For A Happy Marriage, Each Person Must First De-Traumatize
De-traumatizing heals the defensive parts of us and uncovers our true Self which is beautiful and loveable.
These two steps are required for a loving, connected, compassionate, and passionate marriage.
Here’s what that end result would look like:
- You, being happy
- You, rolling with the punches when things go wrong
- You, feeling expansive, accepting, hopeful
- You, connected to yourself and to the important people in your life
- You, loving yourself
- Together, laughing, sharing, enjoying, getting over the speedbumps gracefully
- Together, talking about the deep stuff from the heart
- Together, loving each other and putting each other first
- Together, having passion and desire for each other
What’s Trauma, Anyway?
You can tell that someone’s had a traumatic life from the degree of their unwanted behavior.
Here’s how it works:
Say a kid never got told “I love you” they might believe they’re unlovable. Doing that to a child is traumatizing.
As a result, that kid becomes tough. That toughness saves him. He doesn’t have to deal with the bad feeling inside of being unlovable.
Or, another example, if a home had things going on in it that children should not see, that’s traumatizing.
That child will learn to “tune out” and that will save him from “seeing” what he shouldn’t.
True, it’s really annoying in a marriage, but you can see the protective value of it for him/her growing up.
Trauma is childhood suffering beyond the ability to handle it with all good qualities intact.
Divorce, death, sickness, favoritism, verbal harshness, abuse, emotional neglect, lack of safety, all produce trauma.
So How Do We De-Traumatize? Well, Here’s What Doesn’t Work:
In traditional therapy, a person goes to a “professional” who then says, “Oh, you’re a Narcissist.”
Or “You’re Depressed.”
Or, “You’re BiPolar.”
Or, “You’re suffering from Anxiety.”
Etc.
Like, “That’s who you ARE.”
Now, let me ask you: With this labeling situation as a beginning of “treatment,” how in the world is someone supposed to feel anything but self-loathing?
(“I’m defective”; “I’m so dysfunctional”; etc.)
This is how we “help” traumatized people?
The healing process has the deck stacked against it from the get-go.
We have to get out of the habit of pretending that what’s wrong with people is who they are.
So How Do We De-Traumatize?
Start by asking yoursef: “Who am I?”
I’ll do mine – I’m a widow, mother, grandmother, therapist, therapy program innovator, therapist group leader, great cook, can’t sing on key, sometimes annoyed, sometimes angry, loving, compassionate, not good in math, great in English, livestream persona, sometimes confused, good driver, , ,
. . . you get the point.
We’re a lot.
A lot of talents.
A lot of qualities.
That’s being human.
Good things, not so good things, and a lot in the middle.
So how should we define ourselves?
Consider this true personal story –
One day, I went to the airport to pick up my son who I had literally not seen in a year as he had been overseas.
I was on the phone with him figuring out which exit he would come through. I was so excited. I was popping out of my skin to see my son!
I came to the exit almost holding my breath and a guy wearing a guard-type uniform waved his hands with a big show of authority at me to move on.
Well, I was angry. I mean, losing-it, yelling-level angry.
And I did. I yelled, “No!! No!! I’m here to pick up – “
It didn’t help. He shooed me off.
I had lost my mind as I circled around the airport because of that guard-person, muttering under my breath all the while.
Who was I?
Was I a lunatic?
Or just a frantic mother who had lost it for a bit?
When you consider a definition of “me” how do you fit it all in?
Or a definition of You, how do you include the good, the bad, the ugly?
Does the ugly make YOU ugly? Or not?
So many people function very well at work and at home while still having their “moments.” Maybe a lot of those moments.
The question is: Do we define people by their moments or by the whole picture of who they are?
A system for de-traumatizing must define people by the whole of who they are.
Okay, But What Do You Do With The Bad Stuff?
Obviously, you can’t ignore the bad stuff.
So what do you do?
The answer is ingenious:
The good stuff is the real You.
The “bad” stuff are all the coping mechanisms that people needed when they were kids to deal with trauma.
They are part of us but they’re not our essence.
Because people were children when they acquired the coping mechanisms, people ruled by them act like kids.
NOW we know the real reason why people can act ugly sometimes:
The more trauma a child has had, the uglier their coping mechanisms – because it’s too much for little kids.
Therefore, to change adult behavior, we must get back to the childhood experiences themselves and heal them directly.
That is how we de-traumatize people.
We, in Love Yourself Love Your Marriage do NOT spend much time trying to change behavior. That’s way too superficial. It won’t work and even when it seems to, it doesn’t last.
Instead, we do the de-traumatizing work in two ways – “top down” and “bottom up.”
Top down is the approach you’re already familiar with – using reasoning to change your mind. We do this as preparation for the real meat and potatoes which is “bottom up.”
Bottom up is the approach of tapping into resources that people are not consciously aware of.
We do both to accommodate the different learning styles that different people have, and they reinforce one another.
Each of the tools de-traumatizes the parts of us that carry childhood pain.
Then There’s The Good Stuff – Our Essence, Our True Self
Our Self has been hidden by those protective little kids – the coping mechanisms – that think they still need to keep fighting for survival in a tough world.
When it’s uncovered, we discover its generosity, inner peace, intuition, and compassion.
Most people don’t even know they have a Self like that. They think their defenses are who they are.
Their beautiful Selves have been covered up by the “inner kid” defenses all their life.
That’s normal.
But we need to uncover our true Selves.
And get to know who we really are. And appreciate our Self. And value it.
Now, here’s the beautiful thing: This true Self of ours can help heal our “inner kids.”
It has the wisdom and perspective to soothe, reassure, and bring safety to those inner kids so they can shed severe and ugly coping mechanisms and be kids again.
This process brings on a flood of self-compassion and self-love.
In this way, the de-traumatizing is complete: We’ve discovered our Self with its wisdom, joy, and love. And we’ve healed the inner kids of their defenses and coping mechansims.
The Marriage
Imagine a conversation between two people from their true Selves.
The defenses have been healed. The parts of them that have acted like scared or angry little kids have been soothed and reassured.
So these two people can actually talk!
They can be vulnerable – because their self-compassion can easily extend to their partner.
That is what intimacy really is. And Love Yourself Love Your Marriage is the only program I know of to get it.
What I’ve Said So Far
For a happy marriage, each person must first de-traumatize.
De-traumatizing heals the defensive parts of us and uncovers our true Self which is beautiful and loveable.
These two steps are required for a loving, connected, compassionate, and passionate marriage.
Trauma is childhood suffering beyond the ability to handle it with all good qualities intact.
Giving people diagnostic labels is itself traumatizing.
A system for de-traumatizing must define people by the whole of who they are.
The more trauma a child has had, the uglier their coping mechanisms – because the mis-treatment is too much for little kids.
Therefore, to change adult behavior, we must get back to the childhood experiences themselves and heal them directly.
We do the de-traumatizing work in two ways – “top down” and “bottom up” with the emphasis on bottom up – which draws on resources not in our conscious awareness.
Each of the tools de-traumatizes the parts of us that carry childhood pain.
We also have a Self that has been hidden by our defenses. When we uncover it, it becomes a major resource in our healing.
In this way, the de-traumatizing is complete: We’ve discovered our Self with its wisdom, joy, and love. And we’ve healed the inner kids of their defenses and coping mechanisms.
Two people now can be vulnerable – because their self-compassion can easily extend to their partner.
That is true intimacy.
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