The Quiet Rise of Introverts

by Brenda Knowles

  1.Responsiveness. Master partners scan the environment and their partner for things to appreciate and say thank you for versus finding things to criticize. They “turn toward” their partner when the partner sends out a request (bid) for a response. Example: If a husband says, “Look there’s a beautiful goldfinch in the yard,” a responsive wife would turn and make a positive, supportive comment about the goldfinch. The finch is not all that important but the response to the husband’s request for connection is.

  2.Assumption our partner has good intentions. Disaster couples take everything personally, feeling their partner is intentionally trying to hurt or anger them. Master couples assume the best of their partners. Example: Husband leaves his dirty socks on the floor. A disaster wife assumes her husband doesn’t respect her and isn’t considerate. Master wife assumes her husband is a little absent-minded and busy and must have missed the socks when picking up his laundry.

  Both requirements lead to a sense of calm and ease between partners during peaceful times and when the couple is in conflict.

  RESPONSIVENESS AND CONFLICT

  As mentioned in Practice Five, responsiveness plays a significant role in conflict resolution. Instead of listening to our beloved during a disagreement with the intent to state our own case, judge them, or defend ourselves, it is more productive to listen with the intent to understand (empathic listening) and then respond to what they said, not what we want them to know about us. It shifts the mood of the disagreement. Rather than create defensiveness it creates understanding and openness to mutual resolution—a sense of “I hear you and we’re in this together”—which calms each partner’s nervous system.

  WHY WE NEED RESPONSIVENESS

  Besides other key relationships (namely children), things like work, scheduling, technology, pets, shopping, pornography, drinking, etc. can come between our intimate partner and us. It’s up to us to find ways to care for our significant other and steady their nervous system.

  LET’S MEET IN BED

  Think back to when you were ten years old or younger. Did someone put you to bed at night? Did they read to you? Tuck you in? Talk over your day with you? Or were you responsible for falling asleep on your own? Did you read to yourself? Watch television? Count sheep? Some of your replies may give you a good picture of your caregiver’s level of attentiveness and help you figure out your attachment style.

  How, if at all, is your bedtime routine similar to the one you had as a young person? How is it different? Is one better than the other? Would you like to change the one you have now? Does your partner go to bed at the same time you do?

  If we are a person sensitive to threats to a relationship or feelings of abandonment, the sight or feeling of an empty bed when our partner could or should be there is disconcerting even if it is on a subconscious level. Secure individuals feel the absence of a partner when they do not join them in bed too.

  Our nervous systems prefer to have the reassurance of knowing someone is there with us throughout the night. I’ve experienced a feeling of dread and emptiness when my partner gets up to go to the bathroom and does not return right away. I can’t rest easy until he returns.

  One soothing ritual to maintain with your loved one is to make sure to end the day together in bed. Get ready for bed together and at least touch base physically or verbally before going to sleep. One of you may stay up later than the other but spend time together before the early bird goes to sleep. If you have to be away from the bed for part of the night, touch your partner gently when you return. Let them know you are there.

  DAYTIME CONNECTION

  The summer after I graduated from college I was a “summer girl” (not a very PC title) in Winnetka, Illinois, a suburb on the north side of Chicago. A summer girl was the title they used instead of nanny. The couple I worked for was a bright, warm loving pair—Mr. and Mrs. C.—with two young daughters. The couple had a genuine affection for each other I admired. Every day in the afternoon, Mr. C would call to check in with Mrs. C. He wanted to see how everyone was doing. Occasionally, we would miss his call and he would leave a message on the answering machine. I remember he always closed his message with the phrase, “Big kiss, bye!” It was so original and endearing. It stuck with me. Having a daily call or text with a loving message is a great way to make your partner feel cared for and reassured. If you can have a signature phrase or closing note, bonus points!

  LEAVE ON A HIGH NOTE

  I have a desire to make sure my kids always leave for school on a positive note. I try to end the night the same way. I want them to feel optimistic and loved. I have failed or forgotten many times but if I do it 80% of the time I consider myself successful. At night, I remind them of something to look forward to tomorrow. There have been a few times when I’ve gotten ready for bed, crawled into bed and then crawled out of bed to go deliver a caring goodnight to one of my children.

  I suggest treating your spouse or partner the same way. In my marriage, I put more effort into being responsive to my children than my husband. It should be more equal or even lean heavy toward the partner. If Mom and Dad are happy, the children feel secure and happy too. Mom and Dad have more energy to devote to the family.

  I knew my husband needed the warmth of my love before he left for the day and when he returned at night. I could feel his need. I just could not give it to him. Perhaps because it felt inauthentic or perhaps I felt like I lost too much of myself by pouring love on him. Perhaps my emotional connection well was too empty to offer secure affection and attention. Whatever the reason, it didn’t happen and our relationship suffered for it.

  As introverts, we are always mindful of energy levels. It may seem like extra work to give our partner such support, especially after we’ve doled out lots of attention to children, but the returns are tenfold. Caring for our spouse gives them energy to care for us.

  We might also want to consider kissing our partner before they leave for the day because a study done in Germany in the 1980s showed that men who kissed their wives goodbye in the morning lived on average, five years longer and made 20-30% more income than their non-kissed peers. The kiss was not the determining factor for the results but the positive attitude the kissers started their day with, was thought to lead to a healthier lifestyle.

  We all have a need to make and continuously re-make secure connections with our most important people. Daily rituals and routines make it easy to touch base with our relationship and create that safe harbor.

  RESONANCE

  Another valuable trait of healthy, secure relationships is resonance.

  Daniel Seigel, in The Mindful Therapist, calls resonance “the alignment of two autonomous beings into an interdependent and functional whole as each person influences the internal state of the other.”

  Resonance is the ability to feel synchronized and in tune with another person. In simpler terms, it means we “get” each other. That feeling someone knows us or is inside our hearts and minds is not just magic. It’s neurological. There is a mirroring system of neural circuits throughout our brains that allows us to mimic internally what is going on inside or outside someone else. The classic example is if we ask a friend to rub their hands together quickly to generate friction and heat while we watch, chances are as her hands heat up, so do ours. Within our brain certain neurons fire that allow us to feel a real but less intense version of her heat -generating action. We do that with emotions (compassion and empathy are great examples), thoughts (we complete people’s sentences in our heads) and physical movement too (the friction experiment).

  In a world that perpetuates the importance of boundaries, independence and competition, resonance and mirroring grant us connection.

  SIGNS OF A RESONANT RELATIONSHIP ACCORDING TO DR. AMY BANKS

  •We sense how our partner feels

  •Our partner senses how we feel

  •We have more clarity
about ourselves with this person

  •We “get” each other

  •Our feelings impact our partner

  EARLY EXPERIENCE WITH MIRRORING

  If we were raised with healthy primary relationships and have experienced mature secure adult relationships, resonance is positive and easy. If our past relationships involved unsafe, unreliable or unskilled partners, resonance is more challenging. Our brain processes may not be developed or may have developed incorrectly.

  If our parents were largely absent or unavailable when we were children, we did not have anyone to help us develop our mirroring practices. Looking into another person’s eyes stimulates mirroring. When a parent holds a baby, and talks to them while looking into their face, the parent is encouraging the mirroring process (empathy too). Neural pathways are established. Inside the infant’s brain they are copying the parent’s smile, facial movements and vocal sounds. The parent sees the child and reacts to his face and coos.

  LACK OF MIRRORING OPPORTUNITIES

  When I was a Guardian Ad Litem (court appointed special advocate for children who are removed from their homes due to abuse or neglect), I attended a seminar where Dr. Bruce Perry (author and neuroscientist mentioned above) spoke. Dr. Perry had worked with the children from the Waco, Texas Branch Davidian sect after their removal from the cult-like environment. In fact, Dr. Perry has worked with many children subjected to gross maltreatment. For more information, I suggest reading his book, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog.

  During the seminar, Dr. Perry spoke about mirroring and attachment. I was fascinated and moved then and that was ten years ago. I’m still fascinated and moved. I remember him saying it takes hundreds or even thousands of responsive repetitions to re-wire a child’s brain to form mirroring pathways, particularly if the child is over three years old. He spoke of one amazing caregiver in a foster home-like setting who lovingly spent hours (hundreds) rocking and looking into the eyes of a fairly grown boy. He was possibly nine years old or older and had never had anyone connect with him like that. No one had truly seen or understood him and mirrored him in their eyes. He struggled with empathy and understanding others and because of it often lashed out in frustration. She gave the boy a chance at connecting with others, at having meaningful relationships.

  MIRRORING FEAR OR ANGER

  It is possible to have the opportunity to mirror someone but that mirroring could be a negative experience. A child or adult could spend lots of time within a relationship where another person mirrors fear, anger and irritability. We still mimic those facial movements, tones of voice and subsequent emotions inside of us. The neural pathways for fear, anger and irritation get reinforced. In this case, it is not uncommon for a person in this situation to over-read or become hyper-sensitized to small facial or bodily movements or tone of voice that signal imminent scary emotions or behavior. Such mirroring does not make for a relaxed nervous system. It creates a hypervigilant, stressed-out one.

  CORRECTING MIRRORING DEFICIENCIES

  The good news is we have neural plasticity and the ability to change our brains even into adulthood. In their psycho-biologically based book on relationships, A General Theory of Love, doctors Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon cite research that suggests within relationships, limbic resonance actually revises damaged subcortical structures.

  Unfortunately, the correction of such hyper-vigilance or insufficient mirroring skills still takes hundreds or thousands of hours of repetition and re-wiring within healthy relationships.

  The first thing to do is spend more time with people who see us for who we are and who express emotions readily and less time with those who do not. In healthy relationships, the expression of emotions deepens the relationship, even if the emotions are not always positive. This improves our ability to hear the other person’s experience. According to psychiatrist Jean Baker Miller, a key component to a growth-fostering relationship is that it produces a clearer sense of us, of others and of the relationship.

  Naming an emotion we see expressed by a loved one is a good way to check in and see if we are reading them correctly. This strengthens the mirroring/resonance pathway as well. As you may recall, naming emotions is also a good way to give us a sense of control and comfort, as it is a process primarily done in the more evolved part of our brain, versus the more primitive impulsive part.

  Reducing our exposure to violent images is another easy way to strengthen our resonant pathways. Seeing a lot of horrible violence and not truly being able to feel for the victims or share emotions with them is confusing to our neurological processes.

  Lastly, but just as important, as adults it is valuable to be aware of our attachment style and relationship history. We are destined to repeat our old relationship patterns because we choose people who feel familiar, even if it is a bad familiar. Please remember every person is different. Just because your partner reminds you of your father when he clenches his jaw and shortens his words, does not mean he is going to explode with anger like your father used to. Knowing our patterns helps us read people more correctly. It enhances understanding and ultimately leads to more relaxed, resonant relationships.

  HOW I HONED MY RELATIONSHIP RESONANCE

  During the last few years of my marriage, I started a new tradition. I took one of my children with me to visit my parents in Michigan every few months. I would leave the other two kids with their dad. I missed my family and craved time in a quieter, slower-paced environment. The country setting of my childhood home and my parents’ laid-back style called to me. What I did not know at the time was I was really craving a place where I was understood and seen, where my emotions and personality traits (quirks?) were known.

  Each trip ended up being time with close old friends and late nights talking with my dad and stepmother. There was lots of face-to-face time and oodles of mirroring opportunities for my child and me. All kinds of emotions were expressed, but mostly happiness and joy.

  I talked openly with my family about the marital strife my husband and I were experiencing. My family “got” me. They sensed how I was feeling and felt bad we were going through such stressful times. Back at home, my husband and I rarely expressed emotions, other than frustration and silent despair. We rarely had face-to-face, meaningful conversations. I missed his emotional cues and he missed mine. I found out at the end of our marriage that my husband went through a very dark time when he changed jobs. He never voiced his pain. I thought he was OK. I did not check in with him. I did not nurture him. We did not even fight or argue to give us a chance to work things through. We just went along with no resonance. I did not feel connected or heard. I assume he did not either.

  After my trips to Michigan, I always felt buoyed. I had more energy. I felt like myself again. I had been seen and understood. I believe ultimately, those visits, my guitar teacher and writing groups provided enough mirroring to show me how much was missing in my marriage.

  WHEN THE ALLOSTATIC LOAD IS TOO GREAT

  Wondering what allostatic load is? It is the price we pay for constantly adapting to stress to maintain stability. Bruce McEwen and Teresa Seeman seem to be the lead scientific experts on it.

  Arousal states (not talking about sexual arousal here) fluctuate throughout the day for each of us. Our nervous system continuously adjusts how calm or excited we are. As mentioned earlier, I’ve known I have a highly sensitive nervous system for years. I am easily aroused both internally and externally. I find emotions very arousing for example, as well as interruptions while I work. Introverts constantly reconcile their inner worlds with the outer world, to keep our arousal levels low. Too much noise, action or interaction ups our arousal levels internally. The constant reconciling depletes our energy.

  If our partner in a romantic relationship has completely different arousal levels than us, it can cause stress and increase our allostatic load. For example, someone who loves to have the windows open in
the winter and never sits down is going to clash with someone who loves to sit under a blanket near a fire reading. Their arousal levels are different. It does not mean the relationship cannot work. It simply means there will be more adjusting and experiencing of stress.

  A partner who frequently yells is going to affect the arousal levels of their partner, depending on their innate and experiential relationship with yelling. Someone from a large raucous family may not mind the yelling as much as someone from a small family with serene habits.

  These are two relatively innocuous examples. It gets trickier when emotions and attachment styles get involved. A partner, who trips our fear of abandonment frequently without soothing us, is going to raise our arousal and stress levels to unhealthy degrees.

  If asked to adapt too often and too much and stress is prolonged, the effects on an individual’s health can be extensive, even deadly. Unchecked stress can cause an abnormal or diminished release of hormonal and neurological mediating chemicals such as cortisol and adrenal steroids. Stress caused by exercise, excitement or protective impulses can be beneficial. Not all stress is bad. But, stress over a long period of time wears us down physiologically. We may be constantly fatigued, develop high blood pressure, reduced memory or even increase the chances of autoimmune or inflammatory disorders.6

  It is essential for partners to learn to soothe, rather than threaten or negatively arouse each other.

  I have had clients who, based on their health and overall negative impact on each other, needed to end their relationships. The allostatic load was just too great.

  SOCIAL CONTACT AND STRESS

  Throughout our lives, we need social contact to help us regulate our distress. As mentioned in the Independence section of this book, we can exercise, meditate, read or work alone to calm ourselves. Solitude is even a proven way to alleviate stress caused by relationships. But, the absence of any close human connections—non-social stress relief—rarely sustains good health.