Forming New Habits Of Emotional Response
By Steven Stosny
It's worth noting that gaining insight about how emotional associations may have formed originally does nothing to change them once they're habituated.
Change of an habituated sequence of neural firing requires an alteration of the sequence to become habituated. In other words, just understanding how a habit may have been formed won't change it. Forming a new habit will.
Forming new habits of emotional response requires the practice of "emotion regulation skill".
The practice of emotion regulation skill can help break the cycle of doom. That means when disappointment makes you feel devalued and makes you want to devalue your partner in return, which, of course, causes retaliation, in one form or another, from your partner. Only when this cycle is broken, can love be free to grow and flourish.
As long as the love is more important than the disappointment, you can work out just about any problem between you. It is only when disappointment seems more important than love that relationship problems become toxic.
To stop hurting the ones we love, we must be able to keep disappointment from stimulating fear and shame, which, in turn, will prevent problem resentment and anger from starving relationships of the compassion that would rejuvenate them.
Practice Disappointment Regulation
Try the following with disappointment outside of a love relationship:
1. Recall a time when you felt disappointed, without feeling devalued (e.g., your stocks went down, your team lost, your favorite politician didn't get nominated, you missed a flight due to traffic, or you made an error on your tax return).
2. Notice that the feeling of disappointment, though quite unpleasant, is temporary and not at all like deeper and more profound feelings of inadequacy or unworthiness of love.
3. Think of your strengths and resilience, your competence and caring.
4. Do one of the following:
* Improve - do something that will make either the situation, your experience of it, or the meaning you give to it a little better.
* Appreciate something about the world around you.
* Connect to someone you love, to something spiritual, to a community, or to strangers on the street. (It doesn't have to be an interaction or any overt behavior; connection is a mental state.)
* Protect someone you love from distress.
5. Feel, "I'm disappointed, but I'm okay."
Practice Disappointment Regulation with Love Ones
When it comes to disappointment with loved ones, practicing the skill is quite a bit harder and a hell of a lot more important. Do the exercise above, recalling (in #1) disappointment this time about your partner, e.g., his/her "messiness" or distractions. Add the following steps to the exercise above:
6. Practice binocular vision - try to see the interaction or problem through your partner's eyes at the same time you see it through your own.
7. See yourself through your partner's eyes.
8. Honoring your partner's perspective, ask for the change you want.
9. Feel: "I'm disappointed by the problem, but I love you."