There is a joke that goes like this: A young man loses an eye in battle, and gets a replacement wooden eye. After several months of hiding himself and staying indoors, a friend finally convinces him to get out and come to the local town dance. This fellow shyly watches everyone else dance until he spies this young woman sitting by herself who has a wooden leg. He thinks to himself, “hey, we’ve got something in common – wooden parts.” He finally gets the courage and asks her to dance. She gets very excited and replies, “Would I! Oh, would I!” So, he shouts back, “Peg leg! Peg leg!” and storms off.
Just as shown in the joke, relationships are always complex systems. What our partner does, influences and affects us in some way. This blends with all of our past experiences, fears, hopes, expectations, and emotional state. We then respond to our partner in some way. And how we respond, in turn, influences and affects our partner, who also brings all their past experiences, fears, hopes, expectations, and emotional state. Note that not responding is also a type of response. And when I say, ‘partner,’ I mean anyone who is in any type of relationship with us, buddy, coworker, family member, spouse, etc.
In our relationships, often times we communally create negative cycles that are repeated time and again. We often feel like we can’t break out of these patterns, and we feel stuck. This is all part of the system of a relationship. Of course, sometimes these repeating feedback cycles are instead positive, which is really awesome.
I’m going to talk about a tool that can help you break out of these negative patterns, but for this to work, you need to know some essential truths:
- The negative cycle can be broken by just one partner
- Both partners are 100% responsible for the pattern
- The partners get something out of the negative cycle, or they would stop
The truths all flow from the first one. If I change how I respond to you, it breaks a cycle. If you yell at me, and I yell back, we can start a yelling match. But if you yell at me, and I say, “thanks for the feedback, I will try to do better next time,” no yelling match. We can’t change our partner, and the good news is that we don’t need to.
If any one one partner can break the cycle, then both partners are 100% responsible for the negative cycle. We can’t blame the other person for it. We are equally responsible for creating it.
The 3rd, truth derives from the first two. If either partner can break the cycle but neither of them do, there must be a reason they keep repeating the cycle. One common possibility is that by provoking our partner, we then can justify to ourself why we treat them the way we do. We feel justified and tell ourself that they are deserving what they get from us. We get to alleviate guilt.
The root of the tool is to stop seeing our partner as a villain. We vilify our partner and attribute nefarious motives to them. The goal is to see them as a real person who has hopes and dreams and who needs love and respect just like we do.
So, here is the tool. There are 3 primary perspectives in any interaction.
- First perspective: This is our own perspective – what we see, what we feel physically, and our emotional state.
- Second perspective: This is our partner’s perspective – what they see, what they feel, and their emotional state.
- Third perspective: This is the perspective of an outside observer.
To break a negative cycle, we need to see our interactions with our partner from perspectives two and three. To see things from the second perspective, we need to take the time to find out how they are feeling. What are they getting from us? What body language are they perceiving from us?
A lot of us have heard talk about “walking in someone else’s shoes.” But rarely do we really take this seriously, and really take this second perspective. If we really take the effort to put ourself in their position, what insights might we uncover? Are we pushing a hot button in them? In our need to get what we want out of the relationship, are we withholding something they need in the relationship?
Then we take the third perspective. What would an outside observer perceive of the interaction. What feedback cycles would this person see us and our partner creating? What are the specific components of the cycle?
Once we regain compassion for our partner, and we have some insight into the negative pattern, now we can simply change our response. We can respond with more care and love, rather than a retaliation. This will likely be awkward and feel unnatural at first. And it may take many attempts before we see success.
Lastly, while you can break the cycle all by yourself, it may yet be helpful to ask for your partner’s help. You can tell them what you perceive of the negative cycle and that you don’t want that anymore. If they agree, you can ask for their help in breaking it. Perhaps you can agree to call each other on it when it starts up again.
If you liked this, you will love our weekend seminar coming up the first weekend of December. Stay tuned for more details.
