Everything you know about communicating and earing you learned in childhood. These lessons are a familiar and natural part of your interactions with others, until they are no longer effective and you are forced to learn new ways of communicating and behaving.
Becoming aware of these unconscious early patterns is one lesson included in Relighting Romance Step 3: Deepen Your Individuality to Strengthen Your Relationship. The other lesson is to become educated in more effective ways of communicating and interacting with each other. Both lead to more adult interactions and will keep your communication in good shape.
Some of the benefits of communicating and interacting from a solid adult core are
- saying what you mean and meaning what you say;
- having fewer misunderstandings;
- experiencing less defensiveness and fewer fights, less bickering, and fewer flare-ups;
- feeling lighter and having more fun because talking is easier.
Now you may huff and puff and say, "But we are adults! We do communicate as adults! What can you possibly mean?"
My answer is that you probably do comrnunicate and interact as adults and often very successfully at the office or with your colleagues and friends. On the other hand, you - like many other couples - probably revert to speaking in hurtful ways you are not proud of, or from time to time, you may feel shamed or blamed by your partner. There are unresolved issues you avoid or fight about with no mutual solution. You may have a pattern of squabbling over things that really don't matter, and you can't seem to stop the pattern from happening repeatedly.
The lessons in this blog will highlight your contribution to this pattern through understanding the parent, child, and adult selves that are unconsciously motivating you. You will reflect on what you need to do to stay in your Adult Self, to strengthen the muscles of your Adult Self, and to take care of your Wounded Child Self that takes over when we are under stress.
I promise that if you both embrace this step of the program, your difficult communications and interactions will quickly change. Differences and disagreements may no longer seem as problematic to talk through. Some previous difficulties may even fall away. You will feel better. You'll have more time and energy to focus on fun and creative pursuits in your life.
Discovering and Developing Your Adult Self
As you begin reading this blog, remember that it requires the participation of two whole, Adult Selves to make a Relighting Marriage Romance. These whole, healthy Adult Selves bring their entirety to the relationship--wonderfulness and quirks, families and friends, work and hobbies, finances and lifestyle activities, challenges and individuality. Exploring and developing your uniqueness - the characteristics, talents, and values that define who you are as individuals - is the premier task of growing up.
Longitudinal research from a variety of experts has delineated a short list of life activities and attributes that contribute to happy, healthy adulthood. As you strengthen the muscles of your Adult Self, you can balance these characteristics in your life and between the two of you. These attributes include developing
- your self-awareness by spending time in self-reflection;
- a vigorous curiosity about life;
- a balance between your masculine and feminine aspects;
- your ability to empathize with and express compassion for others;
- your enjoyment of close and satisfying relationships;
- a deeper meaning in your life.
By embracing this task of developing and maturing your Adult Self, you become motivated to fully express your uniqueness in the world. This is your creative expression. These are your gifts or talents. This self-expression may be manifest in many ways: how you parent, teach, write, or paint. It may be in the making of wonderful food or how you dress, talk, dance, walk, sing, or play.
Think about it: You have the opportunity, and the choice, to express yourself uniquely every moment of every day. It is just like the choice to love. You can hide yourself under a basket, or you can take risks to become just a little more wildly, joyously, fully creative-and thus more fully you.
How Do You Gain the Characteristics of Happy, Healthy Adults?
A helpful way of teaching couples to distinguish their healthy adult behaviors from unhealthy intemctious comes out of Transactional Analysis (TA). TA is a school of psychological thought that developed the idea that within each of us are Parent, Adult, and Child selves. This simple approach to the human personality will
- provide you with an understanding of the responses and reactions that help or hinder your relationships;
- empower you with options to change negative responses to your partner and respond in ways that are appropriate to the situation.
I think of expanding this repertoire of adult behaviors as muscle building; sometimes we all need a personal trainer to teach us new strategies and keep us on track. Using the Parent/Adult/Child (PAC) model is an integral part of your training, which in turn will help you recognize and change the behavior that hinders your relationship.
In this view of the human personality, we experience one of three basic selves at any one time: the Parent, the Adult, and the Child.
The Parent and Child selves each have a positive and an unhealthy, or wounded, aspect that will be further described. Remember, the ultimate goal is to become aware of these selves and to develop a strong Adult Self. When you achieve these goals, you develop emotional flexibility. The more flexible and resilient your personality becomes,
- the more flexible you will be in navigating between these selves;
- the more options you will have in your communications;
- the more you will be able to partner in a healthy way.
