Part 2 - Test for Echo - Triggers are Echoes from Your Past
Test for Echo - Triggers are Echoes from our Past
Part 2: Fight, Flight or Freeze and co-regulation within and between couples
Infidelity and Betrayal of Trust is Trauma (PTSR - Post-Traumatic Stress Reordering)
Joe Whitcomb - Reboot Your Relationship 310-560-0726 joe@rebuildingconnection.com
Part 1 of 2: How to Heal trauma in relationship through safety, connection and intimacy
Hit the Circuit Breaker on Mutual Injury - Taking Charge of Your Triggers with Time Out
Connecting to One of 6 Our Core Human Needs - Admiration and Significance
Wabi Sabi Love - The Art of Imperfection and Loving the Imperfection
Reboot Your Relationship with Joe Whitcomb, Licensed Trauma-Informed Relationship Psychotherapist
Reboot Your Relationship with Joe Whitcomb 310-560-0726 or click here to book a FREE 30 Minute Consultation: https://calendly.com/rebootyourrelationship
"Raging against the dying of the light!"
Volatile couples are often passionate couples. "We love each other and have a good relationship, why we do end up in the same hurtful arguments?" The passion in your relationship is energizing but can also turn into fights accompanied by extreme anger. Often this results in one person withdrawing and both left feeling hurt and misunderstood. I help couples turn volatility into versatility. Volatility is explosive energy; versatility means having choices and tools to use at the right moment while keeping healthy passion alive. My couples are people who have strong relationships but need help breaking patterns that continue having them slip into a vicious cycle and vortex.
Some couples come committed to having their relationship thrive, others come with the intention of working out a divorce that is collaborative and respectful and includes a co-parenting plan that works for the whole family. I also work with couples to create and implement a healthy post-divorce family life.
When couples disagree, most repeat the following disruptive pattern: blame, criticize, defend, express contempt, distance, and emotionally or physically withdraw. Distress is not about how many fights you have or even if you resolve the fights. Distress is about how you fight, and whether you can retain some sort of emotional connection after the fight. While traditional types of marital counseling tend to be open-ended and seek to solve immediate problems, such as continual arguing, by focusing primarily on behavior change and communication skills, my approach hones in on increasing a couple's appreciation for how each partner feels in order to build trust and a secure base they can each rely on. In this approach, couples learn to recognize the negative (vicious) cycle and pattern 'complain-defend-complain-defe nd-complain-defend' they are stuck in, where one person criticizes and the other responds defensively or withdraws. Couples learn to identify the needs and fears that keep them in that cycle. They learn to identify and express their underlying emotions. Partners learn to empathize with each other and become more supportive of each other. Partners come together through the emotional needs they are each expressing, and can begin to comfort each other's needs.
Until a couple is able to identify, acknowledge and ultimately forgive injuries, an emotional gulf persists between them. No matter how dissatisfying things have become and how unhappy or angry partners may be, they each need to feel safe in coming together to work out their problems. Each partner needs to understand the emotions dictating their actions. The emotions behind perceived problems are the key to understanding each other.
Ever feel triggered and I stuck in a reactive tailspin despite all your efforts?
It is from this place — this hooked feeling — that we find ourselves responding in less than ideal ways. These are the moments when we may speak with venom, act out, or completely shut down when faced with challenging situations.
It is only later, when we've had the opportunity to calm down and reflect on our actions, that we wonder where we went wrong and how we could have chosen a more grounded response.
Today we are going to focus on learning that we have the power and freedom to Choose Something Different, we will examine and illuminate this nebulous process, clearly identifying where and when you have the opportunity to change your habitual response patterns. . . to choose something different. This is One of the principles and practices in our Reboot Your Relationship workshop we will personally walk you through the landscape of these deep emotional and internal thunderstorms and guide you through the tools to cultivate inner freedom and peace.
What does it mean to be “hooked”?
Maybe it's a comment from a friend about your new shirt or the dinner you just cooked. Maybe it's a look, a glance from a stranger. But something about it sets you off. . .
Your jaw or stomach tightens
Irritation, frustration, or anger begins to arise out of nowhere
Time speeds up
Your mind begins to race
Thoughts about the offending action begin flooding your head — judgments, defenses, accusations...
Whatever you call it . . . You're hooked and your 'Amygdala Hijacked!'
How do you choose something different?
Develop a subtle awareness for what it actually feels like to be “hooked."
Learn how to recognize the feeling when it first arises and “catch it" quicker
Interrupt the momentum of your habitual responses by slowing down your reactions and 'Notice-what-you-are-noticing!'
Establish alternative forms of responding that come from an expansive sense of self-worth, rather than a constricted place of self-protection.
Get the support you need to reinforce this change and make it a new and active part of your life.
Are you ready to get unhooked?
This exercise is a tool to help us discover the underlying emotions and tools needed to cultivate true inner freedom in your relationships.
“Getting to the heart of the matter…”
Joe Whitcomb - Reboot Your Relationship
Reboot Your Relationship with Joe Whitcomb 310-560-0726 or click here to book a FREE 30 Minute Consultation: https://calendly.com/rebootyourrelationship
This podcast is best for couples, relationships, PTSD and those who "rage against the dying of the light." My area of expertise consists in helping with difficulties in relationships & social relationships. Such difficulties include finding and sustaining healthy intimacy, healing from a painful break-up or divorce, recovering from major loss, and growing up in aversive childhood experiences, abuse and difficult circumstances.
Joe Whitcomb is a Licensed Trauma-Informed Relationship Psychotherapist.
Click or Copy this link to book a FREE 30 minute consultation to Reboot Your Relationship - https://calendly.com/rebootyourrelationship
Communication is a dynamic process of discovery that requires not just love and not just logic, but both love and logic, emotions and intelligence and your heart and brain. And the secret of this is that if you are more of an emotional/love/heart centered communicator your curriculum is to learn to add the logic, intelligence and our brain. And if you are more of a logically, intelligence and brain oriented communicator your curriculum is to learn to add the emotional, love and heart into the equation.
This podcast is best for couples, relationships, PTSD and those who "rage against the dying of the light." My area of expertise consists in helping with difficulties in relationships & social relationships. Such difficulties include finding and sustaining healthy partnerships.
Such difficulties include finding and sustaining healthy intimacy, healing from a painful break-up or divorce, recovering from major loss, and growing up in aversive childhood experiences, trauma and difficult circumstances. I am particularly suited to helping those who have cultivated their intellects and creativity but would now like to develop a greater awareness of their emotional world. (Neuroscience of Relationships, Emotionally Focused Therapy, Gottman Method, CBT, DBT and EMDR).
Joe's approach is far from being the silent, blank therapist. His approach provides the richest and most depth and exploration of how we love, work, and play. He works less as a teacher and therapist but more of an awakener and revealing what is already inside all of us that has been repressed or suppressed, process consultant and co-journeyman on all our heroes journey. I am also a 12 year military veteran and treat PTSD and transition. My bias is the relationships need 3 major elements to thrive and not just survive.
1. Shared Context
2. Shared Language and Tools
3. A Community and Tribe
Joe's core belief is that we are all born into relationship for relationship, love, connection, belonging. We learned relationships in the context of relationship. We have all experienced aversive childhood experiences and trauma where we have been hurt, wounded and betrayed in relationship by mental, psychological, emotional and sexual abuse, addictions, abandonment, violations of human connection and loss of sense of safety, security and protection. So, relationship is the crucible to heal our past trauma we re-enact and sometimes feel we can never get beyond the X-Factor. Relationship is the context we have been wounded in so it is only in the context of relationship that we can be healed, therefore, it is vehicle on the path and practice of love to resolve and repair.
Joe has developed brief 12-24 session relationship programs and intensives for couples to breakthrough the upper limit barriers that block them from experiences the love and intimacy both crave. My couples sessions range from 90-120 minutes and offer several couples weekend intensives for those wanting to go through a deep dive and Reboot Your Relationship.
Joe Whitcomb is a US Military Veteran and Rescuer, Relationship Coach/Trainer/Speaker, an attachment-based, emotionally focused therapist, and developer of the Trauma-Informed Relationship Psychotherapy Method which focuses on trauma (PTSD and Aversive Childhood Experiences ACE's) and the impact on relationships, mind, body, emotions, health in couple relations, families, blending step-families, military, veterans, first responders, and adult survivors of childhood abuse/trauma.
What Does it Mean to be Trauma Informed?
Noticing and embracing that trauma is the expectation, not the exception – all beings experience trauma, just different levels - it doesn't matter if you were or are drowning at 1 feet, 7 feet or 21 feet, you were drowning.
Awareness of how trauma effects the brain, body, spirit, sense of safety and security in the world
Asking “What happened to you?” versus “What’s wrong with you?”
Minimize re-victimization and facilitate recovery for all clients in the most culturally sensitive way we can, taking into account culture, race, gender, sexuality, spirituality, and other factors
Behaviors are understo
Health is Social. Life is about relationships...connection is why we are here and what gives us meaning and purpose to our lives. Joe Whitcomb, Licensed Trauma-Informed Relationship Psychotherapist
Copy this link to book a FREE 30 minute consultation - https://calendly.com/rebootyourrelationship
Connection is a human necessity. We need to feel loved and accepted by others, it is a driving force behind much of what we do. Perhaps no connection is stronger than the one we build with a significant other. In these monogamous, intimate relationships, we share our deepest selves and connect on levels never before experienced. This type of relationship can be one of the most exciting, enlightening, spine-tingling, adventures we embark on in our lives. It can provide us with a lifelong friend, confidant, and partner. But as we all know, these relationship require an incredible amount of work and dedication. They take empathy, compassion, understanding, and communication – all the building blocks of a strong bond. And over time, these building blocks can crumble and that bond can weaken. Throughout almost all relationships, each of us will at some point experience negative emotions such as resentment, jealousy, anger, and frustration. When these emotions emerge, it’s hard to work through them and they can force us to disengage and give up. There are a number of ways you can get your relationship back on track and continue to thrive as a couple, but you have to have the right tools. Well open up your toolbox, because this week, we are going to give them to you.
It only takes one person to change a dance.
– Joe Whitcomb
Joe Whitcomb brings more than 20 years of relevant experience to his work as a relationship coach and trauma-informed relationship psychotherapist. With a focus on helping couples connect and communicate at deeper levels, Joe provides effective tools for putting the fun and excitement back into relationships using his proven multidisciplinary approach. Joe earned a B.S. in Psychology with an emphasis in Neuroscience from the University of Maryland College Park. He holds a M.A. in Clinical Psychology and Marriage and Family Therapy from Pepperdine University and a Doctoral Candidate in Psychology and Marriage and Family Therapy from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Joe is the CEO of The Relationship Society and author of the new book, Reboot Your Relationship: Restoring Love Through Real Connection in a Disconnected World.
