By Rebecca Jorgensen, PhD, Co-Founder of Building A Lasting Connection®
We’re human. We have feelings. Our feelings get hurt. When our hurt goes underground it turns into resentment. Because resentment is soft, sensitive, vulnerable feelings turned hard from being left unhealed and locked inside. This hardness becomes a protection, a protection that blocks connection because connection is soft and sensitive and vulnerable.
This buildup of hurt easily happens in our close relationships as we can easily misstep, be aware or not attending to loving openly, after all we’re busy and life is demanding, and relational care and connection does take time and learning and growing together. When our feelings get hurt and need attention, we can miss the opportunity to repair and strengthen our understanding and loving feelings. Perhaps it doesn’t occur to us to let our partner know we’re hurt or we try but don’t know how to communicate that hurt in a way that calls for their compassionate response or our partner doesn’t know how to come close emotionally when we’re hurting and rather they meet us with problem solving or minimizing. Then we’re left alone with the hurt and it can start to harden. This hard protective shell shows up as defensive anger or frustration towards our partner which keeps us and them away from the hurt. Distance increases.
When resentment is between you and your partner, here are some things you can do that can begin to help restore closeness.
The first step is to recognize the resentment as a signal about the unresolved hurt. When you feel the wall of resentment, recognize it is a signal that the hurt inside is close by and needs care. The wall of resentment or protective anger is like our internal security system’s alarm signaling the need for attention.
Then we need to stop fueling resentment. When we can recognize the resentment as a signal, we can begin to acknowledge the hurt that’s deeper inside. We need to use the signal to guide us to the hurt. Danger. Hurt is here. Acknowledging the hurt exists will stop fueling resentment.
Finally, we can apply attention, care and compassion. The hurt under resentment needs attention, care and compassion to heal. The doses of care and compassion need to be as big as the hurt. We can naturally heal and regain connection as we apply attention, care and compassion to those old hurts.
When resentment blocks connection let the resentment guide you to the underlying hurt, with attention, care and compassion even very old and deep hurts will heal. We all need attention to our hurt. Hurt does heal as connection is restored with attention care and compassion. And, we are healthier and happier when we’re emotionally connected to our life partner.
She couldn’t look at her husband while she spoke to him. “I told you I felt sad, and you told me, ‘it wasn’t that bad if I looked at it differently.’ Then my heart sank, so I shut up. I thought, ‘Fine, I’ll handle it alone, like I always do,’ and I changed the subject.”
Her tears spilled over. “It made it worse. I felt more alone.”
She almost hadn’t brought up the exchange. It seemed like a small example, but we know attachment wounds are born in such moments.
“Lack of support in the midst of wounding seems central to the movement from potential trauma to embedded trauma,” says Bonnie Badenoch in The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships.
Left without emotional closeness many times over the years, you won’t be surprised my client was skilled at hiding her feelings.
Until this conversation, her husband was unaware of the rupture. Now, to me, he looked blindsided.
Perhaps from confusion about how the distance had ballooned between them, or distress he’d contributed to her pain, or hurt that his intentions were grossly misinterpreted, or fear that it happened outside his awareness. From this soil, a crust of anger and defensiveness seemed to flit across his face.
Later, we found out he had no idea he’d minimized and dismissed her experience—he’d withdrawn so fully and innocently in the protective perspective of the exploratory system that he couldn’t see his impact on her. He didn’t know he’d been emotionally absent long before she put up the wall.
Attachment is the study of emotional safety and the impact it has on the human nervous system.
What does a nervous system do when it has emotional safety? What does it do when it doesn’t? How does emotional safety change our views about our place in the world?
Four predictable attachment patterns give us a window into how well two brain systems are integrated: the attachment system and the exploratory system, described by Harvard psychologists Daniel P. Brown and David Elliott in Attachment Disturbances in Adults: Treatment for Comprehensive Repair.
Our exploratory system prefers a state of certainty, action, and doing. As the exploratory system activates, we automatically turn down the dial on emotion. This attachment position is commonly referred to as an avoidant pattern.
The exploratory system attends to analytical details, information-gathering, and problem-solving with logical efficiency, but it removes events from their context and gets judgmental. We might metaphorically experience such coping strategies as though they dip our feelings and relationships in liquid lidocaine.
In high doses, it may leave us with a numb sense of growing despair.
We might be alerted to someone’s shift into an exploratory perspective when we feel the loss of their presence as they scroll through their phone. Perhaps we notice being assessed with judgmental eyes. Maybe we see a parent prioritizing their child’s behavior over the quality of their relationship. Maybe we notice ourselves getting brisk and task-oriented, impatient or annoyed by interruptions.
Even as you read this, you may notice how the quality of our experience has changed as I moved from a shared moment to analysis.
We need our exploratory system to make sense of our lives. We need it to support our relational values, so we can have a rich and full life. But as we shift into exploratory-dominance, as Bonnie Badenoch says, “meaning has a tendency to get lost.”
It’s difficult for us to notice and interpret body language correctly. We are more likely to misinterpret people’s intentions. We miss the hurt in our child’s averted eyes. We overlook the changes in our partner’s tone that might tell us of their unmet attachment needs.
Western culture leads with, prioritizes, and celebrates the independence of the exploratory system. It is the adaption our nervous system shelters in to turn off conscious awareness of pain when relationships have been a source of emotional rejection, as far back as infancy.
In neglectful or critical environments, if we sought emotional support and experienced rejection, such as a well-intentioned caregiver repeatedly telling us to push down our feelings, buck up, toughen up, and do it on our own, we will orient to the world through our exploratory system.
We’ll be successful, independent, and emotionally isolated—often without awareness of our isolation.
. . .
When our nervous system defaults to the exploratory view, we tend to get more rigid and isolated. But without the support of the exploratory system, our attachment system enters the chaos of pursuit. This attachment position is commonly referred to as an anxious pattern.
The fourth pattern, called disorganized, combines these approaches, alternating unpredictably and sometimes simultaneously between hyper-activation and down-regulation of the attachment system and the exploratory system.
Our sweet spot seems to balance the two with the attachment system taking the lead, knighting our exploratory system as its able emissary. This attachment position is called secure.
Co-regulating presence is the wellspring of security.
Presence. Intuitively we know it’s a gift. It is where we come to be together in the unknown. It might call to mind a space of firelight and laughter, poetry and lingering meals, blowing bubbles and softly meeting each other’s eyes as we sing. Our attachment system needs such co-regulating accompaniment to connect to our aliveness and meaning.
The perceptual world of security is present, curious, open, accepting, comfortable with ambiguity, sensitive to suffering, and quick to offer our support without expectation that someone be any different than they are.
Our attachment system prefers this state of being. As we attend to being fully present in this moment, we are wrapped in the awareness of many streams of somatic communication coming from our body, our environment, and each other.
Security is a state of mind we may easily return to when we cuddle our animals and listen to their responsive snurffle-sounds, or when we get out on a trail and into the embrace of the forest, or when our partner gently strokes our arm and whispers.
From this fountain of security, even without words, the softness in our face, our gaze, and our voice will convey messages of safety through our presence: I see you. I’m here. I treasure you. Your feelings make sense. Thank you for letting me be with you.
In our shared Zoom room, the husband looked at his feet for help. They were both standing on the Connection System®, a floor mat that’s part of the Building a Lasting Connection® Workshop. BLC structures sharing and listening to increase intimacy and strengthen secure attachment.
The Connection System® helps us release judgements and share a new moment as it unfolds in the space between.
This is where intimacy and compassion bloom.
The husband found what he was looking for and returned his gaze to his wife. “I’m really glad you’re sharing,” he said, offering his soft presence. “I want to be with you when you’re sad, and I’m glad you’re giving me another chance.”
Her eyes filled with tears of relief and warmth. She smiled.
Later, when it was his turn to share, he told us about the tightness he felt in his gut when she shut him out and the fear she wouldn’t come back. His wife cried and squeezed his hand, fully with him now. It meant so much to hear his feelings and even more to simply feel him with her because he usually kept such a tight lock on himself.
As he shared and she attuned in kind, their connection cleared away the knot in his gut and a radiating warmth filled his heart.
The flow of emotional support and deep sharing gave them a window into the secure connection they longed for.
. . .
In what feels like sacred moments, such as these, I witness what Stephen Porges says: “Safety is treatment.”
It also brings to mind memory reconsolidation research. How when we remember a trauma, the neural net where it lives activates, bringing up a felt sense of the original loss. When this activation happens gently, and we’re accompanied by a trusted-other who provides a disconfirming experience, healing may begin as that neural net weaves with other more resourced areas throughout the nervous system. Each subsequent awakening may then be accompanied by the integrating nourishment of remembered support.
“If we felt alone, we needed a sense of accompaniment,” says Bonnie Badenoch. “If we were frightened, we needed protection. If we were shamed, we needed acceptance. If we were hurt, we needed comfort. It is as though the part of us who experienced the original rupture of safety has been waiting ever since for the repair to arrive.”
I’m grateful to know the power of such arrivals, that shared presence can weave a nest of safety and belonging around our pain.
Camille Pack is the founder of StoryKeeper, a safe, healing community for cultivating the art and practice of secure attachment skills to increase authenticity, mindfulness, and belonging. She is a certified facilitator of The Building a Lasting Connection® Workshop developed by Rebecca Jorgensen and Debi Gilmore and offers facilitated mat work for couples on the Connection System®. Camille also offers IPF (ideal parent figure) coaching to individuals seeking to heal early attachment wounds. Learn more at officialstorykeeper.com.
Dr. Rebecca Jorgensen and Dr. Debi Gilmore, Co-Founders of Building A Lasting Connection®
We are so excited to witness the growth of Building A Lasting Connection® (BLC), and the new-found momentum we are experiencing across the world. More and more couples are being introduced to our Lasting Connection® program and we have experienced an increased interest in individuals and couples wanting to become trained BLC Facilitators. Our online training program has been a tremendous success and the feedback has been astoundingly positive.
Our online training is a high-quality program that involves dynamic lectures, multi-media presentations, interactive experiential exercises, discussions, and breakout groups. Participants are immersed in 20 hours of research-based training that is designed to mentor participants on how to use the materials & tools to be prepared to provide interactive exercises and engagement when facilitating the workshop. Participants are introduced to presentation skills and techniques based on experiential learning theory, to enhance their ability to capture and engage couples within the workshop experience. Upon completing the training, participants are equipped to facilitate Lasting Connection® workshops.
We also periodically conduct in-person trainings, and recently one of our most active trained BLC Facilitators became certified as a BLC Facilitator Trainer. Hamed Fatahian has facilitated multiple trainings and workshops, and recently we invited him to share some of his experience in this newsletter. The following is Hamed’s overview of his experiences since becoming a BLC Facilitator Trainer:
“I’m delighted to announce that we successfully finished the second BLC facilitator training in Iran this week with the presence of almost 20 therapists from all around Iran. It has been a long journey for me since early 2020 when I went to St. George to participate in the 1st BLC facilitator training held by Rebecca and Debi but despite all the limitations (especially the pandemic), with the huge support of Rebecca and Debi, I’m honored to say that we now have almost 60 BLC trained facilitators in more than 10 cities in Iran. Also, we have had three BLC workshops in Iran so far (two online and one in-person in the city of Mashhad, northeast Iran which was held by one of the trained facilitators named Dr. Zahra Talebi) and there will be the first in-person BLC workshop in the capital (Tehran) in about three weeks by myself during my upcoming trip to Iran. This all could have not happened without the support of the BLC team, especially Debi & Rebecca. As we all know, connection heals so when we are connected, we can make big changes even worldwide.” -Hamed Fatahian, AMFT, APCC
We hope you will consider training to become a Certified BLC Facilitator. Please visit our homepage to learn more about how to become a part of our BLC organization.
Dr. Rebecca Jorgensen and Dr. Debi Gilmore, Co-Founders of Building A Lasting Connection®
“Whether a marriage will be happy or whether it is headed for the divorce court can be foretold from how things go during its first two years,” says the results of studies by Dr. Ted Huston.
Early warning signs of trouble include:
A Turbulant Courtship
Lots of tears and high drama
Declined affection in the first two years
A wife that’s falling “out of love.”
If you have these symptoms in your relationship – it’s probably not too late to turn things around. With the right support and efforts, couples “fall back in love” and stabilize their relationships regularly, even after big relationship hurts.
Consider the position you take in your relationship – do you emotionally support, engage and share? If not, if you criticize, defend or distance, you can contribute to the health, closeness and love in your relationship.
We all need openness and closeness. We have to take risks to share tenderly with our partner and nurture our relationship with kindness and warmth. Try doing more of these things:
look for the positive
tell your partner something you appreciate every day (no “but”‘s or “if-only”‘s allowed)
provide an emotionally safe climate for your partner to share (soft voice, kind tone, understanding and open heart)
put yourself in your partner’s shoes – have compassion for his/her stresses, and
do an act of service for your partner every day
If you have trouble doing any of these things after two weeks of conscious effort, then it may be time to get additional support. The Lasting Connection® Workshop and the Connection System® are ideal to provide help to couples for these kinds of issues. The sooner you get relationship help, the easier and faster you can be creating your life dreams together and enjoy the “in love” feeling. And, as we all know, being in love is a wonderful place to be!
by Dr. Debi Gilmore LMFT CEFT, Co-Founder of Building A Lasting Connection®
Imagine coming home after a very difficult, long, and discouraging day on the job. When you walk in, your partner notices you have arrived, puts down whatever they were doing, and walks over to offer you a lingering hug of welcome. It is likely you would feel a sense of reassurance, love, acceptance, and an overall sense that everything is going to be ok. You feel this sense of peace and reassurance because of what we call “caring behaviors.”
Section 5 of our Lasting Connection® Workshop teaches the importance of creating and practicing couple rituals that consistently reinforce the loving bond between committed partners. These are things couples create and do together that become anchors in their day or week; rituals that solidify the sense of belonging and love shared between the couple.
Caring behaviors can be spontaneous small and simple acts of affection and kindness… gestures of affection and admiration, that go beyond the daily couple rituals. They convey powerful messages that strengthen and nourish a marital relationship. As couples go about their busy days and demanding lives there is a danger that these caring behaviors might slowly slip away. When the caring behaviors no longer happen, couples begin to feel disconnected, lonely, insecure, and distant from each other. It is because these caring behaviors are so simple and seemingly insignificant that we tend to forget how important they really are. Caring behaviors require thoughtful, planned, and intentional steps of connection and affection.
What are caring behaviors? What kinds of things can spouses do for each other to build and maintain secure attachment?
Spontaneous touches such as reaching for your partner’s hand, a wink of an eye, or a brief smile when you catch your partner’s glance are sweet investments in the security of your partner. Other examples include offering positive affirmations on a regular basis, saying “I love you” instead of “love ya!” When not together, caring gestures can include texting in the middle of the day to show your partner you are thinking about them. When obstacles get in the way, texting or calling when you know you will be late sends a strong message that your partner matters, and that commitments are important to you. A powerful caring gesture could be complimenting your partner to someone else or talking positively about them in their presence.
In your Lasting Connection® Workshops, teach your couples this concept of Caring Behaviors, and encourage them to be creative, spontaneous, and innovative. If caring behaviors have been missing in your own relationship with your spouse, take some time to consider some small gestures you can add to your daily investment in the security of your partner. Even more impactful is asking your partner what caring behaviors they long for, and then seek ways to implement those in your daily rituals of connecting as a couple. Notice how quickly the relationship changes, your connection deepens, and your own feelings of fulfillment increase.
What does self-worth have to do with marriage and our relationships with others? Important studies have examined the connection between self-worth and our ability to form healthy and stable relationships. The strength and depth of our connection with others is determined by two conditions: (1) The level of self-acceptance each person has for themselves; and (2) How open, honest, and vulnerable each individual is willing to be with their partner.
This has everything to do with how we see ourselves, or how comfortable we are with ourselves, which then determines how comfortable we are in reaching out, being vulnerable with, and connecting on a deeper level with others. Our critical view of ourselves can and does become a barrier to healthy and fulfilling relationships with self and others.
We all possess an inner critic or “critical inner voice.” We experience this “voice” as a negative internal commentary on who we are and how we behave. Our view of ourselves impacts our view of others, and directly impedes our ability to trust and bond with others on a deeper level. Unfortunately, this negative internal dialogue blocks us from connecting with ourselves because the painful emotions at times are just too much to bear. We may cope in damaging ways, such as working harder, exercising more, emotional eating, drugs, alcohol, and other methods of distraction from our emotional pain and disconnection from others.
Common inner critical messages include: “I’m ugly.” “I’m so stupid.” “I’m fat.” “There’s something wrong with me.” “I will never measure up.”
Step 1: Identify Your Inner Critic Using a sheet of paper, divide the page into 3 equal columns. Label the 1st column, “Inner Critic.” Label the middle column, “Doubting Self,” and label the 3rd column, “Deeper, Wiser Self.”
One way to help you become more aware of your critical inner voice is to write these thoughts down. Under the column labeled “Inner Critic,” write the specific thoughts that automatically come at times when you are self-critical. As you record the negative statements and messages about you, notice how those statements make you feel. Notice how harsh, attacking, and hostile this internal enemy can be. Continue to fill out the column with as many statements as possible.
As you try to identify what your critical inner voice is telling you, begin to recognize that these harsh, attacking, and painful messages are robbing you of peace and happiness and blinding you from your Deeper, Wiser Self. Begin to acknowledge that this thought process is separate from your Deeper, Wiser Self. Remember that your critical inner voice is not a reflection of reality. It is a viewpoint you adopted based on painful or destructive early life experiences and attitudes directed toward you, or traumatic and challenging experiences that interrupted your healthy view of self. Over time, you have internalized the negative messages as your truth, and your Deeper, Wiser Self has been overshadowed and suppressed by the painful negative commentary of your inner critical voice.
Step 2: Doubting Self
In the middle column, you will write: “Yup!” and leave the entire column blank other than this statement of agreement. This suggests that the Doubting Self has no voice, and only agrees with the Inner Critic voice. This also reinforces the power of these two “selves” as two inner voices against your Deeper, Wiser Self. The feeling of being “outnumbered” by the two negative selves causes us to feel weakened, powerless, and robbed of self-confidence.
Step 3: Deeper, Wiser Self
In the 3rd column you labeled “Deeper, Wiser Self,” write down statements about your true self. What do you know about you? What does your sweetheart or other people say about you that makes you feel good about yourself? What are some things that you know you do well, but you may be reluctant to acknowledge openly? Use first person statements such as, “I am a kind person,” or “I love to serve others.” Another example would be “I am a loyal friend.” As you write the statements you might feel awkward or even embarrassed to acknowledge and write down these statements, however, this is likely due to the fact that your Inner Critic voice has become so dominant and has caused you to discount your true gifts as a human being.
To further expand on this exercise, begin to respond to your inner critic by writing down a more realistic and compassionate evaluation of yourself. Write these responses in the first person (as “I” statements). In response to a thought like, “I’m such an idiot,” you could write, “I may struggle at times, but I am smart and competent in many ways.” This exercise isn’t meant to build you up or boost your ego but to show a kinder, more honest attitude toward yourself.
Step 4: Your Inner Critic’s Lease Is Up—Time to Evict the Negative Message!!
Your Inner Critic took up residence long ago… it is now time to evict that internal dialogue and refuse to allow any credibility, value, or attention to be given to that message. This process takes power away from the Inner Critic voice and negative messages, and allows your Deeper, Wiser Self to emerge and take back power.
Step 5: Don’t Act on Your Inner Critic
Because the Inner Critic voice has become so familiar, you will be tempted to act on that voice. When you hear that negative voice, fact the voice with the following formula:
1. STOP!! 2. Slow down… 3. Evaluate the message—does the message empower my deeper, wiser self, or does the message make me feel sad, worthless, hopeless?
Remember not to act on the directives of your inner critic. Take actions that represent your own point of view, who you want to be and what you aim to achieve. Your critical inner voice may get louder, telling you to stay in line or not to take chances. That is a very natural reaction to the suggestion for change. Over time, your Deeper, Wiser Self will emerge with more power, more confidence, and will be easier and easier to retain.
Summary:
This Inner Critic exercise can be a very difficult process, and at times you will be tempted to give credence to the negative messages of your Inner Critic because that voice has become so familiar to you. Sometimes it is helpful to share this process with your partner or a trusted friend. Let them know you are embarking on a difficult journey of healing, and that you need their help to remind you of who you really are. The process of identifying, separating from, and acting against this destructive thought process, will empower you, and you will grow stronger, while your inner critic grows weaker and eventually slips into relative silence. Most importantly, this process will enhance your ability to connect and bond on a deeper level with your partner, with dear friends, and will enhance your most important relationships.
All couples fall into negative patterns as they interact and face the daily challenges of life including raising children, job concerns, financial issues, illness and chronic health issues. While we imagine couples in newly developing relationships experiencing joy and passion in the early states, negative interactional patterns may be recognizable in premarital couples. If not addressed early, they may become more established throughout the early stages of marriage. Emotional disconnection, communication problems and damaging marital conflict are leading factors for future marital distress and those who ultimately divorce.
Additionally, high conflict between marital partners has been shown to negatively affect children and their future relationships. Most concerning is that childhood neglect and maltreatment is associated with multiple issues such as mental, emotional, social, and physical health problems in adulthood. These concerning results have led researchers to elevate childhood maltreatment to be a threat to public health.
Typical patterns in distressed couples are destructive arguing (attacking, blaming, hostile criticism, and contempt), that effect not only the couple, but also the family in general. Over time, these negative interactional patterns undermine emotional safety in the couple relationship and erode love, sexual attraction and intimacy, trust, and overall couple commitment.
The Building A Lasting Connection® workshop offers powerful tools to enable couples to navigate the challenges of their committed relationship. Attendees are guided through exercises and interactional activities to help them learn how to find emotional safety and clarity in the communication process and learn how to navigate through conflict in a collaborative manner. They learn how to incorporate a healthy view of physical intimacy and sexual relations and explore the many barriers to a healthy sexual relationship within the marital partnership. Finally, couples and individuals learn about the importance of uncovering and integrating goals and visions of their future together and develop new couple and family rituals and traditions. This education program for committed couples has the potential to ultimately contribute to relative long-term marital satisfaction and lessen the risk of divorce.
Of particular concern is the prevalence of divorce among married and committed couples, and studies show that as many as 50% of couples marrying for the first time ultimately divorce. Relationship education has been identified as a preventative tool to assist couples in navigating through the challenges of marriage, however there are relatively few comprehensive programs currently available. Programs targeted toward newly committed couples have been shown to be generally effective in predicting immediate, short-term improvement, but these programs focus primarily on behavioral skills such as couple communication as opposed to adult attachment style.
The Building A Lasting Connection® workshop is a relationship education program with a focus on the foundational principles of attachment with the added benefits of experiential learning. The workshop teaches the importance of adult attachment and the essential role of attachment and safe emotional connection to sustain relationship development and health among committed couples.
One of the most essential aspects of this attachment-based experiential program is to facilitate and build on the initial bonding process through a deeper understanding of attachment, the importance of authenticity and emotional connection and increased recognition of how unrepaired miscommunications can lead to lack of emotional safety resulting in the creation of emotional distance or heightened conflict, and to enhance the couples’ ability to achieve greater relationship satisfaction across their years of marriage.
