Broken Record Syndrome

I was on a call with a client recently and when I asked what we were going to address, he responded with, “Well, really it’s simply broken record syndrome’.  I very much appreciated the wisdom he offered in that response.  He (and maybe his partner) realized that they were repeating the habits of disconnection that they find themselves navigating, albeit with less intensity.  The way he shared this with me also felt light, as if there was some acceptance of the work ahead, which is practicing, over and over, the skills that he and his partner were learning.

There’s a huge celebration for me as I watch them resolve the challenges they have faced, yet with more ease, accepting the challenge of changing their biochemistry, and neural pathways more easily.  Remembering that this task requires repeating, over and over the skills.  It’s called practicing, and is essential for making the changes we hope for in our relationships.

In my years of experience, that’s generally how it goes.  Even when folks love the possibility of speaking through the lens of compassion (Nonviolent Communication) and understand it thoroughly, it takes more time and effort and practice than we want or imagine it will, to significantly change how their nervous system responds to particular things that are painful from their past.  We repeat the same old patterns of trauma, as we make the new neural pathways required to respond differently.  This is why people like me run NVC Practice Groups.  It helps people significantly to role play and re-do situations from their lives, with the support of many others who are looking for the same. 

Similar to tennis, or playing the violin, it requires practice to gain the skills necessary to make the shift in real life and in real time.  Literally shifting your biochemistry and neural pathways is what’s required to change how we automatically respond to situations.  Certainly, there are the lucky few for whom it is much more natural.  Yet, it is not the so easy for the rest of us.  We must practice and wire in the new response patterns by repeating them over and over.

I hear with some regularity, especially when beginning with a new couple, that they have talked about ‘this or that’ once or twice sharing the idea that they ‘should be done’.  When I hear this, especially in the beginning I think they are still locked into the blame/shame game and the topic is so painful they just want to be done with it.  Yet, outside the blame/shame game, the exploration can at very least be interesting.  Even better, it could be quite connecting filling the needs of deep intimacy and to be known by another which many of us long for.

What’s also required is for people to weave in taking responsibility for their experience.  To offer the NVC mourning process, allowing their partner to hear how/why they said or did the thing that is stimulating pain for the other, meaning what needs they were trying to meet.  And to share their regret for contributing to the distress they share.  This, in and of itself is one of the ways to interrupt the same old way of repeating the conversation as you always have.  Steeped in the energy of curiosity and empathy and care for one another is different from what has happened in the past.  The topic might be the same, yet the conversation will be different.

If you can imagine how changing the grooves in a record will change the music --the song itself, it is the same with changing the grooves you find yourself in in your relationships.  Changing those grooves that have been your broken record, over time will change what you say and do (your song) as well.  You will even be able to write your own relationship song(s).

COMING SOON!  Part two --a blog entitled Same Old Sh*t, which this same client inspired me to write just yesterday