As a marriage and family therapist, relationships are very important to me. I have spent years studying and examining just what keeps couples and families together. What makes some work and others fall apart?

There are 3 necessary components to relationship maintenance.

1. Love
2. Commitment
3. Communication

At any given time, at least one of these 3 aspects of relationships is what keeps families and/or couples together. When times get tough, as they inevitably always do, it may be the strong feeling of love that holds you together. Maybe you are very angry at your partner, and it may be the idea of commitment that holds the two of you together. Love is a feeling, you either feel it or you don’t. Commitment is an idea you either believe in it or you don’t.

Communication however is a skill, a behavior or set of behaviors, that has impact on our thoughts (one of them being commitment) and feelings (one of them being love).  Communication entails expressing a message through words or body language and listening. For the purpose of this post, I’ll simply focus on the impact of some of our “words”.

 If our communication is frequently critical, defensive, blaming or extremely negative, it will create a “cycle of negativity” (Gottman 1994). It is not just that repeated negative communication is unpleasant, it is the impact of this negativity on both people and how they think and feel about each other. Take a look at this simple example: There is a   complaint about a problem “I wish we had more money.” Which turns into, “Why don’t you work harder?”(Criticism) Or “If you didn’t spend so much money on needless things we would have more money to do things together.” (Blame) Your partner will inevitably become defensive and often strike back. “I spend my money on things that relax me because I work so hard. Why don’t you work harder?”(Defensiveness and Blame)…See where this is going? More blame, more criticism, more negativity.  We have all been in conversations like this, they are natural. This only becomes a problem if it is the norm. If all of your problem solving takes the form of blame, criticism and defensiveness then problems don’t get resolved. They simply come up again and then don’t get resolved again and so on. It leads to feelings of resentment and even contempt. When the amount of negative feelings outweighs the amount of positives feeling a relationship is in danger.

The good news is this is reversible. You can build ways of communicating that resolve conflict and enhance positive thoughts and feelings.  So if you are in a committed relationship, and you have concerns about negative communication or conflict that is frequently not resolved, stay tuned. My next blog will give you some advice on how to build positive communication in relationships.

Lori

Grief is a natural response and usually a multi-step process after loosing someone or some thing very important to you.  There are subjective feelings accompanying a loss such as anger and depression that are always part of the natural process of grief.In 1989 Kenneth Doka, coined the term “Disenfranchised Loss”. This is a loss that is not, or cannot, be openly acknowledged, publicly mourned, or socially supported.Some categories of disenfranchised loss include: abuse and domestic violence, divorce, miscarriage, chemical pregnancy, the loss of a dream such as having a child or a certain kind of life… these ordinary losses often go unrecognized by others. Being unrecognized by others and sometimes ourselves, we often do not mourn them. They get pushed aside or stuck inside of us.

Losses can also have a cumulative effect if they happen too close together especially if they are associated with trauma or if you don’t have a chance to fully process a loss and you experience another. Each loss can be like another trauma, opening the wound of the past and re-grieving all over again. Often people find themselves stuck in a negative cycle of depression and anger. Conversely, working through loss and trauma to a place of peace and acceptance can help us through the next trauma and loss. In her quintessential Book – On Death and Dying (1969) Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross identifies the following stages of grief: shock and denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Processing and progressing through each stage brings us to the acceptance.

What I believe is important, is that we realize we can eventually come to a state of acceptance. It is possible. We are all human. We are by design, able to be conscious of pain, death, loss and trauma and move beyond it. Many believe this is the point of life.  Sometimes we work it through one hour at a time, sometimes one day at a time, and with time we find we have longer periods of pain free living.

If you are grieving, and you think you are stuck or it is becoming unbearable, seek out someone who you may find helpful or supportive. There are many avenues to process your loss. Getting there will take different amounts of time for different people and for different reasons.  Ask yourself what it is you need; counseling or psychological help or spiritual help? Are there family members who may be able to help you? There are different paths for different people. You may try just one or a couple at one time. One thing is for sure, be good to yourself. Get plenty of rest and eat well. Know that this will take time but for most of us we will get through all of these stages. Take time to focus on the beautiful things in this moment, like the sunshine, a smile or a funny movie. Noticing that there are moments without pain is part of the healing process too.

If you would like to discuss this or any other subject please feel free to contact me through one of the forums. I’m sure there are many other people experiencing the same or similar pain who would also benefit from your question and my response.

Lori

What is stress? It may come from or take the form of worry, fear, anger, pain, resentment grief, anxiety or depression. It can be any one or more of these feelings that most of us refer to as stress.

We refer to situations as stressful. Who hasn’t said “I had a stressful day at work”. Some pleasant events are stressful; weddings, family gatherings or a first date. Even vacations can be stressful. As we prepare for our first family trip to Disney World, so many people say “A week at Disney? You’ll need a vacation after that one”

Stress is subjective. Why is it that 2 people can be involved in the same stressful incident but react much differently?  The answer lies in HOW they react to it. Our emotional reactions to situations come from our perceptions and temperaments. It is partly how we have learned to perceive our circumstance and partly heredity.

The good news is that whether it is learned or inherited you can choose to change your reaction to stress and decrease your anxiety, anger and other negative emotions. This is true for small or pleasant stressors or long term chronic stress.

It is important to know how you react to stressful situations? Are you the type of person who is more anxious and becomes upset easily? Or are you more of a just go with the flow – let it ride type of person?  Most of us have a combination of traits. Long term stressors such as pain, grief and loss and infertility, can cause even the easiest going, accepting individuals to suffer depression and/or anxiety and all of the other negative emotions we associate with stress.

You also need to be able to tap into how you think about things. Our minds are very powerful. What we think affects how we react.

This sounds easy but can be difficult.  Do you have expectations that cause self blame or increased worry? Self examination is the first step in changing your thoughts. You can’t change what you don’t know or understand. Accepting your self and how you think and react is necessary if you want to change your emotional reaction to situations.

I am reminded of one of my favorite sayings, by Jon Kabat-Zinn. “You can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf” I cannot stop negative things from happening to me but maybe I can learn how to cope with them better.

We have all heard this before, we know we need to change our negative thoughts but it is just not that easy. If it was I wouldn’t have a job. So my first piece of advice is this. Accept yourself, go easy on yourself. Decide to make a change and please don’t expect it to happen over night.

Once you have decided to make a change, choose a path. There are many to choose from. Therapy, self help, spirituality or a combination of them all. You probably already have an idea of what will work for you. Explore it.

After years of personal and professional research and observation I have found mindfulness meditation to be one of the most beneficial ways of reducing our reaction to stress. In particular, mindfulness allows us to examine ourselves in a very accepting way. This is key to decreasing our stress reactions.

You can find out more about mindfulness from the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts which has conducted over 30 years of mindfulness based medicine and research.

http://www.umassmed.edu/content.aspx?id=41252