How to have difficult conversations with your partner without fighting
By Orit Krug | October 6th, 2020
Is it possible to have difficult conversations with your partner without fighting if that’s all you’ve ever done?
Yes, it’s possible, and these difficult conversations can actually bring you and your partner closer than ever before.
If you’ve been stuck in a cycle of fighting whenever you have difficult conversations, this might feel really far-fetched to you.
In order to make this work, you have to learn the secret to being truly vulnerable in your relationship.
Vulnerability opens the door for deep, open, honest conversations that has you coming closer together instead of pushing your partner away.
Vulnerability also eliminates the nitpicking, blaming, and other forms of projecting that turns difficult conversations into full blown fights.
For example, admitting to sending an angry text because of your own insecurity and jealousy issues is a much more honest conversation than if you were to just blame your partner for not being trustworthy.
This turns the conversation from “YOU did this” to “This is so embarrassing, but I’m jealous and feel out of control even though you’ve never done anything to betray my trust.”
Become vulnerable in your body FIRST to have difficult conversations with your partner without fighting.
Thanks to the amazing Brene Brown, it’s not new information that vulnerability is KEY for closer relationships.
But what often doesn’t get talked about is how to be vulnerable in a way that overrides the trauma stored in your body and nervous system.
When you have past trauma trapped in your body, your nervous system is constantly on high alert and its #1 motive is to keep you alive by protecting yourself from getting hurt like you did in the past.
Your nervous system is your survival system, so it’s going to be in control of your actions no matter how much you tell your mind to be vulnerable the next time you and your partner have a difficult discussion.
You can repeat thousands of affirmations to open up your heart or even practice a script that “sounds” more vulnerable, but until your body believes it’s safe to be vulnerable, you’re going to come off guarded and defensive no matter what words you say.
Rewire your nervous system so you can have difficult conversations with your partner without fighting.
We each have a dominant nervous system response when we get into conflict with our partners. The most common responses are fight, flight, and freeze. You might immediately yell, escape the room, or just stand there like a deer in the headlights without responding to your partner at all.
These are all survival mechanisms that your nervous system instinctively does without giving you a chance to even THINK about how you want to respond and engage in a difficult conversation with your partner.
This becomes even more problematic when your triggers set off your partner’s triggers. This is called co-regulation: if you go into a fear response, your partner will go into a fear response too. If you were to stay calm, they would too.
Let’s say you’re out for a hike together and all of a sudden you come across a bear. If your partner stays calm, there’s a WAY better chance that you will too. If you freak out, your partner is going to freak out as well.
Sounds simple and maybe even a bit TOO obvious? It kind of is. This is the basic functioning that has helped us humans survive through all kinds of batshit crazy situations back in the day (and how we cope with trauma in our non-primitive lives today).
Release old trauma from your body so you can take your rock-hard walls down.
Old trauma trapped in the body drives unhealthy habits of fighting, blaming, and nitpicking at your partner on autopilot.
It’s impossible to be truly vulnerable and stay calm through difficult conversations when past trauma is ruling your life and behaviors. There are no tricks or shortcuts out there to override your survival system that only wants to keep you safe from another heartache (even if your current partner is nothing like the ones who hurt you in the past).
Releasing trauma from your body allows you to have a calm, cool regulated nervous system even in the face of uncomfortable discussions in your relationship.
If you’ve tried all the meditations and affirmations to remain vulnerable and non-defensive during difficult conversations with your partner… and you haven’t succeeded, it’s NOT your fault.
The mind is powerless against the body’s primal system when your brain doesn’t understand that your past trauma isn’t going to repeat itself today. You need to access and release the past through your BODY in order to change these unhealthy patterns.
Get on the right path to healing trauma from your body and nervous system.
Many people spend decades and thousands of dollars in traditional therapies trying to heal their trauma. Unfortunately, even the most popular therapies are scientifically shown to be limited in accessing trauma stored in the non-verbal brain and body.
Even alternative approaches, such as EMDR and Brain Mapping, are often not enough to fully heal from the physical body or the nervous system.
This makes trauma healing a very frustrating journey for so many people. They often blame themselves for being “un-healable” and decide that they’re broken.
This is NOT true!
Every human being is 100% neurophysiologically capable of healing from the past, because we all have wiring and neural pathways that can be rewired from fear and overprotection, to love and openness.
My unique, scientific-backed process via Dance Therapy has helped hundreds of clients finally heal from past trauma and transform their relationship (even after decades of trying in other therapies).
You can heal too, but you need the right methodology.
Sign up for my online course (ranges from free to $20 USD) to begin a unique, body-based learning experience that will teach you:
- Science-backed education about how trauma is stored in your body and nervous system. You’ll gain an understanding why it has NOT been your fault you haven’t healed yet from past trauma.
- Gentle, guided body-based movement that is necessary for integrated healing. This is crucial if you want your mind’s intentions to match your body’s behaviors in relationships.
- An embodied approach to healing that has helped hundreds of clients break unhealthy relationship patterns and let in healthy, lasting love.
