1) We want to maximize the expression and the experience of interest and joy in our lives and the lives of those around us.

2) We want to minimize the expression of negative feelings of all concerned. Those feelings I will specifically name as: anger, fear, distress, disgust and shame.

3) The way to achieve the goals of # 1 and # 2 is to express ALL FEELING whether they be positive or negative!

4) We do this by educating ourselves and others about the importance of feelings both negative and positive. We develop understandings between us that it is ok to express any type of feeling. We develop articulated rules for doing so.

… Always keep in mind that this can happen to and be expressed by anyone in the room. We need not feel guilty for expressing our suffering if we are not the ill partner. Expressing our suffering lets the other know that their suffering has meaning and is reflected in the other. We all end in recognizing, on a higher level, that to suffer is human and in the end we feel better.

(See the whole article here)

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to suffer alone in an unhealthy relationship for one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today.You can begin with our passive aggressive system created just for men, at Stop Your Passive Aggression, with a plan for action to change your life with new skills included. Just click this link and get started now!

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Technorati Tags: abuse, anger, appreciation, conflict resolution, Emotional Abuse, emotions, frustration, hidden anger, humiliation, passive aggression, peace, repressed anger

All humans are social creatures at their core – even if those hermit-like people among us don’t realize it. As social creatures, we are hardwired to show our emotional states to others in every facial expression, tone of voice, gestures, and how fast or slow those are shared. The language of our bodies and expressions can change the way we feel about or react to another person.

Within relationships, it often happens that two people who know each other very well come to naturally recognize and understand each other’s body language. However, even then, we’re not always aware of the signals we ourselves are giving off to others. It’s important that even the happiest couples learn to reflect on both their signals and their partner’s, in order to reach better understanding and needs fulfillment.

Some experts have explored an idea they call “feeling felt.” This is when you have the sense that your partner feels your feelings (attunement) and is able to respond in the appropriate way. “Feeling felt” is something that we all instinctively need, emotionally. And we need it at every stage of life.

Relationships where each person has this need satisfied are usually relationships where positive emotions run high and negative emotions are rare.

If you’ve been following along with us for a while, you’ve probably read this and already guessed that “feeling felt” is pretty much dependent on having a secure attachment to one another, right? It’s true that someone with a passive aggressive or avoidant partner isn’t going to “feel felt” very often.

What is interesting about feeling your partner’s feelings is that it’s often non-verbal. In classic empathy between those who don’t know each other well, you can understand where people are coming from or feel sad when they do, but they have to verbally say, “I’m feeling this” first. When a couple is properly attuned with each other, strong positive (or strong negative) emotions can be sensed in a way that isn’t expressed in words. Rather, it’s expressed in body language, expressions, gestures, and tone of voice.

Want to get to know your partner well enough that you can both know what it’s like to “feel felt”? Perhaps you want this, but you’re not sure your partner understands the importance of it? We can help! Please visit us at Conflict Coach to learn more about what you can do to find attunement and secure attachment in your relationships. Our coaches are standing by!

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today.We can begin by you having your Conflict Coach session, with a plan for action to change your life with new skills included. Just click this link and get started now!

 

Technorati Tags: attachment styles, attunement, commitment, communication, emotions, empathy, feeling felt, feelings, Marriage and Comunications, marriage crisis, passive aggression, passive aggressive, Relationships

In data from the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation (MLSRA) study, conducted over a 30-year period from birth to adulthood, investigators learned a great deal about relationships and how they evolve. In fact, a lot of what they learned are things we’ve been talking about here on the blog lately!

For example, researchers found out that having a secure, supportive mother in toddlerhood often leads to an individual being a “strong link” in adult relationships (e.g., the person with a large emotional stake in the couple). In effect, individuals mirror the kind of role they saw their caretaker in, and end up developing a secure attachment style.

The opposite is also true. An individual who did not have a secure mother in childhood (avoidant) grew to be the “weak link” in their adult relationships. That is to say, they become avoidant themselves, always keeping one foot out the door just in case!

Why is it important to have a secure attachment?  those who secure attachment to their caretakers were better able to handle conflict in their adolescent years (formative years where some big decisions can happen), and can go on managing relationships better when grown up.

Now, we’ve discussed before what happens when a secure adult marries/has a relationship with an avoidant adult. This is often the recipe for conflict, hurt feelings, defensive behavior, and passive aggressive relationships. The MLSRA, predictably, backs this idea up. But it also has something to add to that: if your attachments don’t match up, you’ll have more friction.

So, even if two avoidant people get together (what we would think of as a bad thing), their expectations and commitment are equally low, so there’s less conflict between what one person wants and what the other does. It’s an interesting addition to the passive aggression debate: could two passive aggressive people actually make a long-term marriage work? Perhaps, if one or the other was often traveling or working!

In the end, whatever the combination of attachment styles, it was found that couples with mismatched commitments/styles were the most hostile toward one another.

This and other new studies about attachment and behavior tell us a lot about how we learn to love and support one another. Even from the beginning of our lives, our brains are “taking notes” on various topics: what happens if I approach someone with a problem different from mine? Where can I go for support? Is trust a good thing?

Are you currently going through a marriage crisis of your own? Are you wondering whether it’s safe to trust others, whether you’re able to commit or love anyone else? If so, please don’t hesitate to contact us for help and emotional support. We are always here to listen and offer our expert advice. You can receive relationship and attachment style coaching at Conflict Coach today.

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today.We can begin by you having a complimentary consultation (by clicking here), with a plan for action to change your life with new skills included. Just click this link and get started now!

 

Technorati Tags: attachment, attachment styles, commitment, communication, marriage, marriage crisis, passive aggression, passive aggressive, Relationships, studies and research, trust

Every day, we come into contact with people that are walking emotional bundles. They carry the weight of past experiences with them, framing their present experiences as well as whatever wrong assumptions about life they have gained from those hurts.

Their previous experiences have conditioned them, from childhood on, to see the world as a dangerous place, full of treacherous people and pregnant with risk. It’s best not to trust anybody! Because of this frame of reference, they can’t keep an open and trusting attitude about interpersonal interactions.

When you think about dealing with people like this, it is easy to see why they are called difficult people or difficult relationships. They are scared, resistant to trust others or directly rejecting cooperation out of mistrust.

Are they the walking wounded? You bet! The best way of framing this interaction is to see them as non-mature people (regardless of their age), that act as wounded children. They sulk, are easily frustrated and upset, get paranoid when given feedback and in general show a reduced ability to work with others in shared projects.

What is the next step, once you’ve realized that you’re dealing with a difficult person?

Don’t take their behavior personally. Their troublesome behavior is their own way of reacting to life, was there before you, and is directed to everybody they come into contact with.

Don’t fight back or try to beat them at their own games. They are consummate artists who have been practicing their skills for a lifetime, so don’t get into responding fire with fire. You will merely be showing them that dealing with other people is too complicated to handle.

Don’t give in to unreasonable requests. If you give them what they want just to appease them or put them in a good mood, they will request more and more later.

Don’t try to change them, you are not their parents/therapist or significant other.

Well, wait. Did we just tell you what NOT to do? Yes. Because in a situation like this, there is really only one thing you CAN do, and have a healthy outcome.

It’s this:

You can only change your responses to their behavior, not the behavior itself. In doing so, and doing it consistently and firmly, they will begin to recognize a cause and effect trend. I.e., if I push someone away in this way, the result is this. Or, if I demand this, I get that.

So, the bottom line is that you have to have a clear idea of what you stand for, tell people your position in a calm, clear way, walking away when they use intimidation, guilt or abuse to get you to do what you don’t consider appropriate for your place in the relationship and all the time avoiding getting emotionally involved.

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today,by reading the ebook: Passive Aggressive Workplace.

Technorati Tags: anger, attitude change, conflict, conflict resolution, control, critique, frustration, humiliation, negative emotions, passive aggression, rejection, resentment, Resistance

Very easy:
Resilience is what you develop when you learn to confront all those interpersonal obstacles with good solutions.

It is very easy to use “fighting fire with fire” reactions…it’s almost automatic, and everybody does it everywhere. A different attitude, like resilience, comes from understanding our personal conflicts as a call for another kind of action.

Here we see resilience as the final product of a long learning process:

A) We accept that there will be confrontation(s) in our life,
B) We choose to manage confrontations by avoiding escalation, attacks and revenge, and controlling anger,
C) We learn to listen carefully to our “enemies’” complains,
D) We sincerely examine ourselves to see how, given the inter-connectedness we have, we helped produce the dispute;
E) We ask ourselves: How can I learn from this dispute? What is in me that needs change? What new skill do I need to learn now to re-connect with this person and be able work together or part in peace?

IN SHORT:

do we see conflict as a signal inviting us to work more in our interpersonal communication skills? Yes, indeed!

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today, get your own copy of the ebook:“The Tao of Anger: Controlling your Anger Explosions!

Technorati Tags: conflict, healthy relationships, hidden anger, negative emotions, passive aggression, rejection

a) Living life as it happens, in a naive way, adapting yourself to what life dishes out to you ( as the facts of family of origin; level of poverty/wealth; educational possibilities; personal health, etc), being resigned to your circumstances and seeing yourself incapable of changing anything.

b) Having a personal plan, designed by you and based on what you want from life.

Now, with so much psychological research, we get to know more about what constitutes a good life. We already know that we need some degree of peace and happiness (life stress managed and kept under control) in order to live healthy.

Because life stress and interpersonal conflict attack your life structure, they bring anxiety and reduce your life quality.

We also know that having negative emotions make you miserable, reducing your quality of life and diminishing happiness. A life full of conflict and stress is also a life full on medical and health incidents…they go together.

Knowing all this, even when our origins gave us bad health, unhappy family of origin and a lot of psychological anguish and suffering, it is now possible to make the strategic decision to focus on how to make your life happier.

First, you need to stop thinking that you have no power on the kind of life you are having, and begin accepting that you have some power on its quality. Taking responsibility for seeking to develop positive and nourishing interactions with others is the first one. What else can you do to enjoy a happier life?

You need to identify your needs, and make a plan to establish a source of satisfaction to each different need. If you have a need for security, the solution for it is different from the solution to the need for love and security, and so on…

You are also responsible for establishing links with people who can respect and appreciate you; and perhaps looking at th impact of negative people in your life, avoid connecting with the people who stop your growth.

As now your life design is in your own hands, you are responsible for making yourself grow: identify the areas where you need some push to develop further, towards a better education, a better job, or a better body, and follow the plan. Remember to keep growing, always.

Being in a better and happier place will make you more resistant to friction and conflict: learn to keep smiling while you continue your own way; no need to discuss with others to force them to change. You only can change yourself, and that is a large job!

In short: you will have to catch up in your own happy self-development, towards the person you want to be. Don’t let anyone challenge your own image of your good, purposeful life. And yes, this also means that you have to take your inner child to play!

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today, by buying the ebook with solutions for reducing stress in your life and having a happier love relationship…

Technorati Tags: anger, appreciation, conflict, confrontation, critique, Emotional Abuse, forgiveness, Healthy Marriage, healthy relationships, passive aggression, recognition, Relationships, respect, Self-Esteem

1.- Not Giving Your Partner the First Place.
You will be sending a sad message: work, soccer, your own family…everything can be more important than this person you have chosen to share your life. Giving this person very little attention is active neglect, and it sends a very strong message. If you consistently neglect your partner, you can be assured that any love feelings will not be strong enough as to keep the marriage going.

EXAMPLE: “I have always been jealous when Hubby devotes more time, money, or respect to other people, regardless of family relation, or male or female. I hated him for spending all his free time chatting with other women, and then spending hundreds of dollars to visit them. Even if it wasn’t sexual, I was super jealous, since he never spends quality time on me, or buys me gifts or gives me a break from the kids to give me free time….I feel always the second priority in his love”

2.- Allowing Yourself to Have Angry Outbursts.
Anger is a normal reaction. At some time, each one of us gets angry. It’s what you do with your anger that can harm your relationship. The caution here is that even when you are angry, be respectful and reassure your partner that you are just angry, not dismissing or un-loving them. And if you are angry at your partner, be sure to express the reasons for that anger in a way that the other person can accept and understand. No personal attacks, and a lot of Fair Fighting is necessary!

EXAMPLE: I go through monthly cycles of feeling tense, then attacked, then attacking to defend myself, then seeking a way to reconciling, and finally calm.I never know how to stop the cycle when it begins…

3.- Hurling Unfair Accusations against your Spouse.
Perhaps you are very afraid of losing him/her and then think that you need to control them using negative comments on their behavior. If you begin accusing your partner of not caring about you, having never loved you, or whatever else negative comment you can fabricate, STOP!

EXAMPLE: “To me, when she is five minutes late from work, her delay prompts my fantasies that she is late because she is having an affair, and then whatever she does is equivalent to not being caring or attentive enough or intentionally trying to hurt me, and all hell breaks lose…”

Accusations are abusive, get you nowhere and only show that you are out of control! In this way, you are actively destroying reciprocal trust. Scare your partner and she will become defensive, more prone to hide information from you, and the negative spiral of accusation, and mistrust will end up killing your relationship. Making an angry temper tantrum is not the adult way to go. If there is something you need to talk with him/her, sit down and ask in a courteous way what is going on and respect the other person’s limits.

4.- Constant Fighting.
If you are constantly bickering with your partner, it is urgent for you to learn some skills as how to be an active listener. If you cannot effectively do this exercise, then you might want to seek professional counseling. Fighting with your spouse all the time is akin to being angry all the time, and when it happens in public, humiliates both of you. Write in a piece of paper the list of your complaints, ask for some dedicated time to talk, and do some negotiation about the issues that irritate you. After that, forget your mood and try to be optimistic and joyful. Life doesn’t owe you anything, remember?

5.- Making negative comments, in a repetitive way.
These don’t serve any kind of healthy relationship, and you should particularly avoid them if you want to keep the other person happy. There is always a cleaner, more direct way to communicate your needs than being demeaning, and doing negative critiques about your spouse to your friends, or in public! this is basically dishonest and reveals how childish your behavior can be. Even better, could you train yourself in being appreciative of her presence in your life? Talk about the joy this person brings to your life, finally?

EXAMPLE: “I really need to do something. I don’t want to feel worthless, powerless and insignificant to a man for the rest of my life. I don’t want to set an example to our sons that wives should be so passive…I feel like a doormat, somebody without self-respect.”

Married life is a continuous education on the multiple ways to fulfill the partner’s needs for love, connection and appreciation…watching carefully the old ways of interaction with others that convey control, dominance or lack of respect.

Nora Femenia is a well known coach, conflict solver and trainer, and CEO of Creative Conflict Resolutions, Inc. Signup free to be connected to her innovative conflict solutions, positive suggestions and life-changing coaching sessions, along with blog updates, news, and more! And get a look at her ebook about managing passive aggression

Technorati Tags: anger, conflict, confrontation, critique, emotions, frustration, Healthy Marriage, healthy relationships, passive aggression

“Can a Passive Aggressive Marriage Be Healed?

and can be found here:

Can a Passive Aggressive Marriage be Healed

Enjoy, and post your challenging comments!

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today.

Technorati Tags: appreciation, Emotional Abuse, passive aggression, passive aggressive, passive aggressive husband, Relationships, verbal abuse

If the abuse didn’t succeeds at isolating the victim and condemning her to a life of solitude and mistrust, the accompanying anger will. It will manifest in opportunities where it’s not right, will destroy whatever relationship she is able to sustain attacking people who love her, and in a general sense will separate her from the very people who could help her heal. Sometimes people are more afraid from the anger than compassionate seeing the hurt produced by abuse. Even when the anger is adequate as a delayed reaction to the previous abuse, it lashes out at the wrong targets, so alienating her from the necessary support.

People process their righteous anger in a variety of ways. Some people yell and shout, while others surpress their anger and sulk, often expressing their anger in a passive aggressive way. When coping with anger, it is important to realize that it is impossible to suppress and deny the emotion of anger. It is normal and healthy to feel angry, even angry at situations already in the past and never compensated or healed. However, not all people know how to cope with anger in an effective way.

When coping with anger as an aftermath of emotional abuse, many people like to use different relaxation techniques. Relaxed, slow breathing and yoga are examples of such techniques. They are good because they allow the angry person to take a step back and clear their mind of the situation. Detaching, and staying calm allows the person to cope with the hurt from abuse and then react to its anger more efficiently.

Sometimes you may find it difficult to mentally remove yourself from the abusive situation in order to calm down and regain self control. If that happens, it is good to physically remove yourself as well. Simply find somewhere else you can go to have a few minutes to yourself, and detach from people who would remind you of abusive situations from the past.

The next time you are angry, stop and ask yourself exactly why you are angry. Be as specific as possible, and don’t lie to yourself. You may find that you have no real actual reason to be angry after all. A lot of times we get caught up in our own feelings coming from abusive situations from the past, that we experience again as if happening today. When you are in this kind of past anger, connecting it with the sources of the past before letting go is helpful. Perhaps telling yourself: “This is old anger produced by the abuse I received in the past…I will calm myself down and the anger will recede into the past.”

You may notice that there are also several physical changes that happen to you while becoming angry. This can include clenching your jaw or fists, an increased heart rate, and even body shaking. Being aware of how your body reacts is extremely important for coping with anger. If you feel yourself reacting to anger, try taking deep breaths to calm down. You can also close your eyes and think about the distance between your defenseless past situation and now. Imagine yourself rejecting the abuse in a firm way: “I will NOT take this abusive situation, STOP!” Most people raise their voice as they get angrier. Instead, lower your voice to calm yourself down, and repeat the “STOP” enough times to recover self-control.

Emotional abuse has the power to control lives way beyond the time it happened. It can flare unexpectedly when situations of today connect with abuse of yesterday… By learning that healing past abuse demands a caring attitude and a patient observation of our reactions, then anger will be accepted, integrated by breathing and let slowly disappear by itself.

If you feel that anger is taking control of you it is important to connect present anger with past abuse and have a compassionate attitude towards the abused person we were in the past. Both are parts of our lives and need to be accepted and integrated into a larger whole of our present happier life.

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today.

Technorati Tags: frustration, negative emotions, passive aggression, verbal abuse

Very easy:
Resilience is what you develop when you learn to confront all those interpersonal obstacles with good solutions.

It is very easy to use “fighting fire with fire” reactions…it’s almost automatic, and everybody does it everywhere. A different attitude, like resilience, comes from understanding our personal conflicts as a call for another kind of action.

Here we see resilience as the final product of a long learning process:

A) We accept that there will be confrontation in our life,
B) We choose to manage confrontations by avoiding escalation, attacks and revenge, and controlling anger,
C) We learn to listen carefully to our “enemies’” complains,
D) We sincerely examine ourselves to see how, given the inter-connectedness we have, we helped produce the dispute;
E) We ask ourselves: How can I learn from this dispute? What is in me that needs change? What new skill do I need to learn now to re-connect with this person and be able work together or part in peace?

In short: do we see conflict as a signal to work in our interpersonal communication skills? Yes, indeed!

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today.

Technorati Tags: anger control, Anger Management, conflict, escalation, learning, listening, passive aggression, peace, resilience