Soulmate Skills

Quiz Question:  Have I ever felt taken advantage of?  If you answered “Yes,”  we have help for you.  We’re drawing here from p. 102 of our book, Disarming Your Inner Critic (James Elliott with Kathryn Elliott).  “You may give more than you want to give, and your own needs may go unmet.  You feel used and taken advantage of.  You’ll have plenty of resentment and anger, because you know deep down that you must really be defective if you have to give so many things just to get someone to like you and stay with you.”  Of course, you suppress the anger because your Inner Critic tells you it would surely drive the other person away.  Now, there’s the heart of the problem.  It’s your Inner Critic driving all this.  The good news is, we’ve just exposed your Inner Critic’s hidden role in your allowing yourself to be taken advantage of.  You can get free.  Label it first.  “That’s my Inner Critic telling me I have to say yes, to give more than I really want to.”  Then get released, using one of our powerful challenging statements to the Inner Critic.  We love it when people get free.  You will too.

You’ve seen baboons charge, right?   Arms rigid.  Chest out.  Nostrils huffing.  We humans do that too–or some version of it when we’re angry.  It’s scary.   And it’s meant to be.  Translated it says, “I’m feeling threatened.  Afraid I’m being attacked.  I’m going to protect myself by scaring you with my anger.”  Hmm.  Sound familiar?  That’s because we humans do this too.  When feeling threatened, we puff up with anger also.  Did you know that the reason you feel scared of the other person’s anger is because their anger is meant to scare you?  Want to know what their anger is really about?  It’s that they’re trying to ward off an Inner Critic event.  I learned this personally by experiencing it myself.  And we help our counseling clients make this connection in themselves.  When our Inner Critic pounces, it makes us feel guilty, defective, shameful, inferior, and, of course, scared.  That feels so awful, we’ll do anything to stop it.  That includes resorting to anger to scare our partner who is triggering our Inner Critic, often by such innocent behavior as making a request of us.  We have a solution the baboon does not:  We can use our evolved brain to challenge our Inner Critic.  Then we don’t have to resort to anger.  Ah!  Peace will reign.*

For more on anger and the Inner Critic, read Ch. 7 of James Elliott and Kathryn Elliott’s book, Disarming Your Inner Critic, available here on our Products page and at amazon.com.

Once you find your soulmate, you’re going to want to make that love last.  We know.  When we found each other 22 years ago, we valued each other so highly, we wanted an eternal love.  Jim was wise enough to know the key ingredient it would take.  It wasn’t our white-hot attraction to each other (though that helps).  It wasn’t just that we were compatible (though that was important too).  It was skills.  We’ve needed very specific and unique skills, like requesting, challenging our Inner Critic, retrieval skills following a glitch, and more.  You’ll need these too.  We’ve shared some with you on our Skills page of this website.  There are more in our book, Disarming Your Inner Critic (James Elliott, Ph.D. and Kathryn Elliott, Ph.D.).  We teach more in our seminars.  We use them in our counseling with couples.  Yes, you can make love last.  In fact, if you use these skills, your love will grow.  Now, that’s a formula for bliss.

Here’s a self-test for you.  Do you ever say:  1.  “You painted me into a corner.”  2.  “You put me on the spot.”  3.  “I feel like I’m being punished.”  4.  “You’re not letting me be me.”  5.  “You’re making me into the bad guy!”  If you said “Yes” to any or all of these,  realize that you’ve been feeling like a victim.  More important, each is a clue to your own power giveaway.  We want to help you get free.  The secret is that your own shoulds (not the other person’s “power”) are keeping you in the victim position.  The way out?  Take back your power by challenging  each should contained in the statement you’ve said.  For example, “You painted me into a corner” contains the should, “You should stay where someone wants you to be.”  The challenge is, “I have the right to go anywhere I please.  I have the right to get out of any corner any time I wish.”  Truth is, you are a free spirit.  Claim it today!  (For more on getting free from power giveaways, read page 124 in Disarming Your Inner Critic by James Elliott with Kathryn Elliott.)

Judgmentalism.  Defensiveness.  Withdrawal.  All examples of negativity.  We know the toll it takes on your dream for a fulfilling relationship.  We want to offer you hope–and skills for breaking this pattern.  In Anthetic Relationship Therapy, we teach Clue Work: using surface clues such as your negative responses as doors opening into the deeper mechanisms that drive negative behavior.  Once you identify the clues, you can dismantle the mechanisms and put them out of play.  We’re not talking about willpower.  Nor trying to shape yourself cosmetically into looking good in others’ eyes.  We’re talking about accepting yourself fully.  We call it becoming an Anthetic free spirit.  We’ve layed it all out for you in our book, Disarming Your Inner Critic*.  As you practice the skills contained in it, you’ll find that in getting free from self-constrictedness, you’ll be in shape for emotional closeness.  And for the relationship of your dreams.

*Disarming Your Inner Critic, James Elliott, Ph.D., with Kathryn Elliott, Ph.D., is available here on our Products page and at amazon.com.

She stayed in a painful relationship.  It was one she admitted was no good for her.  She reasoned, “There are so few good men out there.  If I give up this relationship, I’ll never find another one as good.”  Why do we stay in a relationship with the wrong person?  Dr. James Elliott explains in Disarming Your Inner Critic, “You think you might be able to convert this flawed person (who is perhaps cool and distant) into someone who is not only successful and effective but who really does love you.  On top of this, your Inner Critic will tell you that if you give up pursuing him or her, you’ll never find another one ‘as good.’  Your Inner Critic is just interested in protecting you from the riskiness of giving and receiving genuine love.” (p. 107)  This boils down to that we stay in a dead-end relationship at the hands of our Inner Critic.  The good news is that we can get free.  Our stuckness stems from just one more magnified fear generated by our Inner Critic.  Don’t give that fear the power of belief.  The Inner Critic has no idea what it’s talking about.  There are plenty good men out there.  And there’s one just for you.

Your brain is on a short fuse to make you feel bad!  So explains Rick Hanson, Ph.D., neuropsychologist and author of Buddha’s Brain.  He says that in our attempt to survive, we humans evolved to give preferential treatment to fear and anxiety.  So, even though we no longer have tigers to steer clear of, our brains still are hypervigilant for danger, even when none exists.  He calls it a neurobiological bias toward negativity (http://www.rickhanson.net/your-wise-brain/how-your-brain-makes-you-easily-intimidated).  Given that we’re wired toward feeling bad, what can we do?  Here’s how, in Anthetic Therapy, we defuse it.  Dr. James Elliott found that when his clients gave that negativity a name, they became empowered to see it more clearly.  He (and they) liked the term Inner Critic.  As he worked with his growth groups and therapy clients, he discovered that the Inner Critic functions by imposing shoulds backed by emotional punishment if not obeyed.  Hence, the person suffered from low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, and a whole host of other problems.  The good news is he also discovered that a simple set of techniques could set people free from the power of the Inner Critic.  He taught them to make releasing statements that helped them buy out of believing the Inner Critic.  (For more on defusing your Inner Critic’s power, read Disarming Your Inner Critic by James Elliott with Kathryn Elliott.)  So, take heart, your biology is not your destiny.

“It’s a new world order!”  So spoke one of our male Disarming Your Inner Critic book study participants.  He nicely captured something we noticed: More and more men are moving from valuing being outward-directed and success-driven.  Instead, they are choosing to be more self-reflective and psychologically-minded.  In addition, while men still prioritize sex in a relationship, they also want an emotional connection.  So, if you’re a man who fits this profile but wonders if he’s weird, now you know.  You’re part of a new world order!  Women, if you’ve wondered if you could find a man who could be sensitive and want closeness, take heart.  Your man is out there.

Ever responded to a compliment on something you’re wearing with, “Oh, this old thing?  I got it on sale at WalMart!”?  Ever quipped in response to  someone praising you about an achievement, “I was just lucky”?  This is what we call praise deflection.   Guess who’s behind it?  If you said, “My Inner Critic,” you were right!  Its goal: To safeguard you against the danger of thinking too well of yourself.  Net result:  You miss out on the pleasure of agreeing with someone who gives you a compliment.  The antidote?  Say to your Inner Critic, “I have the right to accept compliments; even to agree with them.”  Believe it.  We want you to have this pleasure.*

*From p. 98, Disarming Your Inner Critic by James Elliott, Ph.D. with Kathryn Elliott, Ph.D., available here on our sidebar and at amazon.com.

Been feeling irritable lately?  Like any little thing could set you off.  You know how it goes.  First, you feel a little unsettled.  Then, a little aggravated.  Next thing you know you’re biting your loved one’s head off over the smallest thing.  You’re puzzled.  So, you think, “Must be the stress I’m under at work.”   Or “Maybe I’m PMSing.”  We want to let you in on the secret to why we can feel irritable.  It’s that you’ve submerged your Natural Self energies.  Whole parts of yourself condemned to be locked away into your subconscious.  Why?  Because if they were to emerge into consciousness, your Inner Critic would pounce.  Then you’d feel scared, depressed, defective, guilty, ashamed, embarrassed, inferior.  Of course, we can’t keep those powerful energies submerged for long.  They inevitably emerge, and usually in disguised form.  They come out sideways.  Hence, your irritability.  By telling you this secret, we’ve just outed your Inner Critic.  Now whenever you feel that irritability, you can label it.  “I must be constricting myself at the hands of my Inner Critic!”  Then ask yourself, “What is it I’ve been feeling or desiring that I won’t let myself look at?”  Let those inklings of the answer emerge fully into your awareness.  Then use one of our releasing statements.  You’ll get free.  Your irritability will vanish.  You can enjoy your life–and your relationships– in peace.*

*For more on getting free from your Inner Critic, see Disarming Your Inner Critic, James Elliott & Kathryn Elliott.  It’s available here on our Products page and at amazon.com.