Don’t be Afraid to be Vulnerable

Since it is almost Halloween and we are all prepared for a little fright, I thought it would be a good time to take a look at what so many of us are deeply scared of– yet yearn for– vulnerability.  As a culture and society, I believe we are often too fearful of being vulnerable, and are remiss at allowing our children to show their vulnerability.  In fact, many of us numb ourselves with alcohol, drugs, food, and other substances and addictions to mask our need for it.

Vulnerability and the opening up of our hearts and souls to our loved ones, is one of the most difficult things we can do.  Yet, it is actually the most important deep connection we have with those closest to us.  Most of us struggle with showing this side of ourselves.  Because of this, it is a constant thread in the work I do with couples.

I was lucky enough recently to view a wonderful video today by Dr. Brene Brown, a University of Houston Professor who has done research on what vulnerability means to us and how important it is to our wellbeing and to our connections with our loved ones.  If you have a few minutes, treat yourself to a view of her video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Qm9cGRub0

Why are we so scared of opening up to our partners and friends?  Because as Dr. Brown so beautifully shows us, we all carry shame, and shame holds us back from being authentic.  We hide pieces of who we are because we carry a feeling inside that often tell us: we are not good enough, thin enough or rich enough, etc.   When we don’t feel worthy, or feel critical of ourselves, we don’t feel we deserve love.  Shame keeps us at a distance from self-love, blocking us from accepting love from others.

Dr. Brown found that those of us who she describes as “wholehearted” are able to feel love and empathy for themselves, and were consequently, those most able to shake off shame and allow love into their lives.  The wholehearted could takes risks and allow themselves to be vulnerable, fall in love, and be resilient if things didn’t work out.

When couples come in to see me, they are often in a deep emotional crisis, unable to speak to one another in a safe secure way.  They certainly fear showing their vulnerabilities.  It is my job to help heal those wounds and allow each partner to find a way to open up again and reconnect.

Happy Halloween!

Trevor Mahony Crow, LMFT

 

Are You Stuck in a Blame Cycle, AKA Holding a Grudge?

Monica listened as her 82-year-old Aunt Esther told her a story. When Esther was a young girl, her cousins attended the same sleep away camp as she, and she was instructed by her family to watch out for the little girls. Esther carefully shared her fruit and special food with her cousins. Her dad was a grocer and drove up to Maine weekly to deliver her fresh food. She felt good that she was being a loving cousin. However, when she arrived home to Boston later that summer, her grandmother was furious with her. The grandmother, for an unknown reason, believed Esther hadn’t been good to her cousins.

Monica’s aunt never asked why her grandmother felt that way and she never was able to defend herself. As a result, Esther has hated her grandmother since. She swore she wouldn’t speak to her or have anything to do with her again. In fact, she has held that grudge for close to 70 years. The grandmother has long since passed away, yet Esther still holds the pain of that moment so long ago.

The grandmother hurt the aunt because she hadn’t asked about her side of the story and assumed Esther did wrong, not the cousins. This gave Esther the feeling that the grandmother didn’t have her back. The grandmother chose the cousins over her and Esther was wounded by her grandmother’s betrayal.

Deep down that wound has lodged itself into Esther’s psyche, keeping her angry and stuck for close to a century. She has had every right to be angry because the grandmother betrayed her, but deep down, she is still hurting. The grandmother delivered her a deep attachment wound that is still, 70 years later, festering. Attachment wounds are the most painful wounds of all; they are the hurts that occur when those that are supposed to love us, abandon us.

One way many of us cope with deep hurt is by building a hard wall of anger around it. This anger shuts us away from feeling the depth of the hurt. The problem is we can’t soothe the hurt unless we take the walls of anger down. The anger or grudge is really about blaming. Blaming another person for our long term hurt.

Monica’s Aunt Esther has kept herself stuck by maintaining this grudge. If she were allow herself to experience the hurt around the attachment wound, rather than focusing on the blame for her hurt on her grandmother, she might able to let go of the hurt over time.
When we blame our family members, our partners, or friends for our hurts, frustrations and overall bad feelings, we get stuck. Blame shifts focus to those around us, keeping us away from experiencing the pain, vulnerabilities and shame of something that has happened.

In the best case scenario, if we can look inward when we are most angry and blaming of our partner or friend and take a look at what is really hurting us, we might see the events and our partner differently. The next step is telling the other person how hurt we feel and that we need them to understand that their behaviors are causing us distress. We can then ask them to stop and understand that it is hard for us when they do that behavior. When we stop blaming or holding a grudge and access the real feelings around a negative event, we can start to heal and ask for what we really need. Maybe it is an apology; maybe it is simply a hug. But mostly, what we are all yearning for is a safe, secure and loving connection with our family and friends.

Trevor Mahony Crow, LMFT

Ellie hung up the phone in frustration. Joe, her husband of ten years was working late again and she was feeling angry and fed up. Her two boys had been a handful all day and she hadn’t had time to do all that she had planned. She felt trapped and alone at that moment. Joe wouldn’t be home for several hours and her boys were hungry for dinner and would need a bath soon.

By the time Joe walked in the door, he was tired and didn’t notice Ellie’s desperation. Instead, he gave her a peck on the cheek and went straight to the boys and made a big fuss about coming home and seeing them. It was his first real joy of the day. Ellie, watching the boys delight in their dad’s homecoming felt left out and resentful. She wanted them to be happy to see their dad, but at that moment, it they seemed loved him more than her and he they. Part of her knew she was being childish but she couldn’t help feeling angry all the same.

By the time the boys were in bed and Ellie and Joe had time to focus on one another, Ellie was at a boiling point. When Joe mentioned that he had a company golf game on the upcoming Saturday afternoon, Ellie lost it. She started yelling, saying that he didn’t care about her and that he only cared about golf and his job. He responded that his job paid the bills and here she was a stay-at-home mom; shouldn’t she feel lucky? She fought back, saying the last thing she felt was lucky. She felt he was insensitive and selfish and didn’t care about their family. It was all about golf and work. He stormed out of the room, only to fall asleep on the couch watching TV. Again.

Sound familiar? Do the themes of this scenario play out in your household?

Understandably, Ellie is feeling angry and, deep down, hurt that Joe doesn’t see how hard her assignment is. Staying at home means no promotions, no bonuses and no adult conversation. Instead, the joy of being with her children, though wonderful, can often be frustrating and deeply isolating. By the end of most days, Ellie wants Joe to understand the challenges and loneliness she experiences. But her way of sharing sounds to Joe like criticism.

Joe on the other hand is also tired . He works hard and must internalize the pressures and insecurities of his job, always asking himself why he didn’t get that promotion or better bonus. He too feels isolated, stressed by having to shoulder the financial burden of the family without recognition. When he gets home, he seeks respite from the demands of the breadwinner’s workplace. But when he finds criticism instead, he shuts down and withdraws.

Ellie and Joe have reached the point where they are fully missing one another. For the moment, the connection they both crave, that feeling of being loved, has been lost. Neither feels safe with the other. And the drama is predictable — no matter what they are actually fighting about, it’s the same fight every time. Ellie seeks validation and reassurance from Joe. But her approach to achieving it is negative because he doesn’t respond. As he withdraws, he feels anything he says will cause her to become angrier. Yet this is negative too because his distancing causes her to amplify her criticism.

Ellie has become the relationship’s “pursuer,” while Joe has become its “withdrawer.” Each fight follows a similar script as Ellie calls Joe out on something that she feels is selfish or insensitive, causing Joe to pull back and clam up. Below her angry surface, Ellie is feeling hurt that Joe seems to abandon her. Joe is feeling that anything he says will cause Ellie to yell louder. He feels incapable of satisfying her, making him even more quiet and afraid of rejection. He can’t seem to do anything right.

Neither can see what the other is experiencing. They are locked in an adversarial “blame the other” stance. Sue Johnson, author of Hold Me Tight, (see www.holdmetight.com ) describes this as a “demon dance.” Hold Me Tight is an excellent book on couples and relationships based on Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). Sue developed the EFT model based on attachment theory.

Attachment theory was developed by John Bowlby. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory for more information.) Attachment – the forming of secure emotional bonds — is as important to us as food and water. Our survival as infants is based on our attachment to our caregiver. Bowlby theorized that secure attachment, the process by which a care giver responds to the child’s needs and gives the child a feeling of safety, allows the child to go into the world to explore and develop in a healthy way. As adults we still crave secure attachment, namely, to be known and seen by our loved one in a safe secure relationship. When we lose a lover, many of us describe the event using words that are evocative of a death experience.

The concept of adult love is intimately related to secure attachment. We are always asking our loved one two questions: Are you there for me? Am I important to you? In Ellie and Joe’s marriage, Ellie feels that she is not important to Joe, that his work comes first. For his part, Joe feels accosted by Ellie, his muse. Attachment wounds to their relationship are the result.

The nature of the demon dance is that each sees the other as the cause of the bad feelings. We want to blame our partner for our disconnection. However, each of us has a part to play in the demon dance. Often we have unacknowledged feelings of fear, anxiety, grief and sometimes shame that cause us to put up emotional walls to protect ourselves from our partners and life in general. Many times emotional walls are defense mechanisms that protected and kept us safe as we grew up. But now they distance us from our loved ones.
We can learn to stand back from the dance. To do so we must first examine our feelings and their triggers. Reflecting on our actions and our actions’ impact on our partners can provide deep awareness of the dance. When our partner can slow down and understand our pain and its source, we can in turn see theirs; we can reconnect and feel safe together again.

For more information on EFT, attachment and Sue Johnson, visit www.NewEnglandEFT.com

Trevor Mahony Crow, LMFT