Hi, this is Linda Nusbaum. It's been amazing being able to help everyone for so long, but it's time for me to retire. The site is up for archival purposes, but I've closed my practice.
Thank you.
I was reading something yesterday about the yin and yang. This is a Chinese symbol from the 3rd century. It can relate to how couples work or how they don’t. Here is how I understand it. The yin is the female: caring and nurturing. The yang is the male: hard, strong, fast.
They depend on each other and when they are in balance, they create harmony. I was thinking about this concept recently as it relates to most of us who are in relationships.
Wondering how to stop blaming others for your feelings? Blame can undermine relationships and impede the love and empathy you crave when feeling hurt. Are you ready to learn where blame comes from, how to end it, and how much richer your relationship might be if you do?
You may have heard the story about a Native American grandfather talking to his grandson. The grandfather told the grandson there are two wolves inside of him having a war. One is mean and angry. The other is kind and loving.
Curious the grandson asked, “Who will win?” Grandfather replied, “The one that I feed.”
I have heard this story a few times and every time I nod to myself that I too want to feed the right wolf. I want to be kind and loving, not angry and mean. And I bet if you are reading this right now you would agree with me.
Many of us in this world are fixers. When someone has a problem, we just imagine all the ways the problem can be solved. This is really the way some of us are wired. Nothing wrong with this. The world needs fixers.
But when we are in a relationship and we see what our partner could do better and we use our fixing skills to help them, well it might not go so well.
It’s not unusual to describe what happened after an argument occurs. Many of us do this. We think about who said what and how we responded and we explain that what was said was not helpful and we talk about what might have been better and we do this with complete confidence that we see things the way they are.
I have worked with couples where one person is excellent at detailing what went wrong and how those things could be avoided. I listen to the explanations that are extremely detailed and I think to myself, “But how does this help?”
All couples on the planet sometimes misunderstand each other. This is normal. After all we are in our heads and our partners are in theirs. They think their thoughts and we think ours. And sometimes we don’t read each other right and then you have a misunderstanding.
This is common among couples. Ask any couple you know and they will tell you that sometimes there are challenges understanding each other. In fact, try looking into your own life and see if you can tell me that’s not the case. I can look into my relationship and know in my bones that sometimes we just don’t read the other right or they don’t read us right.
One of the first lessons we learn as humans is about protecting our hearts. We probably learn this when we are very little people. Something hurt us and we close up and we can’t come out until the pain stops.
If this sounds like something you do as an adult, then you are doing what every human on the planet does. Everyone who gets hurt has some sort of mechanism to shield the vulnerable parts from more pain. This is just the way humans are designed.
And even though you learned this skill as a child you are probably still using the same techniques now as an adult. You may have some different words and you may even get mad at your mate when you get your feelings hurt, but all these behaviors do one thing. They close down your heart.
All of us try and get what we want, even in a relationship with someone we love. We suggest, imply, and hope that they will do what we like so we can feel good about being with them.
This is likely how you operate in your life outside of the relationship. Many of us do. We organize what we want and how to achieve it, and often time we have successes. So why not with our relationship?
Isn’t this the way we make it good? If we just listen to our head, we will know what we want and then all we have to do is go about getting it. Right?
Sometimes in life we are faced with difficult situations. This is the life all of us will encounter at some point. Many of us know hard experiences already.
Maybe a family member has died. Maybe you have had some cut offs in your life that you regret. These are big experiences that many of us will face.
But what do we do when we get seriously mad at our mate? Do you hold a grudge? Do you blame them and make them pay? Do you internalize your pain and think it is your fault?
Many of us got hurt during our childhood. And some of us were not able to talk about our pain to our parents or the people who cared for us. So when a young person gets hurt and there isn’t another person to help them, some of us turn toward our anger to get attention.
This is how I grew up. I got hurt, but didn’t have the skills to talk about what was bothering me, so I resorted to yelling at the person who hurt me. This is common when some of our needs are not met.