All my life I have loved being in emotionally intimate relationships. I love togetherness, being in love, and the challenge of working through disagreements in loving and emotionally-savvy ways. But, as we all know from just being alive, relationships are the hardest! Deep hurts and ruptures occur frequently. And that's just how it goes when two people with two different subjectivities try to be together.
In AEDP, we say: It's not what happens, it's what happens next. That means we will hurt each other, we will be intrusive and/or neglectful, we will disagree, and we will fight. Learning from these moments, reconnecting, apologizing, building deeper understanding of what happened that led to an argument or snapping at your loved one is the difference between healing inside a relationship or whether a relationship is just a series of wounding moments without repair.
Deep connections grow and thrive not on their own, but with each person's steadfast commitment to personal growth and talking through conflicts. A language to talk about emotions is crucial. That's certainly one of the many reason I can't imagine my life without the Change Triangle.
This month I thought to share a recording of a podcast episode that was recently recorded. It's about working towards greater connection and intimacy in relationships. And, more specifically, we discuss how an understanding of emotions through the lens of the Change Triangle specifically helps us in our relationships.
What You’ll Hear In This Episode:
I discuss the 7 core emotions, and why they are each important.
The need to practice slowing down to really listen to each other.
That most fights are caused by miscommunications.
What is the Change Triangle?
We all have some level of trauma just from surviving our childhoods, but some people’s trauma can be more debilitating than others.
Should you add that it’s important for your partner to go to therapy in your dating profile?
How we can learn to work through conflict in healthy ways?
Understanding emotions and understanding each other go hand-in-hand, like cake and ice cream. I hope you'll learn more about core emotions, inhibitory emotions, protective defenses, and the openhearted state of the authentic self.
Visit here to listen to the full episode or watch a video of the interview here: