30 Days to a Better Relationship
December 28th, 2009
By Mona Barbera, Ph.D., Internal Family Systems Therapy Topic Expert Contributor
Click here to contact Mona and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile
You have a mate you love, you want it to be the best relationship it can be – but things keep getting in the way.
Here’s the golden key to keeping your love vibrant and alive: If it’s intense it’s your own.
If you have an intensely unhappy reaction to your mate, it’s yours. It comes from you and you are the only one who can handle it. Many of you already know this and are practicing it. You’ve found out the joy of taking responsibility for your own actions, and the beauty of the love that arises between you and your partner when you do this.
Many of you have benefitted from the Internal Family Systems approach. You learned that your defensive, angry, or distancing reactions to your partner are your Firefighters, protecting your Exiles from further hurt. You’ve learned that the best way to deal with your Firefighters is to acknowledge and love them. No longer do you have to avoid, judge, or fight your own reactions. You’ve met the hurt little boys and girls that are being protected, and you’ve let them know you are there with them.
If some of this is new to you, or you’d like a refresher, there are two books on IFS and couples –“Bring Yourself to Love,” by Mona Barbera, and “You are the One You are Looking For,” by Richard Schwartz.
Now you can take it to a new level. Take the 30 day challenge.
Many people will tell you the benefits of doing something steadily for 30 days. They say it’s a full lunar cycle, and it penetrates into your unconscious. They say it builds confidence in yourself, and that having an action plan helps you change effectively. The IFS approach says that if you do something regularly, every day, without fail, your parts will trust you more.
You’ve probably been told that you need to be positive to make change happen. Well, it’s sort of true – but how do you get positive?
Paradoxically, the best way to get positive is to look with compassion and love at what’s in the way. And that’s exactly what you will be doing in the 30 day challenge.
Are you ready? Here is the 30 day challenge. You can print it out and use the daily log pages.
© Copyright 2009. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry
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Comments
This seems like a very effective way of getting rid of problems that we often have with people we are close to. WHile having people who are close enough to be sharing everything with is a very nice feeling, such relationship are often plagued by problems like these mentioned above. It would be great to rid of the problems and have healthy relationships.
But there are couples who are almost too intense with one another, more than they need to be and that leads to a breakup because they react too strongly and passionately no matter the situation. I am all baout loving like you mean it but sometimes that can come on too strong.
The problem when we have a fight or even an argument is that we do not think deeply and just say and do things in a fit of rage, in the heat of the moment, and this can have disasterous effects on a relationship because you may come across as someone unreliable or someone frightening to your partner, which is definitely something none of us want.
And this method provides us with an opportunity to interospect and reflect upon our behavior, which is a great way to mend ourselves.
It is great to learn of a way that seems so simple yet never thought of by ourselves… thank you for having listed this here, I will definitely be using this plan in my married life.
I have heard that if a person does something continuously for 21 days, then he will continue doing the same automatically from the 22nd day onwards. This theory, if it really works, can be used well for constructive purposes and to solve conflicts in a relationship.
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