– How to Reflect Before We Speak: Nashville Counseling and Psychotherapy

Last Updated on July 28, 2024 by Chris Roberts

By: Chris Roberts, MACP, LPC-MHSP (Licensed Professional Counselor) Two Trees Counseling Nashville

In this article for Two Trees Counseling Nashville, I will continue the thread of the past few articles.  It may be helpful to look through those to get a good jumping off point for entering this conversation.  The articles are: How to Think When We are Stuck, and Doing the Hard Work of Connecting, and How to Connect When We are Hurt.

HOW DO WE START THE CONVERSATION?

In the previous posts, we have discussed the importance of understanding the concept of Metabolization.  To put it simply, we must take the full experience of the moment (not try to reduce it, or talk ourselves out of it, or even over-inflate it’s importance) and try to break it down into some manageable form in order to use the reality of the experience in order to connect with our partner.  This usually starts with some form of reflection, and particularly asking ourselves questions about the moment and what it means to us.  Questions like, “What exactly am I feeling in this moment?” and “What am I making up about this moment?” and “Is there anything from this moment that reminds me of patterns or situations of my past (before I met my partner)?”

Typically, these questions will help get us out of the heat of the moment.  However, this does NOT mean removing the emotion.  The emotion, or the feeling(s), we are noticing in the moment are vital pieces of information that lead us to connecting deeper with ourselves, and hopefully, with our partner.  Oftentimes what happens (yes, even with men), is that we take some raw emotion or feeling and attempt to communicate with our partner without any reflection of what that feeling “means” to us.

PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE: WE ALWAYS MAKE UP STORIES ABOUT OUR FEELINGS

Stop and think about this for a minute.  Do you recognize that you always make up a story about a feeling or emotion you are experiencing?  If we didn’t, then ALL we would have to say to our partners or loved ones would be: I feel sad.  I feel sad.  I feel sad.  (or fill in any other emotion.)  If we didn’t make up a story, all we would be able to do is say our emotion over and over and over again.  Of course we don’t do that!  Ironically, I would also argue that very few of us are good at actually naming or being in touch with the raw emotion we are feeling.  Hence, most of us, when upset or overwhelmed will say things like, “I feel like you would rather be at work than come home to me.”  This is NOT a feeling!  This is a story that we have made up about our partners intentions, or motivations, that don’t connect at all with what we are actually feeling.

PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE: EMOTIONS DRIVE ALMOST EVERY DECISION WE MAKE

For most people, but especially true for the generalized stereotype of men, we are quite unaware that emotions are at the heart of most decisions we make in our lives.  Not only this principle, but in most basic counseling sessions or self-help books about relationships, we are taught to use “I” phrases, rather than “you” phrases.  This is a helpful first baby-step in being able to communicate better with our loved ones when we are hurt.  However, this communication strategy typically gets turned into statements along the same lines as the example I listed above, “I feel like you would rather be at work than come home to see me.”  Now, I imagine, if you are reading this article, you aren’t in the heat of the moment of an argument or conflict with a loved one.  And so, you’re probably able to read between the lines and imagine what that partner is meaning or trying to say with their statement.  Can you hear the hurt in it?  Probably!

WHY COUNSELING IN NASHVILLE, TN CAN BE HELPFUL

In many ways, it is precisely because you aren’t in the heat of the moment with your own turmoil that you can hear the hurt, and the wish, and the longing in the hypothetical statement I listed.  Unfortunately, conflict doesn’t work like that.  Even more so, it goes along the same line of thinking that I just laid out: If we’re able to reflect and ask ourselves some questions about the experience, (if done in good faith) we will almost always lower the intensity of the feeling we are having.  By lowering our intensity, we allow ourselves the opportunity to open up more options about the story we are making up about the event.

This is one of the basic principles of the counseling room: clients usually enter (at least a little) more calm than they were at moment the event took place.  If not that, then just being in the presence of a third party can help us move into a more reflective place, because we are aware someone else is watching us…experiencing us.  Distance from the event itself and being more aware of our presence are 2 key goals of counseling and the ability to have a more productive conversation with our loved one when we are hurt.

IMPORTANT TAKEAWAYS IN COUNSELING FOR INDIVIDUALS IN TENNESSEE

• We must be willing to consider that we make up a story about every situation that happens in our lives: especially when we are hurt!
• We must take into account that almost every choice we make in our lives is driven by emotion.
• By being able to recognize our basic emotions when we are hurt, we are more likely to able to stay in touch with our pain, and not take out frustration or anger on our partner.
• Whenever we can pause in the moment of our hurt and self-reflect with questions like, “What exactly am I feeling,” and “What am I making up about this event?” and “Have I felt this at some other point in my life before I met my partner?”, then we are already doing the good and hard work of metabolization!
• Metabolization means we use the experience fully! We can extract the good and helpful and beneficial things from the moment, even though there has been hurt or disappointment!

IS COUNSELING JUST FOR RELATIONSHIPS?

Well, in one sense, Yes!  But, what I mean by that is that most events in our lives that cause us hurt or confusion or disappointment are typically connected to another person.  Not always, of course, but ironically, somewhere in the midst of the story we are making up about the event we end up “blaming” a person…sometimes (more often than we’d like to admit) the person is ourselves.  Especially those events or situations that cause us to ruminate or get stuck.

IS CHRIS ROBERTS AVAILABLE FOR COUNSELING?    

Chris has been working in the Nashville, TN area for 15 years and has a thriving private practice located on Music Row close to the campuses of Belmont University and Vanderbilt University. Chris is a licensed professional counselor in the state of Tennessee and typically has availability to work with new clients, depending on the flexibility of their schedule.  If you would like to book a session, or if you simply have questions, Chris would love the opportunity to speak with you.  Chris can be reached at: chris@nashvillecounselor.net or (615) 800-9260.