by Amy Chan
If you react by feeling inferior and going into a self-flagellating shame hole, you are age regressing to your wounded child. If you react by acting superior, with a “fuck you” mentality, you are regressing to your adapted adolescent. The adapted adolescent is trying to protect the wounded child, having developed defensive behaviors to survive. For instance, she may get angry and fight or shut down completely to create distance from others and protect her vulnerability. She is reacting to a perceived threat in an attempt to cover up her hurt.
If you respond with clear communication, accountability for your emotions, and healthy boundaries, then you’re responding like a functional adult. This doesn’t mean you don’t ever get hurt or feel emotions, but rather you have the skills to regulate your feelings and self-soothe.
WOUNDED CHILD (AGES 0-5) ADAPTED ADOLESCENT (AGES 6-18) FUNCTIONING ADULT
Feels less than (inferior)
Has no boundaries
Acts needy
“I am bad”
Feels more than (superior)
Puts up walls
Acts needless
Reacts by criticizing, attacking, or indulging
“You are bad”
Feels equal to others (people are not more or less than)
Sets limits and healthy boundaries
Communicates needs
Fully present and responsible in reality
Accepts imperfections
If you notice that you react with defensive or hurtful behaviors when you’re in pain, you can now identify that this is your wounded inner child coming out. In a process called “reparenting,” you can practice giving yourself what you needed as a child.
The question to ask yourself each time you’re feeling reactive is: “What age am I being right now?” If you are in the middle of a conflict with someone, and you find either one or both of you are age regressing, the best thing to do is to give each other space to process. You cannot communicate in a constructive manner if there are two hurt children going at it with boxing gloves. Take a walk, take a bath, go into another room and ground yourself—do something to get yourself in an environment where you can calm down and start the process of reparenting.
If you see that it’s your wounded child reacting, focus on trying to calm her down and ask her what she needs. It might seem silly at first, but imagine the reactive part of yourself as the hurt child inside you. She’s freaking out and needs attention. It may help to visualize her—is she four or five years old? Is she having a tantrum, frozen in fear, or looking down in shame? You can look into a mirror and talk to her with compassionate words. What would you say to a scared girl who’s confused and hurting? You’d probably tell her she’s okay, that you love her, that she’s loved. Use positive self-talk to counter the negative inner critic that whispers, “I’m bad, I’m worthless.” Remember that our emotions are like a wave, and they will come, rise, and, after its peak, eventually pass. You start to train yourself how to tolerate extreme emotional energy without needing to act out in order to expel it. The key here is to nurture yourself using your tools for self-care. Don’t forget to take deep breaths!
If you find yourself being defensive, distorting reality, catastrophizing, or intellectualizing to disassociate from feeling, this is indicative that your adapted adolescent is coming out. It may be challenging to realize this, because your defensive mechanisms can cause you to blame or attack someone else. If you notice that you’re thinking and acting in extremes, or self-indulging by doing something that’s ultimately unhealthy for you, this is a sign to pause and look inward. What is the anger masking? Is it feelings of inadequacy, helplessness, sadness, or fear? Inside every defensive adult is a wounded inner child. How old is she? What is she trying to protect? Talk to her with curiosity. Ask her what hurts. When you can extract the real emotion behind the defensiveness, you have a starting point to access what needs are not being met and to find solutions to start meeting them. When you’re feeling calm and grounded, you can have a conversation with the person who pressed your buttons and share how old insecurities came up.
Reparent Yourself Using Healthy Communication
We have default patterns of reacting to conflict. But every conflict is an opportunity for us to reparent ourselves and become a healthy, functional adult. Our reactive patterns will follow us from relationship to relationship until we learn how to change them. Effective communication is a fundamental skill for all areas of life, and it takes practice.
When a disagreement spirals out of control, it’s because one or both people are defensive. Instead of taking a collaborative approach to hear each other out and see each other’s perspective, the boxing gloves are on, and you’re in a vicious cycle of offense and defense. When you’re defensive, your nervous system is activated and you’re in survival mode.
Ideally, both people in the conflict have calmed down before a conversation is initiated. Of course, this isn’t always possible, and by being skillful in your approach, you can change the course of the conversation into a more collaborative and peaceful one.
Those Are Fighting Words, Dear
Trish Barillas is a life coach who specializes in anxiety and breakups and is the author of the book A Face of Anxiety, a memoir of her journey living with anxiety/panic disorder. She leads a session on healthy communication at Renew and teaches the women that the first step in managing conflict with another person is to disarm them.
INSIDE EVERY DEFENSIVE ADULT IS A WOUNDED INNER CHILD.
“When you’re in a fight, most of the hard work is done up front—which is disarming yourself and the other person so that you’re both able to have a rational conversation. One effective way of doing this is to validate what the other person is saying through active listening and reflection.” Coach Trish advises that the best way to do this is to use verbal reflection to “complete a cycle” of communication.
Using verbal reflection means you restate and validate what the other person has said, to confirm that you understand and empathize. Reflection doesn’t mean you’re saying the other person is right; it’s a tool to connect and shift the energy into one of collaboration versus defensiveness.
Trish asks for a volunteer from the group to demonstrate reflection in action.
Mandy volunteers and recalls a fight she had with a guy she’s been recently dating. Trish pretends to be the guy and asks Mandy to speak to her exactly like she did in the fight.
MANDY: You’re so inconsiderate to not text me sooner and let me know you couldn’t make our plans. You always do this to me. You could’ve texted but you don’t care. I’m pissed!
COACH TRISH: It seems like you’re frustrated with me for not calling you the minute I heard I had to work late. And you want me to text you earlier next time?
MANDY: You could have at least texted! I was waiting on you.
COACH TRISH: I understand that you didn’t make other plans because you thought we had plans. And you’re feeling frustrated with how I handled it, right?
MANDY: Yeah.
Reflecting and validating the person’s experience (again, this doesn’t mean you’re right/wrong) de-escalates the emotional intensity and charge. It helps the other person feel that you’re approaching him with an intention to understand, not to fight.
CHECK YOURSELF
When you’re in a disagreement or conflict, ask yourself the following questions:
Boxing gloves or handshake? What is the tone you’re setting? If you enter a conversation using blame or trying to prove the other person wrong, you’re setting up the conversation to be a fight. You’re walking into the ring with boxing gloves. However, if you make the intention to approach with curiosity, you’re taking the handshake approach; you’re starting off the conversation with an energy of collaboration and compassion.
Are you using fighting words? Catch yourself when you’re using “you” statements, which automatically blame and put the person on defense. Instead, use “I” statements.
Exampl
e:
“You” statement: “You’re so selfish when you don’t text back about our plans. You make me feel insecure.”
“I” statement: “I feel anxious when I don’t hear back from you about our plans, and because I value our quality time together, I’d love it if you could keep me in the loop about when we’re meeting.”
Are you making a clear request? As much as we know people aren’t mind readers, in practice, we often expect people to know what we want without us ever telling them! Learning how to ask for what you want and also what you don’t want is a key skill of communicating like a healthy, functional adult.
Making a request is not the same as making a demand or giving an ultimatum. You want to invite the other person with your request, not guilt or scare him into obliging. Your request should be phrased in the positive; it should be specific and flexible.
Example:
Negative: “Don’t talk to me that way!”
Clear request: “Would you be willing to lower your voice? Or we can take a break and cool off and pick this back up later.”
When you’re making a request, you want to—in the words of the founder of the Center for Nonviolent Communication Marshall Rosenberg—“ask others to meet your needs like flowers for your table, not air for your lungs.”
Example:
Air for your lungs: “I need more time together. When are we going out again?”
Flowers for your table: “I feel so connected when we have quality time together. Could we look at our calendars and see when we can schedule another date?”
USE THE NONVIOLENT COMMUNICATION FRAMEWORK
Nonviolent communication (NVC) is an approach for supporting partnership and resolving conflict between people, within relationships, and in society that was developed in the 1960s by Marshall Rosenberg. The method is rooted in the belief that all humans share the same universal needs: to be heard, understood, valued, and respected. Conflicts arise when words are perceived as threats, which then escalate into power struggles.
Remember, when making requests, you’re not forcing the person to comply. That would be a demand. When people hear a demand, they see no way out of a power struggle, their only options being submission or rebellion. The point should be open for discussion and there can’t be judgment or punishment because the person does not agree. You want to inspire action, not coerce with threats or intimidation.
You can use the NVC framework as a starting point and adjust it to fit your style so it feels more authentic to you. It’s helpful to write down what you want to say using the NVC method before you have the actual conversation so that you can sort out what you are perceiving, feeling, and wanting.
Nirmala Raniga, founder of the Chopra Addiction and Wellness Center, has summarized the four main steps of nonviolent communication:4
Describe the situation without judgment. Take a mental step back and observe the facts without judgment, evaluation, or labeling what the other person did or didn’t do. State what you see but not what you think: “When I see/hear . . .”
Identify your feelings. Observe what emotions are coming up for you because of the current situation. Label the emotions, and avoid using judgmental language that puts you in the role of a victim. For example, words like “betrayed,” “abandoned,” and “disregarded” are not accurately describing emotions; rather, they are accusations that judge the other’s actions: “I feel . . .”
Assess what needs you are not receiving. Very often, we expect other people to innately know what we need, as if they should be able to read our mind. Raniga suggests that this is a residual feeling from infancy, when our parents or other caregivers responded to our every need without our articulating them. As adults, it is important that we identify what we need and be clear and direct in our request. Doing so minimizes misunderstanding, and we will have a greater chance of having our needs met. But it is key to realize that needs and requests are different. Needs are the missing pieces. Requests are what you use to acquire your needs. Frame your request with the underlying need that you value: “Because I value connection . . .”
Make a clear request. The emotions we experience when we’re upset are connected to an unmet need. Rosenberg found that human needs universally fall into one of a handful of categories: connection, honesty, peace, play, physical well-being, a sense of meaning, and autonomy. Connect your need with the correct category so you can fully understand it and the feelings attached to it. Articulate what it is you need to move forward. Try to let go of any attachment you have to the other person responding in a particular way. Both people need to feel they have the freedom to say yes or no to requests without being judged, attacked, or forced. Ask for concrete actions that would help satisfy a need. The best way to accomplish this is to build flexibility and freedom into your ask. One example is to phrase your request this way: “Would you be willing to . . . ?” or “Are you open to . . . ?”
In the case of Mandy, instead of accusing her boyfriend of being inconsiderate, she could use the NVC method to make a request.
Mandy’s old way of communicating: “You’re so inconsiderate to not text me sooner and let me know you couldn’t make our plans. You always do this to me. You could’ve texted but you don’t care. I’m pissed!”
Mandy using NVC: “When I’ve made plans for us and am not told we’re not meeting until minutes before, I feel frustrated and sad. I value our quality time together and understand you’re very busy at work and things come up. Would you be willing to give me at least two hours’ notice when you think you’ll be staying late at work? Or we can try to keep our dates to the weekend?”
WHAT IF THE ANSWER IS NO?
Using NVC helps us replace our automated habits of reacting with a more thoughtful, conscious approach to expression. But what happens if you make a request with the most “woke” vocabulary you can muster and get a no? Maybe the person shuts down and walks away from the conversation completely, or straight-out tells you that he’s not willing to consider your request.
You can’t change how the person reacts; you only have control of your own intentions, words, and actions. Healthy communication starts with the intention behind it. If your original goal was to force or guilt someone into giving you what you want, that is manipulation, not healthy communication.
There may come a point when you feel that your relationship with someone is one-sided and there is not a mutual respect for each other’s needs. In this case, you need to reassess if the relationship is still working for you.
LOVING YOURSELF IS TAKING RESPONSIBILITY for your emotions and accepting that it’s your job to feel all the things you’ve wanted to outsource to a partner. This means you are your own source of fulfillment, peace, safety, validation, and stability. And if you feel like you’re lacking in these areas, loving yourself means doing the work to get there too. When you love from a place of wholeness, with the understanding that nobody has the power to complete you, you realize that your partner’s role is not to manage your emotions, complete you, or fulfill you. Your romantic partners aren’t here to make you happy. They’re here to make you conscious.
5
Breaking the Shackles of Shame
The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.
Gloria Steinem
You have it. I have it. Everyone experiences it (except for psychopaths). Can you guess what I’m referring to?
Shame.
Shame can be toxic, painful, and even deadly. Bestselling author and shame expert Brené Brown describes this emotion as “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging—something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection.”1
Among the women who come to Renew, shame is a central theme of their suffering. There is shame around the breakup itself, shame around choosing the wrong person, shame for staying and trying to make it work, shame for not being able to make it work, shame for feeling s
ad, shame for feeling angry, shame for feeling lonely, shame for feeling shame!
Shame can exist on a spectrum, with healthy shame at one end and toxic shame at the other. Brown describes healthy shame as guilt: “I did something bad.” Whereas toxic shame is: “I am bad.” When someone experiences toxic shame, she automatically assumes, “Something is wrong with me. I’m flawed.”
Shame is a normal human condition and can be useful to help us learn. It’s when shame is internalized as a constant reminder of rejection and unworthiness that it starts to overregulate our behavior in destructive ways.2 This level of paralyzing shame can be physically and mentally lethal. Studies have been conducted around the connection between toxic levels of shame and eating disorders, addiction, feelings of isolation, and various other social issues.3
THE DARK SIDE OF SHAME
After a breakup, common defense mechanisms that people use to deal with the shame are withdrawal, avoidance, and attack (either themselves or others).4
Withdrawal is when we draw into ourselves—sleeping all day, refusing to leave home, or binge-watching television. Withdrawal is used to hide our shame from others.
Avoidance is when we hide shame from ourselves. This is when we distract ourselves with stimulating activities, such as substance abuse, overeating, or “retail therapy.”
Attacking the self is when we engage in psychological or physical self-harm. This can take the form of self-blame, negative self-talk, cutting, or even suicide. Attacking others shows up as blaming, aggressive interactions, overtures of revenge, or vindictiveness.
Studies have found that men are more likely to turn their shame into anger and blame others, while women are more likely to turn their shame into sadness and depression, blaming themselves.5