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Are you seeking guidance to make sure you and your partner are there for each other long-term? To discover where your relationship might be stuck? Or for finding someone who is a good fit as a dating partner? Author Cheli Lange’s The Spotlight of Love: Insights and Skills for Couples is a practical guide for those seeking connection, balance, and clarity. Informed by research, professional practice, and personal experience, this book helps the reader answer questions such as:
Why do the same negative cycles keep repeating, and what shifts can I make?
How do I hold onto me and reach for you at the same time?
How can we build or rebuild our trust and connection?
This exploration, both serious and light-hearted, holds the big questions as you listen for the answers only you can know.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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SPOTLIGHT OF LOVE
SPOTLIGHT OF LOVE
INSIGHTS AND SKILLS FOR COUPLES
CHELI LANGE, LPC
NEW DEGREE PRESS COPYRIGHT © 2022 CHELI LANGEAll rights reserved.
Illustrations by Michael Scott Cover design by Donna Cunningham
SPOTLIGHT OF LOVEInsights and Skills for Couples
ISBN 979-8-88504-545-2 Paperback 979-8-88504-871-2 Kindle Ebook 979-8-88504-661-9 Ebook
For Tyler, Cameron, and Grant, who inspired me to start writing, and for Jim and Joanna, who wouldn’t let me stop.
CONTENTS
AUTHOR’S NOTE
INTRODUCTION
PART I. THE SPOTLIGHT OF LOVE
CHAPTER 1. SPOTLIGHT OVERVIEW
CHAPTER 2. GENEROUS GIVING (MOVES 1 AND 2)
CHAPTER 3. GENEROUS GIVING (MOVES 3 AND 4)
CHAPTER 4. CHALLENGES OF GENEROUS GIVING
CHAPTER 5. COURAGEOUS RECEIVING/REVEALING
CHAPTER 6. CHALLENGES OF RECEIVING/REVEALING
PART II. GOOD TO KNOW
CHAPTER 7. THE DRAMA TRIANGLE
CHAPTER 8. PURSUE-WITHDRAW
PART III. GETTING CLEAR
CHAPTER 9. CLARITY (AN ASSESSMENT)
CHAPTER 10. CYCLE MEETS CONTENT
CHAPTER 11. UNDERCURRENTS
PART IV. GOODNESS OF FIT
CHAPTER 12. DATING FIT
CHAPTER 13. PRIMARY FIT
CHAPTER 14. DEEPENING FIT
CONCLUSION
HOW THE SPOTLIGHT DEVELOPED
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
REFERENCES
AUTHOR’S NOTE
While the Spotlight of Love, just like love itself, is limitless, my articulation of it most certainly is not. I work to reduce my biases while recognizing I can only ever see through my own lens. I value reader feedback and trust that ongoing conversations about what deeply matters will expand our capacities for loving relationships. I will learn something tomorrow I don’t know today, and for that I am grateful—even though sometimes the lessons hurt like hell.
As you read the following chapters in which I suggest some radical phrases for partners to use, you might think, Cheli, people just don’t talk like this! Yes, I get it! I’ve learned these particular phrases as sentence starters because they are concise and a little different, and therefore most people remember them easily. If you have other words that you and your partner experience as inviting and validating, and you can recall them in stressful moments, that’s great. The aim is clarity and reconnection, and there are many paths.
This book offers strategies for you to try on and see how they fit for you. Deciding whether or not to use them and understanding why is a valuable process. Sometimes the strategies weave together. Sometimes they stand alone. Most are based on research by leading professionals in the fields of trauma and couples therapies. All reflect my experience as a therapist and my time as a person learning about love and interconnection. This book is in no way intended as a substitute for therapy. Rather, these pages contain insights about therapy and skills for partners to use with each other. I will share examples from many types of relationships in addition to those of romantic partners because sometimes a skill is easier to absorb when imagined in a different context.
If you suspect you might be in an abusive relationship, I recommend finding a licensed professional who is trained and experienced in this area before engaging in couples therapy or asking your partner to join you for any of the Spotlight Moves or exercises in this book. Additional thoughts on trauma and what to look for in a therapist can be found at the end of Chapter 4.
Any names or direct quotes in the book are shared with the permission of generous nonclient interviewees. The partner dialogue comes from frequently heard phrases that represent no particular gender, couple, or person, even though the voices of my clients live in me as reminders of their courage, resilience, and all the good that can happen when you keep showing up.
Thank you, dear reader, for showing up! All proceeds of this book are donated to the Trauma Recovery, EMDR Humanitarian Assistance Programs, which provide trauma-informed therapy to survivors and first responders in the wake of natural or man-made disasters throughout the world.
INTRODUCTION
A couple enters my office. Walking past the red wingback chairs, they opt for the love seat.
“We keep having the same fight over and over.” Sideways glance, though their eyes don’t meet.
“What was it about this time?”
“I can’t even remember…” They both pause, turning to each other, searching their shared memory for what started it all. “Oh, the dishes.”
“Right, the dishes. I put them the wrong way.” Nearly identical sighs of exasperation.
They look back to me. “There’s so much that’s good between us… and then… something happens, and it’s like we’re suddenly on opposite sides.”
* * *
“Opposite sides.” What a frustrating and confusing experience for this couple. They love each other. “There’s so much that’s good,” they say, and it’s true: Partners can get disconnected pretty quickly. Versions of this story are common for couples at any stage of the relationship. Even when a big event has caused the disconnection (e.g., an affair, a job loss, a death in the family, etc.), a difficult repeating pattern of interaction often lurks underneath, keeping them from being a reliable source of comfort for each other when that’s what they need most.
In this book, we will explore various topics including how to give to each other more generously and receive more courageously; what a drama triangle is and how to exit that thing as quickly as possible; how to regulate the metaphorical heat on the burners of your very real relationship; and ways to think about the goodness of fit between you at different stages.
In his book How to Love, Tibetan monk and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh highlights the essential nature of secure relationships. In terms of the Vietnamese language, this nature is embedded in the very naming of life partners, who refer to each other simply as what translates as my home. Imagine establishing or reestablishing a relational foundation so strong and flexible that home can be found in the shape, the manner, the very expression of the one you love, wherever you are.
Dr. Sue Johnson, clinical psychologist and developer of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) for couples, describes the core nature of love as “our bulwark, designed to provide emotional protection so we can cope with the ups and downs of existence… We need emotional attachments with a few irreplaceable others to be physically and mentally healthy—to survive.”
Healthy partnerships not only bring happiness to us but also to our children and their children. By loving well and demonstrating a balanced flow of giving and receiving, we offer a positive model for how relationships can be. This contribution to the life of families is my primary motivation for writing.
What Stands in Our Way
When moments of conflict and tension occur between partners, harshness or disinterest may appear on the surface, while underneath either partner may be carrying any of the following fears:
When you, as my partner, are angry, sad, or anxious about me, I either have to change your mind, distract you, defend myself, or lay low until it blows over. If I can’t do one of these things, I will lose you, or me, or both.
If I shift my focus and care to you, I have to let go of me.
If I give too much, I will lose ground.
Additionally, what one partner considers to be a perfectly logical attempt to help the situation often falls flat for the other.
Under stress and with these fears, even the most caring, compassionate, and open-minded people can shift into a mindset of right-versus-wrong, good-versus-bad, and me-versus-you.
In these moments, the essence of we is shielded from view. When we add the impact of any traumatic or stressful events experienced by one or both partners, the potential for disconnection becomes even more understandable. As shared by Bessel van der Kolk in The Body Keeps the Score, “Traumatized people are afraid of conflict. They fear losing control and ending up on the losing side once again.”
From that fear, partners often say, think, and do things that harm the relationship, like defending, criticizing, or avoiding. Many couples have a way to talk through the inevitable disruptions that arise; but when the interactions repeat without resolution, monstrous negative cycles can develop that are difficult to reverse without help.
Trauma and couples therapies—such as highly researched and evidence-based Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) for trauma and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) for couples, as well as many other therapies and healing modalities—are designed to remove any blocks standing in the way of secure relating. Once blocks are removed, some partners step right into the new positive way of being together as a couple, while some benefit from additional skills and coaching.
Once a feeling of togetherness returns for couples in our sessions, often the next question they ask is: “How do we do this at home?”
Mad Libs for Your Relationship
“Do you have scripts? I need scripts. I’m busy… just tell me what to say!”
—Kristina Biondolillo
Kristina Biondolillo, a busy mother, CCP at Cleveland Clinic, and executive director of Marilyn’s Voice, a nonprofit animal rescue, is clear about what she needs and what she doesn’t. She doesn’t need convincing that balanced relating is a good idea. Like many others, she wants to know the fewest possible words to start her down the right track when emotions are high and the moment is precious.
Naturally, words alone will feel incomplete without a genuine and congruent match of emotion, which is easiest to embody when you’re not anxious about whether or not you can remember a reliable path forward. This book is designed to give you that head start, to help you create integrity with your AWE (Actions, Words, and Energy) by helping you identify and address blocks, giving you a little structure and lots of room to be your authentic selves.
Is This Book for You?
When couples come for counseling, they often don’t know if they need therapy to work through the impact of past events, coaching to learn and practice new skills with each other, or both. Most often, they know they want better communication. Either their relationship is good and they’ve come to make it better, or they’re telling me something hurts and they just can’t get what they want for themselves, as they reveal their longing for something more. They are wives, husbands, boyfriends, girlfriends, significant others, those who have never been married, and those who are giving partnership another try.
This book is for people who are willing to risk opening themselves, even if just a little, to see what might be possible. These pages, intended to be explored by partners reading separately or together, include stories, dialogue, ideas, coaching steps called Moves, and two illustrated characters who show up to highlight concepts and help us build compassion for the sometimes-confusing things we do to love and be loved.
Throughout the book, I will draw upon:
My training as a therapist specializing in trauma and couples therapies;
Thousands of hours working with clients intensively, mostly in three-hour sessions;
Interviews with over seventy-five individuals and couples who are not my clients; and
The wisdom of experts and artists from the fields of counseling, psychology, body-oriented therapies, sports, and the arts.
We humans espouse many ideal intentions, yet in the daily living of our relationships we’re going to skip steps, get hijacked by our emotional brains, and find ourselves offtrack as many times as not. When that happens, how do we return to what we know?
As the late poet and philosopher John O’Donohue reminds us of our natural world:
“The sun never rises on the same landscape twice.”
Similarly, we, our life stages, and our situations are ever changing. This book is my invitation for you to shine loving care and attention on the unfolding beauty of the home you are and can become for each other.
PART I
THE SPOTLIGHT OF LOVE
CHAPTER 1
SPOTLIGHT OVERVIEW
Are you seeking guidance to make sure you and your partner are there for each other long-term?
Do you ever experience conflict that includes the same kinds of reactions over and over?
* * *
Often when negative cycles are in the mix, one or both partners start doing very human and remarkably unhelpful things, such as:
Defending,
criticizing,
avoiding the problem,
or avoiding altogether.
Perhaps this dynamic feels familiar: You usually have compassion for each other and solve problems effectively, but when your partner is angry, sad, shut down, or anxious about you, maybe you automatically try to:
Change your partner’s mind,
defend yourself,
distract them,
or lay low until it blows over.
We’ve all been in these moments, and deep down we know these strategies don’t help because it’s how we respond and feel responded to that matters.
Although spotlights are sometimes thought of as an interrogation device or indicate uncomfortable attention in front of a crowd, there is another type of spotlight that is neither harsh nor demanding.
The Spotlight of Love
Imagine an invisible spotlight dangles at-the-ready between you and your partner wherever you go. This light shines loving care and attention and has the potential to be a deeply inspiring, soothing, and healing force. We may crave, deflect, hide from, or barely recognize this light, or the glow may feel very comfortable and easily shared. Either way, such love is a powerful beam we want to invite and welcome.
For the health and happiness of the relationship, each partner needs time in the other’s focused loving care (a.k.a. the Spotlight), yet there are many ways in which we all struggle to give and receive this light. In the chapters of Part I, we are going to slow things down and explore what it means to hold the beam steady and to stand in its glow.
Keeping Both Partners in the Game
The Spotlight model includes a set of skills that can be challenging to use when someone close to you is having a difficult feeling, and especially so when the complaint or difficult feeling is about you. When the one we love attributes their unhappiness to us, it can be really hard to hear—so hard that, rather than being comforting with our words and our presence, we might:
Defend ourselves, which often starts with, “Well, I meant…”
Blame ourselves in a collapsing way, like, “You’re right… I’m no good.”
Blame the other person, as in, “Why do you always…?” or
Avoid the other person altogether.
We react as though some part of us thinks we can ignore the problem and hope it goes away, talk our partner out of the complaint or difficult feeling, or distract and grab their attention by suddenly having a greater need than they do. These strategies don’t work because they take the Spotlight away from the person who raised the concern in the first place.
If you have a concern, you deserve loving care and attention, and if your significant other raises a concern, they deserve that care and attention too. It’s like you’re playing a game of relational ping-pong with the goal of seeing how many consecutive volleys you can tally together. Since the goal is to keep both of you in the game, you don’t just watch the ball go by, smash it at your partner, or send it sailing over their head. Instead, you want to receive, make contact, and give something back to keep the process alive.
If your relationship becomes one-sided and the Spotlight is shining in one direction a lot more than the other, we’ll tackle that dynamic together in later chapters. For now, we want to ensure the person who has raised the concern or difficult feeling gets the care they need from you. They are coming to you because you matter so much, and you want to be of help for them because they matter so much (Lange 2021).
Spotlight Moves
The steps of the model are called Moves. The Moves provide structure for slowing down aspects of an interaction. When using the Moves, you find yourself in one of two roles:
The role of
Giving
, from which you shine the care and attention of the Spotlight on your partner for the duration of the four giving Moves; or
The role of
Receiving
, from which you receive the care and attention of your partner. In this role, you are also
Revealing
your inner world of feelings and thoughts along the way.
Spotlight Moves (Generous Giving)
Pause and play buttons are available as well. You’ll use pause frequently and intentionally to slow down interactions. The Spotlight provides clarity as well as a path toward emotional safety, which is present when you trust you can share your authentic, unfolding self with your partner. For our purposes, play isn’t about starting the action again. As safety develops, repeated moments of play create the neural pathways for a new or reclaimed baseline of playfulness (Gordon 2014). Once partners feel invited, validated, and cared for, the play button often turns itself on.
The Giving role asks a lot of you. It asks you to hold onto yourself emotionally, which means you are able to manage any inner emotional distress you have, while also reaching for your partner via the giving Moves.
This holding and reaching can be a challenging combination. Research reveals that during conflict, regardless of what might be visible on the outside, partners can become physiologically activated or flooded in such a way that their heart rates rise, their blood oxygen levels fall, and they release stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol—all of which severely limit their ability to listen, empathize, and respond thoughtfully (Gottman and Gottman, 2018).
Spotlight Moves (Receiving/Revealing)
The Receiving/Revealing role also asks much of you, to state whether or not you can receive your partner’s care and attention without deflecting or batting it away. We have understandable reasons for doing things like defending ourselves or deflecting attention. We want to invite these reasons and reactions into the Spotlight as well.
While in this role, you are invited to reveal vulnerable feelings and insecurities rather than lashing out or shutting down.
When you and your partner first notice you’ve become disconnected, you can triage your situation by asking each other, “Who gets the Spotlight first?” After you both go through the Moves of your current role, you then trade places, which is an important part of creating a healthy flow of giving and receiving.
Matching Words and Emotional Energy
From the Giving role, as you work to manage your own thoughts and feelings so you can reach for your partner, you’ll be tapping into the parts of you that genuinely mean what you’re saying.
For instance, anyone with a willingness to engage with the Spotlight likely has some part of them that is genuinely glad to be told about feelings—even difficult ones. See if you can find the genuinely grateful part of yourself before speaking. The words of the first Move will help you get there, as you’ll see in the next chapter. You can also close your eyes and picture a positive moment with your partner. Once you’re vividly reliving the moment, let the good feelings peak, and then see if you can access your natural curiosity and caring.
Sometimes a partner can’t find the generously giving part of themself until they receive the Spotlight first, even if only for a few minutes. Once you become fluid with the Moves, you will be able to notice what roles you are currently in and signal when you are switching back and forth.
You, Me, and We
According to philosopher Martin Buber, “When two people actively and authentically engage each other in the here and now and truly show up to one another […] a new relational dimension [called] the between becomes manifest.” The relationship becomes greater than the individual contributions in ways that couldn’t have been planned or predicted (Martin and Cowan, 2019).
I think of the Spotlight as the ever-present between Buber describes.
In an ideal world, the love of the between would shine on everyone, all the time, without fail. However, in our lived experiences, we get reactive—whether we show it outwardly or not. This means we need a way to consciously direct the ever-present Spotlight to only one partner at a time.
How Did That Go?
When we’re having a strong emotional reaction and perceive that our partner is not on our side, our thinking can become rigid, which is entirely understandable given our human wiring for threat. We forget we are also wired for connection and have Moves available to help us slow things down and begin to calm our own and each other’s nervous systems. One of the benefits of these practical Spotlight Moves is they help us understand where we’re stuck. (Recognizing precisely where the “stuck points” are via the Clarity Assessment questions in Chapter 9 will help you know where to focus for reconnection.)
Very few couples breeze right through the Spotlight Moves the first time. In close relationships, stuff comes up. We get hooked into reactive patterns and habits. Just like becoming proficient in a sport, dance, or any activity you love, this endeavor also takes a lot of practice.
When you practice the Moves, the time spent experiencing disconnection due to a you-versus-me dynamic shortens, becomes less frequent, and is experienced with less distress, while the time of connection and a sense of togetherness expands.
Balance becomes balancing as you develop a strong and flexible foundation that can hold you through your growth and changes.
No Buts About It
At each stage of relationship, holding onto yourself and reaching toward your partner involves art, skill, intuition, and practice. The language we use also matters greatly. Perhaps the most important word we’ll use in this book can be found in the next three letters:
When used in place of but, the word and allows two seemingly competing ideas to be held side by side. Where the word but minimizes everything that came before, the word and expands us beyond dualistic thinking. When we trade but for and, we create the space for ideas to unfold and be explored. If this substitution becomes a habit, we can change the way we think.
Language literally changes our neurobiology, as evidenced by the research of Andrew Newberg, MD, and Mark Robert Waldman. In their book, Words Can Change Your Brain, they write:
“A single word has the power to influence the expression of genes that regulate physical and emotional stress.”
Consider these examples:
“I care about what you’re saying,
but
I have to go to work.”
“I feel anxious with her,
but
she’s family.”
In the first example, the speaker minimizes what’s being said to them. In the second, the speaker dismisses their own experience. Minimizing and dismissing are found in me-versus-you relationships. When we allow for all to be present (e.g., “I care about what you’re saying, and I have to go to work”) there is often a pause and, with that held beat, a new possibility.
Another significant aspect of the word and is that you can add as many statements as you like, which can be very helpful when speaking from your heart in the moment. For example:
“I feel anxious with her,and she’s family,and she pushes my buttons,and I love her dearly.”
All these ideas need to be present to communicate the fullness of the message.
The word and creates a small shift with only a few letters. This is a language of paradox that allows us to hold things together, one in each hand and both in each heart. The word and is also a central element to the question we explore throughout this book:
How do I hold onto me and reach for you?
* * *
CHAPTER 2
GENEROUS GIVING (MOVES 1 AND 2)
“I can’t believe you did it again.”
* * *
Heated moments can lead to snide comments or condescending attitudes. Since reactivity happens, we need a way to consciously direct the Spotlight of Love to one partner and then the other. Through this authentic exchange, we are far more capable of generous giving and courageous receiving/revealing than we might have known possible.
As a reminder, the Spotlight has two roles:
Receiving/Revealing—the role of the partner who is actively receiving the love and care being shined upon them while also revealing their inner world with as much vulnerability as possible; and
Giving—the role of the partner who is holding the Spotlight steady.
The way we reflect the qualities and experiences of another person is one of the privileges of loving. As psychologist, meditation teacher, and author Tara Brach reminds us in her book Radical Acceptance:
“Our trust in our own basic goodness emerges from the clear and deep mirroring of others.”
Spotlight giving holds up a positive mirror so your loved one’s basic goodness can come forth in your presence.
The giving Moves can be challenging in practice. When your partner is perceived as being inaccessible or unresponsive (e.g., angry, disappointed, or shut down toward you) then emotions such as fear, anger, sadness, or confusion can override other information you have in the moment. This means you might react to your partner’s reactions, momentarily forgetting what you know about connection.
Remembering what you know is easier when you:
Have established Moves (in the form of sentence starters, which we’ll discuss shortly) to rely upon;
Have an experience of what it’s like to be in the Receiving/Revealing role; and
Trust that your thoughts and feelings will receive attention when the Spotlight shifts back to you.
Couples often report initial moments of conflict similar to the one found below in “The Story of the Dishes.” In this story, imagine yourself in the role of the Giving partner. The partners depicted here successfully navigate every key moment. Remember few, if any, couples will be able to do this the first time through! I share in this way to show you what is possible. Secure relationships, the ones where you know you can count on each other, are about being good enough. They don’t demand perfection.
The Story of the Dishes
It all begins with some backward plates.
One day you’re in the kitchen together and your partner, standing by the dishwasher, says, “I can’t believe you did it again. The dishes. Go. Like. This.” Exaggerated arm movements match the angry tone and emphasis on each word.
If we pause right here, you (like any of us) might have the impulse to defend yourself, blame your partner for acting that way, try to talk them out of their feelings, or avoid the whole thing and hope this tense moment goes away.
