Am I the problem, too defensive or not good enough? Or is it their criticism too much?

Transcript

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Welcome to the relationship success lab, the place for relationship empowerment and actionable tools. So you can let go of old wounds and create. A secure, trusting, loving relationship. I'm dot Sarah global award-winning expert relationships, psychologist, and consultants helping high-achievers on business leaders. To have happy and healthy relationships. Grab my relationship health quiz full free. In the link below to get started now. On with your journey to relationship success. Hello and welcome to today's episode because we are talking about is the problem me or is it them? Is it me who is being too defensive? Am I just short tempered? Am I not really listening to my partner, which you know, is really inappropriate. And actually they could be saying something that's really helpful for me and really helpful and important for us, or. Are they just being annoying? Are they being too critical? Are they being overwhelmingly, uh, challenging in this moment and they're expecting things of me that are just inappropriate and are just beyond. Reasonable. So is the problem me or is it them? Now, this is such a key topic and it's something that I come across in clinic with my clients every single day, and it's something that I would heavily recommend you get a good handle on this because the moment that you can really decipher, is it mirror or is it them? Where does the line end between me and them? That is really when you are going to be able to solve a lot of problems, a lot of conflict, a lot of challenges within the relationship, and I'm talking primarily here about couples who want to repair their relationship and people who are wanting to be together, but simultaneously. The more confident that you get at your skills of figuring out is it mirror, is it them? It makes you better as an individual, you gain much more self-awareness. You are able to regulate your emotions a lot better. You are able to develop personally, so much so that your self-worth increases, your self-confidence increases. Your ability to empathize with the other people, increase, and you can make a fully informed choice as to whether or not this relationship is the right one for you, whether or not you want to be with this person, what that relationship would look like if you were to continue down this path. So this is something that is so huge and it's something that I've spoken about before, but perhaps I've not spoken about it enough on this podcast. So let's begin. Is it you or is it them? Where is the issue now? I want us to really consider this one fact point, and no words have ever been spoken that are truer than what I'm about to say right now. You can never control someone else. You can never control. What your partner does or doesn't do, you can never control what it is that they say or don't say. The only thing you ever have control over is yourself. That is something that you need to bear in mind as we're going through this talk. And the more comfortable that you get with that, the more you then start realizing, well, actually the only way of me being able to solve this problem of, is it me or is it them, is I would need to look at myself and clear route whatever issues I might have, because the moment that I clear out my own issues, then. I can see, hey, is this my thing or is it them? And the answer to that becomes a lot easier. So for example, if I know personally I have an issue around being criticized, or I have an issue around feeling like I'm not good enough, I know that I am sensitive to. The way that I look and how it's that I get perceived and I know that I get really worried about, let's say, my body weight, or I know that I get really worried about my intelligence and I know that I compare myself against other people. If I know these things about me and I'm able to clear those issues and I'm able to improve those issues within me, then. That makes this decision, this, the, the answer for this question far easier because then I can just see, well, actually what happened was a response of my partner and it's something that's going on for them and I can deal with it in a much better way. My container, my emotional capacity to hear them. And to take on feedback wherever there is feedback, but also to not accept criticism, to decline it, and for it to not affect me, like war tr ducks back, I would have to do that work myself. So this is the reason why I'm saying to you it's super important that you get comfortable with this idea that you can't control your partner, you can't control anyone else. You can only ever control yourself. So. That is something that's super important, and I want you to think about this analogy for just a moment. If you imagine that there's a surface, right? So maybe it's table, maybe it's um, the floor, whatever it might be, but just imagine there's a surface and that surface is smooth Now. If you have a dent in that surface, and let's say you pour water onto the surface, all of the water is going to go inside of that dent. Yeah. That is the same as whenever we've got a vulnerability or we've got a personal wound, a deep seated issue that is causing us a lot of anxiety, even if it's something deep down level or it's making us feel really fragile. If we have got that, that is like the surface with a dent inside of it. So the moment that our partner says anything. It is going to get sucked into that dent, whether or not they intended it to get sucked into that dent. So we're always fluctuating between this thing of what is being shared and what's being absorbed, and we're all sharing and we're all absorbing all the time. But here's the thing, if your partner shares. Whatever it is that they're sharing is most likely to get sucked into the parts that are most vulnerable inside of you. So if your partner is sharing feedback and you have got vulnerabilities around receiving feedback or certain levels of feedback, then guess what? It is just something that is match made, uh, in hell potentially, but it's something that is really like, it just ends up attracting one another. So they might share something. Let's say, Hey. Cleaning needs to be done. And let's say you are exhausted from cleaning and you've been doing your work. You, you know, more than your share of the workload, or you've been trying really hard to relax and you've not been able to because you've just been exhausted, whatever it might be. But in that moment, you almost take it as a personal attack, even though it might not be intended as an attack. Right. And. When you're in that moment, it then starts to become very difficult for you to distinguish the line between when it's just feedback and when it actually is an attack. So the feedback might be, Hey, we really need to clean up the house, right? So that could be just a, a simple statement that's actually quite ambiguous or an attack might be you never clean up. And this place is a mess. And actually, can you not see that this is such a simple task for you to do and you've just not been doing it. So knowing where the line is becomes very, very difficult. And actually, it's very easy to get sucked into the realm of criticism and attack if we can't stop it soon enough. Because what happens is that they might. Give feedback, we become defensive and then they become attacking, and then all of a sudden we've just gone down this rabbit hole, which we never actually needed to enter. So again, going back to my original point, we can only control ourselves. We can't control them. So what we're really needing to do is really fill in any dent that we might have. And really start to smooth out our surface so that we can come into these conversations with a cleaner slate. So how do we do this? Well, first off, I really want you to start considering what topics have you noticed yourself feeling really triggered over? So what has happened in your relationship? And it might be of. Recent events, but what tends to happen where you notice yourself feeling really anxious and really triggered where you feel evoked, you feel like you are being pulled and there is just a strong emotional response response. There might even be a strong visceral response. So what is that about? Now, slow down and have a think. Because we're talking about trigger, we're talking about the situation. But we're also talking about our internal experience, and the situation is a situation, but the thing that gets triggered. Is the thing that's inside of you. So, uh, I'm gonna break this down as simply as possible. Um, but if you are needing more help and support with that, please do reach out to me because I know that this is quite high level stuff I'm talking about and, and it might be kind of difficult to conceptualize or to apply practically, but from a high level perspective, we've got the situation. So this is the thing that is happening. This is what you are witnessing. This is what you are hearing. This is what you are seeing. This is what is being said. So it is essentially what we could write down on paper. That would be objectively accurate. So if we had a camera, if we had a transcription mechanism, that is what would be recorded. So that's the situation. Now the trigger is a belief I. Or it is a thought. It is a program. It is an emotion. It is something that lives inside of us, but typically it's going to be a deep rooted core belief. So for example, the core belief might be, I am not enough, or I have to work really hard for other people to value me. I have to work really hard to receive love. That would be the core belief, but that is also the thing that gets evoked. That gets triggered, that wakes up when the situation comes about. So have you ever noticed that, you know, two people might face exactly the same situation, but they might respond very, very differently. Well, the reason is not because the situation's different, but the reason they respond differently is because of what exists inside of them. So one person might have that trigger and the other person doesn't. So the trigger is not the thing on the outside, but it's actually the thing on the inside. So situation happens. The situation might be a comment that's being said, and. The trigger is the deep rooted belief that I have inside of me. So this again relates to our vulnerabilities that is the dent in the surface that we really need to start looking at. So. Figure out what your trigger is, and from then figure out what the emotional response is. So the emotional response might be something like anger, it might be frustration, it might be anxiety, it might be fear, it might be shame, it might be guilt. It might be a combination of those things. Or it might be numbness. So you might actually notice yourself almost cutting off emotionally that you are not able to even be present emotionally because it just feels far too overwhelming. So you shut down. That is your automatic response. So if that's the case, then really start looking at what that emotion is, because the emotion is going to be the response to the trigger. Being activated. So for example, my partner says something, it wakes up the trigger or the deep rooted belief of, hmm, I have to work really hard to be loved because I'm not enough. And so the emotional response might be, I shut down. Because it just feels so overwhelming. I just feel numb. Or it could be I'm filled with fear. So figure out what the emotional response is. So you've got three different categories here that, that you need to consider. So once you've started considering these three different categories, I want you to then move on to considering your nervous system and the state of your nervous system. And the reason why I'm saying this is because your nervous system holds the key to so many of these things. So. Ultimately we, we've got two different pathways. We've got our fight or flight response or fa So are we noticing ourselves wanting to attack? Are we noticing ourselves wanting to bite? We feel like we're at war, and all of a sudden we can feel the adrenaline rushing inside of us and we are ready to snap back. Is that what's happening? Or are we wanting to run away from the situation? Are we wanting to escape? Are we wanting to hide? Are we wanting to almost put the blanket over our heads and go into that big hole and never come out? Or do we just freeze? Do we almost feel like we dunno what to do and it almost feels like, you know, a day in headlights and, and, and we just can't see anything. We just stop in that moment and it's almost like we've become detached. We know we're physically there, but mentally and emotionally we've checked out which response is it? Because again, that's going to tell you a lot about your emotional reaction, but it's also going to tell you a lot about how you end up having. This conversation with your partner or how this issue ends up. Moving forward. So actually, do you move forward in that you end up cycling back and maintaining the same problem again and again over time? Or can you move forward so that you can improve the situation? Whether it be that you have very difficult and uncomfortable conversations of how it is that you can move forward with this? How is it that you can protect yourself and maybe go to therapy yourself, maybe together as a couple, but how is it that you're going to resolve these issues? But also do you actually need to separate. What is it? So really thinking through those things now, once you've thought those, through those things, I want you to return back to your core belief. The thing that gets triggered, and I want you to simply ask yourself, is this reflective of me being unsafe now? Is this reflective of me being unsafe now because usually when the core belief or the trigger gets activated, it is attached with our system of safety and actually we don't feel very safe. So for example, if the trigger or the core belief is. I have to work really hard to be loved as being activated. It will also activate the same system of I am not very safe right now. So if that's the case, I want you to consider how safe do I feel? How safe do I feel in this moment? And if the answer is, I don't feel very safe, I want you to ask yourself the question, is it true? Is it true with a hundred percent accuracy that I am unsafe right now? I. Is it true that I'm unsafe right now with a hundred percent accuracy? Because if it is, if the answer is yes, I'm a hundred percent unsafe, and it is absolutely accurate, then you can start to consider, well actually this is the definitive line of when it is abusive, when it is attacking, when it is your partner putting you in a harmful situation. That is something that we then can consider. And it's a clear cut. Yes. Because you are unsafe. And when it's, when that's the case, then action needs to be taken so that you can be safe. So whether you call up somebody, whether you, uh, reach out to a friend, a family member, someone who you can trust, but, but that is something that requires safety. However, if the answer is no, it is not true that I am unsafe air. Uh, or at least not to a hundred percent certainty, and maybe it is, well, I feel emotionally unsafe, but objectively, if I was to zoom out, like I know that I'm going to be safe and I know that things will kind of be okay, and it's, it's almost like muddy grounds. It's a shade of gray, and I'm not entirely sure what shade of gray it is. Then I want you to start considering. And is this something that I can work through with this person? This is something that I can work through with this person. So in that moment when tension is heightened, actually all you are needing is safety. So whether it be that you pause and you start considering, actually I just need a bit of a break from this conversation and I'm just going to step out, or I'm just going to like come back in half an hour, whatever it is. Is that what you are needing in that moment, or can you actually say to your partner, you know what. I really want to feel emotionally safe right now, and I'm not getting that right now. So is there a way of just calming down? Is there a way that you can support me in feeling safe? And when we stopped talking about safety and when we were asking our partner, Hey, can you help me feel safe that. Does supports the light switch of reducing defensiveness that supports the light switch of reducing attack because actually we then start to realize, Hey, you know what? This other person doesn't feel safe and. We're here on the same team. We're not here to make them unsafe. We're not here with the intention of anything malicious, but we are here for the very basic need of safety. So that is essential. So can we actually convey that what we're looking for is safety in that moment? If it is, then great because then you are able to move forward and when you are able to move forward. And, and you are recognizing, Hey, you know what? I felt really unsafe, but I think I felt unsafe because I felt like I'm not good enough. And if you are able to get to that level of communication with your partner, then they can hear that and they can do something with that. And they can say, you know, well, you all good enough? But this issue really irritates me. It's, it's their trigger, it's their, it's their pet peeve. It's something to do with them. And if that's the case, then great, we can work on that. Because then they can say, oh, you know what, I'm really sorry. It never made, I never intended for you to feel like you weren't good enough. I just know that I'm really stressed with this thing and it came out in that way. But of course you are good enough for me and you are good enough. I can see other things that you are able to do. If your partner alternatively comes up with something like, well, okay, I get it. Um, you are good enough as a person, but actually I still expect to need this, then that's a trickier conversation and maybe you need to go to therapy or have coaching around this. But you know, in that moment you might need a mediator in terms of, well, what is it that would best support you to. Have that balance of both feeling important, feeling like you are good enough, but also wanting to improve and wanting things to get better, because that's something that is a very difficult conversation to have, particularly if there are many vulnerabilities and many projections that are flying all over the place. Because guess what? Both people, you're both going to have vulnerabilities and you're both going to be projecting something and you're both going to be sharing and you're both going to be absorbing. And so to do that alone can be very misty. There can be a lot of clouds and sometimes it's hard to filter through that, those clouds. So that's just something for you guys to consider really in terms of whether or not you need to be supported in those conversations. When this happens, if you are able to evolve to this stage, I want you to then start considering three different roles that you might take on board whilst you are in these heated moments or these heated conversations with your partner. Now, the three roles are number one. The overly responsible partner. So the overly responsible partner is a person who feels like they have to take on board lots of different things. So it must be me. I must be the issue, and I'm the one who needs to solve it. I'm the one who needs to rescue it. So that's number one. Second role is the under responsible partner. So this person is a person who always blames, he points fingers, and he says, it must be you. You are the issue. Right. Doesn't feel good to hear that, but there will be one person who feels overly responsible and the other person who's pointing the finger. And then there will be the third role. The third role is the reflective partner who is the person who wants balance, wants accountability, wants responsibility, but is also willing to share responsibility as well. So the reflective partner is clearly the healthiest space to be in and. That is the aim for both partners. So whether you started off as being under or over responsible and same with your partner, it doesn't matter because actually the objective and the goal is how it is that you can both be, be reflective partner, where you can balance a responsibility and accountability between you both, because that is really what is going to shift you to the next level. I would love to hear your thoughts on this episode, so if you've got any, please feel free to share them with me. And until next time, please take care of yourselves and take care of your loved ones. I.