Men and women are equal opportunity abusers.
And none of them have the right to abuse others.
But . . .
There’s something you should know that makes it not quite as easy as all that.
See, anybody who is self-aware, connected, clear-headed, calm, compassionate, and wlling to listen would agree with that – even your abuser.
That is, even your abuser when they are in Self-energy would agree that no one has the right to abuse someone else.
Which means self-aware, connected, clear-headed, calm, compassionate, and wlling to listen.
At the core, that is who we all are.
Every one of us.
But . . .
“at the core” means that sometimes that “core” is buried deep underneath layers of instinctive reactions.
Kind of like a sneeze, those reactions just come out.
Often, with as much surprise to the person who reacted as to the person who received that reaction back.
Their Core Goodness Got Buried Out Of Necessity
The burial might have taken place when they were 4 or 5 or 15 years old, just kids. Little kids deserve better than to be mistreated.
But when they were, instinctive protectors jumped in to save them as best they could.
And those protectors have stayed with them all this time.
The funny thing is that if you ask your abuser about their behavior, they would say – incorrectly – “That’s who I am.”
Um, no, actually, that’s not at all who they are. Like I said, at the core, they’re good.
They literally think their protectors (like anger, victimhood, addict, misinerpreter, etc) are them.
They aren’t, but these people don’t even realize it because they’ve never or rarely exerienced the pure joy and liberation of being in Self-energy.
And even if they actually have experienced Self, the sad truth is that when they are triggered and a protector jumps out to take over, they become hijacked by that protector (the technical term is “blended”).
When a protector hijacks you, it hijacks your whole identity.
That is how a person will come to think “That’s who I am” when in the control of his or her protectors.
They literally “can’t help it.”
Why Every Conventional Response Fails
*The Spouse’s Response
The “normal” response of any spouse to being mistreated is to get angry, hurt, and retaliatory.
That’s just human nature.
But we’ve been looking at protectors, now, and it should be clear that those are protector responses.
That is, they’re the responses of your protectors.
So, we end up with one set of protectors duking it out with the other set of protectors.
Naturally, neither partner is willing or ready to be vulnerable and admit pain, ask for a truce, or try to reflect inside to see how to make this go differently.
Well, without both people in Self energy, it simply won’t work.
Now, can you see why bickering and nastiness can go on for years – no, decades – without any improvement?
*The Therapist’s Response
For a long time I was enjoying a magazine for therapists that had informative and cutting edge articles. I don’t know what happened, but right now, if that magazine is any indication, the entire field has sunk into an abyss of incompetence.
“Uh-huh” and “How does that make you feel?” just will not do it.
Being a good listener is great.
It’s something your best friends should be able to do.
Therapy requires a whole lot more.
*The Psychiatric Response
“Give him a pill!”
Yeah. That will make his troubles go away. Right.
I interviewed a psychiatrist-turned-therapist about a year or so ago, Dr. Ron Cohen, who said that “25-30% of people do not even respond to meds.”
He also said, regarding medication for trauma, “People have a fantasy that meds will be a cure-all. Developmental issues and trauma issues are not affected by medication.”
Just a year ago I was working with a lovely couple. The husband suffered from trauma and did not handle the relationship with his wife well.
He was doctored up with pills that didn’t work.
He had already stopped the pointless meds before we met, and we started work on his parts – and he had many of them. He made great progress, having awareness at last of his triggers and where in his childhood they came from.
He was willing to reach out to his hurt inner children; he started taking better care of himself; he discovered his own Self-energy. He was vulnerable and honest with his wife.
All without meds.
His protectors discouraged him from continuing with me because they were scared of eventual disappointment (which he would nothave! But he’d suffered so many disappointments in his life that he wouldn’t take the risk.).
At his Self-led moments, this man embodied all the characteristics I listed above, adding in wisdom, perspective, intuition, kindness, and joy.
Without being turned into a zombie with medication.
So What Is the Solution, Then?
Here are the components of the work that you, your spouse, and I would do:
1. We start with my respect for people’s inner wisdom and innate ability to handle Life.
2. We continue with a blame-free approach that simply recognizes that we all have protectors and that they are not us.
3. Then we roll up our sleeves to get to know all the protectors, what triggers them, why those things are triggers, and which inner children they’re protecting.
4. Key to healing is unburdening the inner children of their fears and pain; possibly retrieving them from the scenes they are stuck in from the past.
5.Throughout this, we’re creating practices to allow more and more of Self-energy into consciousness so that the Self can lead all the protectors and get energy and joy from one’s inner children.
6. The more Self-energy – even when triggered – the more possibility for conversation between spouses. And abuse would, indeed, become a thing of the past.
To put this into speceifics, I offer a national coaching course in which people meet with me in group format two times a week for 4 months to get into their triggers and where they came from.
You might wonder how it’s possible to do this in a group format, and the answer is that each person has lifetime access to the course that goes with it which works as a guide for people to start gaining insight into themselves.
That means the Bounce Forward group, as I call it, is for applying the principles learned in the videos to oneself. With my guidance.
This course is for long-term married couples who want more than ending abuse – if there was any. They want connection, conversation, compassion, and friendship.
This course is the gateway to that.
We also work on apologies, intimacy, de-stressing, and more. Please reach out to me, either by DM or email if this tickles your fancy and you want to hear more.
