Love It Up with Emotional Tools for Sharing Vulnerabilities and Building Trust

sagescrub (64)in #naturalmedicine • 5 years ago

We are sagescrub and Idyllwild, a couple madly in love, here to bring more love to the blockchain via the #naturalmedicine love train.

Celebrating Our Love

This post, inspired by Love It Up challenge, is a nice way to celebrate our love, because we get to brainstorm together how we want to present some aspect of Natural Medicine in our relationship. We are going to do something we have never done before, which is each one of us is going to take turns writing paragraphs - one will pick up where the other left off; starting here! And it will be a mystery to you who wrote what!

We have been together 16 years now and have celebrated our love in many different ways. The ways we celebrate often evolves with our relationship.

Our 16 years hadn't always been smooth. In our younger years, we were quite idealistic in our ways of approaching love and marriage. When we had arguments, we didn't know how to reconcile our differences and often, we'd just end our fights in bitterness and anger. Eventually, this led to our separation a couple years ago. But this rift became a way to find our way back to ourselves and to each other.

During our separation and time apart, I realized that our feelings for each other continue to be true (we both secretly missed each other a lot the whole time), but I also learned that we could not simply rely on those feelings alone to overcome our problems. For our love to grow, we also had to learn to grow together, rather than apart.

Before our divorce we had fortunate opportunity to visit with a relationship counselor that gave us some tools to help communicate with each other. These tools are still helping us learn how to communicate in ways that we didn't know was possible just a few years ago. We still get defensive, angry, sad or frustrated but now we have more tools to work through those emotions, which builds more trust. With more trust the communication gets easier and more enjoyable! So we'd love to share them with you all.

Emotional Check-In

This is the practice of asking the question "How are you feeling?" and allowing the other person the space to examine their emotional experiences. This includes listening and acknowledging what the other person feels. We often go through our days feeling many things, but not really acknowledging what those feelings are. If we are not conscious of what we feel, then we can very easily blindly react to triggers that we didn't even know were there.

When we behave in a reactionary way, it creates a very tense environment where one person feels like they're walking in a mine field and the other person feels alone, afraid, and unseen. Thus, both are drawn further apart. The practice of listening to our feelings goes much further than communication. It really teaches each of us how to tune into our own emotions. It's amazing how simply acknowledging what we feel can change how we feel.

Sometimes asking questions like "what is wrong?" can be well meaning but can trigger defensiveness. To the other person it might sound like "What is wrong with you now, dear?". Looking at my own reactions, my defensiveness can represent a lack of safety. If I don't feel like I am in a safe space to share vulnerable feelings, reacting defensively keeps me safe without exposing feelings.

Naturally I don't want to be attacked, belittled, put down, or feel that I am being too emotional. With a safe space I can share a vulnerable feeling and build trust with my partner, and ideally not feel judged. As I build more trust the next time I practice an emotional check-in it gets easier to share more vulnerabilities. My favorite thing about emotional check-ins is that it can be a way to say "I want to tell you how I am feeling." or it can be a way to ask "How are you feeling?"

An emotional check-in involve both parties taking turns or it can be just one person who wants to share. It can be prompted by the person wanting share or it could be prompted by the other party who senses that a check-in may be helpful for their partner. Emotional Check-ins can be rituals; every morning or every week. Or they can be spontaneous and as needed. They can be used to share positive or negative emotions. Certainly the other party doesn't have to agree to an emotional check in at that very moment if they do not feel like they can offer the presence required to listen and receive.

Truth Speak

First, I want to share that this is a very difficult practice and it took us many months and multiple efforts before we felt comfortable with it, but it is well worth it! Truth Speak is about creating a safe space in which you can share your deepest truth, no matter how hurtful you think this truth might be to other person.

And yes, the truth often hurts, a lot. At first, I couldn't help but get very defensive, and it would lead to a disastrous Truth Speak that left both of us feeling less willing to do it again. A couple months ago, our relationship counselor (now friend), came to visit us, and we had the opportunity to ask for more advice and clarifications.

She gave us some great tips:

Use a word or phrase to let the other person know you are about to say something truthful that can possibly hurt them. This is super important because you don't want to ambush the other person. It's best to ask permission for a Truth Speak.
Share only one Truth Speak at a time.
It's ok for the person who receives the Truth Speak to respond with, "That was really difficult for me and I need time to process it."

Truth speaks don't have to be about the relationship, although they often are. They could also be about something outside of the relationship that is difficult to emotionally process, like something that is happening at work or with family, etc. "Hey, can I truth speak you right now?" is the equivalent to asking "I have something important I want to tell you and I'd like you to provide a safe space so that I can be vulnerable and share openly. Can you do that for me?"

The person being asked has the opportunity to accept or decline. They can say "No, I am really preoccupied right now with work, can we touch base later this evening?" or "I am still emotionally processing our last conversation and I need a little time before I can provide a safe space for your truth speak" or "Yes, I would be happy to hear your truth speak".

Here are a few more guidelines/examples about truth speaking:

The truth speaker should never take advantage of the safe space provided by a truth speak to attack the other person. For example "I was really hurt by what you said last night, because your tone of voice made it feel like you were belittling me. I need you to know that this helped me realize that I am needing from you support and encouragement." would be upholding the safe space of truth speak, while "You were such an asshole last night. I can't believe you made me feel like shit, that is just like you to be that way." is attacking and betraying the trusted space.
The receiver of truth speaks should be willing to accept the truth, even if it is difficult to hear. It important to honor a difficult truth speak by letting the truth sink in and hearing where the other person is coming from. Its not ok to follow up with another truth speak right away and say "Hey ... truth speak... your truth speak made me feel so and so!!"
The truth speaker should always honor the recipient and never expect that they must hear a truth speak at that very moment. Asking for a truth speak is a request, not a demand.

When we remember to honor these simple rules, Truth Speak came more easily to us. There are still times when we struggle with being completely vulnerable and letting down our guards. Our defenses have been hardwired into us over time, so it also takes time to re-wire. It's very empowering though when we are able to overcome our very own defenses and really let the other person in.

Both of these techniques - Emotional Check In and Truth Speak - taught us that it's only when you are truly vulnerable that you can truly be loved.

Rewarding Ourselves!

In our last lives we got into the habit of expecting from each other, in so many aspects of our relationship. Like expecting the other to cook, clean, drive the car, give massages, and more. Now we try our best to give or not give, instead of expecting. I like to massage my partner when they are stressed out or feeling tension. This is often right after a truth speak or an emotional check in to help show compassion. Offering a massage isn't always about relieving tension, sometimes its purely about giving love. In any case our favorite way to massage is by candlelight, with or without incense.

And our favorite massage oil to use is St. John's wort oil because it smells good and the plant has such amazing soothing and uplifting properties. Coincidentally, @mountainjewel just began offering St. John's Wort oil in their Mountain Jewel store on Homesteaders Co-op! You might want to pick some up for steem or usd this Valentines Day to have on hand when you feel like sharing your love and giving a massage to your loved one :)

st john's wort oil

Natural Medicine Love it Up

This post is our response to the sexy Valentine's day inspired Love It Up Challenge put on by our friends @walkerland and @riverflows over at @naturalmedicine. Full challenge announcement and rules can be found here.

love it up

You're not too late to enter if you get your own challenge entry in lickity split, I heard that they are accepting last minute/a little bit late entries due to Valentines Day being celebrated at different times around the world!