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The Truest Thing about Couples Therapy…

Hi everybody, it’s Maggie O’Connor at BreakthroughMFT, helping you reach your ‘breakthrough moment’.

This pandemic is an amplifier for whatever was already going on in your relationship; the good the bad, and the ugly.

You’re not alone if you’re thinking about using couples therapy to help you get through this quarantine, so let’s think this through together.

When people are finishing a course of couples therapy, the thing I hear most often is, ‘I wish we had done this sooner; it didn’t have to hurt so bad for so long’. This is when I wish that people would actually talk more about being in couples therapy outside of the room where it happens.

Here’s the truest thing about couples therapy: people do come to it much later than they probably should.

Either they’ve been spinning in their negative cycle for so long they just really do not know how to get out or they’re coming as a last-ditch effort before divorce. It makes sense – people are understandably afraid of talking about their problems out loud! Let’s break this down into two very common maybe universal factors that make people nervous about starting couples therapy

#1 –  “The therapist and my partner are going to gang up on me” (also known as, “it’s going to be all my fault”)

In couples therapy the client is actually the relationship, so to take sides for the therapist would actually be abandoning the ‘client’. It wouldn’t make sense.

That said, a licensed seasoned therapist will be aware of the imbalances in your relationship that make it sometimes feel like it is all your fault or you’re being blamed… But we’re not mind readers; so if at any point you feel blamed or ganged up on, you can and should tell the therapist! A good therapist will slow it way down and make sure that gets addressed before we move any further.

#2 –  “This will be the beginning of the end” (also known as “it’s not going to work”)

Sometimes people are coming into therapy (and it’s an appropriate use of therapy) to let go of each other to end a long-term relationship, either for yourselves or for the sake of children in a divorce situation… but that’s not what we’re talking about here.

Assuming you want to stay together, it’s good to express to your therapist the fear that it might not work out. It might even be a good sign that you’re afraid because it reflects a certain investment in the relationship and a hope that it will work out. Most couples who come to therapy are not ‘done with the relationship’, but they are done with the destructive cycles that lead to such disconnection between each other!

As long as two people are sitting on the couch, we have potential to step back from the edge and create better ways of being with each other.

In choosing a therapist:

  1. Make sure that you’re looking at licensed marriage and family therapists (LMFT’s) or licensed therapists who have advanced training or certification in a couples therapy modality.
  2. Make sure you feel comfortable with them.
  3. And then get to work, inside and outside the therapy room.

It doesn’t have to hurt this bad. There are better ways of being with each other.

I’m Maggie O’Connor, hoping this helps you to ‘break on through’.

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Do We have Good Communication?

Hi everybody, it’s Maggie O’Connor at Breakthrough MFT helping you reach your”breakthrough moment”.

How do I know if I have good communication with my partner?

If you’re asking the question, you probably are feeling like there’s something missing in this area for you.

We know if we’re being heard. We know if we’re being seen. More importantly, we know if we’re being seen even for the  parts of ourselves that we don’t share so easily; and in this pandemic, we are showing more of ourselves than we ever thought we would!

So I ask you, ‘How is that being received in your life?’ because here’s the part of communication that always gets missed: It’s not just about what you’re showing or what you’re saying, but how it’s being received by your partner.

For example, in a couples session, the wife was talking about how she was putting the baby to bed and she says, ‘…so I went back in to put a blanket on the baby…’ and the husband jumps in and says, ‘So you’re saying I’m a bad father!!!’ 

Does she think he’s a bad father? Probably not.

But something’s happening in that system that makes it hard for the husband to see her as nurturing, because he feels so criticized. It’s being expressed, this nurturing, but it’s not being received. This couple could get lost in a negative communication cycle very quickly – sort of like, ‘this is what I heard you say… this is what I made up about it… and that’s what i’m reacting to…’ 

We react to the narrative instead of the person.

Narratives are stories we construct about why people do what they do, and they can be really helpful as we organize our daily lives. But sometimes they’re more accurate than others.

In a healthy communication system, it feels safe to be curious and explore with your partner what just happened there. So, in in this situation the wife could say, ‘…hey, what’s going on? Do you really think I think you’re a bad dad?’ The husband could consider the question, and respond to that.

In a less healthy communication structure, the narratives are all we have so we hold on tight they repeat and make it reallllly hard to see the other person for who they are what they’re saying. This husband will insist that he can’t get it right with his “critical wife” and they will lock into a defensive cycle that will make it impossible for them to share this nurturing moment with their baby.

Neither of them will feel seen; neither of them will feel heard.

Therapy can help you recognize and define some underlying patterns or issues that might make it harder for you to be curious with each other. Therapy can help you run more accurate narratives rather than letting them run you.

I’m Maggie O’Connor, hoping this helps you to ‘break on through’. 

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What’s Dysfunction Got to Do With It?

Hi everybody, I’m Maggie O’Connor at BreakthroughMFT helping you reach your Breakthrough moment.

I’ve been thinking a lot about dysfunctional family systems.

In any family, whether or not it’s spoken out loud, everybody knows what the rules are.

In dysfunctional families, regardless of what specifically occurs within the walls of the home, secrecy is rule #1, and it is characterized as loyalty.

Children growing up in these families often believe that the abuse, conflict or neglect they experience is normal.

When no one challenges the abusive parent(s), children typically assume it’s their fault – internalizing blame and turning it to shame. And shame says ‘don’t ever, ever talk about it’.

It’s dangerous to call the abuser out, because you know that you will suffer punishment, and nothing, NOTHING will change. The ‘system’ will continue to sustain itself.

So we develop a way of being in order to survive within the system.

This way of being is the “role” you play. You may have heard of the Scapegoat, the Golden Child, The Loner…

In these roles, each family member accommodates the abuse or neglect in their own way, in order to survive themselves. This is what we mean by dysfunction – it’s how the parts of the system accommodates the abuse and allows it to continue.

Characteristics of dysfunctional families include:

– Lack of Empathy
– Denial
– Poor boundaries for yourself
– Disrespect for the boundaries of others
– Extremes in conflict – in either direction – Overly violent or overly peaceful
– Un-equal treatment of family members due to real or perceived attributes

 

Everyone in dysfunctional families are at risk in all kinds of ways, but none more than when they try to call out the dysfunctional system itself. Then you risk abandonment, which to our survival brain, means death. So individual members find their way within the system, to survive.

The discussion about police reform is not about individual officers. It’s about a dysfunctional system that protects the members who abuse and neglect and punishes well-intentioned members who would otherwise speak against it.

As respectful food for thought, perhaps it gets under our skin in part because we recognize some of our own experience and feel compelled to protect the status quo.

I’m Maggie O’Connor, hoping this helps you to break on through.

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When You and your Partner see #BLM Differently

Hi everybody, I’m Maggie O’Connor at Breakthrough MFT, helping you reach your breakthrough moment.

I see a lot of couples struggling right now with different levels of awareness regarding the statement, “Black Lives Matter.”

As white people, we have been socialized that overtly talking about race is somehow rude or inappropriate – remember the Seinfeld episode when they kept saying, “I don’t think we should be talking about this…” “No!”

We look for exits rather than going deeper into the conversation.

“All Lives Matter” is one of those exits.

Right now, well-meaning white people are getting our heads around our role in perpetuating trauma against our black brothers and sisters through our denial and ignorance, and what generations before have to do with that. It’s embarrassing, it’s painful – and many of us feel shame for our behavior.

Some of us react to that shame with denial that the lives of black people in our country have been so devalued, that there needs to be a specific statement about “Black Lives Matter”.
We’ll try to bargain it out, saying, ‘well all lives matter’ without recognizing the fundamental disparity within that group of “all”.

That until your brother with black skin has just as little chance of being pulled over, or run off the road or shot at as you with your white skin, we have work to do.

Of course all lives matter. But we have work to do to make that statement truly reflected in our behavior and beliefs.

In talking with your partner, it’s personal. You know them best.

If they really care about other people, and I’m sure they do, then your partner’s defensiveness is probably more about the shame and embarrassment of walking around in white skin and not doing enough to notice the people around them.

You can come from a place of curiosity with them – be really interested in what makes them feel that way, without judgment or correction – engage in a discussion about when they first became aware of racism, and how it’s played a role in their lives. Respond with compassion to say “It makes sense that you would feel that way/ have a hard time with this;” encourage them to think out loud.

Silence perpetuates shame and ignorance. It’s in talking about it that we process and move the discussion forward – it can be as effective at home as much as as it could be on the national stage.

I’m Maggie O’Connor, hoping this helps you to break on through.

By

What Couples Therapy can tell you about #BLM


Hi everybody, I’m Maggie O’Connor at Breakthrough MFT, helping you reach your breakthrough moment.

There’s a point in couples therapy at which for some reason, one partner becomes more able to hear the other’s pain. Lowering whatever defenses they’d been using to deny or ignore that their partner was hurting, they now hear it differently, maybe even for the first time, though it’s been in front of them forever.

Here’s where the ‘injured’ partner often feels incredulous at this turn of events – it feels too sudden, or suspicious in some way. ‘I’ve been saying this to you for months and years – I’ve cried, I’ve begged, I’ve frozen you out – and now? NOW? All of a sudden you just hear me differently? What am I supposed to do with THAT?!

So this is how I see feelings surrounding the sudden show of support from white Americans for ‘Black Lives Matter’ – Why now? And what to do?
What do we do with a national relationship that has repeated this ignorance for lifetimes? For generations the injured partner had to figure out a way to live with the other – the white people – who would never, ever see them. And Now? Seems kind of stupid to take us seriously.

So the anger and suspicion from the black community makes sense. Our job as well-meaning white people is to listen, and figure out ways to keep showing up in support, recognizing the hurt underneath.
We hear confusing messages about how to help – Speak up, sit down, educate yourself, but don’t read that book, raise money, that’s performative, that’s not enough, that’s too much –

In trying so hard to do avoid doing the ‘wrong’ thing we can be in danger of becoming paralyzed and doing nothing. Our other job is to stay open to what we are being told as we figure this out together.

Some of us can acknowledge that we just haven’t been listening. We have heard the message before but have been ‘privileged’ in that we didn’t have to think about it. We didn’t care because we didn’t think. It’s embarrassing, and painful. And brave to acknowledge out loud. Others are just waking up to this awareness – and are struggling to understand the need for statements like “Black Lives Matter”.

Wherever you are in your awakening, it’s real – it taps into everything that make us human. It shows risk and vulnerability, considering that as well-meaning white people as we may be, we have really missed the truth that was right in front of us. And it is deeply saddening.

To continue our support in the long run, we need to seek learning environments and social support that will encourage us to keep trying, though it won’t always be comfortable. If you feel like you’re shutting down, get support for your growth. To get anywhere meaningful, we need to stay present – we need to stay awake.

I’m Maggie O’Connor, hoping this helps you to break on through.

By

What to Do when you don’t know what to Say

Today I am meeting you in this “breakdown moment”. We know that this is no time for silence but many of us don’t know what to say.
George Floyd couldn’t breathe.
He called for his momma and we don’t know what to say.

It’s on a completely different level, but it may be a familiar feeling when you felt something terribly broken down or horribly damaged between you and someone you cared about and you just didn’t know how to talk about it. It’s in these moments that we need to ask questions and listen. We need to listen deeply and without agenda.

We can use our voices to say this is wrong; and we should demonstrate, contact government officials, donate money to social justice organizations, and post to social media… But we need to keep asking questions.

If we don’t understand, we need to find out.

This is where the vulnerability begins; when we open up to ask the other person what it has been for them – every day – while we were not thinking about it one bit before; not to ease our own feelings, but to empathize with theirs and take informed action.

As in your life, when the other person failed to connect with your fear and trauma so have we failed to connect with the same for black people in this country. We need to listen deeply and then we need to ask ourselves what feelings arise in us as we confront the privilege our white skin affords us to ignore or avoid awareness of this trauma.

This is the hardest part of any relationship conflict; we never want to hurt anybody but our defenses arise to protect us from our own feelings of fear and helplessness and they push the other person away. In confronting our privilege, we’re reflecting on those parts of ourselves that we’re not particularly proud of, and if we speak up in this moment we have to acknowledge a lifetime

of moments in which we did not.

So let’s acknowledge our failure.

Let’s acknowledge the damage caused by ignoring what was always there and demonstrate our willingness to listen deeply now, and to act now. It is meaningful to address with friends and family and co-workers their racist jokes or implications or statements; but we need also to ask with curiosity what made them say that in the first place because it is through understanding and empathy with all sides that we will make meaningful change not by silencing each other.

And here begins the internal revolution that feeds our external actions and who we become in this moment.

It is a hard thing to acknowledge where we’ve failed, but it’s the only way we can objectively hear the truth and move towards something better.

I’m Maggie O’Connor, hoping this helps you to break on through.

By

Broken Hearts in Quarantine #FindYourTribe

Hi there everybody I’m Maggie O’Connor at Breakthrough MFT helping you reach your breakthrough moment.

What happens to a broken heart in quarantine? I’ll tell you, it breaks.
Like a falling tree thunders when it crashes to the ground, whether anyone is there to hear it – it breaks.

But a broken heart needs witnesses.

WE need witnesses.

To feel seen and heard by others to validate that our experience is worthy, or it’s even happening at all.

And in quarantine, those opportunities for witnessing are fewer, and further between.

But here’s the good news – though the opportunities may be fewer, they have potential to go deeper. Your witnesses, your friends and family – are more available and less distracted.

Also a side benefit is that everyone in the world right now is grieving a loss, at least of control and freedom – they are going through something ‘with’ you, or at least at the same time.

Also on the down side is that you have fewer opportunities to distract yourself from the pain of your loss – which is how we get relief from the intensity, and part of how you’ll eventually come out of it. Going to work, or a party even though you don’t feel like it, rebound dating or whatever – we don’t have it available.

So we are left with ourselves. And the body wants to do its work. The body wants the grief to move through, and discharge it.

And so, you can take the opportunity to become your own witness – to become curious about the parts of you that chose to be with someone who wasn’t right for you, or who would hurt you so bad.

It helps to acknowledge what was so good about the relationship and recognize what was important about that for you, what it ‘fed’ in you. Name it, and you know what you need more of in your life.

You may need to create your own distractions, especially if you’re not living with other people – kids and homeschooling can get you out of your head as much as going for a run, doing a puzzle or learning a new skill.

Broken hearts need witnesses; whether from outside or inside of you.

I’m Maggie O’Connor, hoping this helps you to break on through.

By

Crisis Mode Explained… and Contained

Hi Everybody, I’m Maggie O’Connor at BreakthroughMFT, helping you reach your Breakthrough Moment.

My last post talked about how we really can only live in crisis mode for two weeks, and I understand that you might say things like, ‘well I LIVE in crisis mode’ or I’ve been living in crisis mode for the past three years. I say to you – No. You’d be dead.

Here’s the difference between living with a crisis and living in crisis mode. And we’re all learning that right now.

In ‘crisis mode’, there’s a singular focus. It’s like an extended fight or flight. All your time and energy is focused on this one thing. Your cortisol and adrenaline levels rise and your entire amazing body is working just to get you through this one thing.

You ‘lose track of time’ because your awareness of everything outside of that area of focus is severely diminished.

But we can only go like that for so long – it’s about two weeks on average.

When the crisis continues anyway, you need to find a more sustainable way of being. This may have been signaled for you recently by an emotional breakdown – and you make total sense to me! That’s your body letting you know that you can’t keep going like this.

If you’ve ever had a loved one with a chronic illness, you might be familiar with this dynamic of needing to figure out a way of being that lets you work, play and have some semblance of a life outside of treatment and caring for them, so that you can sustain.

Right now, coronavirus is creating an environment your body is struggling to handle. Why wouldn’t you feel stressed?

We need to find a way out of the crisisSelf- care is how we pull ourselves out of crisis mode, how we create new energy for ourselves so that we can handle when we do need to be stressted.

Give your body some space to recover – feed yourself with structure to feel predictability, with exercise to sheathe your nerves against stress, with laughter and fun and creativity to feed your mind and heart. Get the comic relief, whatever you need to sustain yourself through this.

SEE PEOPLE you care about on FaceTime, Zoom or whatever you use to maintain that cornerstone of sanity only our relationships can hold.

Some days will take more out of you than you can put in; and that’s okay. So go ahead and give yourself that ugly cry, forgive yourself and ask forgiveness for your irritation and frustration. Remember you are only one person and you are doing the best you can. Find your tribe and lean on them. It’s the only way we get through.

Stay safe. Be well.

I’m Maggie O’Connor at Breakthrough MFT, hoping this helps you to break on through.

By

Sustaining through Crisis – #FindYourTribe

Hi everybody, I’m Maggie O’Connor at Breakthrough MFT, helping you reach your ‘breakthrough moment.’

Where are you with your ‘crisis mode’? Have you had the ugly cry yet? Have you lost it on your partner or children or the jar of jelly YET?

I say ‘yet’ because time is UP for crisis mode – we first started social spacing in NY about 2 weeks ago. Remember? Feels like a millin years ago!

At the time, people were really focused on how to manage all of the aspects of a suddenly volatile world by arranging schedules and child care figuring out family situations. We were also buying up all the toilet paper at the store…

Our priorities shifted suddenly and sometimes what came out as most important was surprising; but there it was.

But then something happened. All of a sudden the wheels came off! Collectively it seems, we all had our breakdown. We all had the sense of

I can’t…
Keep going.
Like this.

And you’re right. Our body only has a a limited amount of time it can sustain in ‘crisis mode’ before it really breaks down. I’ve most often heard it put at 2 weeks before the collapse. And guess where we are in NY? At about 2 weeks of ‘social spacing’

So… you can’t keep going in crisis mode, but how do we live through the ongoing crisis which seems to have no clear before and after?
That’s where self care comes in – that’s where we talk about taking it one day at a time.

There will always be room for bad news and grief; the hard stuff about this. Self care is a way of taking yourself out of that, and remembering that we’re people.

We’re talking about structuring; having a schedule, getting dressed and bathed even if you’re not working right now or all your conference calls are audio only. Get exercise. Get outside.

Keep making those FaceTime calls – our relationships are the cornerstone of our sanity. We need our tribe now more than ever.

It means consciously seeking what makes you laugh or reminds you of the joy and beauty of life. There are a ton of free resources online to see Broadway shows, opera, live concerts.

Art & creativity will make us feel truly make you free, even in quarantine.

What you put in front of you is what you reflect back out into the world, and how we get a nice positive cycle going.

Sure there’s still room for the tough stuff; I’m not saying to look away from it, but I am saying to look toward the things that feed you to get you through the longer term of this crisis.

I’m Maggie O’Connor wishing you good health and safety, and hoping this helps you to break on through.

By

#Find Your Tribe – Opportunity in Crisis

Hi everybody, I’m Maggie O’Connor at Breakthrough MFT, helping you reach your ‘breakthrough moment.’ 

You can see some other videos I’ve already done on coronavirus, anxiety and #FindYourTribe  at BreakthroughMFT.com/blog .

Today what I want to talk about is that one thing that I’m really happy about in this crisis is that everybody seems to understand that we need to address the isolation; and we need to address all of the social norms that are being violated by this crisis! You know, there are a lot of things that you can do to stay emotionally and physically healthy. Google is full of resources, and I might do

another post on it if you’d like; but today what I really want to talk about is why it’s so important for us to remain healthy.

Crisis is an amplifier for whatever else you already have going on and you combine that with the isolation which takes away the distractions and obligations that usually keep the distance from whatever bothers you, or excites you. We go more toward those anxieties or things that bother us or we go more towards the things that excite us and make us happy! That’s why there’s an uptick in divorces and pregnancies during times like this! 

There’s an opportunity in this crisis. An opportunity for greater connection with the people around you and with yourself! 

Also, there’s another little opportunity here – you know how you say you don’t have time for therapy? Well, a lot of therapists are going online with great success, so as you come up against the parts of yourself or the parts of your relationships that you just can’t distract from right now, I’d really encourage you to consider going toward that piece of the crisis as an opportunity to actually resolve something!

I think we are stronger together. We are better together; and when these connections start to feel a little warped we can get really depressed about it. So if you find yourself on the ‘divorces’ side and not so much on the ‘pregnancies’ side of things, give us a call here at Breakthrough MFT. 

We are here for you. Or, if you’re not local to Westchester, NY, you can certainly reach out to a therapist in your location. I encourage you to take good care of yourself and the people around you. #FindYourTribe and stick with them.

I’m Maggie O’Connor at Breakthrough MFT, hoping this helps you to ‘break on through.’

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