Responding Mindfully When Your Partner is Projecting On You
In my previous post on projection, I discussed two important skills for when your partner projects their “stuff” onto you. I encouraged awareness and empathy, and suggested that projection can paradoxically encourage connection; when you’re aware of what your partner is emotionally carrying, you can be more sensitive and speak directly to their emotional wounds, regardless of […]
Projection and Defensiveness: The 2 Relationship Toxins that Can Poison the House
Bob (not his real name) has been complaining to me about his wife, Jan, for months now. According to Bob, she humiliates him. In social situations, Jan behaves as if he doesn’t exist; she excludes him from conversations with other people and treats him like someone who’s utterly irrelevant. Bob often gets angry and accuses […]
How to Not Burden Our Kids With Our Own Emotional Stuff
Being a good enough parent on a practical, task-based level is a bit like doing an iron-woman triathlon—daily. But the real triathlon of parenting is the work that goes into staying awake and aware of our own emotional “stuff” and not putting that on or leaking that into our relationship with our kids. I recently witnessed, yet again, how […]
When the Truth Sets You Free
For years, I’ve had an ongoing conflict with a family member. It’s a conflict that I think many of us can identify with. The issue, in a nutshell, is that this other person believes that I should be providing something for her that (she believes) I am not providing. And, she believes that not providing this for her […]
Because Our Thoughts Make Sense Doesn’t Mean They’re True
Trying to find peace with the mind is like trying to open a lock with a banana… Carol came to see me with a serious agenda. She and her husband had had a disagreement the evening before our session and Carol wanted to explain to me why her husband had said what upset her, and […]