Source: aliceabc0/pixabay

Mary had been married for twenty-seven years when she was diagnosed at age fifty-two with breast cancer. Virtually overnight, their marriage that had been characterized by a high degree of trust, respect and intimacy, became a battleground in which Doug was the enemy who was the object of all of Mary’s fear, pain and rage. “It was like getting hit by a truck”, said Doug. “It just came out of nowhere. One day we were in love with each other, the next day, it seemed like she wanted to kill me. The cancer diagnosis really threw us both but I never expected that reaction from Mary. No matter what I did, it seemed like nothing was good enough. Every effort I made left her feeling angrier with me. After a while I just gave her more space, but this infuriated her even more. She raged at me accusing me of abandoning her. I knew that she was scared; we were both overwhelmed by the cancer, but no matter what I did, nothing seemed to help. I wasn’t going to leave the relationship but in all the time that we’d been together it had never been so hard.”

“It was as though I was possessed by a demon”, was the way Mary described her experience. “For the first six months after the diagnosis, throughout the chemotherapy, the surgery, and the radiation treatments I was a raving lunatic. It wasn’t just Doug that received my wrath, it was everyone, but he got the brunt of it. It wasn’t that I hated him; it was that somehow the cancer had ripped open the doors that contained all of the rage that I had been stuffing my whole life.

Fifty years of being a good girl, a nice person, a patient wife, pretending that I never felt angry or helpless or tired or upset. It all came up at once. It seemed like there was no controlling it, and even if I could, there was a part of me that didn’t want to. Even while I was raging at Doug and feeling guilty about dumping so much on him, a bigger part of me was saying ‘Yes! Go for it! It’s about time! You’ve swallowed enough shit for three lifetimes. No more!’ I know Doug’s didn’t deserve what I dumped on him, but I would do the same thing if I had it to do over again. For the first time in my life it seemed as though I wasn’t driven by my fear of displeasing people. What did I have to lose? For the first time I felt free.”

What Mary experienced was a form of what we call ‘shadow possession’. When we fail to honor the unwanted aspects of ourselves for prolonged periods of time, a life crisis can unexpectedly rip the cover off our feelings exposing us (and others) to the raw emotion that had been covered by a lifetime of denial. All hell breaks loose.

Doug and Mary’ not only survived their marital crisis, but came through it with more personal strength and shared love and than they had previously experienced. They both describe their current relationship as having greater depth, passion, and authenticity than they had prior to her diagnosis. Mary says, “Cancer forced us into a place that we had been avoiding throughout our marriage. It confronted us with the fact that we had been settling for security and comfort rather than the passion that comes from real honesty. The first thing that we both had to get honest about was how dishonest we had both been. We next had to admit how much more we wanted out of the marriage and how afraid we were of going after it. We had both been playing it safe and if it wasn’t for the cancer we probably still would be.”

Doug says, I can’t really say that I’m glad that Mary got sick, but I am grateful for the changes that the crisis provoked in our lives. I wouldn’t want to go through it again, but what we came through it with was sure worth it.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We’re giving away 3 e-books absolutely free of charge. To receive them just click here. You’ll also receive our monthly newsletter.

Be sure to follow us on Facebook and don’t miss our Facebook Live presentations every Thursday at 12:30 pm PST.

Source: macadam13/pixabay

Linda: By virtue of being close to each other, we will surely bang into each other’s sore spots. The sore spots are the leftover wounds from childhood and sometimes wounds from previous adult relationships. Somewhere in our history there are people who let us down, lied, betrayed, exploited, took advantage, ignored, judged, criticized or in some way did not meet our needs. Some of us have had many wounds and are sore all over our body.

When those places get touched, we can scream out in pain at our partner, making them bad and wrong for being such inconsiderate brutes, or we can use the pain as an opportunity to heal the sore places. Not all of the wounds come from our original caregivers (usually mom and dad) but many do. And the wounds are deep because we were tender, vulnerable, and young when they occurred and were captive in our childhood home, repeatedly exposed to the same wounding.

The choice is present when we experience pain in our tender spots to report out to our partner the specific nature of the wounding. Here are a few examples:

• “When you work long hours, I feel unimportant and unloved, just like when I was a child and my dad didn’t notice me.”
• “When you complain, I feel ashamed and incompetent, just like I did as a boy when I could never live up to my mother’s huge expectations.”
• “When I make a request of you and you’re too busy and distracted to pay attention, I feel horrible, like I did as a kid, that I was a nuisance and a pest to both of my parents.”
• “When you take that third drink, I feel terror that you are sliding into alcoholism like that of my mom’s that destroyed my family.”
• “When you refuse my sexual advances, I panic that I will be stuck again for years in a sexless marriage like my last one.”

When there is enough awareness present to know what the sore spots are and enough self-discipline to not act out the pain but to report about the nature of the pain, the couple can work together. Until we are aware of our wounds, we are doomed to criticize the person who touches that sore spot. We cry out for them to meet our deepest needs, but the negativity and blame accompanying our cries make it difficult or impossible for us to be heard. When we instinctively pull away from the assault no learning and understanding occurs, the needs continue to go unmet, and the sore spot remains sore, or is even more painful now from re-wounding.

Once we at least identify what the old wound is, we have an option to soothe ourselves until we are calm enough to explain where the pain emanates from. Only then can our desire to have our partner understand our pain, and the fear that the need will continue to go unmet, has a chance to be heard. Even though our partner loves us, they can’t read our mind to intuit our needs. We have to know what those needs are and take responsibility for communicating them in a way our partner can hear us. When our desires are communicated in a vulnerable way, never as demands or commands, it does not insure in that they will be met, but it does stack the deck for success.

It is a good idea to be prepared for a “no.” Sometimes our partner will not be able to meet our request even if an excellent job is done in making it. But it is not a rejection of who we are, only a refusal in this moment. Out of the understanding of how important the need is, another moment may yield a different result. The consciousness of the wounds and the skill in communicating an effective request is the winning combination for the wounds to, at long last, become healed.

• We’re giving away 3 e-books absolutely free of charge. To receive them just click here.
• Be sure to follow us on Facebook.

Source: StockSnap/Pixabay

Sore spots. We all have them. Those places where we get easily triggered, quickly defensive and irrationally reactive. It’s the emotional equivalent of being poked in a fresh wound. Those unhealed places in us that haven’t yet received sufficient care, remind us that they need more loving attention and perhaps forgiveness, or maybe just time. Some of us may be fortunate enough to have just a few of them, others, more, sometimes a lot more.

You’ll know it when you bump into a sore spot of your partner’s. They’ll let you know, but they probably won’t say “ouch!” or politely say “Excuse me but I think you just bumped into one of my sore spots.” They might get angry and yell. Or they might go silent and moody. Or cry. Or say “Nothing” when you ask them “What’s wrong?” And you’ll probably react similarly when you’re the one who gets triggered. It feels safer to withdraw, get angry or just not want to talk about it because it’s too vulnerable to reveal that we feel hurt or scared.

Activating sore spots in others and getting activated ourselves isn’t and “if”, it’s a “when”. Because few, if any of us are completely free of them, we going to be both the triggerer and the triggered, from time to time.

Sore spots originate in early life experiences (frequently in childhood) when we felt too much shame or fear to acknowledge our pain, or at risk of being punished. The overt or covert message came as, “How could you be so stupid?” Or ‘What’s wrong with you?” neither of which are actual questions, but are actually condemnations. They can be experienced as threats or curses such as “I’m ashamed of you” or “I can’t take this any longer” “You’re just like your father” or  “You’re selfish”.

It could also have to do with a physical characteristic that we felt shame about, or an accusation that something about our personality that we fear repulses others. It’s painful when anyone, particularly someone close to us touches these sore places. We react by bracing ourselves for attack. Although our partner did not cause the pain, it seems like they did. Actually they merely activated pain that was already present, but not completely healed that lay underneath the surface of our awareness. In committed relationships we can count on our partner to activate any areas that need healing.

Like the saying goes, you can see this experience as a problem or an opportunity. The opportunity when we are triggered is the possibility of bringing attention to the old fear, shame, anger, or grief. Rather than reacting with anger at another for causing us pain, or at ourselves for hurting, we are called upon to bring a quality of presence that promotes healing.

Here are the stages that characterize this process:

1. Awareness: By becoming aware of the sore places, we identify the limiting beliefs we adopted about ourselves long ago. Bravely facing these beliefs is an essential to the healing.
2. Curiosity: This about becoming interestedin what we are actually experiencing rather than ‘”shooting the messenger” with a barrage of judgments.
3. Responsibility: Projection reinforces our belief that we are powerless to do anything about the circumstances or our feelings. Until we rise up to a higher level of ownership of our own areas of sensitivity, we will continue to project fault onto others.
4. Support: When we turn our attention to our wounds that need compassionate attention rather than blaming our partner for touching them, the real healing begins. Vulnerability invites support.  When we stop holding our partner responsible for putting the pain there, they are motivated to support us.
5. Vulnerability: Letting our partner know exactly what we are feeling enables them to understand what we need from them. It can be as simple as just wanting them to be more sensitive to whatever issue was activated.
6. Compassion: Kindness to ourselves is an essential part of the healing process. When we affirm that we are capable, deserving and lovable, no longer have to be hampered by the old flawed identity, we cultivate a positive self-perception.
7. Partnership: The process is no longer adversarial and has become a partnership with each of us supporting the other in their healing process. By providing respectful responses, the cycles of reactivity gradually become replaced with enhanced trust.

With a number of repetitions, the benefits to each partner and to the relationship begin to show up immediately. The patterns that are being challenged have been in place for many years, even decades and it’s unlikely that they will quickly give way to non-defensive responses. But with persistence, they do give way. When we feel the relief that comes from finally being freed from the obsolete programs that have been dominating our life, there’s no going back!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We’re giving away 3 e-books absolutely free of charge. To receive them just click here. You’ll also receive our monthly newsletter.

Be sure to follow us on Facebook and don’t miss our Facebook Live presentations every Thursday at 12:30 pm PST.