Rituals for Connection - Couples Therapy Better Treasures

March 21, 2023

Choose-Your-Own Fantasy Date Night–for the couples having trouble putting themselves back out there together.

This comes to you from working with a couple who have put romantic affection for one another on the back-burner. …for so long, it has been forgotten. And it is hard to reboot. To do so, fantasy helps. I encouraged them to reconnect to an earlier-less -cynical version of themselves. It doesn’t really matter if you go back to when you were 8 or 9 years old, the point is to reconnect to creativity, openness, your aliveness, and dreaming. Here is their homework assignment:

Your homework for the week is to dream about an ideal date night arrangement. You will want to think about what would really appeal to you about a plan together; what is the ideal plan for you?

How would you get started? How would it end?

Also thinking deeply about what is in the plan that is essential for making it a thing you would look forward to doing together. We will talk more about this in the coming weeks. This is a skill that takes time to develop. It requires introspection and self-awareness along with positive use of anticipation and fantasy. It might seem easy, but it really isn’t for many of us and for many reasons.

Next you can think about what are all the different ways in which you might achieve the essence of what brought joy about being in connection with your partner. In other words, aren’t there multiple ways in which you could bring those special moments to life? What are they?

Questions to help the process.

What about this fantasy matters to me? What would moving through this fantasy provide for me; how would I be receiving support from my partner–in what way? What are the elements of the fantasy that feel most achievable, which ones seem difficult to acknowledge? Is my initial reaction to reject what comes up for me? Won’t this get easier if I continue to put forth effort into it? What other feelings arise that protect me from possible disappointment? How do I Turn Towards what comes up for me? How do I shut myself down? What am I telling myself when I am shutting myself down? Is that helping me to grow? What might I need in order to feel more comfortable sharing and developing my fantasies? From myself? From my partner? What would help?

Remember to use Assumption of Similarity if in doing this exercise, you notice critical feelings arise about your partner. You might try writing them down. Usually there is a fear here, …AND one or several vulnerable requests, wishes, desires–these are the keys to healing, becoming okay to realize your unmet or unfulfilled desires and then taking courage to explore how you might allow yourself to acknowledge these wishes, dreams, needs, as well as how you might invite them to be known to and requested of your loving partner. There is a skill in introducing our needs, wishes, dreams to our partner. I can help you with that.

Looking forward to our next session.

Hope this helps!

February 5, 2021February 5, 2021

Investments in little, tiny, Commitment Behaviors Pay Big Relational Dividends

Commitment behaviors:

In line with the Gottman Method principle of “Small Things Often” commitment behaviors offer ways in which partners make deposits into the emotional bank account. They are also formalized rituals (shared meaning) created by partners during negotiation and reinforced in performing them time and time again with compounding valuation by partners.

A commitment behavior can be anything, from hanging up a towel, to making “eyes” at your partner from across the socially crowded room. They can be a bouquet of flowers on Friday or Monday. A phone-call to one’s partner after interacting with that particularly attractive co-worker. An agreement to disclose attractions to others along with the manner of so doing. A back-rub on Tuesday. Special dinners one counts on to celebrate a specific occasion.

The point is that they are formulated mutually, agreed upon mutually, and can be replicated regularly. They are the How we get from A to Z with regard to this or that or the other.

Pain, anger, disappointment, even joy may be the catalyzing agent to develop a commitment behavior, perhaps even a whole slew of them.

Walking you through, there is impetus for the creation of an agreed upon behavior. It comes along from the recognition or realization that life does not need to have this particular re-occurring suffering in it. What if we transformed our actions around this particular event/irritating transgression? What if we “cut a deal?”

Could we negotiate for something that would work for both of us and in so doing will engender appreciation for our partner/spouse? Careful self-aware mindfulness will prevent and work around any restrictiveness of such a deal and in fact, a good deal is good for everyone, not a 0 sum game! How can it work for everyone? This is where creativity, trust, and reliability count. Can we count on our partner’s positive attitude for the iterative nature of creating such a positively meaningful behavior?

Yes, if both partners arrive to the negotiation table fully resourced, and resolved, of sabotaging resentments. If so, then partners will want one another’s happiness; they will be motivated to remove obstacles or add a proverbial vault to our partner’s quality of life satisfaction.

No, if there are an accumulation of unforgiven injuries rolling around in the sub-flooring of our consciousness.

One can begin to find areas for commitment behaviors by moving through one’s day from waking up to going to bed. Look for parts of your day that you might dread and identify what it is about it that irritates. The same steps apply for annual, monthly, or weekly tasks, events, or celebrations. Imagine how you might ideally like something to go. That is where you begin. Create, create, create, and simplify to boil it down to what is essential here for you that might be influenced by your partner’s committed behavior.

Now you may be ready to recruit your partner’s participation in said ideal.

Now you will be ready for negotiation. You can learn more about negotiation here.

As consent-based negotiations require skill sets, working with a Couple’s therapist who specializes in NVL or Gottman Method Couples Therapy may be a valuable asset to hold until you’ve both honed the practices. After negotiations, accountability measures may be put in place. These are also consent-based negotiations.

Consent-based negotiations in short—allow us to cleanly ask our partner for their participation in what would bring us joy/relief/predictability/reassurance/surprise/etc. (i.e., any number of experiences we have self-identified). They are asks, without cajoling, manipulation, pressure, coercion, or intimidation.

What you walk away with may be iterative, but each effort along the way says, “I love you and am here for you in this life.” It says we are committed to one another’s positive experience of this life, that we participate and share in their joy and lived experience. Over and over again, it demonstrates: WE are Partners!

January 28, 2021January 30, 2021

The Magic of Rituals

Rituals build Your Family Culture. As such, they can be passed down offering a beneficial inheritance for the next generation, passing on your hard-won relational wealth!

All couples want to build a relationship that others take note of for its robust strength even during times of stress and pressure. Couples who have those relationships, don’t just luck out, they have been trail-building! What I mean is that they have numerous expedited paths to intimate connection. They can reach that space where they feel known and loved by their partner much faster than many other couples.

They reach that feeling of being Connected more quickly,…and they have more pathways to reaching that sense of “togetherness.” Why? What do they have?…RITUALS!

Your relationship might be just as good as theirs, but they have rituals of connection that serve to (just like the real physiological lift you get just from anticipating your first sip of morning brew) get them faster from (normal states of being) disconnected to happily, maybe blissfully connected. They are driving the fast car, while without rituals (Gottman’s Shared Meaning), your relationship may be driving the beater-car (nothing against the beater—it can still cross the finish line).

So what is a “Ritual” and how do we get them/implement them?

Great question/s!

Rituals can be established at many points of time across your day/night/week/weekend/month/year/etc.

They are just like your daily/routine rituals. They have a beginning, middle, and end, and you know what you get as a result. For example, brushing your teeth you might start by pulling out your toothbrush, and you end with running your tongue across your sparkling clean teeth, and internally smiling as you note your crisp breath. For a couple, a saying hello ritual will need to be replicated (hopefully) a bazillion times, so some tips are: keep it simple, make sure you like doing it, and appreciate the feeling you get when doing it and when it is complete.

Many couples create hello and goodbye rituals, daily check-ins. Weekly, there is the platinum standard date night. But there is nothing shabby about the weekly summit meeting my couples integrate into their busy schedules; it includes a celebration of what you made it through, an anticipation of what is coming up for you in the week ahead, and an accounting of what you might be needing to get through it on top. Finally, it ends with an appreciation for and acknowledgement of the ways your partner was supportive to you in the past: what works and more of that please!

There are so so so many opportunities to build couples rituals: I have lists of them I can send you if you reach out and let me know you are interested in receiving them.

To go about building your own (Shared Meaning) Rituals of Connection. You can read a book by William Doherty: The Intentional Family. Or you could ask a Couples Therapist who uses the Gottman Method in working with their couples, or you could take a stab at it by brainstorming, trying out various iterations and making adjustments until you find the right fit for your ritual in your coupledom.

Keep in mind, a successfully sound ritual is predictable. It has the following elements: (The Intentional Family–William Doherty)

- How/When/Where might it start (How do you know that it has begun: What signifies that it is starting)?
- What happens (who goes first, second, last)
- How/When/Where might it end (How would you both know it was done/over–What signifies that it is over?)?
- The development of the ritual requires equal contribution/participation. No one person creates it. Of course during development stage, one person can take the lead, but you should both be revising it as you go along so that it meets both of your needs/expectations.
- When you don’t perform the ritual–its absence is noted and lamented. Signals a good strong ritual!

We wish you the very best in creating and crafting Rituals that build Shared Meaning in your life as a couple. Or in your family if you are Single-Householding. Whatever the size and shape of your family, Rituals offer invaluable capital for building a richly rewarding journey. They are ways that you are There-For-One-Another! They are eagerly anticipated highlights; they are the dessert after the meal. They are the memories made and longed for; they are your treasure. Enjoy them!!

January 21, 2021January 21, 2021

4 Best Ways to Be Present for Others: Intentional Presence

Do you see me?

Do you care that I’m here?

Am I enough for you, or do you need me to be better in some way?

Can I tell that I’m special to you by the way that you look at me?

Photo by: Toa Heftiba

Post inspired by Maya Angelou

In every interaction with others of us, each of us arrive at the moment with the same unconscious questions. We answer each of these questions during the engagement.

Question 1: Do you see me?

We provide this answer in how we engage with the other:
Do we look at them when speaking to them, have we foreclosed on how we will respond to anything they have to say before they even say it?

In other words, have we predestined how they will respond to us and are therefore engaging with an object versus an emergent, iterative, changeable, subject?

Question 2: Do you care that I’m here?

We answer this with our greeting of the person before us. How do we begin our verbal and non-verbal hello? Or do we skip this step as we are interacting with a home appliance or app? Further, do we personalize our greeting in some way, calling up a moment shared in our last interaction which fosters a sense of continuity, an indicator that there is an actual ongoing relationship with this person even in the interim of our engagements. It says to them, “I know who you are, what you and I are about, that we have a history and that I care enough to remember it.”

Question 3: Am I enough for you, or do you need me to be better in some way?

This is an interesting question that we answer with our PRESENCE…
For instance, if the interaction’s purpose (read more about that here), calls for us to be giving someone feedback, requesting something of our partner (friend/child/co-worker/etc.), are we focused on the behavior we want to see in action or are we focusing on the behavior we don’t want to see (i.e., are we criticizing–coming through the back door of communication by not explaining what we want and instead forcing our partner to figure that out,…or even worse are we contemptuously relaying some message that if they were a decent person, they would somehow already know what to do without our explicit, illumination of our request)?

Succinctly, relaying warmth, direction, compassion and confidence about the other person (even when asking them to do something differently) is answering the third question with affirmation: I do not need YOU to be better, even when I am requesting something different of you.

Question 4: Can I tell that I’m special to you by the way that you look at me?

How is our body language, what does our affect (facial expression) say to them in the moments that we are engaging with them? Are we inviting? Dismissive? Enthusiastic? Compassionate? Rejecting? Kind? Eager? Engaging? Shut-down?

When we engage others, intentionally answering each of these questions (even 2 would be AMAZING!), we bring the full weight of our powerful presence to another. Our presence expressed in this way sets up the interaction for the best possible outcome and we free the communication from expectations. In that moment we relate to an aliveness in ourselves and in the other with whom we communicate/relate. All possibility, potentiality is tapped.

For more questions about Presence, or how to move into the presence by breaking the circuits of automatic behaviors, reach out to us; we are here to help!

Warmly,

Amanda Mason Psy.D. CAPSY26711

March 4, 2020March 4, 2020

Because Love Breathes

There is an in and out of love. There is a rest and action. There is a pulsating rhythm to life and so it also goes with love. You can rest in that. You can explore what are your needs in the ebbs and floes of your own love experiences.

Healthy relationships are buttressed by healthy secure attachments. Aligning your actions to what promotes secure attachments is essential. Saying a proper hello and goodbye goes a very long way in fostering a trustworthiness that the relationship continues to be just as strong and secure even when we are not together, even as we inevitably come and go.

Building routine and ritual in the quintessential comings and goings can be one of the biggest challenges and victories for couples. Even parents must wrest with the daily greetings and goodbyes inevitable in raising our children. But what does it mean to create a ritual around relational breathing? Around the ho-hum daily rhythms of the couple, or if you have kids, the hive?

With intention, with consciousness, we create beauty. Whereas with mindlessness, havoc and chaos reign. We all want a beautiful life. Here’s how to set yourself up for having one.

Develop your hello and goodbye rituals.

It only takes a split-second to realize that we want to be greeted when we come home, and be wished well when we depart.

How this looks is as individual as we are.

Try identifying or dreaming up your idealized version of your everyday greeting of one another.

How do you greet one another? How do you come back together?

Now look at what you would most like to receive before leaving the ones that you love.

How do you depart from your beloved?

Take it a step further and extend the benefits of this exploration.

Anticipate your longings for the times when you and your partner are not together?

What do you need when you are away?

What does your partner need when away?

A warm hello and a pleasant goodbye not only impart fondness but also leave us with the sense that we are desired and a part of something greater than ourselves. No matter what upset may be lingering unprocessed, warmth and connective efforts go a long way to reducing relational stress and creating a sense of attachment security and safety.

In thinking back, what do you recall have been the most pleasant welcoming and departures? What would increase your sense of safety and connectedness in these simple yet powerful rituals?