The chapter opens the day after an argument. Cary told the therapist what she had felt when she saw Ian pull away: “I was afraid of feeling alone and rejected. This produces a very deep and dark void in my heart.”
She then turned to Ian and said: “Ian, yesterday I was afraid of losing you. I tried to pursue you in an effort to feel more secure in our relationship.” Ian answered: “I didn’t know she was trying to get close to me. It’s hard for me to identify when people want to get close to me because I’m afraid of being rejected.”
The chapter’s comment: “Feeling our emotions and being vulnerable with the people we trust is a sign of true strength, not weakness, as it is often portrayed.”
A method with a name
The author says: “I have created an acronym with the letters REALTE to help you listen to your emotional alarms.” The letters stand for Recognize, Express, Analyze, Lament, Transform, and a Corrective Emotional Experience. This chapter covers the first three.
Before you try any exercise: if you are hurt, threatened, controlled or afraid of your partner, skip the shared exercises. Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 (or text START to 88788), and use a safe device your partner cannot see. In immediate danger, call 911.
1. Recognize
The chapter compares unnoticed emotions to smoke alarms whose batteries have run out: “we get so used to hearing it and putting off replacing the battery that we stop being aware that we need to pay attention to it.” It quotes Greenberg: “you have to feel it to heal it.”
For Ian this was “a monumental task.” The chapter lists habits that get in the way of saying what we feel, such as “Accusing instead of saying how we feel” and “the habit of using adverbs such as ‘always’ or ‘never.'”
To feel an emotion, the chapter says, start by accepting it: “You cannot control what you do not accept.” Then listen to the body, with questions such as “How does this emotion make me feel?” and “Where in my body do I feel it?”
2. Express
“Labeling the feeling is an important step in regulating your emotions.” And: “When you name the emotion, you begin to take control of it.” Expression can happen “verbally in conversation, in writing (e.g., a diary), or in motion.” Therapeutic writing, the chapter adds, “gives you the ability to unite your cognitive side with your emotional side.”
3. Analyze
“It is important to ANALYZE (A) whether the emotion is primary or secondary.” The chapter’s example: “it was easier for Cary to retreat into anger and attack her husband, who avoided her, than to accept the feeling of abandonment she was experiencing.” For Ian, “when his wife attacked him, he withdrew and showed feelings of indifference and coldness, when in fact his deepest need was to feel loved and accepted by his wife.”
The book offers questions it attributes to Greenberg: “Is this what I really feel deep down?” “Is this the most central or primary feeling?” “Do I feel anything else that comes before this?” And to check whether a feeling is healthy: “Is this feeling a response to other past experiences, rather than primarily a response to what is happening now?” and “Is there a pattern of recurring feelings of discomfort?”
Keep reading
Chapter 7 covers the rest of the steps, beginning with lament. In HEAL. LOVE. CONNECT. each chapter gives a description of a problem, some key concepts to understand it, and practical solutions.
Dr. Efrain Duany is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT-S) and the author of HEAL. LOVE. CONNECT. (Amor Seguro).
This article is education, not therapy, and results vary. It describes the book’s methods and does not promise any outcome. If you feel your relationship needs support, seek out a licensed therapist.
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