AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
The masters of mental and emotional management are the Buddhists. They have enjoyed centuries of deep understanding as to what causes us to adopt distorted viewpoints, and its associated emotional imbalance. Let me give you a simple and common example from my work as a couples' therapist.
Couples become distressed with each other primarily because each partner views their interactive dynamics from their own (inevitably) skewed perspective. These perspectives and reactions arise for several reasons, but when bunched together, creates misunderstanding and a unique view of events - the perfect emotional storm! Here are the dynamics that feed into the typical couple argument:
1. Each person's childhood is peppered with unmet needs and emotional wounds that most people are largely or perhaps completely unaware of. These unmet needs and reactions to trauma cause each person to see events through filters caused by commonly accepted belief norms (such as men's views matter most, women are the weaker sex, children should be seen and not heard, your needs are not important, etc), expected behaviours (such as doing the washing is women's work, gardening the men's work, and children should help with the dishes, you should take responsibility for whatever needs doing), and many similar norms generated by the culture of the wider family, ethnic expectations, religious beliefs and customs, and so on. Some traumatic childhoods result in the adult behaving in ways that are an attempt to gain happiness, but often do the opposite.
2. The quality and type of childhood relationships also influences how a person will relate to a partner. The more intimate, close, caring and responsive the childhood caregivers were, the more these qualities will be evident in the way the grown-up child will relate to those s/he is emotionally close to. Similarly, if these qualities were missing in childhood, the grown adult will be less likely to demonstrate them. Typically, some will be wired to engage warmly and anxiously whenever their prime relationships are under stress, whilst others will distance themselves and withdraw at the slightest sign of conflict or emotional intensity.
3. Everyone is born with certain tendencies which are a mixture of genetic characteristics and past life karma. We each bring into this world predispositions we carried from our previous existences. Scientific research by Ian Stevenson into children who remember past lives has demonstrated that a child's personality tends to be rather like the individual they remember being previously. Thus, we arrive in this world with characteristics that play out in the way we relate to whichever realities we are exposed to. For example, some people arrive in this world anxious about anything and everything, whilst others arrive ready to take on anything and everything.
4. Furthermore, we each have unique qualities that I call 'wiring' differences that may have been affected by the factors discussed above, or for other reasons. Some people relate to the world in very concrete ways ("If I can touch it I'll believe in it."), whilst others are more intuitive ("If I can imagine it, then it's possible."). Similarly, some will relate to the world as a feeling, whilst others will think their way through life, preferring rational reasoning to sensing when decision-making. We are programmed differently to each other, yet we protect ourselves as if ours is the only way to be.
However, when couples get into distress, the last thing they tend to do is seek to understand their partner's history or personality quirks, and therefore to appreciate why their own perspectives are so much different from their spouse's. Instead, it is common for each party to hold onto their own perspective, and to get into a war of who's right and who's wrong in relation to these viewpoints.
Yet, it is a fight no-one can ever win, because the argument is being approached from different starting points based on these personality differences and background conditioning. Arguments of this type will cause each to dig in and defend a position that is neither right nor wrong, but jealously guarded nonetheless.
Quite clearly, to have a fight when each is working from different perspectives on a topic or event is lunacy. Yet, there are very few couples that don't fall foul of this pattern. It is so normal and predictable that this dynamic is behind a couple's distress and conflict that one of the first things I do as a therapist is to describe how this argumentative pattern operates and why it has arisen - the fact that they are wired differently and that they will always be - and that acceptance and understanding will be required for the pair to come to terms with their different backgrounds, and come to support and work with these differences.
Visit http://www.couplescounselling4u.co.nz/ for articles about successful relationships, ways to change relationship dynamics, and how to get couples counseling in person or via Skype. Get informed, skilled and make your relationship really hum.
Jeff Saunders has written numerous articles on personal development, spiritual development, and relationship success Get access to his book The 12 Choices of Winners as a paper book (334 pages) or e-book. For reviews and testimonials of this book head off to http://www.jefferysaunders.com/books.php?productID=1 There's even an e-book available created from the 187 cartoons and key quotes in the main book.
Jeff Saunders is a freelance writer who has taught personal and spiritual development and trained others in this field for over twenty years. He's a counsellor, couples therapist and life coach in private practice, and has trained counsellors, teachers and business people in the fields of communication, personal or professional development, and couples relationships. He's written numerous articles for magazines on relationships and personal development, usually with a spiritual focus, including his book 'The 12 Choices of Winners.'
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