12 Practical Tips for Growing Trust

Trust grows wild in relationships, but what happens when it gets "broken?" Can we "rebuild" trust? 

To be honest, I actually prefer the verb grow when it comes to trust because in a lot of the work I do with clients, trust isn't getting "rebuilt" so much as it's really being built for the first time. You'll hear all kinds of language in reference to psychotherapy aimed at supporting clients in this area; "Trust Recovery" is probably the trendiest.

Trust is all about consistency and predictability. It's little things every day. For it to work, you don't have to be perfect, but you do have to show up. It's about the follow-through. 

We grow trust in our relationships when we're accessible to our partners when they need us, respond when they reach out, and engage emotionally with them so they don't feel alone at times of need. This is based on Dr. Sue Johnson's "A.R.E. you there for me?" Question, which is rooted in bonding science. 

We also grow trust when we can emotionally time-travel back into painful moments with our partners so that we can, in a sense, undo the aloneness that fuels distress and dysregulation. 

A few weeks ago I got together with John Howard for his Get Ready Set Love podcast (@GetReadySetLove) to translate some of this science of trust into practical tips for anyone looking to grow trust, not just clients in-deep after relational norm violations like 'infidelity.'

I just want to share the top twelve tips I thought of when preparing for our conversation!  

12 Practical Tips for Growing Trust:

1. Focus on “small things often” (Gottman Institute). Set small, concrete intentions (start with achievable goals like, “I will practice mindful breathing for 5 minutes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at 6:15am” or “I will go to a fitness class once per week”) and gently direction your attention to keeping up with them. To build trust in relationships, it helps to increase your trust in yourself. Accomplishing something you committed to, even if it's as simple as making the bed every day, grows trust in the self. Apply the same thinking to relationships and you'll be on a roll! Just remember to keep goals specific and measurable/achievable. Remember: "little things are not 'little.'"

2. "A.R.E. (accessibility, responsiveness, emotional engagement) you there for me?" Explore which element of A.R.E. (Sue Johnson) felt lacking during an attachment injury or wounding experience, and increase efforts to embody this dimension. It's helpful to start by talking about one specific example of a time you felt alone/unheard/not seen in the relationship. Start with a less significant example, like a minor parenting miscommunication or something that doesn't make you immediately livid thinking about. Let your partner/s know what incident felt upsetting, and what set you up for feeling upset. In the painful memory, was your partner accessible to you when you needed? Did they respond to you when you tried to signal your need? Did they emotionally engage with you? If the answer to those questions is "No," let your partner know what you needed and how they could have helped! Try to start requests with "I felt ____. I needed ____," as opposed to sharing criticisms that start with "You..." Once you have done a low-level example, then try something that is more recent, or still a trouble spot. If you get stuck, it could be a sign that checking in with a couples counselor could be beneficial!

3. “Name it to tame it." What happens when there's a giant elephant in the room and no one is saying anything? The weirdness turns palpable. When I invite clients to name-it-to-tame-it, for their relationship and/or in the context of parenting, what I mean is to practice attunement. According to Gottman and Yoshimoto's research, these are the skills involved in emotional attunement (which I'll include in an image below!): Awareness of your partner's emotions, 'Turning Toward' your partner when they need you, Tolerance for differing viewpoints, Understanding, Nondefensive responding, and Empathy. I call this the gift of "of course;" we want to give our partners the gift of, "Oh, of course you responded that way. You're not crazy. I get it. Knowing you and your story, the way things went down makes sense to me. I get you and I'm here with you. And I'm not going to try to 'fix' you or convince you out of what you're feeling and experiencing."

4. Practice nondefensive responding. This means watch out for the word "but." It can feel counterintuitive when there's been a big hurt or someone feels let-down related to your behavior, but what's needed is often just simple reflecting back of what you're hearing as you listen, even if it feels like you're just being a parrot. This might sound like: “You’re feeling so angry. I lied and you feel betrayed. You feel so upset with me right now.” It can help to follow-up with open questions! "Is there anything else?" "What do you need?" "How can I help?" I like to invite clients to imagine just sliding into a hot tub next to their partner: "Wow. It sure is hot in here," and gentle reflection on what's happening, *not* dipping a toe in and recoiling in terror and "YOW! Get out of there! Are you crazy?!" Hang out in the feelings sauna without trying to yank your partner out of it. If this means doing some individual counseling to tolerate big feels, do it!

5. "Comfort in, dump out." Match the level of vulnerability of the person with the least amount of power (Jean Baker Miller - "Supported Vulnerability") and find a balance of eye contact that feels safe (Stan Tatkin). Don't forget that certain cultures tend to maintain eye contact while listening, while others are more likely to do so while speaking; be sure to mirror appropriately and ensure that you aren't coming across as disinterested. I also highly recommend learning about Susan Silk's Ring Theory. You might have heard the phrase, "Comfort IN, dump OUT." Read up and practice pouring love and compassion "in" to people with the least power who are most impacted by a painful experience, and try to "dump" complaints and criticisms "out" and to people with more power who are less impacted by the event. For example: if your friend was 'cheated on,' focus on sharing loving thoughts with them, and do any complaining about their partner's behavior to a trusted friend who is not the vulnerable person in the epicenter of their hurt; if you're trying to comfort a hurricane victim, stay focused on what you can do to help, and complain/"dump out" about legislative policy and geopolitics to someone whose home wasn't destroyed.

6. Know who your Marble Jar Friends are. Have the courage to take health-promoting relational risks *and* learn to screen for empathy in others to evaluate for “Marble Jar Friend” (Brené Brown) status in discerning who to trust with your realness. Again, this is one of those domains where we can increase trust in our selves. We have to be discriminating about who we choose to share our most vulnerable, raw experiences with; don't get double-burned by sharing a painful experience with someone who tends to struggle with vaulting, to borrow another one of Brown's words.

7. Co-create mutual agreements. I prefer to nix the word "rules" and even "contract" in favor of "agreements." We need clearly defined agreements if expectations are going to be shared, and to ensure that we're on the same page and not making inaccurate predictions and interpretations about our partners, we depend on clearly understood expectations. A lot of partners in dyadic, monogamous relationships take for granted that culture prescribes pretty simple expectations: don't 'stray.' Clients in open and poly relationships feel more accustomed to hashing out details that might "go without saying" or be culturally assumed in monogamy. All relationships benefit from in-depth conversations co-creating definitions, agreements, and shared understandings.

8. Know where you are, and don't rush. Pacing is crucial when it comes to trust! An essential task is to be able to identify which of the 3 Stages of Trust Recovery you’re in (atone/attune/attach or stabilize/restructure/bond), so that you can use appropriate language and questions. For instance, in Stage I, we focus on exploring, processing, and expressing body sensations, emotional movements, present-moment experiences because we’re not in a place where we have lots of prefrontal cortex; we're hanging out in more emotional parts of the brain. A lot of therapists who aren't trained to consider this will start asking complex, existential questions in the first sessions when clients are still trying to sort out which way is up. Once we've gotten some safety established and good apologies have been heard, then we can start to really dig into the specifics about where a relationship derailed. I recommend downloading Esther Perel's Infidelity Resource Guide if you'd like to learn more about the general stages of growing trust and what to expect. She also provides questions that are safe to ask in each specific stage!

9. Brush up your art of apology. It's essential that we learn to deliver/perform *and* embody timely, heartfelt apologies. Harriet Lerner has some of my favorite resources for apologies. Clients also tend to have luck with Gottman's "Aftermath of Regrettable Incident," which is a step-by-step guide to processing a painful experience and making sure that partners are attuning and delivering meaningful apologies. Whenever our partners have a sudden, intense response to something, we can often assume that we hit what Dr. Sue calls a "raw spot" in EFT. It can be immensely helpful to map out the raw spots in every person in a relationship. When you see a big, angry response, for instance, it can be a signal that you'll find something softer and more vulnerable, like sadness, fear, or loneliness, if you slow the action down enough. It increases trust and builds strength into bonds when we can vulnerably share our feelings and see our partner lovingly stay present with us, affirming and validating what we're experiencing.

10. Kindness counts when it comes to language. Adopt affirming, non-blaming language and externalize problems so offending parties can feel hopeful about achieving growth/change/repair. For a simple example, I try to adopt Caryl Rusbult's language, “relational norm violation” instead of “affair," and Esther Perel's “hurt/involved/affair partner” instead of “cheater” and “victim." Send the signal that you're trying to understand and willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt, and you're more likely to set a stage where trust can grow. When I signal to people that I believe they can behave in a trustworthy manner, they tend to rise to the occasion.

11. Nonviolent communication principles can help! Focus on sharing feelings, needs, and direct requests. One of the easiest traps to fall into when trying to grow trust is attempting to guess intentions and motivations of others instead of just focusing on your own needs. The Center for Nonviolent Communication has tons of great resources!

12. Check-in with a counselor if you stay stuck. If trust doesn’t begin to unfurl naturally, it could be useful to assess for Trauma/PTSD or other things that can block attunement, like out of control substance use. EMDR or another body-centered modality to discharge any energy that might be trapped in the nervous system can help. EFT can also support conflict cycle de-escalation needed to set the stage for increasing trust.

Click here to listen to our conversation in full. You can also listen on Apple Podcasts. John and I had a fun time discussing this science! I have so much respect for his pro-vulnerability approach.

Keep heart. It is possible to build a relationship where trust grows wild again, no matter what you've been though. 

I'll leave you with some lyrical wisdom from Leonard Cohen: "Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything). That's how the light gets in."

Love, 
MJ

On Men, Emotion, and How We Fail Our Boys

Pull yourself together. Walk it off. Man up. Stop being so sensitive. Brush it off. Are you crying? Little bitch. Stand up. Don't whine. Snap out of it. Boys don't cry. Grow a pair. Go cry to someone else. Don't be a sissy. What are you, a wuss? Lock it up. Rub some dirt on it. Sweat is just weakness leaving the body. Pussy. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Gonna cry to your Momma? Suck it up. Be a man. Tough it out. Buck up. 

Sound familiar to anyone? Depending on where you are, all 'genders' hear some versions of this, but in my region, folks walking around in male bodies experience a particularly vicious version.

One client summed it up nicely: "Just don't feel feelings." 

Women are also encouraged to stuff feelings and get praised for stoicism and suffering in silence, but there are sociocultural expectations that we at least privately share this suffering in sisterhood and verbally express our emotions, so the key is that even if we're dealing with some of the same issues, we generally face less alone-ness than our male counterparts. 

Males are taught that it's weak to share vulnerable feelings with each other, so there's not even an outlet. And on top of that, mainstream myths abound, like punching things or high octane exercise will do the trick instead of processing emotions. Research actually shows that trying to punch anger out/away really just amps you up and doesn't discharge the energy like many of us were taught.

Women may be told, "don't feel feelings" too, but men are told, "don't feel feelings AND don't you dare think about sharing them."

Oh, and males are then expected to *also* be able to grow up this way and then flip some magic switch when they're called to be in relationship. Instead, I listen to lots of female partners' criticizing, "Why can't you just be emotional with me?!" and insinuating their lovers are deficient or defective in some way. Guess how this lands on guys who have been primed to think on a spectrum from failure to success? 

Research shows that 'toxic masculinity' training starts tragically early in the lives of our little ones here in the US.

Last summer an article came out in The New York Times about "talking to boys the way we talk to girls," and I highly recommend it as an introduction to some of the research. 

A 2015 study (Pediatric Psychology) found that parents in emergency rooms talk differently to their children based gender. Mothers have been found (Pediatrics, 2014) to interact vocally with female daughters more often than sons. And it's not just moms; a study at Emory (2017) also found that dads sing/smile more at daughters; with sons, the language was achievement-focused, like "win," and "proud." 

It's also curious to note, traumatic stress changes brains of humans enculturated as males and those enculturated as females in differing ways according to Stanford researchers.

This makes tons of intuitive sense to my mind. When you're taught from the start to make sense of reality by taking your/others' emotions into consideration (empathize), and you are trained to connect (seek proximity) with others and co-create reality with shared language (communicate), in some respects you're better protected and insulated from aversive experiences and Trauma. 

This really started to click for me when I was listening to Vittorio Gallese lecture in NYC at Congress on Attachment and Trauma. 

Gallese and colleagues found that early aversive experiences (ACEs) alter facial mimicry of emotions as well as one's ability to emotionally regulate. If one experiences maltreatment as a child, as Gallese found studying boys living on the streets in Sierra Leon (2015), it can make it more difficult to recognize/read emotion in faces of others. 

Think about this for a moment. 

I started my counseling work with teens on probation and most of them came with diagnoses like "Conduct Disorder," and "Oppositional Defiant Disorder." Most of them also experienced profound abuse and/or neglect and ACEs. 

These kids were getting in fights not because they were "bad kids" or "thugs" as many of their teachers and POs thought, but potentially, according to Gallese's findings, also because they were misreading faces. If you see anger or aggression where it's not really (type I error), or you fail to see fear or sadness on a face (type II error), you can end up responding with inappropriate behavior. 

What's beyond fascinating is that as virtual embodiment studies emerge, we're seeing research that suggests that having a virtual experience where you see yourself as someone else and experience the world from another perspective can actually help increase your skills at reading and interpreting faces accurately. 

You can get better at emotion-ing with others! This turns a lot of theories on their heads that suggest your level of empathy is a kind of static thing that can't shift. 

If violent abusers are better able to see fear and pain in facial expressions after being immersed in a virtual experience, imagine the implications of this tech! 

Also, think about how our criminal justice institutions, then, systemically punish people who were punished already in early life by ACEs. This is the heart of the ethical terrain to me. 

If you're into tech, philosophy, and ethics, I highly recommend checking out work by Thomas Metzinger. An accessible way to get into his work might be an article from The New Yorker by Joshua Rothman, "Are We Already Living in Virtual Reality?" Stanford's Jeremy Bailenson also knows his stuff and is accessible for a variety of readers. I recommend his, "When Does Virtual Embodiment Change Our Minds?"

From where I sit as a clinician, the view honestly gets pretty heartbreaking. I see these themes again, and again, and again in work with relationships, particularly hetero couples. Especially when there's Trauma history. 

The heartache comes from seeing the caustic emotion-dismissing culture males are steeped in from the get-go, and watching clients who identify as men being pulled into counseling by their collars like naughty boys for not properly emotion-ing with female partners, who have been trained by society since the get-go to speak the language of emotion and interpersonal connection. 

Remember learning the definition of a double bind maybe in Psych 101? Double bind: "a situation in which a person is confronted with two irreconcilable demands or a choice between two undesirable courses of action."

We systematically tell boys and men that it's not safe/hip/attractive/necessary to be attuned and "emotional" or "sensitive." Then as soon as they partner up, they're faced with two scary options: share feelings or face an angry/disapproving partner. 

Or worse, try to share feelings to an angry/disapproving partner, and any communication skills that are there go offline when prefrontal cortex peaces out and leaves you with fight/flight/freeze/submit brains. Then it becomes this self-fulfilling, "See? You can't do this emotion thing!" 

And people who were raised identifying as female can often take for granted just how much enculturation and training we received from pretty much everyone around us in direct and covert ways. Obviously this is a broad stroke and there are certainly males whose experiences called them to develop traits that have historically been associated with femininity, like empathy and communication skills. 

Let me just share a quick, final little secret with you which is the opposite of what so many clients come in for counseling thinking: men have emotion and women have libido.  

Men don't exist solely in the physical plane and women don't exist solely in emotion. The whole "men are from Mars women are from Venus" thing is passé. 

Also, because researchers' papers that don't find exciting 'gender differences' often get shoved in a drawer since they're not "interesting" enough to publish, there's actually quite an exaggerated sense that humans are wired really differently based on 'gender.'

Sure, hormones absolutely color our realities differently and when pressed by colleagues who worship at the altar of evolutionary biology I can acknowledge a certain level of differences that can be attributed to sex, but at the core of our DNA is the same message regardless of what's between your legs: get close to other people or you will die. You'll hear that in the research as "proximity-seeking behaviors." 

In any case, I am feeling moved and inspired by the outpouring of articles over the past year or so calling for us to expand the definition of "masculinity" to be more inclusive and "redefining masculinity." Let's keep this conversation going! Our world depends on it. 

Love, 
MJ

10 Signs it's Time for Couples Counseling

Ask any couples counselor two questions: 1) when should relationships come in for counseling? and 2) when do relationships come in for counseling? 

You'll hear an overwhelming amount of: "They come in when it's already too late." 

A pair of images immediately occurs to me: patting out a little grass fire with your foot around a fire pit, versus a team of professional firefighters attacking a massive, out-of-control blaze. 

It becomes evident pretty quickly when a couple has actually hired you to help them breakup.

While I definitely believe a great many love relationships can be brought 'back from the brink' with the right motivation, effort, and experienced helping professionals, there is a "too late" in some cases. 

Too many wounding things get said. Too many hurts go without repair. The message "I'm not here for you when you need me" has gotten too deeply scarred in for at least one partner to feel incapable of trusting again. 

Moral of the story? Get help when the fire is still small enough to pat out.

Signs it's Time for Couples Counseling: 

1. "It's so great; we never fight!" A lot of times this just means people don't see each other very frequently, stay really surface with conversation and avoid potentially upsetting topics, and kind of travel on parallel tracks and then diverge around conflict. Another common behavior among partners who say this is stuffing things under the rug. What's interesting from an EFT perspective is that I always see a conflict cycle, even when a couple is claiming they "don't fight." You'll see uncomfortable little power struggles crop up at Ikea or planning the family trip, or as Alain de Botton quips in On Love: "romantic terrorism." Conflict is natural and even health-promoting if we're mindful and compassionate about it. If there's a stark absence of passions getting stirred in your relationship in "negative" ways, it's not surprising when we see passions feeling limited or restricted in say, intimacy. We can't selectively numb or avoid pain without impacting pleasure. 
2. Anger has started to warp into resentment. This looks like "aw man, this not-great thing happened and I'm mad!" twisting into "my partner did this shit thing because they're a real piece of work and I don't deserve this bullshit." It's sort of like the difference between guilt and shame. With resentment, there's something of a rub-your-face-in-it component; it's more like "you did this shit thing because *you* are a real piece of shit." Gottman Institute research backs up that resentment can spell the beginning of the end for relationships if it doesn't get addressed. Clinically it gets complicated too, because to move from 'Negative Sentiment Override' to feeling good about the relationship, we have to move from (-) to neutral to (+); it doesn't just turn around to sunshine and bubbles overnight.  
3. Someone or everyone is becoming violent when upset or frustrated. Violence with/toward objects that aren't you (e.g., punching holes in the wall, throwing furniture around, being scary driving the car) counts. Aggression with language and shaming partners also counts. If you find a helping professional trained in Gottman Method, they will definitely screen for safety and violence and be able to discreetly feel out if one of more partners feels like speaking up in therapy would put them at risk. Also, know that there are safe, helpful community resources here for you if you're in a relationship that sounds like this:
   Safe Place: (512) 267-7233 + En Español + Live Chat for deaf people of all identities 
   Indocumentado/undocumented? Casa Marianella: (512) 385-5571
   Statewide Legal Assistance: WomensLaw.org
4. We keep repeating the SAME pattern when we're in conflict. Maybe you love each other to pieces regardless, but the same cycle keeps you in a dreadful loop sometimes. If this sounds like you, someone trained in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy could be especially helpful! In EFT, we train to frame problems in relational terms so that you can gain some mastery over out of control patterns, and find ways to soothe and nurture each other through inevitable, health-promoting relational conflict. An EFT therapist can help your relationship 1) notice and understand the cycles and patterns that get you derailed and/or stuck as well as the connecting ones which make you bond, 2) support you to disrupt these uncomfortable patterns and reinforce/increase bonding "dances," and 3) experience your relationship as a "secure bond" that you can trust in, where intimacy grows wild. Even healthy relationships benefit and feel more deeply connected from engaging in this kind of counseling. 
5. The phrase "we're just friends!" has been uttered. Shirley Glass and Caryl Rusbult are your researchers/authors if you don't believe me. If your partner has said something along these lines, particularly about someone at work with whom they have an emotional connection and friendship, maybe bop in to counseling for a check-in! If you have told partner/s "we're JUST friends!" about someone in your life, I want to challenge you to tenderly ask yourself, "Why did I put the word 'just' in there?" Unless it's a literal life-or-death scenario, when we see anger, we can assume pretty safely that there's something 'primary' or more vulnerable beneath it at the root, e.g., sadness, fear, shame, loneliness. If you notice that you get defensive and upset when a partner expresses jealousy about this "just-a-friend," do you know why? The best way to work toward preventing relational norm violations like 'affairs' is to be real with yourself and not pretend like you're immune from temptation, which can involve needing to name uncomfortable things. It might sound counterintuitive, but if you're partner is securely attached (and has worked through past issues) and you can just say when you feel a tiny crush on someone, it sort of takes the air and excitement out of something that could build up into a tantalizing secret. A therapist can help facilitate conversations like this! 
6. Our kiddos are acting out and we're not sure why. In love relationships, if one person is having feelings but not sharing them out loud, sometimes they'll manifest in the other partner who is empathic and/or doesn't have the same level of shame and stigma around feeling feelings. This happens with kids too! When clients report that kiddos are seeming extra angry and frustrated lately and there's no overt, obvious cause or change, I like to ask if the clients have themselves been feeling any anger. It's not a straight line from parents stuffing feelings to kids acting out, but we definitely see kids' behavior shift in ways parents like once the whole family system is verbally naming what's going on instead of stuffing it or pretending it's not happening. I also frequently hear from clients who have gotten intimacy back on track that they they become baby magnets and kids start becoming snufflier, emotionally warmer, and more relaxed energetically. 
7. Something painful from the past gets brought up whenever we fight. Clients often report that there was an affair/s years ago and "we think we resolved it" but it keeps getting brought up every time there's a big blowup. I see a number of clients who maybe even went to a handful of counseling/premarital sessions or consultations with a religious or spiritual advisor in the wake of a relational norm violation like 'infidelity' who keep feeling stuck with some unresolved stuff that only seems to crop up when they're already heated. With EFT and other solid models for work with relationships, we can sort of time travel back into the past and revisit old wounds and "attachment injuries," like affairs, so that we undo the alone-ness that happened in those painful memories. Injuries stick in particular when we get the message that our partner is not accessible, will not respond to us, and can't/won't emotionally engage with us; when we feel overwhelmed and alone. If you're asking Sue Johnson's "A.R.E. you there for me?" question, it's maybe time for counseling. 
8. We have a hard time recovering after conflict. Maybe it takes many hours, sometimes days or even weeks to make up and reconnect after a big fight. Do you say "sorry," but the feelings don't actually really change for the better? Our culture does a pretty terrible job teaching u social skills around atonement and apology and dances of reconnection. Even helping professionals are mostly taught what it looks like when partners are disconnected or connected; not what healthy reconnection looks like. The longer hurts go unseen and partners are left feeling unnoticed and not cared for, the longer they can take to heal. Sometimes relationships see enormous benefits just from practicing together how to make up when there's been an injury, and learning how to perform apologies with words and actions. This cycle of connection, disconnection, reconnection, described by Dr. Jean Baker Miller, is very natural and health-promoting, but our sociocultural upbringings can get in the way and encourage us to avoid conflict/apology and actually make things worse. 
9. Intimacy isn't mutually satisfying and/or we are thinking of 'opening up.' Clients often come in because sex has started feeling mechanical and/or one or more people avoid initiating sex because they don't want to rock the boat or face rejection. Here, again, is another shining beacon of "sooner than later." I've worked with partners who haven't had sex in weeks, months, years, and even decades. *As soon* as it occurs that things aren't feeling mutually groovy in bed and you're not talking about it, either start talking or find a therapist. The idea that a conversation is "awkward" or "embarrassing" is way better than say, a decade-long dry spell, trust me. Oh, while we're here, if intimacy doesn't feel awesome and you're thinking about 'opening up' your relationship as a possible solution, GO TO COUPLES COUNSELING. Seriously can't say enough: open your relationship together when love is overflowing and you have so much good feels and sex that you need some extra bodies to catch it all, NOT when there's a lack of intimacy and sex is trying to pull blood from stone and you imagine that you might be able to magically transfer energy from one experience back into your primary relationship. Regardless of your motivations, if you're thinking of changing dynamics in a relationship, check in with a couples counselor who is affirming and pleasure positive! AASECT has some solid resources. 
10. "I'm not sure they're the one." When you think about walking down the aisle and getting married, are you so happy *and* there's this deep, unavoidable dread pit that vaguely stirs in your guts? If you really can't make heads or tails of whether or not you should be in a relationship, there's a particular type of counseling called Discernment Counseling that can help! While I see a lot of clients trying to use Gottman Assessment + Relationship Checkup as a means of discernment, it's better for getting a snapshot of a relationship to help see if there are any major shifts that would need to occur to reduce the likelihood that the relationship won't flourish. This is also a place where it can be helpful to get a referral for a solid individual therapist to do some prep work to begin to navigate this issue. Saying "I'm not sure about us," can cause attachment injuries and send the message that the bond isn't secure, so it's helpful to have a helping professional to keep an eye for relational safety during the process. If you do want to see an individual counselor, I like to recommend finding someone who works on a team with a couples counselor so that you can easily begin to collaborate when the time calls! 

If nothing else, try counseling together as an experiment! What have you got to lose? 

If your relationship is really steady and solid, counseling will just deepen your bond and probably bring some spice back into things. If you're already struggling, why not see if counseling can change things up for you? Especially if you've never tried it before. 

Looking for a trusty helping professional? I recommend searching for the following key words: Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, Gottman Method Couples Therapy, and Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy (PACT). If finances are a consideration, Capital Area Counseling and Therapy Austin both offer sliding scale services for relationships and families. 

I also invite you to feel encouraged to ask questions and interview a few potential therapists until you find someone who feels right for your relationship! Lots of folks in town offer free consultations; take us up on it! "How long have you been working with couples?" "What evidence-based practices do you use?" "How do you stage out treatment planning?" "Does it feel like we'd be a good fit to do counseling work together?" 

We'll see success rates in couples counseling climb when people apply the same logic that they do to "hard science" and medical fields: an ounce of prevention... 

Love, 
MJ

Surviving Family Gatherings after the Affair

Did you or a partner/s recently reveal a secret affair/s or betrayal?

Everyone responds differently to the news that a partner violated a norm/expectation in a relationship, or as we might hear more commonly: "cheated," "had an affair," "infidelity." 

Usually it's not pretty, but depending on a variety of factors from culture to relational style and Trauma history, responses in the wake of an "affair-reveal" spread across a pretty wide spectrum. 

As Esther Perel describes in her most recent, The State of Affairs, when she was chatting with women in Senegal about infidelity, she heard how little their identities felt rocked when they learned about a betrayal. The women reported that they did cry and feel intense sadness, but most explained their partner's behavior by seeing it as a normal male struggle, a norm expected in culture. Perel contrasts this with women in the West who can tend to fall more into existential meltdown, wondering what in us is deficient or lacking.

Given this wide presentation of responses to infidelity, I'm going to organize these recommendations by the 4 most common responses I clinically and anecdotally observe.

First, I want to invite anyone trudging through this painful relational territory to give yourself permission to treat this time super gently and with great tenderness, like you would if someone in the family died or got a very serious diagnosis.

Go slow. With reverence. Move softly. 

But there can be lots of family performance pressure around holidays, celebrations, and family gatherings for broken-hearted clients. It hurts my heart to hear so many stories of people post-affair-reveal crying alone in cars and guest bathrooms after stuffing feelings and faking happy to keep up appearances for family.

It can take a lot of work to repair the kind of emotional wounds we experience when we end up feeling alone and overwhelmed. So, above all: if you're not feeling something in the first weeks/months after finding out about an affair/s, don't force it where possible.

Try to let people support you, even if you feel gross and snotty and can't stop crying. Sometimes people just don't know what to do but they do want to help, so you can make it easy and just say something specific like, "Hey, I really need you to come pick me up and take me for coffee and not ask a lot of questions."

Please, please also do give yourself permission to cry. Your relationship wasn't what you thought. Your partner wasn't behaving like you thought. It's normal to feel a sense of loss. Allow yourself to feel and be whatever comes up as long as you and those around you keep safe.

So, on to the tips! It's helpful to think of this process a bit like bereavement; you'll likely experience evolving cycles of feelings and physiological responses as you heal and grow. 

In general we're looking at combinations of 4 experiences: collapse/shutdown, rage, disgust, and grief.

COLLAPSE
If this is you, it's possible you lost your knees and fell to the floor when you found out your partner 'cheated.' I've heard of people actually fainting! It's not weird. It's actually tragically sweet because technically that's the person's neurophysiology saying, "Whoa we are losing this bond? Estimating a high likelihood we won't survive," "Without you I'm dead." Maybe you felt light-headed and had to sit down. Maybe it became hard to get up and get moving for a while after. Allow yourself to go slow. 

If you start to feel flooded, find some rituals for finding the ground, breathing, and reminding yourself that you are safe and whole. Do you have some music that reliably chills you out? Maybe it's taking a walk that brings you back down to Earth. I will say if you're in the wake of an infidelity, maybe don't listen to any of your favorite, favorite music because it can kind of emotionally stain the tracks. 

Remember "name it to tame it." If you're an involved partner who cheated, this can be difficult to see, but try to allow your partner to just feel whatever they are feeling. Lots of partners want to rescue hurt partners from being in pain and kind of pull them or convince them out of their emotions, but this can feel disregarding to the hurt partner and increases the chances they'll feel unseen and unimportant. "I see your pain and your tears. I'm here with you," may be all you can offer, but that's an incredible gift. Same with reflecting pain: "You are feeling so devastated. I lied and you feel betrayed. You're hurting. I'm here." 

Once it's been long enough for you and you feel ready to rise back up, I highly recommend learning and practicing power poses when you feel so collapsed or ashamed that it feels uncomfortable or intolerable. Brené Brown has great resources to read, as well as Kristin Neff! 

RAGE
If this is you, it's possible you lost your temper and inflicted damage on something or someone when you found out your partner cheated. There might have been suitcases packed, cars destroyed, or divorce papers threatened/served. If it's soon after the infidelity-reveal, give yourself permission to just do what you need to do to keep from being consumed in the fires of your indignation and anger. If this means skipping out on your or partner's family's special occasions or holiday activities and traditions, or making some temporary changes in your own relational routine, that's okay. Just keep retaliation out of the picture.

Try to avoid visual images of your partner's' affair partner/s. If you need to do some temporary social media unfollows/blocks, do it. Please don't seek out affair partner; seek to leave them out of the relationship until you have the capacity to think calmly and rationally enough to get the information and details you need to make informed, health-promoting decisions.

Take breaks! Lots and lots of breaks. At least 15-20mins at a time if possible. Remember that rage is a way we cope with deep sadness, loss, fear, and feeling out of control. Pop culture says go and scream and punch a pillow, but research shows this just mostly ramps up anger. So instead of ruminating on upsetting mental imagery, try "naming it to tame it," Loving Kindness Meditation, self-compassion practices, yoga, etc., *not* tire slashing or 'Facebook stalking.' I also recommend Harriet Lerner's The Dance of Anger. 

Involved partners can really help take some heat out by doing things like taking accountability, acknowledging and validating the anger, and being vulnerable and holding off on defensiveness. If you cheated, don't avoid questions, but do find a couples counselor to help guide pacing and navigate why certain questions are asked, which really need full answers, and how to answer most compassionately and honestly. 

DISGUST
If this is you, it's possible you might have actually vomited when you found out your partner cheated. Disgust frequently hangs out with shame too, so you might have experienced both together. If it's soon after the infidelity-reveal, make sure to drink lots of water and try to at least squeeze in 30min-1hr walks a few times a week if not daily. Try to avoid junky, greasy food even if you crave it, especially if you keep throwing up when you think hard about the infidelity. Cool it a little on caffeine, citric acid, dairy, and spicy/greasy foods for a hot minute as much as you can. Your body will right itself.

Don't try to force eating with your partner or eating foods that make you uneasy to please relatives, friends, or even the partner. This can be awful tough for an involved partner who cheated to have to watch, so just know if this is happening, it's just what the body needs to do right now to keep from capsizing. If it's really bad, get involved partner to hang back and bring a caretaking friend in for a few days to mitigate exposure of hurt partner to involved partner.

It's easy to accidentally create lasting wounds in this terrain with words. Hurt partner, "You disgust me" can feel too painful because it's rejecting inherently; stick with "I feel sick" if you can, especially if you want to stay in the relationship in the long run. Focus on partner's behaviors and your own feelings, not character attacks; you can trust that involved partners also feel disgust and shame, and often bear this burden solo for a long time. If "I disgust myself" is coming up a lot for anyone, bop in for some individual counseling to check-in because it can be a sign of older wounds and shame. 

Also, I invite you to avoid discussing the explicit sex acts involved in the affair/s, especially at first when you're most off kilter and least capable of dealing. Focus on finding balance and building safety first and trust that understanding and insight will come. Usually, these sexual details never become necessary to disclose for healing, and typically only only provide fuel for further mental masochism and rumination spirals. 

GRIEF
If this is you, it's possible you cried and sobbed your eyes out and cried some more when you found out your partner cheated. In Trust First Aid, I find that there's just a lot of sads and tears that need space to get voiced and released. It's so tempting to try to "snap out of it" and bulldoze past the sad part, but you'll regret it if you speed past heavy feels after affairs and don't take time to just be in them.

Grief is like a jacuzzi: the person soaking in it just needs be still, and it's nice when someone else eases down in beside you to join you, as opposed to just dipping a toe in and saying, "Yow! Get out of there! You've been in too long... You're going to cook yourself!" You don't get to have the same relationship after an affair. The relationship can transform, but something is inherently lost, even if it's just an idea. It's natural and health-promoting to allow yourself to mourn for the loss of something precious, even if it is as simple as "I thought you were happy." Take all the time you need. No one gets to tell anyone who and when to forgive.

Mindfully and collaboratively co-decide who you and your partner disclose the affair to, but do reach out for support from trusted, discreet friends/family. Again, it's okay to skip holiday traditions if you are worried about emotionally staining memories, or crumbling under the pressure of "keeping it together" in front of other people. Also, 2 words: take baths. 

Involved partners, try to remind yourself that the intensity of grief often goes with the size and importance of the love; big sads = big love for you. It can feel awful because your usual superpower to calm and reassure your partner may not work like used to for a while. It will again. Try to be patient and tender with yourself.

Patience and tenderness all around, inside and out. There's hope. 

Love, 
MJ

Come As You Are

Why do humans tend to focus on negatives? Hint: *not* because we’re bad or unenlightened. 

Why do people cry? Hint: *not* because we're weak or failing. Let's take a look at both of these questions. 

When we were still early in our evolution, it was essential that a negative/dangerous experience be remembered so that it wasn’t repeated. Act, or don’t; life, or death. 

It was imperative that our ancestors felt anxious when they were in places that seemed similar to where that poisonous snake attacked, for instance. Our bodies had to privilege scary memories for our safety and survival. 

The emerging cult of positivity clamoring “no bad vibes” and "good vibes only" is really starting to wear on me because it implies that ‘negative feelings’ (pain, fear, distress, anxiety, etc.) are bad and to be overcome/avoided—like it’s wrong, weak, out of control, or irrational to experience these emotions. 

Fear is wisdom in our bodies that we’ve inherited over centuries. 

It makes sense that we sort of adopted this "positive/negative" language because emotions have valences, or charges, which are (+) or (-). Doesn't mean we can't work toward a shared language that reflects more nuance with less judgment. 

When we don’t work to train our minds, which wander by nature, we can tend to focus on negatives because that really helped us to, you know, *not* die and keep reproducing! 

You aren’t ‘negative’ because you’re bad, but because you’re human. 

When we remember our evolutionary heritage, it helps us be gentler with ourselves and others when we’re experiencing emotional movements. And with less moralizing and a deeper appreciation for our psychobiological wiring, we can be more mindful and intentional about tuning into ‘positives' and expressing appreciation and gratitude.

If we can see our bodies as wise and on our side, everything else changes. If we see our bodies as in our way and set on being inconveniences, we actually become threatening to our own bodies and nervous systems. 

But "good vibes only" tells us to police our emotions. We already live in a society where we're taught to disconnect from our natural body rhythms. If you have a pain, you're encouraged to pop an Advil to stop the pain

Think about something as simple as a pain response. 

The language of our bodies and subcortical (lower, unconscious/automatic) brains is not English, it's action and sensation and feely feels; it's experiential. The body can't say, "Pardon me, could you please warm up by stretching before you do push-ups to impress people?" It just says "OW!" after and has to trust that you'll catch the memo. 

You can tear muscles if you ignore physical pain. It's one of our body's intelligent ways of talking to us and making us pay attention and remember to make sure to not to do stupid or careless things again.

Memories encoded with pain stick. Like novelty. And threat. Or deep pleasure. 

It makes sense we evolved systems that organize information and energy flow based on experiences like pain, new things, and danger/threats. 

We needed bodies that could automatically scan for, tag, and encode repeated or crucial, life-threat things with certain codes like "danger," "pain," "pleasure," so we didn't have to waste precious upper brain energy on consciously thinking through every scenario which calls for various sets of approach and withdraw behaviors. Takes too much time, energy, and resources. We depended on having the fast, easy, automatic way as a default. 

So you remember for instance, red color on animals can mean bad bad death no AVOID. Your body acts to avoid danger creeeepily long before you consciously "decide" to move. Your brainstem and parts of the limbic system like your amygdala are super tuned into keeping on top of keeping you safe. 

Brainstem is always on repeat, multiples times per second, asking, "Am I safe?" It's got your back. But like, a grandma who gets up two hours early to check what the weather will be in your town so she can call and warn you if there's any risky-sounding weather that might come your way so you can bring an umbrella. 

Amygdala is also kinda like that sweet, worrying grandparent. It also notices sparkly and beauty; you can take it to the art museum. But it spends a lot of energy fretting about safety. 

Pain can be uncomfortable (emotional, physical, spiritual, sexual, existential) but it's crucial that we *turn toward* it with as much concern as a friend saying to us, "Help! I need you!" Pain is not to be ignored. And there are consequences for those who won't cultivate some tolerance for it; unless they end up lucky enough to lead a charmed, problem-free life. 

Pain isn't an "annoyance" or "weakness leaving the body" or "failure," it's an attempt at communication. 

If your body gets the vibe that you bulldoze pain, stuff/squash it, pretend it's not there, or will just ignore it, well, imagine what happens when you ignore a baby. You see a fit! Stress response. Protest. SOMETHING to make you pay attention!

You know what your body and a baby have in common? If you guessed language, you're right! The language is action, movement, behavior. 

Babies also cry and sob it out more, right? You know what sobbing really is? 

This is sad but also kind of awesome. So, sobbing basically helps enervate (give energy to) our muscles. Think about how it makes certain muscles clench and striated muscles tighten with crying heaves. 

Yeah sobbing can seem like a bummer, but it's one of the ways our body balances discharging energy trapped in our nervous system and lifting our bodies up out of a collapse response in an effort to maintain baseline. At times you've sobbed, your body physically worried that you might collapse, not have the energy to get up, and die.

Ever notice someone sounding like they're repeatedly gasping in-breaths as they sob and cry? Remember: in-breaths = sympathetic nervous system = fight/flight preparation. Your body is helping you mobilize energy to facilitate a change in internal state. Sobs get your core moving again. 

Many cultures around the world embrace this as a natural, healthy thing to do. In some cultures, people even hire others to come wail and weep at funerals to normalize it and encourage the funerary attendees to let loose. 

In some pretty heartbreaking animal experiments where they put lab animals through stress and then don't let some "shake" or "shake it off after," keeping them restrained and still, these animals suffer more distress, anxiety, and symptoms that go with trauma. The animals allowed to do their thing end up just fine; they literally shake it off. 

Language is where shame can be born. 

With language comes guilt. With language comes "stand up and brush it off you're fine" and "shut up, crybaby" and "you're being hysterical" and "you're acting like a child" and "pull yourself together" and "lock it up" and a zillion regional variations on this. 

But with language can also come, "it's okay to cry" and "you're safe here" "stay here with me, I've got you" and "there's no shame in crying" and "it's okay to express and feel your feels" and "just let it all out." 

If a friend is crying and I feel their pain, I sometimes cry too. It shows that we're human together and especially if they aren't used to feeling feelings in front of others, my face shows that it's acceptable to me to cry, that I will join and not judge. And I'll frequently join unconsciously, because we're connected. 

Oh and parents: crying in front of your kids is a gift for them; it's permission. 

Please note that although crying, even intense sobbing for short durations, can be health-promoting in response to stress and threat, you caaan get too revved up or spiral out of balance, especially if you also use particular substances or have certain genetic/psychological vulnerabilities. Call 911 if things feel out of control or get to the point of being unsafe. 

Never forget: crying is cool. Come as you are, and bring your whole self! All parts are welcome. 

Love, 
MJ