anger break the emotional connection. The best method for reconnection is to acknowledge what your partner is saying or feeling. Providing feedback that gives the the sense that you understand what they are experiencing is connecting. Do not repeat word for word, but summarize the most important elements in a way that lets them know you understand. When couples are having trouble, it is often because they are not listening to each other and are too busy defending. Attack and defend is a lethal style that loops around and around until there is only stalemate. Acknowledgement breaks the negative cycle.

Step 3. Define the Problem. Once each person feels understood and has made an effort to voice their concerns try to make a statement about what you think the problem is. Something like: "When you ignore me, I turn up the volume and then you get angry with me for getting angry. I think the problem is that we are spending too much time arguing about what happened instead of what we want.” Once you agree on the problem you can start to talk about solutions. This is where your complaints can be heard. “In the future you don’t have to fix it, you just have to let me know what you need and that you hear me.”

Step 4. What Can Each of Us Do in the Future to Make it Better? Each person at this point can make a statement about about what they will do next time. "I promise to listen so you won't have to yell at me to be heard." By placing your concerns in a future context it feels positive rather than blaming and critical. In thirty years of seeing couples I have yet to see two people agree on what happened in the past. What works is to consider what you might do next time. “Next time could you let me know when you are going to be late.”

Step 5. Take Action. Making an effort to do those things you have agreed to do demonstrates commitment and concern for the needs and feelings of your partner. You don’t have to be perfect but when you do make a real effort it creates connection and love.

This road map is just that, a way to resolve problems and communicate in a way that creates love and connection. Like all road maps you need to know when you are off track and then get back on the road. Criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling break connections and compassion, understanding, respect and empathy create them. Complaints allow your partner into your inner world, criticism shuts them out. Love is an active process and sharing your complaints positively creates a more loving connection. This is the way to be happy together.

www.happytogetherbook.com

www.billcloke.com

 

Success and Failure

Do you have trouble completing tasks on time? Are you afraid to try new things because you are afraid to fail at them? Are you self critical and a perfectionist? Do you use the word should and what if a lot? If you answered "yes" to these questions then you need to read further. We "should" on ourselves for what we did or didn't do in our past and "what if" ourselves about the future. I should have made that investment, dated that girl or guy, gone bungee jumping. What if I lose everything, what if she rejects me, what if I don't succeed and what if I fail? These all too common refrains that are heard in almost every quarter, along with "no fear" or "go for it." These competing messages can be overwhelming. What to do?

First, where do these processes come from in the first place? Success and failure are really two sides of the same coin. They are both about not wanting to fail. Not wanting to fail is about not having faith in ourselves. It is a fundamental lack of trust in our abilities along with not knowing what it means to succeed or how to be successful. We lack the knowledge or the experience. There are steps to success and they are not the same steps as continued success. The hardest thing to do is to be successful every day. On the other side of the coin is failure. We fear that word, it conjures up the most depressing thoughts. Failure thinking is about feeling inadequate to the task. It is about not wanting confirmation that there is something inferior about us. So we don't try.

The original sin of success and failure thinking is self criticism. This means that everything we do we see as negative in and it's never good enough. Who would want to do anything if that is the way it will wind up. Self criticism is based on being perfect, an ideal, a "super-person". This perfection comes from feeling distant from our parents. We tried to be perfect to bring them closer, then the anger we feel toward them must be held in. Once we hold in our anger we direct it at ourselves, enter self criticism.

Self criticism is also about having been criticized by people we trusted. To end self criticism is a task we have to complete if we want to be more productive. When I talk to people about being more active, I ask them to return to the basics. When we were children we did things for their own sake, because we liked doing them. We were less concerned about the product and more involved in the experience. It's always the process not the product that matters. If the experience is good the product will follow. To be really good at anything takes time, practice and help. We need to understand that if we are get moving.

Of all the issues we must face in the world failure and success thinking is the most limiting. Self criticism holds us back because it is at the center of failure thinking. If we are afraid to fail we can't function, we will procrastinate. At the heart of procrastination is self criticism and low self esteem. It is tantamount to slapping a child's hands every time he reaches out. The child will stop extending his hand if it is slapped each time. We all will.

So, what do we do to make all this go away? The first thing is to understand where all this came from so we don't continue to blame ourselves for something we did not create. Secondly, we need to separate ourselves from the pain in the sense that we understand that we are different from our poor self esteem. The next step is to understand that our lack of faith in ourselves is a distortion, it is not about who we really are. We get to decide who we want to be and our fate is in our own hands. We need to have a firm grasp of the difference between our ideal self and reality. We don't have to be perfect, we only need to enjoy and learn. Learning and the experience have to be the the most important part of doing anything. We may need some help with reality because ours could be distorted.

Getting rid of success and failure thinking is the most liberating thing we can do. There is no such thing as success or failure. Things don't work of they do. If we are full tilt into what we are doing we end up learning a ton of things we didn't know before no matter how it turns out. That's success. I often use the example of my experience with playing guitar. I wanted to be a great guitar player. I worked hard at it but no matter how hard I tried I just didn't have the fingers for it. My small motor coordination was not good. I could throw a ball but was not good at small motor skills. So, I didn't become a great guitar player but I can play. I can pick up a guitar and play music and it sounds good to me. Did I fail?

Pulling Back The Curtain

We have all seen the Wizard of Oz and remember the scene when Toto pulled back the curtain revealing instead of the The Great Oz, a man who was pulling levers. This short scene from this classic film is to a greater or lesser extent all of us. We live our lives behind our curtain. It is so often the case with people whom I work with that they do not know who is behind their own curtain either. Marriages, friendships and relationships in general are filled with casual conversation, hidden agendas and the longing to be known and accepted, warts and all. 

So often when working with couples I experience the terror of being seen. They will employ all manner of defenses and resistance to the process that I am trying to use to help them feel better about themselves and each other. Suddenly, anger, defensiveness, contempt and criticism come my way as a means of keeping the knowledge that they feel deeply inadequate, powerless, helpless and unlovable out of the room. The righteous indignation is a cover for the fear of intimacy, dependency and loss. These folks truly believe that they are right and righteously defend what they are sure is the truth. Meanwhile they are devaluing my years of experience and methods painstakingly learned from the masters. Yet they know more. I truly feel sad and helpless in these situations because I know that if we could work together we would be able to come up with a way of working all these issues through.

I am continually surprised at what little married people know about each other and how many conversations about vulnerable personal struggles and about what is happening deeply and importantly  never happen. Instead the walls go up and the safety of conflict and anger comes flowing out. We all know that anger and conflict are dysfunctional, so why do we allow it? We don't know what else to do and we are too afraid to be truly seen and heard from within our heart of hearts. So, we use entitlement, correctness, indignation, rage and anger to be our protectors. All in service of our safety from humiliation and abandonment, never realizing that being safe is a myth.

So, what is the answer to our essential loneliness? It is courage. The courage to let down our armor, lay down needing to be right, our feelings of betrayal and of our dearest hurt feelings. Allowing ourselves to be revolutionaries of the soul, to give what we need the most. To embrace compassion, understanding, respect and empathy as the essential tools of our self discovery and of knowing one another. A tall order for sure. But if we want to throw off the chains of our personal psychological prison that was fashioned in our own family struggles, we must decide to have the courage to be hurt, to take that risk to open our hearts knowing that we could be.

There are no easy answers on the road into our inner life and our hearts. We must be willing to be seen, to see ourselves, to learn about our own hype, our self deception. As we are defending, criticizing others, being righteous, shutting down and throwing up walls remember that this is just another way to be utterly alone. As Bob Dylan once said, "every form of refuge has its price."  We really can't have a safe relationship, we need to allow our mate to see us if we want to be truly intimate. Intimacy is what feeds our soul, nurtures our heart and allows our spirit to fly.

What's Right About Being Wrong?

From working with couple's for over 25 years some disturbing trends have evolved that appear like a train wreck in the making. When couples go off the rails being right by one or both partner is usually somewhere in the mix. Being right is a road block, it cuts off communication and causes the process to be driven up a dead end with not redemption. Usually I see exasperated people coming in with little hope of coming to terms with the pile of issues that have not been resolved. It gets pretty daunting to dig out from the mess that is stirred up by needing and wanting to be right. I say this as a reformed right person who has found the holy grail of communication. The willingness to be wrong, to see it from the other person's point of view and even be able to let them know that I hear them. What a concept? 

There is plenty to say about being right and how much we love it. No one wants to be wrong, not unless you also like whips and chains applied to your extremities. Being right has deeper origins. The need to be right is about not wanting to have our worst fears about ourselves confirmed by our partner. Being right means we are strong, not weak, adequate not inadequate, smart not dumb and most importantly, lovable. The real culprit is our negative feelings toward ourselves that we cannot allow other people to see let alone ourselves. 

Our psyche does a great job of hiding those dirty little secrets way back in the recesses of our brain for safe keeping. Long long ago we were humiliated when we tried to express ourselves so our brain tucks that information away to protect us from any kind of humiliation by altering reality. It takes quite a bit to change someone's sense of reality. It's the way they see it and that's it. To infer that their perception could be askew usually evokes righteous indignation followed by angry insults or blame. "You made me angry because you did the very thing I told you never to do." That is usually something that is either next to impossible or actually off the charts in terms of unrealistic expectations from others. Being right is the penultimate lack of empathy. It's about saving our butts by not looking at the fact that we are being an ass.  

Being right is the most wrong thing we can do in a relationship because it eliminates the other person, makes them feel invisible and bad. When one person has to be right it means the other one must be wrong. Usually perfectionism goes hand in hand with being right. Underneath wanting to be perfect is an imperfect, self critical, demanding and angry person trying to get out.

Allowing ourselves to be wrong and to apologize if necessary creates connection. After all what is more important than love and connection? If we can suspend our sense of being right in favor of listening and hearing what our partner is trying to tell us and take a look at our part in the issue it is the first step toward resolution. 

I once asked a couple if they would rather be right or loved. Their answer was the latter but how many people never ask that question? That is our choice because being right kills love and being wrong allows us to see what we have done to upset our partner so we can make amends with understanding, compassion and kindness.