“I can’t take it!” My friend Sophie is about to break up with her boyfriend (again). He’s a really sweet guy and they seem to adore each other, but every now and then something causes a deep hurt for Sophie, and when she tries to talk to him, to sort out her feelings, all hell breaks loose.
Have you ever decided to “talk” to someone about what you want and ended up pushing them away from you, making them LESS likely to meet your needs? Despite our best intentions, many of us—even those who have taken classes and read communication books—get stuck in cycles of self-deception and disappointing results.
I take it as a good sign that Sophie called me, because even though she feels like she’s throwing the relationship down the toilet right now, she knows I’m trying to talk her out of it.
She and I have been talking about it and she knows I get it. I understand that pain, pain from past trauma – when it comes up, it can make a person angry and destroy a relationship, just to relieve anxiety and inner turmoil.
Just from a life-changing book: Stay safe: keep yourself safe in an unsafe worldI feel like I have something to offer Sophie right now. In their powerful paper, authors Sue Marriott, LCSW, CGP, and Anne Kelly, PhD, lay out a roadmap for ensuring safety in communications; a way to help people talk through their overwhelming feelings without hurting each other or their relationships in the process.
The authors have synthesized the vast body of available scientific data on attachment and trauma, and they offer a user’s guide to show us how we get lost in our most important connections and how we can create more security to enjoy the loving connections we so desperately desire.
So when Sophie calls out to me in this unstable and destructive state, I use the book like the mouth of life, like a crash cart, to bring her back from the brink. And it works!
Before I describe HOW this book helped, let me share some background notes. Marriott and Kelly have combined modern attachment theory + relational neuroscience to come up with something new: the Modern Attachment Regulation Spectrum (MARS) – a framework based on the premise that attachment is not a fixed diagnosis, but a changing state. They offer a color system to help people identify their preferences and those of their partners. Note that the authors refer to this state of color as fluid and variable, rather than labels for self-diagnosis.
Blue represents a tendency to avoid or minimize emotions. Those who rely on Blue may have learned to cope by toning down their emotions and self-confidence. You can rely on Blue if you have a tendency when other people are upset. If you’re comfortable with someone on the blue side, you may notice that they become colder and avoid eye contact.
Red describes the anxiety response of increasing the volume of emotions when feeling hurt or abandoned. People who rely on Red when they feel threatened are emotional and quick to relieve their pain. You can identify with Red if you feel the consumer’s desire to resolve the conflict, and until you do, don’t focus on anything else. In a heated conversation with someone in Red activation, you may notice that they are more aggressive, accusatory, and intimidating.
There is also a “Tie Color” label associated with a “disorganized” attachment, which you can learn more about in Chapter 6 of the book.
The promised land is the “Green Zone”. The green zone is the space between the blue and red poles, where we feel connected and “safe”. This green “window of tolerance,” first called by Dr. Dan Siegel in his book The Window of Tolerance, is what we want to expand and expand within ourselves over time.
Despite our early traumas and regardless of what color we lean on, most people are often rational. However, it’s the moments when you and your partner are both excited and see through red and/or blue glasses that you can become completely unreasonable and destroy the sense of trust and safety between you.
Back to Sophie: Since she seemed to be in a “Red Activation” spiral, I pulled out the book and found Chapter 9: “The Red Activation Cooldown”. I actually read the chapter to her over the phone. With each paragraph, his breathing slowed. Within 20 minutes, she calmed down and returned to the realm of the Green Zone, where she could consider her boyfriend’s feelings as well as her own and the whole picture.
It was like a wonderful miracle. But it wasn’t magic; This is the science that Marriott and Kelly explain in their book in simple and understandable terms.
I’m happy to say that Sophie and her boyfriend are doing well to build more security in their relationship. I think personally Stay safe: keep yourself safe in an unsafe world An essential read for anyone struggling with communication in their relationship. And do we all sometimes, don’t we?
Here are 5 tips I learned from the book on communication safety education:
- Take a break to calm down. If you feel negative emotions in yourself or the other person during the conversation, take a break before continuing. Walking is rhythmic and unpredictable and can help calm your mind. You can also use the SIFT tool to get to and from the Green Zone:
- Notice the physical sensations you feel, such as the feel of your feet on the ground or the wind on your face.
- See if any IMAGES come to mind, clearly or quickly.
- Notice your feelings and name them.
- Be aware of your thoughts without letting them distract you.
- Use the breath to change your reactions. Marriott and Kelly recommend that if you lean on Blue and find yourself getting impatient or blacked out, focus on breathing to add oxygen and build up your energy. If you rely on Red and feel the strong emotions created by the urgency to “do something”, focus on long, slow breaths to lower your activation. If all of this is too much to remember, they recommend fake swear words! It becomes a real pool and helps to neutralize limbic activation. Even a minute of this intentional breathing can stop the physiological defense cascade.
- Engage your prefrontal cortex. You can use the rational part of your brain to imagine what you want to be. Imagine yourself being the best version of you, with all your strength and generosity. Or you can imagine your partner as a child who is truly traumatized and know that this is the source of their distorted reactions. By using your PFC in this way, you calm down the primal and defensive amygdala.
- Calm your partner’s activation. If your partner sees through red glasses (red activation) and feels hurt, small or abandoned, physically move towards them. You can use simple language like “I’m here” and “I’m glad you’re telling me this.” If your Blue partner is active and feeling trapped, give them space to leave the room for a bit if they feel they need time to regroup.
- show care. Send safety signals by speaking with kindness and respect. For an active partner in Red, they can be sensitive to feeling abandoned, so warm up your facial expressions and tone of voice. For a partner with Blue activation, a “statement of confidence” can help them remember that you see the good in them and defuse their stress. If it is true, you can predict the difficult data by confirming that they work well.
- Discover. Perhaps the most powerful tool we have is a sense of curiosity and concern for what is happening within us. If we resist the feeling of discomfort, it can keep us in cycles of unhappiness. Our avoidance of conflict can destroy the love in our relationships. As the authors say, “If we believe that we shouldn’t feel discomfort, we naturally try to avoid it. However, despite allowing ourselves to have pain and pride in being able to tolerate it and lose our minds, we are more likely to sit in the discomfort and explore it.” The better we can learn about our discomforts when they occur, the wider we can expand our beautiful green window of tolerance.
Within the window of tolerance, we can stay in touch with our feelings and desires, but see and hear what is important to our partner. This is a secure connection.
These safe communication tools can be used with everyone in your life, not just romantic partners. In turbulent times, it’s hard to imagine which skills could be more important. Having the ability to promote a sense of safety wherever you go will not only change your personal experience, but will have ripple effects on the people in your life.
Sue Marriott and Anne Kelly are presenting a free webinar on March 12th Attachment Myths: What the Real Science Tells Us. Learn more Here.
Discover Stay safe: keep yourself safe in an unsafe world.
Discover The Developmental Mindset: How Relationships and the Brain Work Together to Shape Who We Are.
