This is the first post in a series.

Every week, couples want me to play referee in their relationships. Their hope is that I will decide which one of them is “right,” to make the official call on whose version of reality is what really happened, whose feelings, experience, and truth are evidence-based and therefore valid.

When I listen to couples share their experience (with each other), it often sounds like they’re on a witness stand in a court of law, presenting their case before a judge and jury. Each presents evidence to support their truth, to defend the reasons why they have the right to feel what they feel, to be upset by what’s upsetting them and hurt by what’s hurt them. And then they wait for me to confirm that they’re entitled to their truth and, consequently, that their partner should be willing to listen to it. Questions like “What evidence do you have to support that?” and “Do the facts corroborate that?” are not uncommon.

We spend an enormous amount of time and energy trying to get our partners to affirm our version of reality, arguing for our version of what happened and why it happened until hopefully they relent and agree with us that, yes, that is what happened, awarding it with an official stamp of truth that makes it real.

When I listen to partners describe the same event, often almost nothing they describe is the same. I frequently hear about a shared date night, and yet, other than the name of the movie or restaurant, absolutely nothing in their re-tell, what each says “happened” that evening, is the same or even similar. Sometimes it’s hard to believe they were actually on the same date.

We think there’s one world, one reality that we’re all living and sharing, but in fact, 8.2 billion worlds are being lived simultaneously on this one planet. Every consciousness has its own internal world, its own version of truth. Everyone walking around on this planet has a different movie playing in their head, the story they believe is happening and why. Other than whether or not it’s raining and these sorts of questions, what’s “happening” and why depends entirely on who you’re asking, whose head you’re inside, and whose movie you’re watching. Our conditioning, memories, beliefs, traumas, history, and every moment we’ve ever lived create our version of reality and shape what we see, experience, and feel. It’s startling, really, one world, 8.2 billion realities.

This wouldn’t be so problematic if we didn’t wholeheartedly believe that our version of reality is reality, fundamentally True—for everyone, not just us. As we see it (and our thoughts tell us), our movie is the real movie, the one going on—what is. As keepers of this universal Truth, it’s our responsibility (and burden) to make sure that everyone else also understands and concurs with The Truth.

I’ve often wondered what makes winning the fight for rightness so critical, worth fighting to the death for, and often worth destroying a relationship over. What are we really fighting for when we’re fighting to be right?

At its core, fighting to be right is about fighting to be heard, known, and understood, what we’re all longing for. If we can prove we’re right, that what happened in our inner world is what happened in the outer world and everyone else’s world, if it can be confirmed as correct, then our experience is valid, and most importantly, we’re allowed to feel what we feel.

In fact, we already feel what we feel, but with the official seal of rightness bestowed on us, we get permission to feel those feelings; they’re valid, which means that our partner should be willing to hear them. Simply put, if we’re right then our experience matters and our truth counts. So too, if we can get everyone else to sign off on and agree with our version of the truth, then we have permission to trust and claim our own truth. At the end of the day, rightness earns us the care and attention we need—the right to receive empathy for what we’re living. On the flip side, if we lose the battle for rightness and can’t get our partner to agree with our version of reality, then our experience is wrong, our feelings are invalid, and our truth is irrelevant.

When couples are locked in a fight for who’s right, they’re really fighting for the most basic component of love: the right to have their experience matter. The fight is for the right to be heard and understood—the fight, ultimately, is for love.

In the next post of this series, I’ll explore ways to unhook from the right fight, to pull out of the tangle right when you’re in the thick of it. For now, start by simply noticing that you’re fighting for rightness, to have your reality confirmed. Stop for a moment, place your hand on your heart or abdomen or both, and take three deep breaths. Ask yourself, what am I really fighting for here? Why is it so important that I get my partner to tell me my experience is correct? If I win this fight and am deemed right, what will I get to feel then? And finally, “What do I really need right now, from myself?” If you can, offer yourself just that.

Start there and stay tuned…

The post The Fight to Be Right: What Are You Fighting For? appeared first on Nancy Colier.

I now want to offer some specific strategies and language for how to communicate and stay calm in those moments when you just want to scream “this is not my fault; this is about you—don’t you see that?!” That reaction is so natural and understandable, but it doesn’t usually go well when followed, and rarely leads to greater peace or closeness with your partner. The difficult truth is that if you want to break the cycle of projection and defensiveness, you’ll need to practice a more mindful and disciplined strategy.

Projection is difficult and painful for both you and your partner. Your partner’s core wound is re-activated and they’re deep down the rabbit hole in a negative narrative. And for you, the one being criticized and misjudged, it’s frustrating, hurtful, and infuriating. It’s also profoundly lonely because your partner is not with you in the present moment when they’re lost in projection; they’ve disappeared into a past reality that you’re not part of. So, what can you do and say to navigate this challenging situation in a thoughtful and productive manner?

The first thing to do when you smell the scent of projection is, counterintuitively, to shift your attention away from your partner and bring it towards yourself. That is, to ground yourself inside your own body. You can do this by simply placing a hand on your abdomen or heart (or anywhere that helps you feel present). From there, you can inconspicuously (or not) take a conscious deep breath, which will prepare you for the interaction and help you stay calm and connected to yourself, which can be difficult when the projection train is heading your way. Taking a conscious breath (or three) can also help create a separate, safe space where you won’t be swallowed up by your partner’s feelings and narratives, and overcome by the survival instinct to defend yourself.

When you feel grounded in your body, you can more thoughtfully respond (or not respond) to your partner’s grievances. When your partner accuses you of making them feel bad in a way they always feel bad, the best plan is to become Teflon, that is, to unstick (and make yourself unstick-able) from their projections, which involves resisting the urge to join them in their storyline. Instead, you want to empathically reflect your partner’s feelings, what they’re suffering, but (and this is important), without including yourself in the reflection. As in, “I get that, for you, the situation felt really invalidating.” It’s also helpful to use words that frame your partner’s experience as feelings not facts: “You felt invalidated” rather than “You were invalidated,” or worse, “You were invalidated by me.” In using feeling words, you highlight the fact that this is their experience (which means it’s important) but not necessarily what happened in some absolute reality.

It’s also helpful to use language like “for you” and “in your experience.” For example, “I hear that—for you—it felt like this…” or “I get that—in your experience—it felt like this…” By using these sorts of phrases, you also suggest that the experience they were living might not be the experience you (or anyone else) was living. Your mindful response is designed to unlink their experience from you and also from what is.

Your task in responding, always, is to draw the “conversation” away from the you-based storyline, and empathize with the feelings and suffering your partner is caught in, to make it clear that you see and get their experience, their pain. Your skillful language is designed to create a separation between how they feel and what you did. Ultimately, the skill in responding to projection is to be sensitive to the other person’s pain, but not bite the hook—not engage in the personal battle over who’s to blame for that pain.

So too, it helps (if you have the emotional bandwidth) to lead with an affectionate word, like “sweetheart” or “love.” As in, “Sweetheart, I hear that you felt invisible in that interaction.” Notice that you’re not saying “I hear that I made you feel invisible.” Or perhaps, “Love, I’m sorry you had to go through that pain.” If you choose to use the word “sorry,” do so carefully; be mindful that your sorry-ness is not about having caused your partner’s experience, but rather, for the fact that they are suffering at all. When projection is happening, skillful language can help you create space for yourself, between you and your partner’s narrative, which you can then maintain regardless of whether they want to collapse that space. Responding mindfully doesn’t just change the relational dynamic, it keeps you safe and saves you from having to get on the emotional roller coaster your partner is riding.

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The key “don’ts” in dealing with projection are:

1. Don’t bite the hook.
2. Don’t engage in the battle your partner is trying to wage
3. Don’t try to prove your innocence or set the record straight

All of these “don’ts” are saying essentially the same thing, and if you practice them in whatever ways you can, they will change how you experience your partner’s projection, and also change the part projection plays in your relationship.

There might also be an opportunity, not in the thick of conflict, but at a more peaceful and loving moment, to draw your partner’s attention to the fact that their feelings with you seem similar to feelings they’ve described from other times throughout their life. The key is to raise this issue with curiosity and not judgment. As in, “Do you think this feeling of (fill in the blank) might be one of those core experiences for you, one that reappears in lots of different forms for you?” You might also share a core experience or wound from your own life, one that reappears in different situations, to remove any shame, create connection, and show your partner that what they’re experiencing is something you share and part of the human experience.

I would be remiss, however, if I ended this post here, without saying this: telling your partner they’re projecting onto you is almost never a good idea. Regardless of how certain you are that projection is at play, to assume that you know more about what’s happening in their internal world than they do, that you know the real truth, is disrespectful, unkind, and not helpful. When we do that to anyone, assume superiority and make an interpretation that pathologizes, shames, or claims to know their truth, we emotionally violate that person and rob them of their dignity. Don’t assume the role of authority in your partner’s experience; it isn’t compassionate and it won’t encourage greater awareness in your partner or serve to deepen the connection. If you want to break the cycle of projection and create a more conscious and intimate bond with your partner, mindful communication—which starts with your response—is ultimately what works.

The post Responding Mindfully When Your Partner is Projecting On You appeared first on Nancy Colier.

My work with Anna and James was not just to mediate their current and ongoing struggle, but to create relational harmony between them, to help them be together in a way that was indeed harmonious. So then, what is harmony in a relationship? We usually use the word to describe a relationship in which the people seem happy, and the interactions are easy and relatively conflict-free. We consider two people in harmony when they fit together like concordant notes in a pleasing musical chord. And yes, all this is true; such relationships are harmonious. But, there is one element of relational harmony, which may be the most important and defining one, that we deeply misunderstand and that causes much of our unhappiness in relationships.

Because we think of harmony as an agreement between two people, we spend our energy trying to agree on some version of what’s true. We fight until we determine a shared reality. Undoubtedly, agreeing with another person’s version of the truth, their ideas, values, and belief systems, certainly makes things easier in a relationship.  But in fact, deep and lasting emotional, mental, and spiritual harmony requires something other than just agreeing on a shared experience.

Harmony in a relationship means understanding; we don’t need to agree to be in harmony, but we do need to be willing to understand another person’s experience and actually hear their truth.

From the time we’re born, we’re conditioned to believe that our thoughts, opinions, and beliefs define us, that they are who we are. At the same time, we believe that our thoughts are true, but not just true, fundamentally true as in, the Truth. If someone disagrees with us or experiences something differently, it can feel like our identity or very existence is being threatened. How can we exist harmoniously with this other person if they disagree with us, and don’t see it the way we do? This implies that they disagree with who we are, which means there can be no harmony between us, and maybe more importantly, within ourselves.  We must get this other person to agree with us and our experience; we must win the battle of whose version of reality is true so that we can feel better and find harmony again, at least temporarily.

Returning to our couple, Anna and James were in a state of disharmony when they first came to see me, not because they disagreed on the role that money should play in their relationship, but rather because they were unwilling to listen to or even try to understand each other’s experience around money. They were locked in a brutal fight to determine whose version of reality was right, whose experience was going to be allowed to exists as valid and real. And, they were in my office for me to serve as the umpire in their battle, and award one of them with the badge of truth.  As in, you win… this is what money should mean!  This couple needed not to agree on who was right, since they both were right, and both of their experiences mattered, but rather to learn how to hear each other and understand each other’s truth—to coexist in disagreement and simultaneously, in harmony.

Harmony in a relationship, whether romantic, platonic, professional, familial, or any other kind, stems from our willingness to understand another person’s truth, without judging them or defending ourselves, to let their truth be true for them, and therefore, true. Harmony is born from our desire to genuinely know what another person’s reality looks and feels like, through their eyes and heart—not ours. To understand their truth beyond what we think of it.

Harmony blooms when we have the courage to stop hearing another person’s experience solely through the lens of what it means to and about us. Like grace, it appears when we listen to know another human being—not as they exist in relation to us, but as they are.

At the most profound level, harmony in a relationship does not mean that we agree with each other on the contents of life, on what should or shouldn’t be, what happened or didn’t happen.  In other words, what’s true. However, it does mean that we share an intention to understand and know each other, in agreement, disagreement, and everything in between.

In service to our desire for harmony, we can start by learning to ask harmonious questions: What is this like for you? How do you experience this? What does this mean for you? And not just to ask the questions, but to set your self and your opinions aside long enough to really listen to and hear the answers. And…to let them be.

The post Harmony in Relationship Does Not Require Agreement appeared first on Nancy Colier.

If we’re no longer a child, we probably already know that our feelings are going to change over time. We’ve had enough life experience to trust this truth. So, when we are reminded that what feels terrible now will eventually feel less terrible, and maybe even normal, we don’t actually feel any better. We don’t feel comforted or supported, not really. But it’s not just because we already know that our feelings will eventually change that this kind of “you won’t always feel this way” reassurance is unhelpful and sometimes actually feels even more painful.

When we’re in the midst of great sadness or grief, what we really want is someone to be with us in our pain, to essentially, keep us company in our grief.

When we’re suffering, counter-intuitively, we don’t actually want advice or someone to remind us that we will feel better in some future now. What we long for is another human being who’s willing to be with us in this now…to let our suffering be what it is. Someone who has the courage to let us suffer and not try/need to change our grief into something better or more tolerable.

We share our pain so that we’re not so alone in it, so that we can have company in our present moment with the pain that’s here. But when someone tells us that we’ll grow accustomed to what feels terrible right now, the result is that we feel even more alone in our pain.  In being pointed towards an imaginary future, we feel abandoned in this now, and this moment’s grief. The reassurance of a better tomorrow leaves us without comfort, company, or support today.

So too, when something terrible has happened in our life, the point is, we don’t ever want it to feel normal or okay again. That’s what grief is all about. After a friend lost her son in a car accident, she said the thing that scared her the most was that her life without him would ever seem okay or normal again. The normalizing of this new reality is what she was most afraid of. The idea that this new unbearable truth would become something bearable was the most horrifying part of all of it. That would mean that her son’s life and death were actually over, and a new reality had begun.

My friend needed to know that this moment’s grief was infinite in its magnitude. To know that it was forever and would never feel okay was paradoxically comforting.  When we are reassured that a time will come when we won’t mind this new dreadful reality so much, it feels as if we are being asked to minimize our current pain and thus betray our aching hearts.

Finally, when we receive “this too will feel okay” comfort, it can feel like the other person has offered assurance that allows them to feel better about our suffering, but at our expense. They can now sleep at night because they know we won’t have to feel so bad forever.  But in making it all okay for themselves, we who are suffering are left feeling even lonelier in our grief. The other person has rejected our invitation to be with us in the messy, hard, unknown of our real truth. Our suffering has been wrapped up with a bow and presented back to us, kept at a distance from their heart, safely understood and intellectualized, but without ever having been held or shared. We get back an idea and a theory on our pain, in place of the real company and understanding we need .

The next time someone close to you, or not even close to you, trusts you enough to share something painful and present, see what it feels like—for you—to refrain from giving them advice or making their suffering okay. Refrain from turning their experience into an idea or an opportunity to be helpful or wise. Rather, just as an exercise, let your job be to try and understand their experience and just allow it to be what it is.  Set your intention to try and keep them company in their truth, however bumpy it is. Notice what happens inside when you let another person reside in their real experience, without demanding that it or they change.

In those rare moments when someone has the courage or desperation to be truly vulnerable with you, to show you their living pain, trust that advice and guidance are not what they long for or want. Know that, most of the time, that person wants company, and someone to be with them where they are and with what they’re feeling. You can be that person, that friend—real company—for another human being.  And, what a gift it is to be able to offer your presence in this way. When those remarkable opportunities to be a real friend appear, which isn’t often, recognize them and rise to the challenge!

The post Do You Have the Courage to Be a Good Friend? appeared first on Nancy Colier.

We often hear the idea that forgiveness is a gift, an act of kindness for ourselves, as the forgiver, that forgiveness is not for or even about the one we are forgiving.  It’s said that if forgiveness benefits the one we are forgiving, then that’s an added benefit, a gift, but not really the point. And yet, one of the obstacles we face in forgiving someone we perceive as having done us harm is not wishing them well, not seeing their benefitting from our forgiveness as a gift, and in fact, wanting them to suffer because of what they did.  The idea that the other person would somehow feel better as a result of our forgiveness is challenging and precisely what we want to prevent.  We imagine that not forgiving then is a form of punishment, a way of forcing the other to continue suffering, a way of being in control of a situation we didn’t feel we had control over.  At a primal level, we imagine that not forgiving is a way of taking care of our wound, proclaiming that our suffering exists, and still and forever matters.  Not forgiving, paradoxically, is a way of validating and honoring our own hurt.

So too, when the one we believe caused us harm is unwilling to take responsibility for their actions or insists that they did nothing wrong, we conclude that it’s even more necessary to withhold forgiveness.  Not forgiving then becomes a way of holding on to our rightness—remaining justified in our version of the truth, and the sense of having been treated unjustly.  Our non-forgiveness, as we imagine it, continues to prove the other wrong, which legitimizes our pain.  And indeed, it is the validity of our suffering which above all else we’re trying (often desperately) to confirm and have confirmed.

Furthermore, we think that forgiving the other somehow implies that we are now okay with what the other person did, and maybe even one step further—that what they did is okay on a grander scale. Our perception is that forgiveness announces that what happened is no longer relevant, significant, or alive.  It’s as if we’re allowing the past to be done, and thus to move out of mind and heart, which can feel intolerable.

Perhaps most troublesomely however, forgiveness, as we relate to it, is letting the other person “off the hook.”  We equate it with absolution—excusing the other from blame, guilt or responsibility for what they did.  We imagine it as symbolically setting them free from having to carry the burden of suffering that we believe they caused.

And so the question follows, What actually is forgiveness?  And its partner inquiry, What is forgiveness—not?

Forgiveness is Not Saying… 

-You were not hurt by what the other person did.

-Your pain is gone.

-You are back to being the person you were before it happened.

-Life can now pick up where you left off, you feel the way you did before, as if what happened never happened.

-You no longer believe the other person was responsible for causing harm.

-You excuse the other person’s behavior.

-You no longer view what happened as important.

-You share the blame for what happened.

-You can ever forget what happened.

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The way we view forgiveness, in many ways, is flawed.  We say “forgive and forget,” but when we forgive we don’t forget.  Forgetting is by no means an inherent part of forgiving, nor should it be. So too, we refer to forgiveness as “burying the hatchet.” But when we bury the hatchet, the hatchet is still there, just under a bunch of dirt, or we could say, a bunch of denial.  Buried or not, we still need to find peace with what’s happened.  So too, we’re flippant about forgiveness, encouraging ourselves and others to “just let it go!”  But again, forgiveness is no small affair and we cannot rationalize, intellectualize, manipulate or bully ourselves into feeling it.

Forgiveness is different for every human being that lives it.  For some, it comes on suddenly, blessedly, without having to think about or try and create it.  For others, it’s a more deliberate process that requires effort and practice.  And for others, it’s a permanent destination and once discovered, never slips away.  But it can also be a feeling that comes and goes and ebbs and flows.  There’s no right way to find or live forgiveness; any path to and version of it will do.  And yet, despite the fact that there are infinite paths to and colors of forgiveness, certain key components exist in its sentiment, aspects of forgiveness that essential to its basic nature.

The post What is Forgiveness, Really? When “Letting it Go” and “Burying the Hatchet” Fail…What Works? appeared first on Nancy Colier.

Two months ago, a dear friend, someone I consider family, asked to borrow money.  I’m working a lot these days (thankfully) and therefore could provide the help. My friend told me that she would pay me back by the end of February. Before writing her the check, I asked her three questions:

1. Could she, realistically, commit to refunding me by the end of February?

2. Could she repay it without my asking for it?

3. Would she inform me if she was not able to, again, without my having to ask?

Essentially, would she take ownership of the loan she was requesting? Her answers were yes, yes and yes.

Just to know, this is not the first time this friend has asked me for a loan. And, she has not, ever, paid me back when promised. But she does pay me back… eventually. And in case you’re wondering, yes, I do know the problem with doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.  But here’s the thing, I didn’t expect a different result, and for many reasons not relevant to this post, I decided to lend her the money anyway.

On the last day of February, I awoke to radio silence: no text, email, phone call or other communication. My friend had not repaid the loan nor contacted me to let me know it wouldn’t happen.

In the past, when confronted with this same situation I would say nothing, at least not for several days, weeks or months. I would sit in resentment, anger, and make-believe okay-ness. Or, find some backhanded way to allude to the unpaid loan but without directly addressing it. Because of my intense fear of what I faced in expressing it—defensiveness, aggression, anger, and attack, a rage on why I was despicable and spiritually bankrupt for wanting and expecting to be re-payed, I would tuck away my truth, my experience of being unpaid, unappreciated, unacknowledged and uninformed. I would disappear, paradoxically, to save myself.

But on this recent occasion, I knew that no matter how frightening the situation, I was being presented with a great opportunity—to practice living from my truth and actually being on my own side. And indeed, I chose to take the opportunity the universe offered, or maybe more appropriately, the universe chose to take me, and lead me somewhere new. It was as if I were extending my hand into the handshake of forward-movement that grace provided.

On that very day, I asked my friend directly if she was going to pay me back and honor the promise she had made—to me.

As expected, she was not going to pay me back, not yet anyway. But the contents of this story are irrelevant. What matters is that I asked my friend for the loan back, on the day it was due. And, that at the moment when my friend would have ordinarily launched into her attack, I stayed still and faced her, eye to eye, to remind her of her promises, and ask her when exactly she would be able to take care of this loan I’d offered. I stood in my own shoes inside the actual moment.

I’m so grateful that my friend didn’t pay me back. It gave me the chance to change, the opportunity to speak up in the face of fear—to choose myself and the truth over the certain conflict it would create and even the possible loss of the relationship altogether. It gave me the chance to practice planting my feet in the truth and trusting that no matter how bumpy the ride, the solid ground of the truth is a place that I will be (and already am) okay.

I write a lot about playing on our own team, expressing and supporting the truth of our experience. In this particular relationship, I would have argued (until recently), that saying nothing and letting it go was taking my own side, because it resulted in keeping the relationship intact, which is what I really wanted and thought I needed.  But as time passed, I grew and my heart broke, for itself. It became clear that being on my side, in this way, also required abandoning myself, not speaking up for myself, and even joining my friend’s blaming of me.

Even though I knew, intellectually, that I had rights, nonetheless, after years of being blamed, something in my gut had lost its conviction that I had the right to ask for the money back because I didn’t need it financially. Or, that I had the right to be informed or upset that something I’d been promised was not going to happen.  Or, for that matter, the right to be able to trust my friend’s word. I was not on my own side in this relationship, not only because of my fear of the aggression that would come at me in response, but also because of my own handshake with blame, both hers and mine.

Taking the step that is joining our own side, finding the courage to face whatever comes when we speak our truth, is a profound shift in a human being.  It doesn’t happen in one fell swoop but rather in little moments and small challenges (that can feel gigantic). In order for this change to happen, we have to have had enough of the suffering that comes with not being on our own side, remaining silent, abandoning ourselves, or accepting blame for having a truth that another person doesn’t like. Our own heart has to break—for ourselves—for what we’ve actually been living, and believing. We have to stop self-blaming and forgive ourselves for needing what we need—for our truth. When this happens, it’s no longer possible to turn our back on ourselves, disappear, in order to keep the peace or status quo.

The moment comes when we say enough, not from our head, but from our deepest guts. We are done, not as an idea but as a profound knowledge.

This process can feel like an act of grace, like something far larger than just our personal self has intervened, offering us the strength and clarity to change how we’re living and who we are. At last, we find ourselves holding our own heart.

Furthermore, the courage to speak our truth involves a shift in allegiance or purpose. Our goal transforms from maintaining the situation/relationship—at all cost—to living from the truth—at all cost. But in order to find this courage, this reverence for and trust in the truth, we have to get okay with anyoutcome that might transpire, including the one we’ve most feared.  We must be willing to let it all burn up in the fire of the truth.

To do this, we have to release the belief that the only way to keep ourselves safe, keep our life proceeding as it needs to, is to control our experience and thereby create a certain outcome. It’s a process, really, of turning it over, truth’s will not my will, trusting (or at least being willing to try trusting) that the truth will take us where we need to go, even if it’s not where we think we should be going. At the deepest level, what I’m describing is an experience of awakening and surrender—knowing that we can’t keep abandoning ourselves in the service of taking care of ourselves.  And, that it’s safe to let go of the reins, that the truth will take care of us. And ultimately, that the truth is the only real safety we have.

The post When We Can No Longer Silence Our Truth appeared first on Nancy Colier.

How does this happen?

Some people are raised in homes where they are perpetually blamed for whatever goes wrong, whether or not they had a part in it.  Usually, for a time, they fight back and continue to know themselves as innocent.  They feel the injustice of the wrongful accusations.  But as time goes on and the blaming continues, but the knowing of their innocence remains irrelevant or worse, an exacerbating factor, two things happen.  First, these people learn to accept the blame for what they haven’t done, even when they know they’re innocent—because it actually feels helpful to take the blame and it often pleases those they need to keep happy, even if at the cost of their own rightness.  But eventually, sadly, they come to experience themselves as guilty; the knowing of their innocence actually gets buried and the blame projected onto them becomes their truth.  They become the bad one on the inside as well as the outside.

In other situations, when a child is neglected, abused, or abandoned, her way of explaining this mistreatment to herself is to blame herself for what happened.  Mommy left because I was wrong and there is something fundamentally wrong about me.  Mommy isn’t guilty, I am.  I am to blame for daddy’s anger, even if I can’t know what I did to make it happen.  Daddy isn’t guilty, I am.  When we take the blame for mistreatment, we do what we most need to do, which is keep and hold mommy and daddy, internally, as the good ones.  As painful and destructive as the system is, it has a wise purpose.

As young ones, it is less painful to make ourselves the bad one rather than to allow our parent (whom we desperately need) to be bad.  More even than our own goodness, we rely on the belief in our parent’s goodness.  So too, we rely on the world making sense.  And so, heartbreakingly, we join our caretakers in believing our guilt, which then, ironically, puts the world back in order and sensibly explains their treatment of us.  The cognitive dissonance that would arise from knowing our own goodness and at the same time being mistreated by those who are supposed to love and care for us, is too overwhelming to bear.  And so we become internally wrong, which, paradoxically, makes the world understandable once again.

There are many varieties of early experiences that can create an instinct to assume blame, but in the interests of space, I will elaborate on only one other.  Some of us grew up in families in which apologies or ownership for bad behavior never happened.  When we expressed our upset, we were either informed of our crime, in other words, what we did that caused them to do what they did to us, thereby legitimizing their behavior and turning empathy for us into a moot point.  Or, we were told how we had done or were wrong, in a more global sense, which then made us undeserving of any kind of treatment other than the kind we received.

For those of us raised in this environment, empathy for our experience was simply not available; we did not know the experience of someone hearing our upset and simply caring about it, taking responsibility for and validating it, without blaming us for it.  We did not have the safety of knowing that our experience mattered no matter what it contained.  All expressions of upset were met with a lesson in our own culpability in our suffering.  The mantra in families like this is “Look at your own behavior…that’s what you never do!”  As the recipient of this kind of blame we then come to believe the mantra, to think that we are somehow responsible, not just for the situation and our own suffering, but also for not being willing to take responsibility for our deserved guilt.

How to Heal?

So, how do we stop the cycle and heal the core belief that we are to blame?  Can we free ourselves from the deep sense of fundamental guilt?  How do we remove the Velcro inside ourselves to which any wrongness seeking a home will stick?

In my experience as a therapist and also as someone who has struggled with guilt, and who was trained early to look to myself for the cause of my own or another’s suffering, I can offer a few thoughts, which I hope are helpful.

To begin with, we have to unpack the original source and conditions for our assumption of blame, to navigate through the who, what, where, how, and why (carefully) of our being blamed, and also see what that created in us.  Secondly, we need to bring compassion to our own experience, to open our heart to the suffering that comes with feeling always to blame, with having to play the role, and worse, believe the role of the bad one.  So too, we need to notice where we started to agree with our accusers, and understand and forgivewhy we needed to do that to be okay, how the system of blame worked. This involves spending time unraveling our relationship with blame and guilt, and looking deep into our conditioning, and the making of our identity as the one who’s wrong.  We do this with another human being: a therapist, counselor, spiritual teacher, friend, or anyone else who is fundamentally on our side, and can keep our eyes and heart open when we’re inclined to slip back into the darkness and pain of self-blame.

We also, in this process, need to separate outcome from intention.  That is, we need to look through our lives and notice where we blamed ourselves or were blamed by others for an unwanted result, but without considering what we were trying to make happen—our intentions.  Most of the time we’re doing our very best to make something good happen, but it doesn’t always work out that way.  We can’t control outcomes, only intentions.  Most of the time, blame is about having created a wrong outcome and yet it utterly ignores the intention that was mother to the process. In turning the light from results to our intentions, we re-train ourselves to connect with our goodness (which lives in intention).  We befriend the part of ourselves that’s ignored when we’re being blamed or self-blaming.

As we go through this process, it’s also profoundly important that we examine our life now and identify the areas where we ourselves are adding to and creating our sense of blame and shame.  Often, we engage in behaviors that initially alleviate our sense of guilt, but then end up fueling and justifying that guilt.  For example, I recently worked with a woman who started drinking casually, in part to ease her sense of unshakeable (although non-specific) guilt.  But over time, her drinking had become more secretive and frequent, which then gave her ever more reason to feel guilty and bad.  The coping mechanism for our guilt becomes its cause.  We need to be fierce and rigorous in our self-inventory, and most importantly, to terminate all those behaviors that in any way strengthen our underlying sense of being blame-worthy, or in any way contribute to a sense of self that forms a handshake with our earliest blamers.

And finally, and perhaps most importantly, breaking free from the assumption of blame relies upon having a different experience of ourselves in the world.  When we put ourselves in the company of people who are kind and reliably on our side, who start (and end) from the belief that we’re good and our intentions are positive, who are willing to listen and care about how we are, even when it might not be what they want to hear… then, we learn to see ourselves through the lens of kindness and support we see in their eyes when they look at us.  Miraculously, we come to know ourselves as innocent.  When we consistently put ourselves in an environment of acceptance and love—the opposite of blame— surround ourselves with people who are fundamentally for and not against us, we then awaken to our truth, the one we knew a very long time ago, before it had to go away.  We awaken and discover that our acceptance of guilt, of badness, is inherently unkind and unfair—to ourselves.  We see ourselves, at last, as good.

The post When Feeling Guilty is Your Natural State appeared first on Nancy Colier.

For others, commitment is about living together or getting married and sharing a home life. And for still others, a child expresses the commitment desired. But wherever we fall on the spectrum, when our partner cannot provide the commitment we want and need, we are left to live in a difficult limbo: There’s something we want, that we want more of and more from, and yet we don’t know if we’ll ever get it.

How do we know when to stay or leave this type of relationship?

There are no hard fast rules, ever. Each time we make the choice to stay or go is unique, and sometimes we make it again and again within the same relationship.

At the most concrete level, we can always ask our partner if and when he or she will be willing to meet us at the level of commitment we desire. Sometimes the answer we get is comforting and gives us the sense that we are heading in the direction we want. But more often the answer is unsatisfying and leaves us not knowing if what we want in the relationship will ever happen, usually because our partner doesn’t know. Living with such uncertainty can cause pain and anxiety, and lead to insecurity and resentment.

What’s most important is that we own our truth, which is our desire for more commitment.

We must stop judging and blaming ourselves for needing what we desire. For years I have heard women condemn themselves for being too demanding or not being able to figure out how to be OK without what they fundamentally want. I have heard every possible rationalization for why it makes sense to do without something we fundamentally want. In the context of a relationship, there is nothing “Buddhist” about not being able to make plans for the future, or with someone who is not sure about us. Even if everything is impermanent in the absolute sense, we still need to create places of security in our lives, where the ground is solid—or at least, as solid as it can be.

We get certain things in relationships and give up others. When we’re not getting the commitment we want, we must ask ourselves if the balance is workable, that is: Am I receiving enough to give up what I’m giving up?

We can only answer this one moment at a time, and the answer changes over time. We know we must leave when we can no longer tolerate or bear the situation we are in, when the equation shifts and it’s too painful to do without what we really want. We leave when the unrealized desire for commitment becomes resentment, and we can no longer enjoy or appreciate what our partner offers.

Source: Flickr Creative Commons

No one can answer the question of whether to stay or leave for us. But when we stop judging ourselves for wanting what we want, and dive deep into our own truth, we will find the answer we’re looking for.

The post How Long Should You Wait For Your Partner to Commit? appeared first on Nancy Colier.

I’ve spent a lot of time wondering why some people refuse to say I’m sorry even when they know they’ve done something that caused harm, and even when the offense is small and seemingly not a big deal to take responsibility for. Recently, I was confronted with a friend who refused to say she was sorry for having misplaced an object she borrowed. It wasn’t there when I needed it, so what? A simple “I’m sorry” would have put the whole thing to bed in the number of seconds it took to say those two words. But those two words were never going to happen, and I, in my less-evolved incarnation, kept at it until I was exasperated, angry, and demanding an apology for something I didn’t really care about.

Boiled down, to say I’m sorry is to say that I did something wrong. For some people, admitting that they did something wrong is not possible, even when they know it was wrong, and even when they feel bad about doing what they did. It’s odd to witness, but this never-sorry person can actually be sorry and still refuse to utter the two words that would both acknowledge their remorse and right their wrong.

To be able to admit that we’ve done something wrong requires a certain level of self-esteem or ego strength. People who are deeply insecure can find it challenging to say I’m sorry in part because a single mistake has the power to obliterate their entire self-worth. The idea that they could make a mistake and still be a valuable and good person is unthinkable for someone whose self-esteem is severely lacking. An apology is an admission of fallibility, which can trigger the vast reservoir of inadequacy and shame they carry, and thus threaten the fragile narrative they’ve constructed about themselves. For a person with a damaged sense of self-worth, acknowledging error can be tantamount to annihilation.

So, too, there’s the person who was blamed relentlessly as a child, who from a young age was told they were responsible for every problem that arose and punished accordingly. As adults, such people tend to go in one of two directions. Either they apologize for everything, even things they haven’t done, or they refuse to apologize for anything, even things they have done. For those that end up the latter, they decide, consciously or unconsciously, that they will never again accept blame of any kind. They’ve closed the door to anything that holds a whiff of it. For this sort of person, saying I’m sorry puts them in touch with the feelings attached to their early experience of being deemed inescapably guilty and bad. Having been unfairly and indiscriminately held responsible for everything wrong, there simply isn’t any psychic space left for responsibility, even when it’s appropriate.

And then there are those who refuse to say I’m sorry, because they lack empathy and don’t actually feel sorry that you were hurt by their actions. They believe that an apology is only appropriate for situations in which they purposefully caused you harm. There’s no sorry deserved or indicated when the pain you felt was not intentionally caused, and thus not technically their fault. Your hurt, in and of itself, has no particular value.

I’ve touched on only three aspects of the never-sorry individual, but there are many more reasons why some people cannot or will not offer those two important words to another human being. To be able to say we’re sorry is to be able to be vulnerable, which is too scary, sad, dangerous, or any one of an infinite number of too’s for some people. To say I’m sorry is also to acknowledge that I care about how you feel, care that you were hurt. I care enough about you, in fact, to be willing to put my ego aside, stop defending my version of myself for long enough to hear your experience at this moment. I care enough about you to be willing to admit that I’m imperfect.

To receive a sincere apology is an incredible gift. We feel heard and acknowledged, understood and valued. Almost any hurt can be helped with a genuine, heartfelt I’m sorry. When another person looks us in the eye and tells us that they’re sorry for something they did that caused us harm, we feel loved and valued; we feel that we matter.

When someone apologizes to us, we also feel validated and justified for being upset. The apologizer is taking responsibility at some level for the result of their actions, intended or not. And when that happens, our insides relax; we don’t have to fight anymore to prove that our experience is valid, that we are entitled to our hurt and that it matters.

I recently told a dear friend about something she was doing that, for me, was damaging the friendship and making me not want to spend time with her. I was nervous to tell her given that I’ve been around more than my fair share of never-sorry people, who react to hearing anything negative about themselves by attacking the one bringing it. But this friendship is important to me, and I couldn’t just let it go; I needed to express what wasn’t working. I had to take the chance that telling her my truth, kindly, might lead us to a better place.

What happened was deeply healing. I told her my truth, how her behavior was painful for me. She listened, and then she said something amazing; she said I’m sorry. She was sorry she had caused this hurt, even if it was unintentional, even if she didn’t know it was happening. She went on to say many other love-infused things, but she didn’t need to, she had me at I’m sorry.

This is not an essay on how to make the never-sorry person say sorry. For the most part, I’ve failed at that task so far in my life (I’m sorry to say). What I’ve gotten better at, however, is accepting the things I cannot change and putting less energy into the fight for an apology from someone who doesn’t have the capacity to offer it. And I’ve gotten better at honoring my craving for an apology when it arises and providing myself with the kindness and legitimization I’m seeking. The more I practice awareness in the absence of apology, the less I need the apology to validate what I know to be true.

When hurt by another, our bodies are hardwired to need an I’m sorry in order to relax, move forward, and let go of the hurt. But sometimes when we can’t get the I’m sorry we think we need, we have to learn to relax on our own, without the other’s help. Trusting and knowing that our pain is deserving of kindness, because it is, and that our truth is justified and valid, because it’s our truth, is the beginning of our independent healing process.

In this season of giving, receiving, and gratitude, consider the profound value of a simple and sincere I’m sorry. When you’re lucky enough to receive a genuine apology, take it in, feel the majesty of what this other person is offering, receive their willingness to be vulnerable and accountable, to take care of you instead of their own ego. That’s big stuff. So, too, when you recognize an opportunity to say I’m sorry and mean it, relish the chance to give that experience to another, to step up and perhaps out of your comfort zone, to let go of your me story and be generous. And when you can, honor the profundity of the gift you’re giving. I’m sorry and thank you are really two sides of the same coin.

The post When We Need an Apology But Are Never Going to Get One appeared first on Nancy Colier.

The exchange:

Woman: I am really struggling with this presentation.  I feel so burdened by it, like I have to cover every topic, and there are too many and I don’t know what to include.  I’m overwhelmed and just don’t know how to do it.

Man: Why don’t you not prepare at all; let it happen organically.  Just show up, trust that you know the material, which you do.

Woman: I don’t know how to do that.  I need to have something to say to the 100 people that will be sitting there.  They’re expecting a workshop.

Man: Why not just let people ask questions and let your audience’s curiosity be what guides you and the material you offer?

Woman (having an “aha” moment and becoming tearful): That’s it exactly.  I don’t trust that anyone will or can help me; I don’t trust that anyone will take care of me, I feel like I have to do everything myself, create the whole thing in isolation. The idea  that someone else could ask a good question that would help focus the material brings tears to my eyes. 

Man: Exactly. So you’re a control freak.

Woman (closing her eyes, taking a deep breath and visibly gathering herself): When you call me that, it’s not helpful and actually it’s hurtful.  What I need is for you to just support me—to hear the part of me that’s in pain, right now.

Man: So now you’re controlling the way I’m supposed to respond to you, how I’m supposed to be your therapist.  It’s just what I said, you’re a control freak. 

This sort of interaction happens far too frequently in intimate relationships.  What started out as an open, safe, connected and potentially healing communication, turns into something hurtful, dangerous, and alienating.

The woman in this case was suffering and struggling to express her pain.  She was trying hard to understand why her presentation was so difficult for her and to find some relief.  And then something beautiful happened: she awakened to her deeper felt sense, and to what the real issue was.  She could see her own fear and distrust, and the underlying beliefs that were imprisoning her and causing her to over-manage the situation and feel so stressed.  It was evident that she felt great compassion for herself in that “aha” moment, in the newfound understanding of her own experience.

As a result of the first part of their dialogue, she got to live the profound relaxation and relief that occurs when we get clear on what is happening inside us, and discover the deep seated belief that is driving us.  When we awaken to our own truth, to that which has been hidden from ourselves, and we do it with another person—it is a beautiful thing. When we go through such a process with our partner, there exists the possibility (and probability) for profound love, connection, and gratitude. There was so much good that happened in that first part of their dialogue.

Sadly, though, at precisely that moment of grace, when she opened to her truth, her partner entered that beautiful space with criticism, and used her pain as an opportunity to judge her.

What was remarkable however, and a testament to the human spirit, was how, despite being visibly hurt, she managed to keep her heart open, and to continue trying to get what she really needed.  I must say too, that I could not help but empathize with that part of her that didn’t trust she could rely on anyone to truly help her.  The very thing she feared was happening as she was naming it; she was begging for his help, for this vulnerable and wounded part of herself to be taken care of and understood. But in place of that help, she was receiving judgment.

It was also quite sad to notice that her partner seemed to genuinely want to help her, to encourage her to relax, but was unable to skillfully express that intention.  He refused the opportunity to empathize with or comfort her vulnerability.  His suggestions were on target, but they came from the wrong side of the emotional fence.  His input was focused on obliterating the behavior that arose out of her distrust (and suffering), rather than taking care of the suffering itself.

What he wanted was, seemingly, the same thing she wanted, for her to feel like she could loosen her controls, feel less stuck and enjoy the process more. But the way he sought to accomplish that intention was to criticize her not-yet-awakened behavior and label her not-yet-perfected character, which didn’t help her (as she feared) and in truth, doesn’t help anyone.

Exposing our vulnerabilities and less evolved parts is scary and hard, and when we do have the courage to bring our challenges to the light, we want them to enter a safe space and be met with kindness. The great hope and potential of partnership is to provide this safe and curious space, where our less evolved parts can be understood for the fear and hurt that motivates them rather than being used to judge us for the kind of person they prove us to be.

It is not until the parts of us that are afraid, confused and weak are understood and supported that they have the space to relax, and ultimately, heal.

Every moment, every conversation, every interaction presents a choice: we can take the path of empathy or the path of judgment.  We can relate to the vulnerability in another with a sense of curiosity and compassion, or, we can relate with criticism and judgment.  In truth however, it not only feels better to receive kindness and support for our not yet perfected parts, but also to offer it.  Try it out for a day: be mindful of your moment to moment choices between empathy and judgment—not just for others but for yourself as well.  Try seeing from and through the vulnerability parts of yourself and others, and notice where it takes you, inside and out.

The post When We Need Empathy From Our Partner, But Receive Judgment appeared first on Nancy Colier.