How To Turn Off Your Hair-Trigger Automatic Defense System

By Steven Stosny

Except in the case of abuse or battering, the real barrier to a satisfying intimate relationship is not the personality, selfishness, ill-will, poor behavior choices, or the communication skills of you or your partner. The real enemy of your relationship is the hypersensitive Automatic Defense System (ADS) that has evolved between you.

Activated almost entirely without words, the ADS gets triggered unconsciously by body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice. By the time you're aware of any feelings, it's usually in an advanced stage.

The Good News and The Bad News

The bad news about your ADS:

· It runs on automatic pilot

· Like any habit, it's hard to break.

The good news about your ADS:

· You still care about what your partner thinks

· Your emotional well being is still intertwined.

You probably know couples who are largely numb to one another. They are not interested enough in the negative opinions of each other to be hurt by them. They don't hurt because they don't care.

Where there is pain, at least there is life, and a motivation to heal and improve. Following the motivation to heal and improve will help you disarm your ADS.

Disarming Your ADS

It's important to realize that in the vast majority of cases you inadvertently push each other's buttons. Even though it may seem that your partner is out to make your life miserable, neither of you likes the way you feel when your ADS gets triggered. Neither of you wants it to be triggered. The secret to disarming it is to see your partner as an ally in the effort rather than a nemesis.

To disarm your ADS:

· See it as a pattern between you rather than something your partner does to you

· Make a core value decision of what is more important to you - giving in to your ADS or disarming it

· Maintain the will to disarm it, even when it feels awkward or scary to do so

· Appreciate times of hypersensitivity and the enormous power of incendiary triggers

· Be compassionate to yourself and your partner

· Be allies against it - it's bigger than either one of you but not bigger than both of you

· Be able to say, "Oh, we're triggered again; let's set it right. You're important to me; I want us to be close."

One thing is for sure: Your ADS is not going to improve without determined effort. If you conscientiously try the above and still find that it is too difficult to break on your own, your ADS has become reflexive and habituated. In that case, you may need some internal reconditioning to eliminate it completely, such as that provided by my program called HEALS.

Published on January 14, 2009 by Steven Stosny