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When conflict arrives at the doorstep of your relationship it can leave both individuals feeling anxious. We may wonder if the other person cares about us in the way we want them to. Our attempts to resolve the conflict only seems to enflame the situation.
Learning how to get to an emotionally inviting place is so important. Saying just the right thing isn’t always possible. What’s needed is to feel the right thing.
Let me repeat that: You have to feel the right thing.
This is something that is so important because we as humans are good at picking up on percieved emotion. When we sense anger, frustation, resentment, or exasperation we become hyper alert. In relationships it’s common to make these mean something about us. We maybe interpret it as our spouse not caring about us or not liking us.
So, how can we start to feel the right thing?
When conflict arrives, do the work to get to an emotionally soft place, an emotionally inviting space. You’ll know you’re there when you can get to a place where you can say: ‘it hurt when you said I never help around the house. I don’t like disappointing you. I care about you and want to stay connected with you.’
That last line is the most important one. It is what reestablishes the fact that you want to figure this out with them. It communicates the message that you want to stay connected to them.
When you reach an inviting emotion and combine it with this message, it creates an oportunity to interrupt your current conflict. It begins to repair the hurt. At this point you can begin to resolve the situation, together.
