The Energies of Love
Page 6
When Donna told Annette that her “secondary mode” is kinesthetic, what did she mean? To review, everyone uses all four sensory representational modes, but one will be more naturally dominant, trumping the other three when you encounter intense relationship stress. Life, however, provides many opportunities and incentives for developing the other three modes. Being drawn to a partner in whom an unfamiliar mode dominates is not the least of them. Different cultures and different families also reinforce different modes. Kinesthetic men are judged harshly in the United States but valued in Latin America. So most kinesthetic men in the United States develop another mode as a strong secondary mode, usually visual or digital. These two are the least like kinesthetic (feelings are more prominent in the kinesthetic mode; abstract thought is more prominent in the visual and digital modes) and are part of the role expectation for men. This is so strongly reinforced that the man’s primal mode (kinesthetic) may become hard to detect. Meanwhile, south of the border, kinesthetic men walk about proudly. Although more women than men seem to be primal kinesthetic and more men than women seem to be primal digital, men or women may have as their primal mode any one of the four types. “Mars and Venus” turns out to accurately characterize some important biochemical differences and cultural influences, but each of the Energetic Stress Styles is found in both genders.
We all usually use a blend of two or more of the modes. Your Energetic Stress Style, however, is always there in the foreground or in the background. It is your first language. Most people also strongly develop a second preferred energy language, a second way of processing information. Sometimes, in fact, it is quite difficult to know which is primary and which is secondary until the person is in extreme relationship stress. The selection of this second favored mode seems to depend on a mixture of personal, cultural, and biological factors, and the channel that is emphasized will significantly shape your perceptions, preferences, and behavior. These ideas trace back at least to William James’s visual, auditory, and touch-oriented intellectual styles and to Carl Jung’s sensing, thinking, feeling, and intuiting styles. Jung believed, and a century of clinical observations have tended to support this conclusion, that people live the first part of their lives according to their innate style of processing information, but to truly flourish, you need to grow into other ways of knowing the world, into styles that seem less natural. And what could seem less natural than trying to accommodate your partner’s style?
How Successful Couples Handle Conflict
Relationships are spawned by attraction but shaped by conflict. All couples disagree at times. Finding ways of managing differences in what you want, believe, or value is a basic challenge for any two people building a life together. And whatever may be going “right” begins to feel like everything is going “wrong” when dysfunctional strategies for dealing with conflict take over. A trivial disagreement can trigger your harshest judgments against your partner and escalate into behaviors that few others in your life are privileged to receive. Our most recent personal example:
We were spending the weekend with our daughter, Tanya, and her partner, Jeff. A bit before noon, Donna announces, “I’m famished, let’s all just hop in the car and go to Maria’s,” a nearby Mexican restaurant. David had just come back from two hours in the hot tub, where he was working on this very chapter (it’s tough working in someone else’s space, but we try to adapt). Donna tells him to hurry and get dressed. He does so quickly, but says he can’t go until he calls to finalize a radio interview that is to take place that afternoon and sends an e-mail instructing a staff member on how to handle an emergency situation. Donna, suffering from low blood sugar by this point, says with urgency, “They’re waiting for us.” David, feeling stressed now, says a little too loudly to conceal from those in the next room, “Don’t push me, Donna, I have to do these things and I’m doing them as quickly as I can.” Donna is mortified and replies under her breath, “You just announced to Tanya and Jeff that I’m pushing you. I can’t believe you did that!” David snaps back, loud enough for everyone to clearly hear, “Okay, Donna, you’re not pushing me. No one’s pushing me. Just go without me! Good-bye!”
John Gottman, a psychologist who has studied the way couples handle conflict, comments about such interactions. If the partners just dismiss the negative emotions, “they typically will still eventually drift together again, but trust will have eroded.”9 Gottman’s meticulous observational studies and follow-up with thousands of couples have produced the most reliable measures available for predicting which marriages will succeed and which will not, with 93.6 percent accuracy on a three-year follow-up in one classic study.10 This substantial body of research corresponds with, supports, and informs our approach to working with couples, and we close this chapter with some of his most salient findings as we move into building energetic bridges between partners.
Gottman identified three different styles that successful marriages use for managing conflict.11 Validators, the first style, are able to let their partners know, even in the midst of conflict, that they consider the other’s opinions and emotions to be valid, despite the areas of disagreement. While this may seem the ideal, an unexpected finding was that two other strategies couples use for handling differences, which would at first glance seem to be far less than ideal, are equally effective in producing satisfying marriages that last.
These other two surprisingly successful styles are called “volatile” and “avoidant.” Volatile couples seem to fight about everything: “Who is the best candidate for mayor?” “Whose turn is it to do the dishes?” “Whose mother is more manipulative?” Gottman notes that “such couples fight on a grand scale and have an even grander time making up.”12 Their fights are hot and full of fervor, but when not in conflict, they also laugh more and have more spark than the typical validating couple. The validating style can deteriorate into a passionless arrangement where romance and individuality have been sacrificed to maintain harmony. Volatile couples, on the other hand, tend not to censor their thoughts to avoid conflict and stay passionately engaged during the good times as well as the bad times.
Avoidant couples, the third style, minimize their differences or make light of them. Rather than resolve conflicts, they “reaffirm what they love and value in the marriage, accentuate the positive, and accept the rest. . . . It’s as if the couple knows their bond is so strong they can overlook their disagreements.”13 Gottman speculates that a couple’s mix of temperament, background, and personality determines which of the three strategies they will settle into.
If such vastly different styles for managing conflict can all sustain a lasting and satisfying partnership, what does predict whether a marriage will succeed or fail? A reliable indication is the ratio of positive interactions to negative ones. In successful, happy marriages—whether the couple’s style for handling conflict was typified by validation, volatility, or avoidance—that ratio was at least 5 to 1. If the amount of time couples spent interacting positively—touching, smiling, laughing, giving compliments, stating appreciations—was not five times the amount of time spent fighting, judging, criticizing, fuming, or skirting conflicts that have arisen, the marriage was in some trouble. If it fell below one positive interaction for each negative one, the couple was headed for divorce.
• THE ENERGY DIMENSION •
Validating Couples
When an area of disagreement emerges, the rupture leads to the partners energetically pulling back into themselves for a moment. This allows them to re-center and find their own strength and grounding. From that strength and grounding, a gracious energy is able to go out to the partner even during the contentious interaction.
Volatile Couples
When an area of disagreement emerges, the rupture leads to the energy field around each partner becoming huge and defiant, shooting out in all directions, including at the partner. These energies are aggressive and become enmeshed, but as they play out, the partner
s become deeply connected in ways that can transform into erotic passion.
Avoidant Couples
When an area of disagreement emerges, the rupture becomes a momentary frazzle in the energy field and an energetic disconnect. From this disconnect, another force emerges to smooth and reconnect the energy.
But how do you ensure that you maintain that 5-to-1 ratio? Put a chart on the refrigerator? Nag your partner about keeping a positive ratio by demanding more smiles and not tolerating expressions of frustration? Skills for creating more positive interactions and fewer negative ones can be learned. Each chapter in this book gives you some clues and concrete practices.
Going After the Best of Each Style
Is there a way of dealing with differences and handling conflict that retains the strengths of each of the three styles couples spontaneously settle into? Since each has advantages and disadvantages, is it possible to:
Actively affirm one another even while diving into areas of intense disagreement, like Validating couples?
Proceed with a level of honesty and lack of censorship that allows you to fully engage one another, like Volatile couples?
Accentuate the positive, accept each other in your differences, and find encouragement from the power of your bond even during difficult times, like Avoidant couples?
We believe it is possible to learn from each of the styles while evolving your own. Changing ineffective strategies in the way you and your partner respond to stress requires, however, more than positive intention or even fierce determination. It requires that you:
Accurately understand what is going on inside each of you,
Develop a set of skills for effectively managing relationship distress, and
Use them even if you feel the urge for a more impulsive response.
Challenging though this may be, the totally encouraging news is that after some repetition, the neural networks that govern old patterns will change and reinforce a new strategy that is more gratifying.
On to Chapter 2
The first part in this sequence—understanding what is going on inside you and your partner—is greatly enhanced by appreciating one another’s Energetic Stress Style, the topic of this chapter. This gives you an insider’s view of your partner’s experience during stress as well as perspective on your own. Chapters 2 and 3 are designed to help you develop new skills and implement them. By applying the concepts and tools that are offered, you interrupt old patterns and install new, more effective ones in their place.
2
Aligning Your Energetic Processing Styles
Turning Your Differences into Strengths
Attuned communication involves the resonance of energy and information.
—DANIEL J. SIEGEL, M.D.1
They had the best of energetic processing combinations; they had the worst of energetic processing combinations. So goes every couple. It is not whether your styles are compatible that makes or breaks a relationship, but how you build on your compatibilities and what you do with your differences. This chapter offers you guidelines for both.
As you saw in the previous chapter, during relationship stress your Energetic Stress Style eclipses the other modes of processing information and you tend to perceive your partner’s intentions and behaviors through a distorted lens. For instance, a very kind man of the digital persuasion attended one of our relationship seminars with his tonal wife. When his wife was upset with him, he would make a list of each of her complaints and patiently attempt to explain to her why her feelings were not based on sound reasoning. This had an effect that was similar to attempting to douse a fire with kerosene. Her first impulse was to want to use a heavy object to beat him into having a feeling response, but as she would overcome her rage, she would move into the more civilized mode of fantasizing how she would leave him. “Every time he shows me one of his damn lists, I go nuts, and every word he utters makes it worse. I feel like a loose wire with no place to plug in. Everyone thinks I’m so lucky to be with such a sweet man, but he can’t meet me. He cuts me off again and again. I’m so lonely, and the chances of him changing seem so remote, that I think I’d rather be on my own.”
When you and your partner are headed for an “every word he utters makes it worse” type of encounter, your primal sensory systems are at odds. The Energetic Stress Style Assessment (here) gave you an indication about your primal sensory system, but pencil-and-paper questionnaires are limited. In addition, you use more than just your primal sensory system when you are not under stress, and the one you consciously identify with may not actually be the one you rely on during intense relationship distress. As you go through this chapter, begin with your initial impressions along with your findings on the assessment, but remain open to discoveries that expand your understanding. Also keep in mind that while your own self-appraisal may be compromised when you are in your stress mode, your partner is a leading expert in knowing how you behave at such times.
The man who made lists was using a digital coping style, but you can’t really tell from the information presented if this is truly his Energetic Stress Style or if it is a secondary mode that he has cultivated and that is available to him until he is more deeply triggered. Suppose, for instance, that his Energetic Stress Style is kinesthetic. Because societal messages to men often cause them to repress their kinesthetic qualities, he may tend to use his digital system to keep from going there. Under strong enough interpersonal stress, however, his digital detachment will fall away and a muddle of feelings will become prominent and obvious.
Utilizing the Strengths of Your Energetic Stress Style
At the core of your Energetic Stress Style is a special facility with an information processing mode (visual, kinesthetic, tonal, or digital) that has strengths which give you a special window on the world, one that is not readily available to people who are not as developed in that sensory mode. Under relationship stress, however, it does just the opposite, distorting your thoughts, emotions, and perceptions. Keep in mind that these are not mere psychological differences in how you process information. They run deep in your energy system. As already discussed in Chapter 1, we believe your Energetic Stress Style:
is genetically determined.
reflects one of four stress-response configurations.
governs what occurs when you encounter a major conflict in your relationship—whether your energies concentrate more at your eyes (visual), heart (kinesthetic), forebrain (digital), or ears (tonal).
Understanding your own sensory mode prepares you to operate more competently from within it. This chapter provides guidelines for navigating your way through your own mode and for more effectively engaging your partner’s mode.
• THE ENERGY DIMENSION •
The energies when a person is fighting with a loved one become distorted in ways that reflect the person’s Energetic Stress Style:
Visuals during an argument hurl the energies of judgment and impatience in a fast and powerful way. All the energies from the visual’s eyes are focused toward the partner. Energy also seems to shoot from the chest and head. The partner on the receiving end feels attacked by this overwhelming force, which feels imposing and frightening.
Kinesthetics during an argument feel energy imploding in their Heart Chakras, as if fire hoses are forcing energy in from all directions. The pressured energy in the center of the chest is chaotic and overwhelming, making kinesthetics want to do anything to stop the feeling, to send the energy out by yelling, screaming, crying, or wailing—if the energy has not totally paralyzed them. The energies have left the head, so logic is not part of the equation.
Digitals during an argument have an artificially enlarged aura around their head, where the energy has accumulated. This biofield is a closed system, not able to flow with outside energies. The remainder of the aura becomes very thin and clings near the body, also tight and encapsulated, no
t interacting with the energies around it.
Tonals during an argument tend to disconnect, pulling into themselves, but vortexes at the ears draw in energies that are physically painful. The energy spirals close to their heads. It may also move into the area between the solar plexus and waist and then completely disconnect or chaotically leap out toward the partner, having become laced with anger and rage.
If Your Energetic Stress Style Is Visual
Know Your Vulnerabilities
If you are a visual, your core perceptual error is to blame your partner. You distort by magnifying what your partner has done wrong. Your keen insights and compelling perspective—normally your strengths—become liabilities when distorted. Under relationship stress, you don’t realize they are twisted. Your instinct is to envision how your partner should be and how the interaction should be going and to point out where your partner has an opportunity to improve. This may all occur in an instant, and you may only be aware of the part about your partner’s opportunities to improve.
Play Your Strengths
MENTALLY:
Remind yourself that the way you see the situation is not necessarily the only valid viewpoint.
Expand your vision by taking in your partner’s perspective.
BEHAVIORALLY:
Drawing on your strength for painting a compelling verbal picture, state your partner’s view of the situation.
Ask your partner to confirm or correct your verbal portrayal.
This will demonstrate your desire to respect your partner’s view as worthy and to embrace in your relationship your partner’s truth as well as your own. Let your partner experience your determination to see through the eyes of love.