Break the [wounds + unawareness] cycle and guard your descendents Options for Improving Relations
Among Family Adults - p. 2 of 2Practical guidelines that work!
By Peter K. Gerlach, MSW
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To improve any relationship - including with average kids...
Prepare - read (and discuss with the other person where possible)...
requisites for a satisfying relationship,
how to "dig down" to discover your primary needs, and...
how to analyze typical role and relationship problems. Then...
Check yourself for false-self wounds and put your true Self in charge of your other subselves;
Dig down below surface symptoms to identify what you really need to change about the rela-tionship. Use these wise guidelines, Then...
Identify and validate your expectations of yourself and the other person, and avoid Be Sponta-neous! paradoxes. If your expectations clash, you have a values conflict.
Estimate or learn what the other person really needs from you - specifically - for an improved relationship.
Use the table below to help clarify what may hinder you two from filling your respective needs with each other (problem solving). Having several barriers at once is common. Tailor the linked resources in the table to fit your situation. Rank each barrier from 1 (minor) to 5 (major).
Experiment with constructive changes in your attitudes and behaviors, and respectfully assert your needs and/or boundaries for change in your partner. Strive for win-win problems-solving. Avoid these common communication blocks as you do this.
If s/he is open to it, ask the other person to do these steps with you - as mutually-respectful teammates;
See if your combined changes fill more of your relationship needs more often. Affirm what works, and change what doesn't.
Cause Assessment Resources Toxic attitudes This article Significant false-self wounds This overview, and these worksheets Ineffective thinking and communication, This quiz, and these articles: 1 / 2 Incomplete grief This overview, these symptoms, and this Unrealistic expectations Articles on reality distortions and roles Values and loyalty conflicts, and triangles This and related articles Ignorance (lack of knowledge) of these, and... Study these foundation articles Too little personal, social, and spiritual support Support inventory * If you're in a stepfamily, see this and this. If the target relationship is with your mate, someone's ex mate, or a relative, follow the links.
Now record your 1-to-5 barrier estimates here:
Problem-solving Barrier Me You Toxic attitudes Significant false-self wounds Ineffective thinking and communication, Incomplete grief Values and loyalty conflicts, and PVR triangles Unrealistic expectations Ignorance (lack of knowledge) of these Too little personal, social, and spiritual support Now you have a framework for improving any relationship problem with a family member (or any-one else). Working on your own issues will help you recognize and empathize with similar problems in another person.
If you're half the problem, then you can choose to proactively...
Convert any Toxic Attitudes
"Toxic attitudes" are beliefs and mental associations that promote personal and relationship prob-lems like distrust, disrespect, dishonesty, guilts, aggression, competition, anxieties, and shame. Ac-quiring and changing attitudes is usually a gradual process, based on evolving life experience.
To upgrade toxic attitude (like "anger is bad"), use parts work to identify which of your subselves holds this belief, and then negotiate trying out a healthier belief ("No, anger indicates hurt or threat, and is useful for identifying our current needs.") See this resource article for more detail.
If a false self governs your relationship with your family members, two broad options are: (a) com-mit to self-motivated personal wound-recovery, or (b) reject, postpone, or ignore that. If you choose the second option, you're true Self is probably disabled, and you'll have bigger problems than a "difficult family member."
Project 1 in this site and its guidebook provide an effective way to identify and reduce false-self wounds. Committing to this effort will have widespread benefits in your health and relationships, and help you guard any dependent kids from wounding. To strengthen your motivation, scan this article.
My experience as a therapist with over 1,000 typical co-parents suggests that probably none of your family adults are fluent with the effective communication skills in Project 2. To check this, take this quiz now, and return. If this premise is true, it means that you adults…
are prone to fuzzy thinking (ineffective communication among your subselves); and…
you don't know the difference between surface needs and the primary needs that cause them, and...
you're unconscious of excluding each other from your "awareness bubbles" which inex-orably causes antagonisms and avoidances, vs. the cooperation your kids depend on you for; and...
none of you are aware of regularly exchanging provocative 1-up or 1-down R(espect)-messages. These promote all these relationship barriers, including distrust; and...
you’ve probably grown an unconscious ritual of fighting, arguing, and/or avoiding, rather than helping each other dig down to discern your respective primary needs, and then using win-win problem-solving to fill them - as partners, not adversaries.
Can your adults consistently resolve significant family-responsibility (role) and relationship conflicts? How about managing values and loyalty conflicts and relationship triangles? If they can't handle these, then your kids probably aren’t learning how to think clearly and communicate effectively from you all. Notice your thoughts and feelings now...
Can you name any learned skill that is more important than communicating in filling your daily needs? This article will guide you toward more effective internal and social communication.
In addition to toxic attitudes, false-self wounds, and communication ignorance, assess yourself for...
If your family members have suffered significant abstract or tangible losses (broken bonds), until they grieve well enough, family relationships are apt to be stressed.
If your adults can't readily describe (a) the three levels to healthy mourning, (b) the phases within each level, and (c) how to tell when grief is "finished," you're all at risk of personal and family stress from incomplete mourning. Ongoing ex-mate strife often indicates unfinished grief.
Are you maintaining a "pro-grief" home and family? Can each of your adults articulate your family's current grieving policy? Are your kids hearing and seeing how to grieve effectively? If you're controlled by a false self, your ruling subselves are apt to discount, postpone, or trivialize this vital work.
For motivation to work steadily at Project 5 ("good grief"), read this brief research summary with your family kids in mind.
A fourth thing to self-assess is...
Each relationship stressor above is amplified by adults' lack of knowledge about these basic topics. Paradox - you won't know what you need to know until you take these quizzes and study the topics. As you do, you'll probably gain empathy for your other family members. That will help you shift hostility, dislike, distrust, resentment and scorn towards genuine empathy and compassion.
If you discount or ignore this learning opportunity, (a) you're probably ruled by a false self, and (b) you're unintentionally depriving the young people in your home and family of priceless awareness and knowledge. That promotes passing on the toxic [wounds + unawareness] cycle to your descendents.
Some relationship problems stem from one or both people expecting unrealistic or impossible things from themselves and/or each other. So in major relationship problems, it can be useful to...
of Yourself - Significantly-wounded people may rigidly believe they "have to" be "perfect," unselfish," "tireless," "always optimistic, calm, friendly, and cheerful," and so on. Such unbalanced expectations usually indicate a dominant false self composed of a Perfectionist and/or Idealist, a Critic, a Magician, a People-pleaser, a Martyr, and Abandoned, Guilty, and Shamed inner kids.
Typical Grown Wounded Children will minimize, justify, or deny distorted expectations of them-selves. They may need to seek honest opinions from people who know them well to identify this con-tributor to family relationship problems. The remedy for expecting too much or too little of yourself is self-motivated progress with reducing false-self wounds (Project 1). See these ideas on improving self-respect for perspective.
Expectations of Others - two kinds of expectations: (a) general (e.g. "I expect you to tell me the truth") and (b) family role. All family members have one or more roles (e.g. mother, father, son, daughter, aunt, uncle, cousin, grandparent, etc.)
Roles are sets of responsibilities and behaviors that "someone" defines (e.g. "In our family, we never challenge or disagree with our elders.") Most roles have related rules - how people "should" per-form their roles. When family members disagree on general, role, or rule expectations, they have one or more of these common stressors.
A final factor to assess yourself and other family members is...
Try saying your definition of interpersonal "support' out loud. All family members need at least temporary support following major or unexpected losses, traumas, and changes.The effects of too little support on your family members can include anxieties, frustration, guilts, confusion and doubts, reactivity, irritability, and impatience. These can be amplified by each stressor above. Typical Grown Wounded Children (GWCs) over-depend on social and spiritual supports or reject them ("I'll do it myself!").
For more perspective on supports and a useful way to evaluate yours, see Project 11 and this inventory.
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We just briefly reviewed options for reducing your half of typical family-relations problems. Notice what you're thinking and feeling now. Is this what you expected to find when you began this article? How motivated are you to try the suggestions above? Is your true Self answering?
All families and other organizations have relationship "problems." Tho the details vary, the under-lying (primary) needs of the people involved are common.
This article draws on 40+ years research and experience to outline a general framework of atti-tudes and options for improving family relationships. It proposes tree factors that cause most relation-ship problems, and general options for resolving them. The causes are false-self wounds, personal and societal unawareness and ignorance, and social apathy and tolerance for these
The article identifies nine common barriers to satisfying relationships caused by these three fac-tors, and provides links to options for resolving each of them. It also comments on options for adapting to irritating or unpleasant personality traits in family members.
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See also these options for improving communication effectiveness with adults and kids, and this menu of relationship solutions.
Pause, breathe, and recall why you read this article. Did you get what you needed? If so, what do you need now? If not - what do you need? Is there anyone you want to discuss these ideas with? Who's answering these questions - your wise resident true Self, or someone else?
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Updated November 28, 2008
