Holographic Repatterning Sessions® for
Connecting with Compassion
Mirror 3: Cascading through Distance and Isolation
When Separation Seems Inevitable
If you've been free-falling down the marital rapids, you may also be familiar
with the cascade through distance and isolation. This is when your
communication problems seem insurmountable and quiet indifference
preferable. A 'you live your life, I'll live mine' seems to take over, and
cordial distance governs. For those of you who've been in or are in a
committed relationship that has made it to this point, you have come to realize
that loneliness is the greatest here -- you think you're in a dead end
relationship with no hope of escape and no hope of revival. The future is
as bleak as the past has become; can you endure the rest of your life like this?
That need not be the case, though.
Chances are, you have picked your partner for your greatest healing, and have
found your way here to ensure it will take place!
If you've never made it to this point, you can still consider the
contemplation points, as they solicit information about what you would ideally
like to have in your relationship, OR you can simply sit back and
enjoy the benefits of this session! While they may not be a 180 turn about
(as they need not be!), you will still benefit by releasing non-coherent frequencies.
How do you want things to be?
If you were to write out a list of your ideal relationship, what would it
contain?
What would your life be like without the problems?
As with all interactive areas in the series, you are welcome to submit statements which reflect your personal
experience. When the session is being done, those statements which
accurately reflect the energy of the group will be used anonymously, allowing us
all to shift to greater harmony and unification.
Challenges and Growth Opportunities
What do you want to 'go away?'
What is it that's just too much?
Talking is Useless
True confessions: I've been here too. You feel like no matter what
comes out of your mouth, it's all going to end in a horrible way, so why even
start. You've tried all kinds of techniques, books, and groups, and
still, it's all going to end in a horrible way, so why even start.
Intentions and Possibilities
If talking weren't useless, what would you achieve with it?
If your partner were listening, what would you want to tell him or her?
Challenges and Growth Opportunities
What other thought is it that convinces you talking is useless? What
is your self-talk that you use to support this notion? (When you get
in touch with this, it will probably sound like a three to four year old
child talking! So go with it! It will be very irrational and
illogical and have a feeling to it.)
Speaking of feelings, what are the negative feelings that you have?
ie inadequate, incompetent, unworthy, unlovable .... etc.
Parallel Lives
This is where you're living in the same place, but not with each other.
You're little better than roommates. (You could be worse than roommates!) You or your partner may sleep on the sofa or in the guest
room, with clothes in some other closet. You find your more intimate
conversations taking place with colleagues or even strangers, (an alarming
realization, to be sure) and you greet the clerk at the coffee shop with greater
warmth than your 'beloved.'
Intentions and Possibilities
What can you do to reconnect with your partner in a way that benefits both
of you?
What activities do you share? Or you used to share that you'd like
to share again?
As with all interactive areas in the series, you are welcome to submit statements which reflect your personal
experience. When the session is being done, those statements which
accurately reflect the energy of the group will be used anonymously, allowing us
all to shift to greater harmony and unification.
Challenges and Growth Opportunities
What do you have to change or let go of?
Loneliness
I used to believe, 'one is the loneliest number...' , but I've since found
out, two can be far lonelier! If you are experiencing loneliness in your
life, take a moment to get in touch with that. Move into it as deeply as
is comfortable.
Intentions and Possibilities
What is it you long for?
What are you missing?
Challenges and Growth Opportunities
What is it that you tell yourself to perpetuate your loneliness?
that is holding you hostage in this situation? ie I have to stay
married for the children; My word is my honor; I could never get a divorce;
No one wants me..
by identifying the belief that is holding you hostage, the impact of it can
be released. This doesn't mean you immediately file for divorce or move
out, only that you are no longer trapped in the thinking that there are only
two solutions -- the isolated life you're currently living or some disastrous consequence
of not living it.
(By the way, this may also be the refrain you used to hear from a partner
or parent that they used or use to keep you from leaving!)
It really looks bad ....
Successful couples can look back upon their history and glow about how
they've overcome their challenges. They can take pride in how they came
together or laugh at how they fell apart. Somehow, it's all cute and
humorous. In spite of what could have been chaos, they see a triumph of
their determination. Men take pride in their women, remember the details
of their early days, and highlight how they've worked together.
When this is missing, when you see your relationship from the flipside, you
know things have slid pretty far.
Intentions and Possibilities
If you can find the 'glow,' what does it feel like?
When you were able to laugh at it all, what were you telling yourself?
Can you find something good in the past? (If you can't, hang in
there! You will soon be building good memories from which you can
build the future!) (And yes - that would explain why everything is so
miserable!)
Challenges and Growth Opportunities
What is 'sticking in your craw?'
What self-talk do you use to keep yourself discouraged?
When you see your partner, what goes through your head?
And in this corner ....
When a partnership has fallen over the cascades, men and women revert
strongly to gender communication. (This doesn't occur in successful
unions!) You will know this happening if:
the man is routinely stonewalling the woman, ( because she's routinely
criticizing him and nagging, of course!)
the woman has escalated to shouting, criticizing, or contempt, (because
he's not listening, of course!)
One of the ways out of this nightmare is to realize that both men and women
are attempting to heal the situation. The woman who has resorted to
shouting, criticizing, or contempt, is reflecting the depth of pain in the
relationship for both partners and using a technique which would work well
with another woman. (Women can stay connected longer though such a
tirade and not feel so wounded.) The man who has resorted to
stonewalling has done so in an attempt to release the pressure in a safe way
and is using a technique which would work well with another man.
(Witness all those guys out on the playing fields! They simply move away
from each other after a squabble and continue on until they're able to come
back together again.)
If, when things start to get out of hand, the two of you can take a break
and allow flooding to subside (this takes 20 minutes) and resume discussions
afterward, you can prevent damaging accusations and wild claims from being
made, allow repair mechanisms to work, and make some real headway.
During the break, it helps to do some self-coaching -- to
tell yourself, 'It'll be ok; he's stonewalling to protect me from his raw
emotions.' or 'It'll be
ok; she's so heated because she's expressing the pain for both of us and
thinks this will get my attention.' Positive self-talk will carry you
through the twenty minute separation so that you return with an optimistic,
can-do attitude.
Realization helps. The break through for me was connecting my
husband's flooding with the feeling I had when I was floundering in a pool one
time. You know that time. It was when you were young and under
three foot tall and the adults around you weren't paying attention and the air
you so desperately needed was way above your head. A person who is
flooding needs a life ring, not an escalation in emotion. If you can
find something in your life that allows you to understand at a deep level that
your partner needs your help at this point, it will allow you to give it
without resentment.
The same for a man understanding a woman. The woman who is resorting
to nagging, criticism, and contempt has reached the end of her rope,
too. Have you ever tried to rescue your dog after it's wound it's leash
hopelessly around a tree, perhaps getting it's foot wound up in with it, and
is barking insanely and thrashing about wildly hoping to break free? You want to help,
right? This is what a woman needs: help. If you know this,
you can see the situation differently.
When the two of you can come back together without the flooding and the
negative behavior, after taking time to coach yourselves with positive,
affirming self-talk, the repair mechanisms have a chance to work. In
whatever way you can, if you reach out to your partner in some caring way, it
will re-establish the desire to continue on.
If thinking of your partner as your partner somehow gets in the way
of this, then think of how you'd treat a stranger. Or how you'd feel if
this were all playing out on national television!
Intentions and Possibilities
What's the best way you can play out this situation in your imagination?
What skills would you like to develop?
Challenges and Growth Opportunities
What reasons do you give yourself for not changing?
