So, speaking about wins, earlier this week, there was an A-ha! moment happening yet again.
Their eyes popped wide open.
To the tune of – “How do we not know this? Where we were the day they taught this in school?”
We had only been working together for a few weeks at that point.
But – The fight would always go down the same way.
The topic was different.
There were some triggers that were happening (as they often do for couples).
Talking about something, she would ask questions.
They were either questions he didn’t want to answer, or questions he didn’t want to talk about right then and there.
Sometimes, they were questions that were uncomfortable to even think about — so he would move from this place that looked like a calm, peaceful conversation — and shoot straight from 1-10 on the emotional response scale.
And a 10 – we talked about this previously – is a place where you shouldn’t talk to anybody about anything.
Really, it’s this: If you are noticing yourself landing at an 8, or an 9 or a 10 – you need to call a timeout for yourself.
And it was when I said to them – when you come back from the time out – and you reconnect, you need to take a 24 hour moratorium on whatever it was that triggered the time-out in the first place.
I learned this from Terry Real years ago.
What that means is – you don’t go back straight to asking and saying: Let’s see – where did we leave off? And then go right back to it.
And that’s where they both had that – Whaaaat? Mind Blown expressions on their faces.
This is what we’ve been doing!
Wondering why it’s not working – we would just go straight into what we were talking about – surprised that they’d always end up in the very same place.
And that is exactly why you don’t do that.
Because 99.5% of the time that’s exactly what happens.
We are unable to – if you go from 1-10 in a matter of a second and a half – you have no business getting right back into what got you to the 10 in the first place when you come back together and reconnect.
And for all the times that I’ve said – we need to talk about the elephant in the room, I’m not a fan of putting things on the back burner, you don’t want things simmering forever – I still stand by all that – BUT–
This is the one exception to that.
It doesn’t mean that you don’t talk about it.
That you’re done having that conversation.
But it does mean that for this time, while we follow this protocol of the 24 hour moratorium, we will put it — in a conscious and meaningful way – on the back burner (or in the parking lot) KNOWING that we are going to come back to it, we are going to talk about it later.
But that time is not now.
So if this sounds familiar – and you start coming up with all the examples where you’ve done this exact same thing in the last month and a half- so much so that it it feels like its flooding your brain – all the times when you were there, forgetting the cardinal rule of the timeout – This is for you.
When I saw their faces that day, I was reminded that it might be time to remind you all.
Even though, in my head, I talk about this all the time – because the conversation comes up all the time.
And the last thing I’d want is for you to be wondering, going – Wait, what? 24 hour moratorium? I must have missed school when they were teaching that – I didn’t want you not to know.
So the next time that you two come together to have a conversation, to talk about something that makes you less than seen, less than heard, understood or loved – and you want to bring that to your partner (and this goes for both in the couple – either the person who brings up the conversation OR the person who is there to listen) – if that happens for either one of you, here’s what you do:
I want you to try it.
Put it to the test.
I want you to LOVE the effect of it when it’s happening.
And then I want you to celebrate the win.
And for the braves souls in our midst – I want you to let me know and share.
Do it, notice it, see the win, make it happen.
