Polyamory, page 18
Challenges with the first aspect of differentiation can show up in many ways. The following are a few examples:
Difficulty identifying individual unique thoughts separate from the thoughts, opinions, and belief systems of others who are important to you or stakeholders in the decisions at hand.
Difficulty identifying individual feelings separate from the feelings of others and/or difficulty resisting “catching” or adopting the emotions or thoughts of others.
Difficulty identifying preferences or desires. (If someone wants you to voice an opinion, are you able to generate one?)
Difficulty separating thoughts from feelings, making it hard to figure out what’s going on internally.
Believing you have no thoughts, feelings, or desires.
Preferring to be a chameleon, shifting thoughts and desires to match those of others around you.
Struggling with the concept of disagreeing with certain people, organizations, or belief systems.
Judging oneself for having thoughts, feelings, or preferences.
If you have a client with little practice recognizing their own feelings, beliefs, and preferences, it will take some work to develop those skills. The good news is that the payoff is huge, and it gets much easier with practice.
Exercise: Identifying Thoughts and Feelings
If you have little practice identifying your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and preferences, you are in for a treat. When you get good at knowing what you think and want, it’s good for not only you, but also everyone around you, and your relationships. Anyone who cares enough about you to want to know you actually wants to know what you think and how you feel, even if it is sometimes a little hard to talk about or involves disagreement.
I think it’s useful to draw a distinction between thoughts and feelings. People often confuse the two, in their actions if not in their language.
Some people feel their emotional reactions in physical ways. For instance, some people feel a knot in their stomach when they feel anxious or afraid. Some people feel an expansion in their chest when they experience joy. If you have a body sensation that seems to be linked to an emotion, the body sensation is a cue that it might be a good time to ask yourself what emotion you are experiencing.
Thoughts are different. Thoughts lead to feelings, but thoughts on their own aren’t usually felt in the body. Thoughts emerge from the brain. They express something about ideas and beliefs or how concepts are connected to one another, but they aren’t, on their own, sensations.
However, oftentimes thoughts and emotions happen at the same time or close to one another. This is because thoughts create emotions, and sometimes emotions lead to thinking. We often have trouble disentangling the cause from the effect. For instance, if I tell myself, “I’m never going to be able to do this,” I’m creating an emotion of hopelessness or anxiety. I could change that thought and get a different emotional response. For instance, I could tell myself, “I’ve got this! I can do it! One step at a time!” Then I would probably experience a more uplifted feeling of hope, determination, or increased focus.
Sometimes emotions just happen, seemingly arising from nowhere. Then we often come up with a thought to make some sense of the emotion. For instance, I might wake up feeling a little blue and then tell myself, “I’m not going to be able to do what I need to do today,” which is a thought that matches the emotion. I might also ask myself, “Why me?” or “Why do I feel this way?” and get into a thought loop about why I feel blue. In both cases, I could choose to think a different thought and deliberately create a new emotion. I could also hold space for the emotion and just be with it but not allow myself to pile on with a bunch of negative thoughts or a negative story to go with the feeling.
Can you see how, in each case, you (and your clients) have an option for creating a different emotional experience by choosing a different thought? Feelings are strong and often overpowering, but they are shaped by our patterns of thinking, which we have the power to change.
I created a worksheet to support exploration and developing awareness of thoughts, feelings, and preferences, and beginning to learn to have some control of them; you can use it to develop skill with your own emotion-generating process or help your clients (see the “Daily Practice Identifying Thoughts and Feelings” worksheet in appendix B).
This kind of daily practice will help develop the ability to identify what you’re feeling, separate feelings from thoughts, understand how your thoughts and feelings influence one another, and gain some control of how your thoughts end up shaping your feelings. Those are the skills that underpin the first and most foundational aspect of differentiation of self.
Additionally, throughout part III, “Polyamory in the Therapy Room,” you will find specific suggestions for how to work with every aspect of differentiation in various situations.
The Second Aspect of Differentiation: Can You Hold Steady while You Share Your Truth?
The second part of differentiation is holding steady while expressing unique and individual thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and preferences to someone else. The goal is to communicate about one’s own perspective as clearly, deeply, and fully as possible, regardless of the reaction from the listener. It’s important to know that even if the listener is doing a terrible job, it is still possible to hold steady and continue to express yourself clearly and fully.
The person speaking has a great deal of power over how the communication goes. One perspective is that it is important to spit it out, no matter how messy it is, and cleaning it up can come later. In a sense, that’s true; for a person who struggles mightily just to speak up at all it is probably a necessary starting point. But it’s not the only option. There are ways of expressing ourselves that are more likely to result in defensiveness on the part of the listener, and there are ways to communicate that make it a lot easier for the listener to stay steady and really understand what is being said. With practice, it serves us better to become more skilled at how we speak up.
Ultimately, the goal is for each partner to get so good at maintaining emotional boundaries and cultivating curiosity that they can stay steady and be a leader in the conversation even if the other person is really struggling. But none of us starts there. Managing ourselves in difficult communications is a sophisticated skill set and involves a lot of personal development and practice.
If the communicator is mean, blames or shames their partner, insists on ultimatums, or avoids taking responsibility for their own perceptions, thoughts, and actions, it is not reasonable to still expect that their partner be warm, curious, engaged, and have a lot of stamina for the interaction and warm feelings for the communicator. The second part of differentiation of self has to do with communicating about ourselves, and the success of the communication to some extent depends on how we do it. Empowering the communicator to be clear about their ideas, thoughts, feelings, perceptions, preferences, desires, and beliefs is important and exciting work.
Difficulties with the second aspect of differentiation of self can show up in a number of ways. Some examples include the following:
Losing your temper easily, dissolving into tears, being overly dramatic, or shutting down when you meet any resistance while expressing yourself.
Lying, distorting, or omitting the truth when you know (or assume) it’s not what your partner wants to hear.
Avoiding difficult conversations.
Not being clear about what you think, feel, believe, desire, and perceive before you engage in the conversation, so your communication is convoluted, confused, confusing, or otherwise difficult to engage with.
Holding in your emotions until you reach a boiling point and explode—as if you have to reach the level of being “angry enough to speak the truth.”
Framing desires as needs to communicate emphasis or degree of importance (e.g., “I need you to agree with me about this”), rather than communicating a desire and then adding emphasis in the form of a feeling (“This is what I think, and it feels very important to me because of x, y, z.”).
Being passive when it comes to expressing an opinion and then expressing dissatisfaction with how someone else took action.
Making promises you know you can’t keep.
Being unclear about your part in a situation or avoiding taking responsibility for your own thoughts, feelings, preferences, actions, and perceptions.
No doubt you’ve seen plenty of clients who exhibit these patterns in one way or another. It’s easy to see how these habits can wreak havoc on a relationship, and yet people are usually just doing their best with the limited tools they have. They may never have been told that it’s okay for them to have preferences. They may have been trained from an early age to smooth things over and never rock the boat with an unpopular opinion. They may not have gotten the message that every healthy relationship involves a certain degree of tension and conflict, and that it is not a sign of emergency when partners disagree. As a therapist and, for that matter, as a participant in your own relationships, you have the opportunity to demonstrate that handling tough topics doesn’t require passive aggression, deception, blaming others for one’s own experience, or stifling our true self.
One way you can help your clients and others around you develop the second aspect of differentiation of self is by modeling it yourself. Your presence can become a place where others experience both speaking and hearing difficult truths in safety. With an individual client, you can provide a safe environment for them to practice getting in touch with and sharing their honest thoughts, feelings, and so on, as well as practice hearing you express some challenging perceptions you have about areas in which your client might be blocked or struggling.
With a relationship or couple client, you can help create a space for the truths and perceptions of each partner to be both spoken and heard, and support all clients in holding steady as they either voice or receive information about others. In any kind of therapy, if your client is courageous enough to provide you with pushback or feedback, you can model differentiation by holding steady, getting curious, and thanking them for trusting you enough to share their thoughts and feelings.
You don’t have to be a therapist to model differentiation. In fact, how you show up in your relationships is extremely important. Becoming reliable and steady with your ability to express genuine curiosity, as well as taking responsibility for your own thoughts, feelings, and preferences rather than blaming them on others, will elevate the tone of all of your interactions and show others what is possible.
The initiator/inquirer (I/I) process (see chapter 9 and the worksheets in the appendixes) is a great exercise for helping people practice sharing and receiving challenging information in active, compassionate ways that move the conversation forward. I use it in session and in my own relationships of all kinds. My clients use it at home, too. It provides a foundational structure for any communication, particularly when the discussion is difficult for one or some participants. One of the great strengths of the I/I process is that it encourages depth when exploring a subject. Oftentimes, people, left to their own devices, make the mistake of staying on the surface of the topic, rather than going deep. It might seem like depth would be more difficult for the listener to receive gracefully, but the opposite is more often true. Providing enough depth helps the listener access empathy for the speaker. A full communication should cover not only what was perceived to have happened, but also the feelings that occurred for the person who is speaking and the stories or meaning made by them about the events and feelings. The I/I process strengthens the second aspect of differentiation by inviting the speaker to share in depth.
Exercise: Needs Versus Desires
One strategy to help partners hold steady with difficult conversations is to recognize the difference between needs and desires. Confusion about needs versus desires is common. And it can cause huge problems in communication. This matters because when we talk about what we need, we bring a real urgency into the discussion. “I need . . .” or “I need you to . . .” can sound close to an ultimatum, and that puts a lot of strain on the conversation—strain that tends to be counterproductive when we are trying to nurture the kind of deep, thoughtful conversation that helps partners understand one another more fully. Using the word need in a conversation with a partner is rarely a good strategy. Let me explain.
Consider these statements:
“I need you to support my decision.”
“I need to cut back my work hours.”
“I need to have a more active sex life.”
“I need to be in a polyamorous relationship.”
“I need you to be monogamous.”
Notice how you felt when you read these statements. Now compare to the following:
“This decision is important to me, and I would really like you to understand where I’m coming from.”
“I’ve been thinking about cutting back my work hours and would like to discuss it with you.”
“Having an active sex life is very important to me.”
“Being in a polyamorous relationship feels very important to me. I would like to discuss it further with you, because I would like you to understand where I’m coming from, even if you don’t agree.”
“I feel very uncomfortable when you talk about opening the relationship. I’ve always thought of myself as a monogamous person and imagined myself being in a monogamous relationship.”
Posing desires and preferences as needs is not a good strategy for fostering an honest exchange of ideas, as it invites the other person to be defensive. “I need . . .” puts a lot of pressure on the partner to agree, as compared to “I would really prefer . . .” One closes the door, and the other opens the door to a discussion involving multiple perspectives.
Inviting others to express themselves fully is an art form, and the language you use can make a huge difference in the emotional tenor of difficult conversations. I like to use the words “I want” or “I prefer,” rather than “I need.” If added emphasis is required, I suggest, “This feels very important to me because . . .” If I’m not discussing food, water, safety, or shelter, I remind myself that I’m describing a desire, not a need. I don’t want to minimize the importance of the topic or the depth of feeling behind it, I’m just trying to avoid becoming overly dramatic and resist using language that tends to invite reactivity and escalation.
Sometimes someone expresses a desire that they really believe is a need for them. When that happens, it does have the feeling of an ultimatum. That makes it harder for the listener to stay calm and nonreactive, and access curiosity. Although it’s not ideal when this happens, I nonetheless encourage the listening/inquiring partner to stay steady and challenge themselves to ask questions that keep their partner expressing themselves more deeply.
In every conversation, the goal is for the discussion to go somewhere it hasn’t gone before; ideally somewhere deeper. Why does it feel so urgent? What does it mean to them? How does it hit the panic button to think about not getting their way? These questions are more useful than something akin to, “I will leave if you don’t give me what I want.”
This brings up an interesting distinction. If polyamory is an identity for some and monogamy an identity for others, doesn’t that suggest that opening the relationship (or not opening it) is actually a need, more than a desire? It may turn out that there truly is an impasse and partners decide they want very different things. Still, we won’t know that until there is some discussion. The more flow, flexibility, and curiosity those conversations can have, the more likely it is that the partners will understand one another and actually have realizations that shift their perspectives.
If a person wants to give the relationship they are currently in a chance of survival and they are really hoping their partner will experience a perspective shift (about, for instance, opening the relationship or not), I truly believe their most effective strategy is to challenge themselves to stay open to all possibilities. It is not realistic to expect our partners to stretch if we aren’t willing to stretch. Nobody has to change their mind about anything, but allowing your mind to explore many possibilities in a deep and real way can lead to unexpected outcomes.
If you, or your client, would benefit from exploring the differences between needs and desires further, see the “Needs Versus Desires” worksheet in appendix B. For more specific clinical strategies for working with this and the other aspects of differentiation, check out the I/I process in chapter 9.
Exercise: Preparing to Communicate
Another useful practice for communicating effectively is acknowledging the role of your own perspective in what you have to say: “I feel this way, because I believe that . . .” It is important that communication be explicitly framed as being about the speaker’s perceptions, feelings, opinions, preferences, thoughts, beliefs, and meaning-making. It’s much easier for your listener to avoid getting defensive when you explicitly frame what you’re saying in terms of your perspective, rather than asserting it as a universal truth.
You may have heard of “using I statements,” which gets at this concept. The idea is that, when I talk to my partner, if I start with “I think . . .” or “I feel . . .” it is a stronger, more empowered, and more boundaried, beginning than, “You . . .” The latter approach invites defensiveness and is likely to be perceived as an attack. My position in the conversation would be much stronger if I could identify my perceptions as perceptions and clearly acknowledge that my partner likely experiences something quite different from me. Strong communication includes open acknowledgment that the participants are different human beings and likely have different ideas, preferences, and opinions.
When it comes to perceptions of events, particularly events that occurred a while ago, two or more people will almost always have different and possibly conflicting memories. This is because we tend to filter everything through our own narratives and perceptions, which are individual and unique. It’s particularly true when it comes to arguments: Stressful conversations are hard to remember accurately because the brain focuses on perceived threat, not objective fact. The person who is expressing their thoughts can help their partner not get distracted by trying to square up history by being explicit that they are describing their perceptions, not the truth of how it happened.
