Conflict: Why It's Important For Couples + A Practical Conflict Resolution Tool

People only see what they are prepared to see. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Conflicts a couple experience can be complex and multifaceted, often stemming from a combination of internal and external factors.

Delving into the intricacies of these conflicts needs an understanding of both partners' perspectives and the dynamics at play. Let's explore some potential underlying issues, both internal and external, that may contribute to a couple's struggles:

Internal Conflicts:

1. Communication Styles:

   • Issue: Differences in communication styles can lead to misunderstandings and frustration.

   • Internal Conflict: One partner might feel unheard or dismissed, while the other may struggle with expressing themselves effectively.

2. Unmet Emotional Needs:

   • Issue: Unfulfilled emotional needs can create a sense of emptiness or dissatisfaction.

   • Internal Conflict: One partner may grapple with feelings of loneliness or abandonment, while the other may struggle with guilt or inadequacy.

3. Personal Insecurities:

   • Issue: Personal insecurities can manifest as jealousy or mistrust.

   • Internal Conflict: Both partners may be dealing with their own insecurities, leading to a cycle of defensiveness and vulnerability.

4. Different Values and Goals:

   • Issue: Divergent values or goals can lead to conflicts over priorities and life directions.

   • Internal Conflict: One partner may feel torn between personal aspirations and the relationship, while the other may wrestle with feelings of being stifled or not understood.

5. Past Trauma:

   • Issue: Unresolved traumas from the past can impact the present relationship.

   • Internal Conflict: Individuals may struggle with trust issues, fear of vulnerability, or recurring emotional wounds from past experiences.

External Conflicts:

1. External Stressors:

   • Issue: External pressures such as work, finances, or family expectations can strain the relationship.

   • Internal Conflict: Partners may internalize stress differently, leading to varying levels of emotional availability and coping mechanisms.

2. Social Expectations:

   • Issue: Societal norms and expectations can influence the couple's dynamics.

   • Internal Conflict: One partner may grapple with societal expectations, while the other may struggle with feelings of inadequacy or the desire for independence.

3. Lack of Support Systems:

   • Issue: Insufficient support from friends or family can strain the relationship.

   • Internal Conflict: Partners may feel isolated or unsupported, leading to a sense of dependency on each other and potential resentment.

4. External Influences on Identity:

   • Issue: Changes in individual identities due to external factors can impact the relationship dynamics.

   • Internal Conflict: Partners may struggle with their evolving sense of self, leading to a need for understanding and acceptance from the other.

Can Conflict Be Helpful In A Relationship?

Conflict within a relationship is often viewed negatively due to the emotional turbulence and potential for damage to the connection between partners. However, when managed constructively, can have several positive aspects.

1. Fostering Growth and Understanding:

Negative Perception: Conflict is often associated with pain and discomfort.

Positive Shift: Constructive conflict encourages personal and relational growth by forcing individuals to confront differences, leading to a deeper understanding of themselves and their partners. This is where a couple appreciate each other’s differences and learn that ‘differentiation’ can be a healthy aspect of a relationship that’s growing - not stagnating.

2. Enhancing Communication Skills:

Negative Perception: Conflict is seen as a breakdown in communication.

Positive Shift: Conflict can improve communication skills if partners take time to understand their personal needs (around safety/security, playfulness/fun/variety/pesonal expression, their need to feel prioritised/appreciated and loved/cherished.

3. Resolving Unmet Needs:

Negative Perception: Conflict often highlights unmet emotional/intimacy needs.

Positive Shift: Learning how to listen and hear a partner’s emotional needs without feeling judged/put down can re-build closeness and connection.

4. Building Resilience:

Negative Perception: Conflict can be viewed as weakening the relationship.

Positive Shift: Successfully navigating conflicts builds resilience within the relationship. Couples learn to weather storms together, strengthening their bond and trust in each other's ability to handle challenges.

5. Expressing unvoiced fears:

Negative Perception: Conflict may be associated with vulnerability.

Positive Shift: Conflict provides a platform for emotional openness. It encourages partners to share their feelings, fears, and desires, fostering a more emotionally intimate connection.

6. Preventing Resentment:

Negative Perception: Conflict can lead to resentment.

Positive Shift: Constructive conflict resolution prevents the accumulation of unresolved issues and resentment. By addressing concerns promptly, couples can maintain a healthier emotional climate within the relationship.

7. Catalyzing Positive Change:

Negative Perception: Conflict is often seen as disruptive.

Positive Shift: Conflict can be a catalyst for positive change. It prompts couples to reassess their dynamics, make necessary adjustments, and evolve together. Through conflict, couples can build a relationship that aligns more closely with their evolving needs and aspirations.

8. Encouraging Individual Reflection:

Negative Perception: Conflict can lead to defensiveness.

Positive Shift: Conflict can encourage individual reflection. Partners can use conflicts as opportunities to understand their own triggers, insecurities, and communication patterns. This self-awareness contributes to personal growth and enhances the overall quality of the relationship.

9. Finding Your Voice:

Negative Perception: It’s better to sweep conflict under the carpet and keep the peace.

Positive Shift:

Learning how to communicate clearly is a skill many couples need to develop. Just because conflict is squashed, doesn’t mean it’s resolved. Finding your voice, without feeling guilty, is part of a couple’s work to work through issues rather than ignoring them.

In cultivating a positive approach to conflict, couples can shift their mindset from viewing it as a threat to seeing it as an opportunity for growth, understanding, and intimacy. Developing effective conflict resolution skills, such as active listening, empathy, and compromise, is crucial for harnessing the positive potential of conflicts within a relationship. Ultimately, it's the ability to learn and grow together through challenges that can transform conflict into a constructive force within a partnership.

Understanding Conflict with the ‘Ladder of Inference” (developed by Chris Argyris)

Imagine conflict as a winding staircase, where each step takes you further away from resolution. One useful framework to understand this process is the "Ladder of Inference." It's like having a map to navigate the twists and turns of disagreements.

Picture this:

You and your partner start at the bottom of the ladder. The ground floor represents raw data - what you both observe and experience. Now, as you ascend the ladder, each rung represents a mental step. Here's where things get interesting:

Selective Observation: You choose specific elements of the raw data that stand out to you. These become the building blocks for your personal perspective.

Interpretation: You start making sense of those observations. What do they mean to you? Your personal experiences and beliefs sneak in, coloring your interpretation.

Assumptions: Now, assumptions join the party. You take your interpretations and add assumptions - things you believe to be true without concrete evidence.

Conclusions: Building upon assumptions, you draw conclusions. These are your decisions about the situation based on your interpretations and assumptions.

Beliefs: Conclusions then solidify into beliefs. These are like your personal truths, shaping how you see the world.

Actions: Finally, your beliefs drive your actions. You behave based on what you've climbed up to believe about the situation.

Here's the kicker:

Conflict often escalates because both partners are on different rungs of the ladder. You might be on the "Beliefs" step, while your partner is still stuck on "Interpretation." It's like trying to communicate in different languages!

So, how do you climb back down together?

Share Your Journey: Explain your climb up the ladder. Share what raw data you observed and how you interpreted it. This opens a window into your perspective.

Ask Questions: Encourage your partner to share their climb. Ask about their observations, interpretations, and assumptions. Be genuinely curious.

Seek Common Ground: Find the shared rungs. What raw data do you both agree on? Identifying common ground helps create a bridge between your perspectives.

Challenge Assumptions: Examine assumptions together. Are they valid? Are they based on facts or personal biases? This step can be a game-changer.

Co-create Solutions: Once you've climbed back down together, you're in a better position to find resolutions. Build solutions based on a shared understanding of the situation.

Remember, conflict is a shared journey. By acknowledging and understanding the steps on the ladder, you empower yourselves to de-escalate conflicts, fostering a deeper connection and shared resolutions.

Let's make this practical and dive into a common source of conflict - coming home late to a messy house and an empty fridge. Meet Alex and Taylor, a couple navigating the intricacies of their busy lives:

Alex's Perspective (Higher Rung):

Alex works long hours at a demanding job, often facing unexpected challenges and tight deadlines. One evening, Alex arrives home later than usual, feeling exhausted and hungry. The first thing noticed is the messy living room and the empty fridge. The tiredness amplifies frustration, and Alex's mind begins climbing the ladder.

Observation: The living room is cluttered, and the fridge is empty.

Interpretation: "I've had a tough day, and I come home to this chaos. It feels like no one cares about creating a comfortable space for me."

Assumption: "Taylor should have known I would be tired and hungry. They could have cleaned up or at least thought about dinner."

Conclusion: "Taylor doesn't appreciate the effort I put into my work. They don't prioritize our home environment or my well-being."

Belief: "I work hard, and it seems like Taylor takes that for granted. Maybe they don't understand the importance of a clean and welcoming home."

Action: Alex expresses frustration and disappointment, maybe even withdrawing emotionally, expecting Taylor to understand without explicitly communicating the feelings.

Taylor's Perspective (Lower Rung):

Taylor, on the other hand, has been managing a hectic schedule as well, juggling work, personal commitments, and unforeseen challenges. When Alex arrives home, Taylor is engrossed in completing a last-minute project, completely unaware of the time or the state of the house. Let's see the climb up the ladder:

Observation: Taylor is focused on work, unaware of the time or the messy surroundings.

Interpretation: "I have this important project, and I need to finish it. The time got away from me, and I didn't realize how late it was."

Assumption: "Alex understands that my job can be demanding. They've been supportive in the past, so they should understand this situation too."

Conclusion: "It's not intentional. Alex knows I'm dedicated to my work, and I assumed they'd understand the occasional late evening."

Belief: "Alex values my commitment to my job. They might be momentarily upset, but they know it's part of the deal."

Action: Taylor continues working, assuming that Alex will appreciate the dedication to their job and understand the situation.

Resolution:

In this example, Alex and Taylor are on different rungs of the ladder. While Alex is up there feeling unappreciated and neglected, Taylor is down below, assuming that their commitment to work is understood. The conflict deepens because they haven't shared their respective climbs.

To resolve this, they need to communicate openly. Alex can express their need for a clean, welcoming home after a tough day. Simultaneously, Taylor can share their perspective, acknowledging the unintended oversight and emphasizing the importance of mutual understanding. Through this dialogue, they can find common ground, perhaps establishing a system to manage responsibilities during busy periods or setting expectations for communication about late nights.

Understanding each other's climbs up the ladder is key to resolving conflicts and building a more resilient and communicative relationship.

Try out this ‘ladder’ for yourselves. Think back to a recent disagreement and map it using the insights gained here.

How Compassion Amplifies Loving Relationships: A Practical Guide

If your relationship is in trouble - start with Compassion - it’s the antidote to blaming and shaming.

Fast Action Take-Aways:

Here are some ways that showing compassion can amplify loving relationships:

1. Understanding each other's perspectives. Make an effort to see things from your partner's point of view, understand what they're going through, and how their experiences shape their reactions. This fosters empathy.

2. Being supportive during difficult times. When your partner is struggling, stressed, sad or upset, show compassion by listening without judgment, offering comfort, and helping in practical ways if needed. Your support will strengthen the bond of trust.

3. Forgiving mistakes graciously. We all say or do things we regret at times. Showing compassion by forgiving mistakes and moving on, rather than dwelling on errors, promotes a nurturing environment where people feel safe to be vulnerable.

4. Expressing care through acts of service. Do small thoughtful things for your partner like making their favorite meal, giving a back rub, or taking over a chore they dislike. Acts of service communicate compassion and caring.

5. Being patient with each other's flaws. We all have imperfections. Show compassion by accepting your partner as a whole person, flaws and all, rather than criticizing small issues. This breeds security, allowing the relationship to deepen.

6. Speaking to each other with kindness. Use a gentle, respectful tone even during disagreements. Criticize behaviors lovingly, not personalities. Compassionate communication prevents damage and fosters goodwill.

7. Making each other's well-being a priority. Check in regularly on how your partner is doing emotionally. Offer help meeting life's challenges out of sincere care and concern for their welfare, happiness and growth as a person.

What’s Important About Compassion?

Compassion plays a vital role in nurturing and sustaining loving relationships. It fosters empathy and understanding between partners, and encourages self-love and acceptance.

Are You Too Hard On Yourself?

While many people are quick to extend compassion to others, they often neglect to show the same kindness to themselves. Cultivating self-compassion, along with showing genuine care for one's partner, can greatly amplify the warmth and intimacy within a relationship.

In today's fast-paced world, it's not uncommon for us to be hard on ourselves – we’re bombarded with advertiser’s mindsets of ‘bigger, better, best’.

Leaving us feeling ‘not enough’ and developing beliefs that our efforts are worthless, leading to either complacency or a sense of ‘why bother’?

Perfectionism and stressing over minor setbacks have become the norm.

This constant pursuit of ‘being better’ can sometimes leave couples feeling unworthy of love as a shame (and shaming) cycle begins.

Perhaps, by applying a little self-compassion, couples can learn to be kinder and more patient with each other, which means healthier and more loving relationships and families.

How to Show Compassion In Your Relationship:

Here are 10 exercises that can foster empathy, understanding, and emotional connection with your partner:

1. Compliment Sandwich - Take turns giving each other a genuine compliment, followed by an area for improvement, and ending with another compliment. This balances appreciation with constructive feedback.

2. Share Without Judgment - Take turns sharing something you're feeling without fear of criticism. The listener reflects back what they heard without giving advice or opinions.

3. Daily Check-In - Ask each other how you're feeling using a scale and discuss what's influencing your mood, thoughts, energy levels that day.

4. Grateful List - Independently write 5 things you appreciate about your partner and share them out loud with each other.

5. Hug It Out - Set a timer for 2 minutes and embrace in silence. Focus on syncing your breathing and being fully present.

6. Empathy Interview - Ask each other questions and listen without interruption to understand their perspectives, values, hopes, fears, experiences and what makes them tick.

7. Love Languages - Discover and commit to speaking each other's primary love languages to meet emotional needs.

8. Comfortable Silence - Sit quietly together without any distractions and notice how you feel in each other's company without pressure to converse.

9. Quality Time - Schedule regular one-on-one dates to reconnect through activities you both enjoy like cooking together, going for walks, game nights etc.

10. Nonviolent Communication - When conflicts arise, focus the discussion on how an issue made you feel and how to meet needs, rather than attacking the other person.

While these exercises can be valuable, unless the couple makes a commitment to be more aware of their language and tone, then change may not happen.

Making a shared commitment to communicate more effectively, navigate conflicts with greater ease, and create a stronger bond built on mutual appreciation and respect means you’re both willing to do the work.

Understanding What Compassion is in Relationships

Compassion is the ability to feel and understand the emotional state of another person, and to respond with empathy, kindness, and support. It goes beyond simply feeling sympathy or pity for someone and involves a genuine desire to alleviate the person’s suffering.

In relationships, compassion involves being aware of your partner's feelings, needs, and struggles, and taking the initiative to address them with understanding and care.

Why Compassion is Vital in Love

Showing compassion to oneself and a partner has a swag of benefits in a relationship. Some include:

Increased emotional intimacy: Compassionate partners are able to connect on a deeper level, creating a stronger emotional bond.

Improved communication and conflict resolution: Practicing compassion fosters open, honest, and non-judgmental communication, which can resolve disagreements more effectively.

Mutual support: Compassionate relationships provide a safe and nurturing environment where partners can turn to each other for support during difficult times. In other words, your partner ‘has your back’.

Enhanced trust and security: When partners consistently respond to each other with compassion, it builds trust and a sense of safety within the relationship.

Greater satisfaction and longevity: Studies have shown that couples who cultivate compassion for one another report greater satisfaction in their relationships and are more likely to stay together in the long term.

By understanding and practicing compassion in a relationship, both partners can experience greater happiness, connection, and emotional well-being.

Start by Showing Compassion towards Yourself

Practicing self-compassion involves understanding and acknowledging your emotions, treating oneself kindly and not allowing self-judgment to interfere with emotional well-being.

Techniques for Self-Compassion

Mindfulness: Observe and accept your thoughts and feelings without judgment. Take time to practice mindfulness exercises such as deep breathing, meditation, or yoga.

Self-kindness: Replace self-criticism with self-compassion and understanding. Your ‘inner voice’ can be your worst friend. When you hear it’s negativity, remind yourself that you wouldn’t speak to a friend like that, so stop it in its tracks.

Recognizing shared humanity: Remember that everyone experiences difficult emotions and challenges, and you are not alone.

Some practical ways to cultivate self-compassion include:

• Keeping a gratitude journal

• Setting realistic expectations and goals

• Addressing negative self-talk by reframing it with positive affirmations

What’s the Impact of Self-Compassion on Well-being?

Emotional benefits: Developing self-compassion can lead to increased emotional resilience, healthier coping mechanisms, and a reduced risk of anxiety and depression.

Physical benefits: Research suggests that incorporating self-compassion into daily life may improve physical health, including lower stress levels and better sleep quality.

Social benefits: Practicing self-compassion contributes to stronger interpersonal relationships, as it enables individuals to form healthier and more supportive connections with partners and friends.

Showing Compassion to Your Partner

When couples integrate self-compassion into their relationships, it can enhance the quality and depth of the connection.

Ways to Show Compassion to Your Partner

Active listening: Pay close attention to your partner's feelings and concerns without interrupting, offering advice, or minimizing their emotions.

Empathy: Put yourself in your partner's shoes and try to understand what they are feeling, even if you don't necessarily agree or relate to it.

Offering support: Be there for your partner when they need help, whether it's emotional support or tangible assistance with tasks or challenges.

Validating feelings: Accept and acknowledge your partner's feelings as valid and valuable, even if you don't share them.

Apologizing when necessary: Own your mistakes and be quick to apologize when you've hurt or offended your partner. This shows that you respect their feelings and take responsibility for your actions.

Impact of Compassion on Relationship Quality

The act of showing compassion in relationships has several positive impacts on the overall quality and satisfaction of the connection:

Increased trust: Demonstrating compassion to each other builds trust, as both partners feel safe to express their feelings and needs without fear of judgment or criticism.

Improved conflict resolution: Showing understanding and empathy during disagreements helps to de-escalate conflicts and reach resolutions more easily.

Enhanced emotional intimacy: When partners feel heard and understood, they can fully open up to one another, strengthening the emotional bond between them.

Reduced stress and anxiety: Compassionate behavior reduces feelings of stress and anxiety in relationships, fostering a more relaxed and comfortable environment.

Greater resilience: When both partners show compassion during difficult times, it strengthens the relationship and makes it more resilient in facing future challenges.

Real-life Examples of Compassionate Relationships

Regularly practicing active listening: When one person is discussing their thoughts, feelings, or issues, the other person demonstrates their full attention and empathizes with what is being shared. This creates a supportive and understanding environment for their partnership to grow.

Regularly practicing gratitude towards each other: Make an effort to acknowledge and appreciate the positive qualities they see in their partner. By cultivating an attitude of gratitude, this couple strengthens their connection and fosters a loving atmosphere in their relationship.

There are also instances when couples put their partner's needs before their own. In these situations, one individual makes a conscious effort to care for their loved one, whether it be through helping with tedious tasks or providing emotional support during difficult times. This selflessness demonstrates true compassion for their partner.

Compassionate relationships involve open communication and vulnerability. Couples in these relationships feel comfortable sharing their emotions, insecurities, and dreams with their partner without fear of judgment. This enables them to deepen their connection and foster a mutual understanding.

Finally, practicing forgiveness is another hallmark of a compassionate relationship. When couples approach conflict resolution with empathy and understanding, it allows them to move past any disagreements and heal any emotional wounds. This ultimately creates an even stronger bond between them.

Conclusion and Future Recommendations

Practicing compassion for oneself and one's partner enhances the foundation of loving relationships. Through understanding and empathy, couples can achieve a higher level of connection and emotional support.

More Exercises to Practice:

"Loving-Kindness Meditation," consists of repeating phrases, such as "May you be happy, may you be healthy, and may you be at peace." Couples can do this together or separately, sharing their thoughts and feelings afterward to further deepen their bond.

Building and cultivating compassion between partners is a vital component for a strong and loving relationship. It not only strengthens emotional connections but also increases mental and emotional resilience. By incorporating regular practices and exercises, you can foster a more compassionate and supportive environment, creating a lasting and fulfilling partnership.

How To Value Yourself & Set Better Boundaries In Your Relationships

Relationship therapist, Barbara Grace, describes essential insights to expressing and valuing yourself more positively and purposefully in your relationship by creating better boundaries.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

“Being taken for granted is an unpleasant but sincere form of praise. Ironically, the more reliable you are, and the less you complain, the more likely you are to be taken for granted.” — Gretchen Rubin

Let’s start with two quick questions:

First question: How much do you value yourself (on a scale from 1–10)?

Second question: How well do you set boundaries to prioritise your personal & relational well being (on a scale from 1–10)?

Chances are that if you score high on the first question, then you will possibly score high on the second. Similarly, if you score low on the first question, then you will probably also score low on the second.

Why? Because how you think about yourself often influences how well you assert your needs and establish boundaries to achieve them within a relationship.

Accessing your positive and resourceful power only happens when you respect yourself, your partner and the relationship you’re investing in. Then, and only then, can you drop the resentment and set boundaries that support you.

Photo by Artem Beliaikin from Pexels

The Twin Challenges of Valuing Yourself & Setting Better Boundaries

“We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.”

If a relationship is experiencing challenges, those twin factors (self-value and boundaries) often show up as well.

Resentment: The cost of not valuing yourself and setting better boundaries

Here’s a quick check-in: When’s the last time you felt resentment towards your partner, a colleague, a friend or a family member?

Think about it:

• What was happening to your self-esteem at the time?

• How far down the ladder had your own needs fallen?

• How invisible in the equation were you beginning to feel?

• When you spoke, who listened?

It doesn’t take too much for our sense of self-worth to take a direct hit and retreat from this pain.

Resentment lets us know our boundaries are out of alignment — that we’ve allowed someone to take us for granted or assert a level of unresourceful power over us. 

“Anger, resentment and jealousy doesn’t change the heart of others — it only changes yours.”
― Shannon Alder

Resentment is a warning sign that we haven’t put our needs equal to others. It’s a wake-up call that if we don’t express our needs (without feeling guilty for doing so), then others may overlook us as well. Sometimes a relationship can feel like a battle between the ignorant and the ignored, an angry well that feels so deep we could fall in.

Yet, when a couple chooses to honour the relationship’s values, hold each other in positive regard, create mutually beneficial outcomes and operate from a shared position of power and authority — then a healthy, balanced and sustaining relationship is held safely.

True Story

“Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. ”
― Carrie Fisher

Years ago, I worked with a young woman whose boundaries were so porous that she appeared to live her emotional life as a glossy ball in a pinball game. One moment heading in the right direction, the next bouncing off someone else’s equally porous boundaries.

Her emotional state reacted with overwhelm, rarely with stability. Her relationships looked complicated and her love-needy-ness was at an all-time high. The energy she created propelled a perpetual state of chaos.

This is one side of the powerless equation — boundaryless and lost in a swirl of worthlessness.

She Did It!! Photo by Snapwire from Pexels

While her family background and history offered a clear road map to how she turned up in her life, people like this young woman can choose to reach a point where the desire to honour themselves by discovering their personal power allows the next step to be taken. It was a long road to finding a healthy balance, and she did it.

The Cost of Self-righteous Rigidity

“Resentment is often a woman’s inner signal that she has been ignoring an important God-given responsibility — that of making choices.”
― Brenda Waggoner

Relationships with power imbalances can be challenging to live in. If one partner holds onto a sense of self-righteousness rigidly, then the other can disappear under the weight of their partner’s grandiosity, one-up positioning and superiority.

It can feel like chipping through marble to get to the soul of the human within.

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Techniques used to achieve self-centred outcomes (passive-aggressive stances, blatant manipulation or outright bullying) that position the person as superior and with one-up power can wear down the most resilient of us. 

Yet when you set healthy containing boundaries then you know how to reject self-centred grandiosity and keep yourself (and your self-worth) protected.

Often the embryo of these grandiose states originates as a self-protective strategy — learned by modelling the actions of others, or as a defense to stop ever being hurt again. It’s usually in childhood that these strategies are learned — rarely by choice.

Impact on well being

Many challenges couples face come down to a reduced awareness of how these dual states (self-value and boundaries) impact their emotional well-being.

At the pointy end is often a misaligned relationship with one’s own personal power. Having too much or too little shifts the dynamics of a healthy balanced relationship. So often it’s driven by a personal narrative embedded when young. If a person grew up feeling abandoned, unloved or unworthy it makes sense that their perceived self-worth will be protected beneath an emotional wound simply to survive.

It’s in this space that much of the work I do appears — mining the surface layers of power & ego against the softer and more vulnerable space of unmet emotional needs can create stronger boundaries along with a more joyous sense of self-worth.

So how do you know if your relationship with power is in balance or not?

Take a moment to reflect in your journal (or talk with your partner) about these questions:

In my own experiences, I can look back and see times in my life and relationships that had me putting up rigid boundaries — often due to modelling from parents or from hurts I wanted to protect myself from ever experiencing together.

Those ‘walls’, which can be initially erected as a defensive strategy, are simply ineffective boundaries — either too rigid to feel (or express) emotions or too porous to feel safe within the relationship.

In this month’s ‘Heart of Relationships’ group we’ll be continuing to explore boundaries, power and self-esteem work.

It’s the insights coming from this work that help us turn up in a more healthy and respectful way — to our partners, our children, our families and ultimately to ourselves.

Please share your thoughts with me — what’s your relationship with power and setting boundaries? How has it helped you reconnect with self-worth and self-care?

I’d love to hear from you and read your personal insights.

Barbara Grace — Relationship Therapist at the School of Modern Psychology 

Barbara also runs an online program: Heart of Relationships, you can find out more about it here.