Do you know about - Soft Spot - How Emotional safety is the Precursor to Intimacy
Physical Therapy Schools! Again, for I know. Ready to share new things that are useful. You and your friends.It is 8am on a Friday morning and the fog in my mind is clearing as I quit my second cup of coffee. Ian, who is three, is beginning his morning ritual. First he spreads out his blankey on the floor in front of the Tv and surrounds the perimeter with pillows. Next he places all of his stuffed animals on the pillows, facing in. Then he asks in a voice I can never refuse, "Daddy? Can you cuddle with me in my soft spot?" We settle in for the morning shows. The soft spot is the place where there is no danger, no cross words, only safety and tranquility. Well, except for the annoying purple dinosaur on the television. I am picturing Ian's soft spot in my head today as I watch the vein on Tom's temple beat faster and faster as he tries to restrain himself while his wife recites her litany of complaints. Finally, he erupts and once again threatens to leave the marriage, as tears stream down Ellen's face. As their marital therapist, I have been trying to originate a soft spot for each of them with me; with the hope at last they can originate one in their relationship. They are an embattled integrate who have been unable to originate an emotionally safe environment since the early days of their relationship. For the past twenty years, Tom and Ellen have been recreating Tom's parents' marriage, where they turned on each other after the death of his younger sister at age 3 and their marriage came to look as if an emotional cockfight as Tom watched helplessly. Tom and Ellen each feel as if they are an innocent victim of the other's acid laden verbal spears, yet neither is aware of how often they send back an additional one volley. Because calluses have supplanted their old emotional wounds, they have each lost the potential to empathize with the person they are supposed to love the most. At this stage any comment can speedily come to be an opening to humiliate the other. Tom and Ellen have come to be locked in a hostile dependency; they cannot live with or without each other.
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During my next session, Jack, after much prodding, finally explains to Sue how hurt he feels when she leaves him alone twice a week to go out with her friends. Sue, deeply offended at his neediness, responds quickly, "You want to control me, just like my dad used to." While it's true that Jack has tried to control her in the past when he feels the anxiety of abandonment, Sue has failed to see the importance of this occasion when he is talking about his feelings and not acting in controlling ways in response to them. Sue is very sensitive to issues of control, as her conservative father was hyper-focused on the possibility she would come to be sexually active while her adolescence and tried to restrict her at every turn. Jack, in response, feels humiliated by her strike after discussing the feelings he knows are youthful but he can't help but to feel them. This emotionally fused integrate cannot tolerate each others' feelings without becoming wounded. They have been unable to originate a soft spot where they can share feelings, especially disappointments and anger, without hurting each other. Any feeling that is perceived as negative makes them feel as if their character is under siege, because each has too much internalized shame - excellent self negative feelings that one is unworthy or bad. Jack's shame stems from his mother's abandonment of him and his father when he was seven; Sue's stems from a rape she experienced in high school that she blames on herself, because she defied her father and went out even though he forbade her. Intimacy cannot occur without emotional safety, and we cannot contribute emotional safety (holding and caring for another's feelings without reacting negatively) without an internal soft spot in connection to ourselves. I think of Ian's blankey as this connection to oneself at the center of the soft spot. For some, like Jack and Sue who carry so much shame, this may mean not being so hard on themselves, more self-empathetic and accepting of their own humanity, which comes with its share of failings. However, for others, like Tom and Ellen, creating the internal soft spot may require taking more accountability for their actions and not blaming each other so each can grow into person they respect and like. The refusal to admit failings leaves them in a victim position that results in a life of bitterness and anger that generates self-pity instead of self-love. Many citizen crave a soft spot in their relationships that will contribute them with the emotional safety they cannot contribute for themselves. But soft spots never begin in an external relationship; they begin within each of us.
Once the soft spot is established we need settle who we let into this sacred space. For safe people, the boundary is the ticket of sacred space rather than a wall to keep them out. But it takes discernment to settle who honestly is safe adequate to enter into our sacred soft spot. It is crucial to set permissible boundaries with citizen who are unsafe, so they are not allowed to destroy this place of inner peace. Tom and Ellen at this stage are both unsafe and unable to stop the repetitive conflict patterns bleeding away the connection they once had. Because Jack and Sue have been hurt in the past, each has considerable trust issues and they have supplanted the pillows with trenches and barbed wire. Even when they speculation to allow the other in, each speedily come to be expelled for minor infractions because the fear of being hurt again is too great. Loneliness in the trenches feels safer than connection. Neither of these couples has yet to find a prosperous way to settle conflict in a manner that does not seriously destroy the soft spot in the relationship.
How do we learn both to trust others and be self accepting authentic selves without damaging the soft spot-to originate in other words, emotional safety? Perched on the pillows every morning was Ian's beloved stuffed animal, 'brand new baby.' He was Ian's version of the Velveteen Rabbit. His stuffed animals report the relationships we have with citizen from our past that have had a sure or negative impact on how we relate. Many citizen have had sure relationships in childhood that have come to be internalized and contribute comfort and strength as they face life's challenges, like Ian's brand new baby and his parents. Others have had negative experiences and continue to repeat discrete versions of these same connection patterns throughout life.
For instance, Sue repeated her past connection pattern, where she experienced her father as considerable and distrustful and felt the only way she could come to be autonomous was to be deceitful. In response to Jack's insecurity and control, she hid considerable parts of her behavior. When her teenage-like deceit is exposed, Jack's insecurity and trust issues are activated and his fear of abandonment ignited. Through the policy of therapy, Sue began to talk more to her father who revealed a family secret; his sister became pregnant in her teen years. Sue could finally begin to forgive him and no longer needed deceit to achieve autonomy. As the soft spot was created, Jack talked more honestly about the pain of his mother's abandonment and how this impacted him today. Now when the old conflict arises, Jack and Sue are able to find their soft spot and talk more deeply and honestly about the emotions that are activated.
Early in therapy, I forbade Tom and Ellen from speaking directly to each other, because it was just too painful to watch and I knew the only soft spot available was with me at that stage. Tom began to talk about the loss of his sister and how alone he was in grieving her death. His narcissistic parents were unable to care about his loss and became consumed in their attempts to humiliate each other. Ellen's mother's depression resulted in her being unavailable to her while her teen years. As she raged against her mother while this time, her father silently condoned these outbursts as she expressed his own contempt. In response to the lack of empathy, Ellen's brother retreated into drugs and alcohol while she dated men who were physically abusive. As Tom and Ellen began to honestly hear each other, they gradually found a soft spot. As they began to take accountability for their actions, they found an empathy neither realized they were capable of. In today's world half of all marriages end in divorce and even in intact marriages many without much intimacy. Finding a soft spot can seem as elusive as Finding the box where my now rough and tumble 11-year-old's brand new baby rests these days. But only in the soft spot can we find the courage and strength to be truly known and to closely know our partner. Even today, in sessions with my couples, I find myself envisioning Ian's soft spot and striving very hard to see how we can get there together.
No confidentiality was breached in this article as the clients in this essay are not actual clients, but composites were industrialized from some clients, from cases I have supervised and also from citizen I have known personally
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