Live your most productive life.
Discover how to create truly synergistic relationships.
Part 2 in a sequential series.
Hi, and welcome!
In the last post, I said we’d be trekking together on the emotional intelligence hills. On the climb you will be challenged to explore new ideas and concepts, and to be courageously honest with yourself as you integrate those concepts on a personal level.
My goal is to help you live your most productive life by helping you learn how to create truly happier, healthier, and more synergistic relationships.
Personally – I’d like to share why I chose the trekking analogy. I chose it because it best describes the many challenging chapters in my own life. Sadly, that journey included a failed marriage and subsequent difficult relationships with my children. Working through these failures brought me to psychotherapy as a patient. I needed to know why I had failed. In the therapy process, I learned a great deal about myself which ultimately motivated me to change careers and transition out of a successful twenty-year corporate career to become a psychotherapist. Thank you, Joyce and Marty – who helped me find the courage to ask the hardest question “what was my part?”
At times, the emotional intelligence hills can be demanding, but please stay with me as we take this journey and try not to get discouraged! The prize is worth the price!
Your Personal Case-Study
So where do we start? I recommend starting your journey by thinking of a relationship you would like to improve. In Post #1 I suggested that you create two buckets, one each for your “good relationships,” and “not so good”. Now, let’s pick one from the “not so good” bucket as your personal “case study.” The idea is to apply the concepts and techniques that we discuss to this relationship and see if they make a difference. It is completely up to you if you decide to tell the other person what you are working on. You might even want to do this together?
FYI – I will be referring to a two-person relationship as a “dyad”. This term is shorthand for describing two people interacting & relating together. Often, I will refer to the two people in a hypothetical dyad as “A” & “B”.
“Co-Creation” & “Mutual Impact Dynamic”
Key Concepts:
The first key concepts I want to unpack are “Co-Creation” and “Mutual Impact.”
Typically, each person in a dyad is aware of being impacted by the other in the moment. But unfortunately, we also have difficulty recognizing the impact we are having on the other (but more about that in later posts…). This impact is either positive, negative, or neutral. Simply put, either “Yum,” “Yuck,” or “Hmm.” These terms describe the initial feeling reaction each person (“A” or “B”) has in the moment.
(I learned this concept from R.M. Billow who spoke at my commencement from Post Graduate Group Therapy Training program and have embraced it since.)
Self Time:
To illustrate further let’s explore this concept on a personal level:
1. Let’s unpack “Yum” – Think about your chosen case-study dyad and recall a time when you felt “Yum” with the other person. Was it because they just complemented you or said something they like and appreciate about you? Did you feel seen, valued, and understood? Did you feel more connected and safer? And how did you respond, that is what did you do with your feelings? Did you return a positive with a positive (Yum = Yum)?
2. Now let’s unpack “Yuck” – Can you recall a moment when that person was saying something that impacted you negatively (Yuck)? Did you feel misunderstood, hurt, or possibly shamed? How did you respond in the moment? Did you step back to protect and distance yourself? That is, what did you do with your feeling? Did you return the negative with a negative (Yuck = Yuck)? How did the other person react & respond to what you did?
The above illustrates the concept of a mutual impact dynamic. Typically, Yum begets Yum, and Yuck begets Yuck! That is, we react and respond to each other co-creating the dyadic dance unique to this relationship.
Person Focus:
To deepen your personal experience and integration of this concept, let’s play this “Empathy Game”.
Recognizing Your First Feeling?
Yum, Yuck, Hmm
As you scroll through these images describe your first feeling reaction as specifically and spontaneously as possible. Don’t linger or overthink this…
1. Does this picture impact you in any way?
2. If so, how does it impact you – Yum, Yuck or Hmm?
3. Do you know why?
“The Dyadic Dance”
Top Take-Aways:
1. Every relationship is a unique, co-created dyadic dance where we are impacted > react > and respond.
2. When analyzed, the dance can reveal very complex, subtle, and unconscious patterns of habitual mutual impact.
3. Each dyadic dance in your life is unique to you and the other person in this dyad.
4. Improving a relationship requires greater awareness of the co-creation process.
5. First, become more aware of how the other is impacting you and your initial feeling reaction.
6. Then be aware how you respond and the impact you are having on the other.
7. How do they react and respond to you? (We will explore this more in the next post – Attunement to Other . . .)
This post just begins to unpack how complex interacting/relating can be and why relationships can be so difficult! But this is enough to consider for today, hope you found it helpfull and interesting.
Looking forward – Coach Chris
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