NO SCABS rule & end all criticism

♥ DAILY LOVE TIP – Thursday August 18, 2011

Wondering how you are going on Gottman’s first two Tips –
1. Seek help early. Are you someone who hasn’t done any Relationship Education♥
Did you make a decision to schedule a course or workshop after reading the ♥DAILY LOVE TIP – Saturday August 6, 2011♥ If not, I’m curious why not♥ If you have, is it time for a refresher or advanced course♥

2. Edit yourself – Have been editing your angry, resentful, criticising and blaming words AND thoughts…..

We teach the – NO SCABS RULE!!– we need to eliminate ALL the SCABS –

NO
S-arcasm
C-riticism, C-ontempt
A-ttacking
B-laming, B-elittling
S-haming, S-uperiority

Questions for you: Which of the SCABS do you use that you need to remove♥ What are you going to replace them with♥ What do you need to do to repair the damage♥

♥MIRRORING TOPIC: Choose one behaviour/habit you are going to begin working on changing and share with someone and have them ♥MIRROR you for a minimum of 5 minutes. Or choose any of the points below and share how it impacts you.

Here’s a few points to think about:

We see criticism as a cry for help – in fact this is true for any of the SCABS.
Underneath all criticism is a NEED, a desire.
Usually what we criticise and judge in the other are part of what we need to develop in ourselves for our own growth.
“The degree of emotional reaction to a trait in someone else is the degree to which that trait exists in you, whether the trait is viewed as negative or positive.” (p.166 Keeping The Love You Find by Dr. Harville Hendrix) “The conflicts you will have with your partner are externalizations of the conflicts going on inside you. Whatever you either idealize or despise in your partner is likely to be true, to some degree, about you.” (p.168)
Seeing our own and the other’s criticisms in a different and positive light is to create an attitude of compassion and empathy and connection.

Whenever we become aware of our own or the other’s stance of criticism and judgement we have an opportunity to REFRAME our thinking and look at it in another way.

When we view peoples’s frustrating characteristics and criticisms as their survival “strategy” we can then look beneath at their wounds and needs.
We think of PROTECTIONS (‘defenses’) and WOUNDS together. If you cut your finger, you form a scab, which is a protective covering to protect the wound until it is healed. Where one is emotionally hurt you form an EMOTIONAL SCAB – you develop a style of being, a way of relating, a pattern of behaviour that protects you from being hurt again in the same way.
remember the ‘cycle of reactivity’ – these very ways you protect yourself will ‘trigger’ those in close relationship with you and will be what fuels the disconnection between you……….