It’s MLK, Jr. day as I write, and Richmond is the site of a large 2nd Amendment rally while the annual state legislative session opens. As another decade and a US presidential election year begin, patience, empathy and understanding for those who are viewed as other, different — or who simply disagree with one’s own political position — seem in short supply.
Contemplating these polarized times, and the particular anxieties they create, especially in this area, it is clear to me that organizations like CPC are more essential than ever. We are an inclusive, diverse, faith-based community of professional counselors who desire to support all who seek our care in healing or achieving greater wholeness in their lives and relationships.
As a clinically certified pastoral counselor who specializes in couple and relationship therapy, I am particularly passionate about this healing and wholeness. I especially value helping couples achieve or strengthen the kind of secure connection that enables them to bridge the divisions that all long-term couples eventually encounter. At a time when families are challenged by polarization within the broader culture, I believe couples need to learn how to create safety for true dialogue in their own relationships. Moreover, sustained warmth, love and empathy in a couple’s relationship form the secure platform for children, and their own future contributions toward a more just and humane world.
While each couple and individual I see is unique, there are at least a couple of principals I teach couples especially that apply anywhere people seek to bridge their differences in mutually beneficial ways.
The first is from Internal Family Systems therapy, or IFS. It is the concept of the U-turn. The wisdom of the U-turn takes into account that when we are feeling particularly frustrated and critical toward one’s partner, we instinctively move to fight, freeze or flee. In that state, we are unlikely to contribute anything constructive; indeed, we are more likely to do damage. When we are frustrated, angry or triggered, I teach – and try to practice — a “U-turn.” The U-turn allows us to pause and examine our own unmet desire, need or hurt underneath the protective activation. It helps us to self-soothe sufficiently to prepare to speak for the desire, need or hurt in a way – and this is important – that invites open-heartedness from the other instead of activation/escalation. Simply put, if one speaks from an activated, finger-pointing part of oneself, one is likely to elicit defensiveness or worse in response. To use the famous phrase attributed to Gandhi, this is preparing to “be the change” in the relationship one desires from the other.
The second is both an endorsement and a caution about the “golden rule”, an ethic common to the world’s great religions. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you is generally a good ethical and empathic guide or reminder to “be the change you want.” The only trouble is, this involves imagining ourselves in the place of the other, which turns out to be quite difficult for many people to do with their partner. The problem is that we think we know our partners, when in fact they are vastly different than we are. This is complicated by the fact that the very differences that infuriate us are the very ones that attracted us in the first place. My partner may have a different love language, so my projections about what would make her feel loved may well require a transcendence of my own personal preferences. That’s why the “platinum rule” is needed – do unto your partner what your partner wants done unto them! To implement the platinum rule often requires a new curiosity and openness to learning about how truly different one’s chosen beloved is from oneself. I see each couple’s relationship as cross-cultural, despite the fact that each couple has commonalities that have helped them come together in the first place.
These two principals, that of the U-turn/”becoming the change” and applying the platinum rule, also seem useful to implement when attempting to connect and bridge divisions of politics, culture, religion, gender, race or sexual orientation. Rather than simply reacting with criticism and anger to what we don’t like, we need to ask ourselves: how do we act in congruence with what we do desire? And when frustrated or confused by the reactions and actions of those who differ with us, can we be curious about how the world really looks from their worldview and engage from that place of humility and curiosity?
Starting at home may be the best way we can prepare ourselves and our children to make these choices: to choose to extend love and curiosity toward those who are different from us rather than to react with fear, resentment, division and psychological or actual violence. As the New Year unfolds, if as couple partners or parents we find ourselves falling short in the relationships where we matter most, it’s time for a U-turn – and sometimes to admit we could use professional help learning how to work with the parts of ourselves that are all too ready to resort to culturally popular polarizing and relationally harmful tactics. It’s a New Year resolution worth exploring.
Image credit: Kevin Ogle
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