31/01/2023
Why should you attend a Valerie and LaRell Partnership Projection Paradigm event?
We all have inner children. Parts of us that were programmed in past events to now have thoughts, beliefs and opinions from a limited vantage point. Our inner children, and traumatized parts look at and perceive the world from a perspective that often does not make sense to our adult identities. Therefore, when we are attempting to live life, and a feeling is triggered by our partner, that feeling can rapidly become overwhelming.
Our young, traumatized inner parts remember the feeling from a past traumatic event, and even though we are not currently in the same equivalent danger, our younger parts do not know the difference. All they know, is here we are in what feels like the same unsafe past event. Even though your partner might simply be asking what you want for dinner next thing you know, you become sabotaged by the feelings, and the resulting thoughts which then trigger more feelings and more thoughts. You then become "blended" with that past part, and you become cut off from "self".
Self is that part of us that actually perceives things correctly, and does not get taken away with emotion and thought. But when we are blended with a traumatized younger part, we no longer have the ability to see things clearly. We start looking at things through the lenses of someone carrying a lot of pain and trauma, and this almost always causes us to see things differently than they really are.
In Partnership, this can lead to absolute disaster, miscommunication and confusion. The person you love is not the "enemy" but when we lose touch with "self" we tend to perceive the things our partner says from a perspective that causes us to think their intentions or actions mean something different than they really do.
Same goes for when your partner is acting from a younger part. The things they say and do will likely cause harm to the relationship as their behavior does not make sense, and tends to be confusing.
Much like the image I posted of the inner children inside the sculpture at burning man, we as adult humans typically have experience living a long life where varying situations programmed into us certain responses to stimulus and environment. We learned that if we put our hand on a hot stove, it hurt. We learned that if we fall it hurts. So we learn to prevent hurt before it happens, by paying attention to the things we experience. We attempt to use this acquired self-protection skill when it comes to our relationship as well. We learn over time, what causes upset in the relationship, and we adjust our behavior in attempt to ensure that the relationship remains peaceful. We attempt to mitigate anger and upset before it even occurs.
Well, when inner children are in charge, we tend to lose grasp of what is real. A part of us begins perceiving the current argument, and we experience it in our body the same way we experienced the same negative stimulus as a child. Only as a child, and from our child perspective, we perceived things far differently. So it becomes extremely confusing. A simple statement, can quickly progress into an argument, then into a fight which tends to last for three days or more. And this typically occurs because there are things occurring within us that most of us live our lives completely unaware of. Things from our past that are affecting our feelings, which affect our thoughts. Once we start thinking thoughts that are based upon feelings in the body, we are going to begin hearing our partner incorrectly. We are likely to see our partner as the "cause" of our internal dis-regulation. We then blame our partner. Our partner gets hurt, and may now even be responding from their own hurt inner child.
Once both inner children or parts are in charge, there is very little hope of de-escalation. The wounded parts are now at war with each other, as you stand there utterly confused as to how in the world you are having such an intense argument with the person you loved more than anything in the world just an hour ago.
This is a pattern that many people in partnership play out. The beautiful thing is, that it is usually only due to the fact that neither partner is fully aware that it is younger parts being activated. People tend to live life very unaware of the feelings and sensations in their body that play such an incredibly huge role in their behavior in a relationship.
Valerie and I love to teach about these concepts! We love to help couples to become aware of their parts, and the dynamics that exist between both inner children and wounded parts and why those inner children can cause such confusing chaos. One of the most harmful yet common things that occurs in partnership, is projection.
Projection can be understood as having something you dislike about yourself, but expressing anger or irritation toward someone else for it. For example, you get really upset and start yelling at your partner for coming home late. The reality is, there was nothing wrong with them being late, and the fact is, you are late to almost every appointment you ever have.
Projection can cause tremendous hurt, confusion and comes as a form of gaslighting.
Often projection will cause us to infer our partner has a weakness they do not actually have. They begin questioning themselves and wondering how they have been unaware of this weakness. When the reality is, that it is actually YOUR weakness being projected on your partner. Because you express it from an inner wounded self, it is anything but valid, and only harms and causes distance.
This image of inner children seems to portray a situation where the adults are upset at each other, while the inner children are just wanting connection and love. It is a beautiful, thought provoking sculpture. However, typically it works the other way around. The inner children are actually who sneak in and sabotage us and cause all of the chaos while our "Self" is sabotaged by all of these feelings that well up inside of us, make us feel unsafe, and therefore selfish in nature out of protection.
Valerie and I love to help people to become aware of these dynamics as they play out in their individual partnership. Every person is entirely unique. We want to help all of you unique snow flakes to be able to see beyond the chaos. To understand why you are being sabotaged by your emotions. To learn how to recognize the feelings the instant they begin to be triggered, so that you can remain separate from the feeling and not be completely sabotaged by it.
Join us for our upcoming events and workshops to learn more about how to go from surviving your relationship, to thriving in it.
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