Marriage Therapy: Erica and Paul

March 17, 2013

Heart to Heart Marriages are based in a deep emotional and soul connection  between both partners. Yet feelings of anger, hurt, and disappointment can run rampant in a love relationship. These feelings can be used to enhance a marriage and assist the couple to rise higher in their emotional and spiritual vibration. Paul and Erica asked me, if that is the case, how is that when we are angry and I (Erica) am crying, our relationship can rise higher. I said, it is by identifying the source of these feelings. When feeling our feelings, it is imperative that each person is able to identify the source of their “own” feelings. The question to ask ourselves is the feeling about now or is it about an experience that has roots of another time and place.

Paul asks me, his marriage therapist and psychologist, what difference does it make where the feeling comes from? I just do not want to feel it. So please tell me how to get rid of it. Paul asks, can I just tell myself something, so I think differently and thus feel differently? I said to him, telling yourself something so you feel differently is called “intellectualization”, a common defense to dealing psychologically with what is at the root of the feeling. Feeling our feelings does not imply or create the permanency of this feeling in our heart. It is the not facing the “accurate” source of our sadness, hurt and/or anger, that allows the drive and the power of that feeling to take over the present moment.

Erica said, I feel so much about what happened to me as a child with my father. I also feel so much about what Paul says to me at times and how he seems so emotionally distant. How do I deal with all of this? We can deal with feeling so much about what happened to you as a child, by exploring the feelings you had as a child when you were abused. By dealing with your feelings, I guide you to breathe into your body and you report out what shows up as you focus “in” on your own body. Focusing in and observing our body can then show you  where the feeling is “held”.

I shared with both Erica and Paul, that as “old” feelings are faced, the distinction of what is a present feeling and a past feeling that is lingering becomes clear.

In the marriage counseling session, I suggested to both Erica and Paul that when going in to your own bodies, notice where does any pain show, i.e. does your stomach have a “rumbling” pain or do your legs ache in any  way? Then report out to me where any pain is and how that pain feels, i.e. is the pain a burning feeling or a tearing feeling.

This process I said to both Erica and Paul assists you each to gain clarity about is the feeling rooted in another time or is it about what either one of you feel that is solely about the present.

Erica and Paul each looked at me and said I do not get this. Paul said I have no clue how to go into my body and Erica said I do not want to go into my body.

More to come about their healing process in marriage therapy.