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Desires and Stories and Fears-Oh My! (Part 2)
65 Plays8 months ago
Chris and Wendy are back with Part 2 of their effort to untangle the thorny threads of a recent conflict. (Wait, how can "threads" be "thorny"? Can we maybe pick one metaphor and stick with it here, people, alliteration be darned?)
Anyway, you'll want to listen in to get the REAL story of what happened-- er, um, I mean... Chris' perspective on the conflict. :-) It's often quite surprising, and yet incredibly helpful, to gain a better understanding of the deeper longings and vulnerable places that get stirred up in the heat of what might seem like a simple disagreement.
It's hard work to have such conversations. And sometimes we need a little help to see what we couldn't see as it all unfolded. But it's good work, well worth doing.
In fact, thinking through those thorny thematic threads thoughtfully might just be the thruway around getting throttled and thrashed in the throes of another thoroughly exhausting conflict. (Okay, someone make him stop... please?)
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Transcript
Introduction to Surviving Saturday
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome to Surviving Saturday, a podcast about holding on to hope in the midst of life's difficulties, disappointments, and dark seasons.
Easter Saturday: Despair and Hope
00:00:12
Speaker
Times like that remind us of the agony and despair the followers of Jesus felt on the Saturday of Easter weekend, in between the Friday on which he was crucified and the Sunday on which he rose from the dead.
Honesty in Pain and Hope
00:00:23
Speaker
That someday forever changed the way that humans can relate to God. But what does it look like to be honest about the very real pain we experience in the in-between? To fervently cling to hope in the God who promised us his peace and his presence at times when he feels distant or even cruel.
Meet the Hosts: Wendy and Chris
00:00:40
Speaker
I'm Wendy Osborne, a licensed counselor in Charlotte, North Carolina. And I'm her husband, Chris, a marriage mediator, conflict resolution coach, and trauma-informed story work coach.
Purpose of the Podcast
00:00:51
Speaker
Join us each episode for authentic conversations about how life not turning out as we'd expected has created the contextual soil for the growth of a tenacious hope in the resurrection and in a God who is still making all things new. Hi, we are back. I'm Wendy. And I'm Chris.
Seattle: A Challenging Conversation
00:01:12
Speaker
We are going to pick up where we left off last time when we were having a hard conversation in Seattle. And Chris, I shared most of the time last time. So I wanted to hear if we back it up to the beginning of that conversation that it happened when I finished the spa and you've been doing some work while I was occupied. What was it like for you?
Chris's Work Stress
00:01:37
Speaker
Yeah, so to set the stage a little bit, I had, I was thrilled to get to come with you just for a little weekend getaway before your whole week of spa care and bodywork and kind of the good work you're doing. Yeah, it was therapeutic. Yeah, yeah, spies. That's right. That's right. I'm going to give that impression.
00:01:57
Speaker
And to do that, I had work I needed to do that I worked out on the plane and then I had a couple things I need to deal with on Friday morning. And so for me, I was excited because you are off exploring the
00:02:14
Speaker
the stone therapy and all that. And I knew you're going to kind of be relaxed. I was going to shift into, hey, we're here to have fun. This is our vacation sort of mode. And the tasks that I ended up working on that morning, there was one in particular that was just
00:02:30
Speaker
One of those that just kept being more difficult. It wasn't a quick win. Let me just do this thing and knock it off my list. It was actually a client starting to have some different challenges or whatever that were going to be more difficult to navigate. I couldn't just put it away easily. I did feel a little stressed by that and I was expressing that.
00:02:51
Speaker
And the weird thing is at the same time I also another thing that engaged me was a friend of mine who I'd been Wanting to get together with for a while had agreed to go to a concert that we were going to go to out of town
00:03:07
Speaker
And they were communicating from their work, and I was communicating on this Wi-Fi, so we were trying to make arrangements. Like, hey, if we're going to go, when are we going to go? Where are we going to stay? What are we going to do? And there's all these different factors to be decided. And one of the things I know that you have experienced in me when I am making some decisions, it is possible for me to get sort of lost in the details and to get too much down the rabbit hole. Well, wait, what about this? What about this? And to overthink it.
00:03:33
Speaker
And I think my friend was a little bit that way as well. We could just go, yeah, we'll just do this and make it simple. We had to kind of keep having some back and forth going. So when you came back in the room, I was partly, uh, this, you know, other task is this, this situation is getting more problematic and I
Chris's Coping Mechanisms
00:03:50
Speaker
don't like that. And I think I expressed that. And then I also was saying, Hey, my friend is in connection or is in communication. And we're trying to figure that out too, but I can see how that's two things where I'm engaged.
00:04:00
Speaker
elsewhere and might not have met your expectations of, Hey, when I come in, boom, we're right off to the races. Yeah. I'm curious as I hear you say that what, um, what's usually your response to futility? What's that like for you?
00:04:16
Speaker
Well, it's not great. I don't like futility. I don't like expending effort that is wasted and goes nowhere, which is probably part of what I had already been feeling a little bit that morning with one of the clients that I was doing some good work for.
00:04:34
Speaker
and they're losing their ability to appreciate, shall we say, that good work had been done and taking a different perspective and starting to take it out of me. So that was probably in the mix a little bit. I don't think I felt as futile or frustrated with us at this point. Yeah, I'm just thinking in general, because you spoke to it with that work project. Yeah. And so I'm curious, what do you know about yourself?
00:05:00
Speaker
that is usually your response to a situation that involves futility or just a lot of obstacles where you can't be effective. I'll say that my first response using my go-to is I power up
00:05:16
Speaker
and I try to get more thoughtful and I tend to think, oh, if I just explain this different or better, so I think I go to words and I probably increase my volume of words and I probably, I've noticed if I'm getting frustrated in a situation,
00:05:32
Speaker
That's a work kind of thing and I'm writing stuff. I start taking on almost a more different tone I start saying like a British professor kind of condescending like if you will if you will listen I will explain blah blah blah and sometimes I can catch myself doing it But I tend to think more information is going to fix the problem and it's only when I start running into It doesn't like the person whether it's you or somebody else isn't persuaded by my wonderful words
00:06:00
Speaker
that's when I can start to get exasperated. And so it can either come out sometimes as anger, frustration, or I might also reach a point where I just sort of shut down. Forget it. If you attach an emotion to the exasperation, if it was more despair or if it was more anger or an attempt to control
00:06:22
Speaker
Yeah, I think in the situation with my work thing that I was working on, it was definitely more
00:06:30
Speaker
anger and an attempt to control. And I was kind of working through that. I was, what you caught me in the middle of was me just sort of expressing, dang it, this thing that I thought was going to be simple, a quick win, a quick hit is not going to be. And so I was at that point, I was just trying to name, you know, this has been frustrating and this kind of frustration is part of what I don't like about what I do as a lawyer. Yeah. I think was, uh, and I think, uh, you know, that sort of landed on, we've been having conversations of that nature a lot. Yeah.
00:06:59
Speaker
But I would say because I had the friend thing going on at the same time, I wasn't just stuck in the frustration with the client thing. I was like, oh man, this trip is going to work out that I'm super excited about. I want to strike white irons hot. I didn't want this guy to back out or decide to do something different.
00:07:21
Speaker
And so I think that made for some awkwardness for us as we, you know, I stopped the work I was doing and we went to go get lunch, but I was still communicating with my friend. Like I was leaving behind the work thing, but I was communicating with my buddy about, hey, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? And that kind of, I know that intruded on our lunch a little bit. And I know this, I didn't get a sense at that time that anything had started working on you yet.
00:07:50
Speaker
Um, like I feel like I was probably kind of oblivious and I was thinking, Hey, we were on our way to the fun part of the afternoon.
The Walk: Unexpected Conversations
00:07:56
Speaker
Yeah. And so then what happened is we were having a discussion about, okay, we're going to go walk and.
00:08:05
Speaker
I was willing to let go of, you know, the, the planning and say, Hey, we'll figure it out later. And you, I think wisely said, I'm concerned, you know, that you'll be returning to it thinking about, and I want you to be all present for our time. And, and so you said, Hey, go and finish that communication loop and make what plans you can. And I said, okay, it'll take 15 minutes and left you kind of sitting out in this little courtyard waiting before we go to walk.
00:08:31
Speaker
Um, and so I did that. It took probably five or 10 minutes longer. Um, and I know that's a frustration. That's a frustration point often, uh, for us, uh, I, I having ADHD, I don't have a naturally have a good assessment of time and how long things take.
00:08:49
Speaker
Try to work on that, try to get better at it, obviously. But my thinking when I came out to find you was, you've been sitting in the sun. You're relaxing. You had relaxed with the stones in the morning. I'm thinking, you're ready for a fun afternoon. My deck is cleared. I'm ready for a fun afternoon. And so that's what I thought. We were walking literally off into the woods in the state park near where we're staying.
00:09:12
Speaker
And I think that's where you said you did have something you wanted us to talk about, but I thought it meant just you had a topic like something, this will be interesting. Um, but the conversation sort of went a different direction, um, than I expected. Do you remember what we ended up talking about? I think it was just some big decisions that were on the horizon that we needed to, um, make some things we needed to nail down. And those were on my mind. And I think that,
00:09:38
Speaker
when you had spoken to the futility of your morning that had attached to a memory that recalled these decisions that were in the queue for us and so that's what I then started thinking about. Okay and so where one of the things that was challenging for us is
00:10:00
Speaker
You didn't speak to the other things that had started to work on you, like starting to feel critical of yourself or some of that disappointment. And it felt like that energy got put on these decisions, whether you meant it to or not.
00:10:15
Speaker
But left me so we're starting off and I'm thinking it's Friday afternoon You've been off. I'm about to be off. We're done We're going into let's enjoy each other and we did it would have helped us if we had just had a pause and said What kind of conversation we're about to have, you know, where are we going? We're doing and when you went into the decision stuff and you were coming from it felt to me like a place of criticism and impatience
00:10:39
Speaker
And frustration, and impatience isn't the right word. You've been ridiculously patient through a lot of these decisions. But it just, it felt like, that's where it felt like a blindside to me. Like, oh no, I thought this was rest time, fun time. You've got these things on your mind and I think I felt, I'm not saying you were doing this, but I felt attacked at that point. And then I started reacting. What is attacked to you? What does that mean when you say, I felt attacked?
00:11:08
Speaker
That's a harsh word. Yeah, I know. Um, yeah, it felt like criticism of me and focusing on ways that I hadn't made the decisions or I had left us in a position where we had to make difficult decisions or something. It felt like I was sort of called to the principal's office. So are you saying that like some shame was popping up?
00:11:33
Speaker
I would say shame was popping up, yes. And where I was trying to get to was, you know, fair questions to raise. I was thrown off by the timing and then it felt like to me at least more intensity. And I don't think my first response to shame, my first response was probably that exasperation of futility like, oh my gosh, I had difficult conversations this morning.
00:11:58
Speaker
And now I've got to do it again, and I thought this was my off time. So that was sort of my first reaction. And it was kind of, haven't we been over this? Haven't we?
00:12:07
Speaker
through this a lot and we have a plan as far as we can get today, I think it was like February, what, 7th, 8th, whatever. We couldn't decide anything that Friday afternoon. It was already five o'clock on the East Coast, so if we had to do anything back here, we really couldn't. Right. And so I didn't think, you know, it was more we realized we're going there. And I think the shame then kicked in when you
00:12:31
Speaker
you know we're pointing out right and good true things but in order to be heard it felt like you were you were only majoring on those pieces of it and so that's where i started to feel probably shame and and that that came into what i was communicating yeah yeah so you know we have different styles of handling um
00:12:54
Speaker
Protest when we want our needs to be met and also different styles around decision making and different styles around Identifying needs and naming them. Yeah, I think that yeah, I think that's Still a journey that we've been on of learning to be able to identify our needs and articulate them Along the way instead of waiting until they sort of build up. Yeah
00:13:17
Speaker
And we get sort of an overload. Now I've got needs and I'm going to tell you all of them and we both can kind of
Wendy's Emotional Journey
00:13:21
Speaker
do that. Yeah. So I was just thinking like tracing it the way I'm at least conceptualizing it is I had gone down to have this massage. My body and my mind were very relaxed.
00:13:34
Speaker
I was so grateful you had come out with me for a couple of days and I was feeling, um, I was anticipating just connecting, having time together in a beautiful place. And then I came in the room and my, um, vigilance level of what's going on around me tends to run pretty high. That's just been a,
00:13:59
Speaker
a lifelong superpower that I've had since I was little. And so I could pick up on the exasperation when you made your comment about this is what's so hard about my work. And I felt in that a disconnection because it was different. I could tell that I were
00:14:23
Speaker
Connection was different than I had hoped. Yes. There was something in between us. There was this Exasperating experience you had had beforehand. Yeah, and so when I felt that My tendency if it goes unchecked I move into Believing that it's safer to isolate so to not continue to move toward you right for connection right because I
00:14:50
Speaker
felt the obstacle between us as rejection then you're so that's when I start turning against myself and it will often land on my physical appearance and that's a very embodied
00:15:05
Speaker
in storied thing for me. But it basically is me saying it's safer to be alone. Why was I so foolish? That's me myself talking. And is there an aspect of it when you say the turning on yourself? Because that I think might be an important concept for people to understand and for me to learn to understand.
00:15:26
Speaker
is what do you make of the turning of yourself turning on yourself when like how dare I hope how dare I believe I'm desirable when I came up the stairs from the spa
00:15:39
Speaker
I, my heart was full of hope about how our afternoon was going to be together. And I was moving toward connection with you as my husband, just letting my heart be open. And then when I felt your exasperation, even though I knew it had nothing to do with me, the turning against myself, I had been standing with myself like,
00:16:05
Speaker
like believing in my hope, trusting in the potential. And so then it happens in a nanosecond for me. I realized, oh, this isn't going to start out at least the way that I so much was looking forward to. And so then without even realizing it, without even taking a beat,
00:16:27
Speaker
I began to to act out of this concept of I was foolish to hope Who's ever really going to choose me over their exasperation over the realities of obstacles in life. Yeah, and so I because my physical self has known a lot of
00:16:51
Speaker
pain and criticism, that is a natural place for me to land it. Okay, so it sort of joins with in some ways messaging from your family of it's going to be for these reasons that you will be rejected, et cetera. Yes, which were necessarily explicitly stated but close enough. So I was thinking like I come in with all of that. You have been in this exasperating situation and you've said you tend to power up
00:17:21
Speaker
And so I could just feel the heightened emotions. Yeah. And then as I continue to ask a little bit later after lunch, will we really need to make these decisions?
Communication Mismatches
00:17:32
Speaker
You felt more exasperation and then shame. So I'm wondering then if
00:17:38
Speaker
what, you know, what that then brought to the interaction with me. Well, and yeah, I want to offer an observation, uh, first before I kind of go that direction, what I'm noticing and what's fascinating to me is we both had that same desire. Like if you, if you could get in our heads, you know, what do we both want? It was, Oh,
00:18:00
Speaker
Let's have connection. Let's, we're spending time together. We're doing this on purpose. Exactly. We stepped away from this busy, you know, season that we've had and it was a good, you know, kind of break for me and a really needed break for you. And I think, uh, just it, it fascinates me that how we can easily get tripped up. You can say the enemies at work, whatever, but two people who want the same thing and yet run into our stories that sort of,
00:18:26
Speaker
become obstacles and it's maddening because we know we want the same thing at the core, but we have both these obstacles that we run into. So I would say, for me, I had the hope that, well, I've been focusing on my work
00:18:43
Speaker
but you've been taking care of yourself and you've been sitting in the sunshine. And I'm, I was presuming that you're still in that same relaxed place. And so when we started walking, we started the conversation and you were, you were approaching topics that we've talked about a lot, but you were in a more fearful place and a more concerned place and less of the supportive, Hey, this has been hard. We're figuring it out. Whatever.
00:19:11
Speaker
And so that's, I think, where my heart started to sink. And that's where I got exasperated. And I started communicating in a very, I remember, I can remember the feeling of impatience, frustration, and what the spiral starts for me as, and this is very instoried for me as,
00:19:29
Speaker
I'll never be listened to and I won't be honored enough for somebody to stay with me. My story is characterized by either kind of an outright abandonment, that's more my dad, or a lot of reversals where somebody is really for me, really supporting me, really with me and then all of a sudden something happens, the wind shift, there's a change, maybe I do something, maybe I don't and all of a sudden I am the demon, I'm the evil in their life and I got a lot of that. It's taken me a while to figure out
00:19:59
Speaker
Not everybody does that, but some of my formative relationships were characterized that way. So I start feeling like, oh, here it goes again. I am discardable. And if I am feeling like I've done anything to merit that there's a point to somebody not being happy with me, then that can trip the shame. I am discardable and I knew it, who would want me anyway? Which is sort of a deeper level of it.
00:20:26
Speaker
somehow that got pricked there because I remember by the end of this walk I mean I was pretty hot and I was like
00:20:33
Speaker
whatever, what the blank ever, I'll just do XYZ.
Managing Emotional Distress
00:20:37
Speaker
I just wanted relief from the conversation and the, you know, we, we, it was our, probably our most beautiful walk, you know, uh, scenery wise and, and the weather wise that we got and we didn't enjoy it because we were, we were missing each other and we weren't able to stop and go, Hey, how do we get here? You know, we were just off to the races. Yeah. And I think when one of us was trying,
00:21:03
Speaker
The other was caught in fear or despair. Yes. Yes. And then we took as I remember, we took kind of a break.
00:21:13
Speaker
To our credit, I think we didn't stay hacking at it, but we'd kind of gotten to a level of sort of standoff. And then we kind of took a break. I want to hear what your break was like or where you went during the break. For me, I went and said, well, relationship's not available. I'll go back into sort of productivity mode, get stuff done. So I went and did some of my schoolwork for class and was trying to kind of just settle and calm and just take my mind off of it. And then I came back to the room.
00:21:41
Speaker
I found, because our room didn't have a lot of channels, I found Dateline. And I love that joke. But I think what it provided that day was it gave a place, a landing place for all this angst that I felt internally. And it gave a scenario in which all of that fear and passion
00:22:10
Speaker
made such sense. Because you're watching stories of you know these horrible crimes and figuring out like somebody's getting away with stuff and disguising themselves and all this. Yeah so like I have friends who love horror movies and they've realized through the years that a lot of it is it helps them deal with the internalization of the fear of the scary world we live in.
00:22:36
Speaker
So it's like now I can be scared a bit like in a way that I'm choosing versus the world just feels scared. And so I think for me, all this angst that I didn't want to be feeling and felt unsolvable in the moment had a place to go. And so I was cheering on the detectives and I was horrified about what this perpetrator had done. And yeah, it was actually a lovely hour or so.
00:23:05
Speaker
Well, it's fascinating to me because one like, again, I think it was, it helped me. The work I was doing for school and the reading I was doing was actually helpful. It sort of brought me back around at least a little bit to, uh, at that point it was, it was helpful. Another thing that I go to sometimes when I feel overwhelmed with futility is I'll go to like a game on my phone or something that, you know, smart people play that basically I can, I know the rules. I can like, I play words, uh,
00:23:33
Speaker
word wars it's a version of scrabble but it's like I know the rules I know how to score big points I can you know beat anybody comes to me and I feel this rush of dopamine and confidence yes oh yes because I'm basically what I realized is I am looking for a world that I can dominate with either my intellect or my wit or my words or something and even just a little hit you know
00:23:55
Speaker
It doesn't satisfy as much. In fact, there's another game that one of our kids got me into that's called nonagrams and you moving these shapes around and all this stuff. And I realized it doesn't have the same dissociative power, which is good because it gives you negative feedback, not just the good feedback.
00:24:11
Speaker
You have these sort of, you know, oop, you hit the wrong thing and it kind of the fun. It's more like
Reconnection Attempts
00:24:16
Speaker
real life. It is, it is. The phone kind of shakes and you kind of get, oh, you have to start over and I actually feel myself, oh crap, you know, and then it doesn't have the same. So it's actually a safer game to play. I don't get lost playing it because I fail enough and I'm like, this is no fun. You know, this is, this is too much like my life. But I think, so what happened, I came back into the room. I've been doing school. I didn't know what you had been doing. You're watching Dateline. So I just kind of got in the bed beside you. I think,
00:24:42
Speaker
I sat and watched it and I kind of fell asleep, but I was, nobody was making any bids to try to reconnect at that point. And then we said, let's go to dinner. And I think I remember then I did come and sit beside you while we're putting on shoes or something to try to reconnect.
00:24:57
Speaker
And then my perspective was it didn't work or it didn't happen or we didn't get there and then we ended up having a worse conversation at dinner and kind of ended up really still dysregulated. We couldn't get to each other and I was sort of being pushy and exasperated, I know.
00:25:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think sometimes it takes a while and sometimes we've learned we have to put away the words and not ignore the content of what's between us. Right, right. It's not a movement to denial or
00:25:34
Speaker
That's just her that's just him move on because resentment can breathe in that space. Yes, but a break where you can connect we can connect without
Embodied Stories and Arguments
00:25:44
Speaker
the words. Yes is helpful. Yes, and that for that was a big deal for us to realize that because we're both
00:25:51
Speaker
uh, you know, go to words of some sort and we both have some training and background and there's a part for me is the exacerbation. Oh, we should know better than this. Come on. Um, and, and yet at times we just have to, it's a humble thing to recognize our words aren't fixing it right now. And no matter how well one or the other might be trying. Um, cause you know, it's important just to remember it, of course we know better. Yeah. It's not a matter of knowledge.
00:26:18
Speaker
It's a matter of when these stories and these experiences that are still very much alive in our body get tripped, get triggered. We're back in that place.
00:26:31
Speaker
Yes. And I think what ended up happening for me is the way the conversation went at dinner and we just didn't get reconnected. That's where I sort of just, then I felt overwhelmed and I was deep in my story. You went on to bed and I went outside and just sort of had to have some alone time and just, I was in kind of a spin, but I did sort of, you know,
00:26:55
Speaker
rage at God a little bit and reach out and try to, look, I'm gonna feel stuff. I'm gonna name what I'm feeling. And I was able to name, I know I've felt like this before. I hate this feeling. With all my body, I was able to feel it more. As I identified, wait, where have I felt this before? Oh yeah. I know what I've felt this before. This is a childhood thing. This is very much in storied. And being able to feel that and name that helped me then
00:27:23
Speaker
You know, no, this is not the same though. Um, I'm not in the same position. I was, I'm not a kid. I'm not in a power differential. This is a peer. This is a person who's hard as good and who I know loves me, but we can't access that, that love for each other and putting each other first right now, but we will again, that was my sort of moment of, I went through that feeling. I was foolish. Why?
00:27:46
Speaker
Am I trusting any of this for a minute? I got in that spin, I think later than you on that I'm a fool. I should not be a fool. I need to start acting really self protectively. And it took a little bit of.
00:28:00
Speaker
know cycling through that and then kind of going back and i started thinking again reading a really good book for for my school at that point that was actually reminding a big picture like hey you know i was born there's there's more than what you can see don't forget um which is super helpful although i don't always welcome that thought but that's what i need sometimes i need a reminder there is more than what i can feel and see right now particularly in this flood of
00:28:26
Speaker
Emotion is is unleashed in me and I've been trying to manage it and I sort of part of the reason I will take blame for why this
00:28:35
Speaker
you know, fight went kind of on the rails. I sort
Emotional Unleashing and Reflection
00:28:38
Speaker
of quit being a governor and I just started just, just unleashing stuff to a degree that I probably happened in a while and it was not fair or right. Um, that's at least the, the, the ownership I would take of that. Um, I think I quit trying to pause and I was just like, this is just messed up. And I just was just unleashing. Um, and it took a while. And what I loved that we did after that was,
00:29:02
Speaker
we were able to pause and we kind of figured out a plan for something that would be helpful to do on Sunday to deal with stuff, but we let Saturday be kind of a, let's go back to that sort of side by side, let's enjoy something and agree to not have to go there to the hard places. And that's a newer skill for us, relatively speaking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, to take the break. I was thinking, as you were saying all that, I think it's Deb Dana who is a,
00:29:35
Speaker
neuropsychotherapist. This done a lot of work around polyvagal theory.
Storytelling in Conflict Dynamics
00:29:39
Speaker
Yes. She has, I think it's her, she has this phrase state before story. Oh, tell me about that. She's talking about when you're dysregulated, the meaning you're going to apply to what's happening
00:29:55
Speaker
is likely going to be in line with past experiences. Oftentimes, if you've gotten triggered in the context of an argument, those are going to be more negative or possibly, especially in our cases, even more on the traumatic end. That's true for a lot of people. Just lower case T trauma for a lot of us.
00:30:15
Speaker
if we can do the hard work of getting back to a place of emotional regulation, sanity, then we can see, okay, the story of what is happening here right now is only what is happening here right now. It's not actually what I've known in reenactments or repetitions.
00:30:37
Speaker
It's not what happened when I was five that makes me foolish to trust. So it's this idea of depending on the emotional state that you are in, you will weave a story. That is brilliant. It reminds me of what we hear in the intensives or in the counseling room sometimes as well. I had a couple that I was working with recently on some conflict and they were sharing that basically
00:31:08
Speaker
one of them had a reaction to something and the other one jumped in like, well, that's just the story you're telling yourself. Okay. Which is the person wasn't necessarily wrong. Um, but they weren't in a state to deliver that message. And the other person was not in a state to receive that message. Um, it's, it's what you and I run into often is we will have an insight or a thought like, Oh, I know what you're doing. I know what the problem is.
00:31:30
Speaker
But if we start speaking to that and declaring it for the other person, it does not go over well. Partly because we're trying to push and fix, but partly because the other person is still in their state. And when we're in a dis- Yes. And when we're in a dysregulated state, we don't receive, we don't even receive care. It's sometimes it's hard for either of us to trust, oh, you're coming to me now.
00:31:57
Speaker
Maybe this could be good and care, but, or are you just trying to get me another way? Are you just, I mean, cause we have those heightened, you use the word hypervigilant and it describes me as well. We're like, wait a minute. Well, I know you could be trying to come at me and still trying to get what you want and deny what I want. So, so it,
00:32:13
Speaker
the state focusing on the state and re-regulating and that's gotta be a thing that each person takes charge of. You can't do it for the other person or force them to do it. It is all about what level of arousal our nervous system is operating at. Yes, yes. Because when we feel like the other is coming like quote to get us
00:32:34
Speaker
That's generally because we've been hijacked. Yes.
Chris's Emotional Awareness
00:32:38
Speaker
By, you know, a trigger. Right. The amygdala is in control. It's not that really we have a basis to think he or she is coming after me to do me harm. Yeah. And I think one of the things that's new, at least for me, is in recent years, and it's, I think it's been hard for you, I know, but I have
00:32:58
Speaker
I've ceased or haven't been able to manage my emotions the same as I often did. And some of that was shutting them down. And I have experienced more overwhelmed frustration. I've let my, I've sort of lost my mind a little sometimes and communicate with you and sometimes away from you. But I have experienced that sense of overwhelm and my brain has just gone to shit, basically. And I've experienced enough to go, gosh, I don't like that.
00:33:27
Speaker
I hope I can recognize when it's happening. It probably was happening a lot more than I was aware of. It's probably the reality. But I've been aware of, oh, I am out of my gourd, like in this moment. I am so in fight or flight. I am so, or sometimes I'm so in shutdown. Like I've experienced the overwhelm turning into freeze that I had not experienced before too, because my sort of mantra was you keep going, you figure out what to do.
Tools for Emotional Management
00:33:52
Speaker
I will find a way to dazzle or talk or charm.
00:33:56
Speaker
or force my way out of this. I'll pick some of any number of tools in my arsenal to get away from this pain. And for me, the journey in the last few years as we've done stuff with Alderson in particular has been sit with the pain, let it have some weight and let it not be manageable. And that has been scary as hell.
00:34:17
Speaker
And it has been super helpful because I can sort of go, okay, that's starting to happen. I know where that ends up. I don't want to do that. I don't want to end up completely disconnected from my frontal lobe and my ability to see the big picture. But having, I think I had to sort of fall apart some and taste that depth of shame, depth of overwhelm. And what's that been like for you to be alongside me as I've been doing that?
00:34:46
Speaker
Yeah, so, I mean, I do agree it's probably happening more than, you know, it's always from both of us. Sure, sure. I was probably seeing it more than you were aware. Yes. But it's, it's really hard to see you get stuck and frozen. Yeah.
Empathy and Gratitude
00:35:04
Speaker
And to lose hope. Feeling overwhelmed in and of itself. I, I,
00:35:15
Speaker
Well, it makes me sad to see you there. I can hang with it, but it's when it takes you to a place of despair. Yeah.
00:35:24
Speaker
it's really hard to see. And I don't like to think of you being there. Yeah. And we've talked about, we keep being, it feels like sometimes we're in a divine psych experiment. We keep getting moments that I think Jesus is using to build empathy. Yeah. So we can go, oh, wait, I know what that feels like. Cause I think that was part of what in this discussion, if I'm remembering right, I may be mixing up with another one. Part of what got stirred up was
00:35:54
Speaker
you are expressing sort of feelings of I've carried everything, I've been the strong one in recent times, and I'm like, well, yeah. And I feel like that was the opposite other times, where I was the strong one. But we weren't using it first to build a bridge of, oh my gosh, we can understand each other better. It was more like, damn it, it's my turn. And, well, too bad. I sucked it up. Yeah, selfishness about both of us. Yeah.
00:36:21
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm grateful that, you know, we did pause and we got some, you know, we were able to talk to somebody else to kind of help us think through it. And just that state before story thing is really something I'm gonna chew on though, because I think that's, there's a lot of wisdom in that. And that's something we can, you know, wield well, you know, hey, honey, state before story. No, that's not how to deal with that.
Closing Remarks
00:36:48
Speaker
Well, thanks for coming back again and sharing from your side. I think it's helpful even for us just to kind of step back through it to figure out what happened. So thanks. Yeah, the beauty of it is that Jesus is writing a story and if we lean in and we can remain open to that, it's fun to see what he can do. If we lose sight of that, that's what gets challenging. Thanks for being with us. See you next time.
00:37:17
Speaker
The Surviving Saturday podcast is brought to you by Nurture Counseling PLLC, a counseling teaching and training center based out of Charlotte, North Carolina. We help families flourish one story at a time. Nurture Counseling provides counseling, counseling intensive for couples, conflict resolution coaching, story work groups, seminars, workshops, and retreats to provide a safe and welcoming context for exploring the agonizing experiences of pain, brokenness, and evil that disrupt our lives.
00:37:45
Speaker
and that God often uses to nurture deeper trust and intimacy with Him and with each other. You can find us online at www.nurturecounseling.net