“I have been asked over 25,000 questions about relationships.
A client today asked me if I had to give one answer to all of those questions, if I had only one chance to answer all 25,000 questions, what would be my answer?
Here’s my answer.
“Become more aware of what is happening inside you, your body, your sensations, your emotions, your stories. Challenge all that you believe about our World.
Know that all distress, all trauma… comes from not understanding how your history, when unsafe, made you adjust and over-compensate, and you developed coping strategies with your imperfect parents.
Those coping strategies now mean that you cannot connect the dots between the current moment, your feelings inside, what those feelings are, how they relate to this moment, and how they relate to your past.
You have had to create meaning out of all the moments, starting young, when you were let down and not satisfied with those that were supposed to be the ones that cared for you and installed in you a safe or unsafe Universe.
Without this awareness inside, you react, and you set off the alarms in the person across from you… the alarms that they have not made contact with.
In some moments it might seem like you know what your feelings are, and what needs you have, and how those needs will help you.
You are often wrong.
Knowing what we need is very difficult.
What we usually need is deep understanding at a feeling level, and to have that, both partners must know how.
And not knowing how makes us human.
So both partners have to have the intention of wanting to learn how.
That is truly what is needed to begin.
If you are fighting about your frustrations, and not in contact with a much deeper need for understanding, then the softer primary emotions, like hurt, fear, sadness, joy… are not being made contact with.
Only gentleness with the above can heal.
It’s hard for me.
It’s hard for you.
And the person in front of you… it’s also hard for… and he/she would probably make better choices… if he/she knew how.
We must be taught this if it was skipped in childhood, with imperfect frustrated parents.”
– Derek Hart