What Did I Do?
Your partner is angry and and you ask, “What Did I Do?”
Your tone is a dead give away whether you are defensive or curious. Do you respond or react?
So which will get you to a deeper understanding of yourself and your partner? I know, that question is a set up, the answer is obvious. And the answer is always the harder route.
Two different parts of your brain will be activated depending on which decision you make. Reactivity activates the pre-frontal cortex and drives the amygdala, our fight or flight reflex, into high gear. Your options for creative, compassionate thinking are impaired.
Novelist, Aldous Huxley once wrote, “There is only one corner of the universe that you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.”
You can heal a relationship quickly and dramatically, with tremendous impact, if you are willing to examine your part in it and see whether you are actually triggering the problem that you are complaining about.
Now this isn’t easy, we don’t want to see ourselves as the cause of the problem. We may need to give up blaming the other person, and focus our energy on changing ourselves.
We know that we can not change another person, no matter how much at fault they are. In a healthy relationship once you start changing, your partner will change too.
The challenge is to think deeply about the question: “What Did I Do?”
Try answering the following question:
“I think the most difficult thing about being in a relationship with me is that I am…..” (irritable, opinionated, stubborn, easily hurt….).
You get the idea, fill in the blank to describe your failures and weaknesses.
Finish the sentence and astound your partner with your honesty and accountability. Own it. Take responsibility. Experience the change. Watch your relationship turn around.
Tags: Anger, Relationship
This entry was posted on Monday, December 27th, 2010 at 8:00 AM and is filed under IMAGO and Relationships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.