The most crucial component to relationship work is self work

Critical components of change in a partnership lay in our ability to face our own defenses and stand in our vulnerability over and over again.

A recent carousel on my IG “Things I Want You to Know as a Couples Therapist” was inspired by the stumbles I see time and time again working with couples and as a partner myself. No one is immune to the trials of which relating to another human being can illuminate. Just how deep and complex this personal unfolding can expand into is entirely dependent on the ways in which you are willing and curious to explore. Every interaction lays within them lessons in becoming intimately more aware with both your own gifts and your own limitations in consciousness.

Relationships, especially ones that are intimate, can and will completely turn you on your head. Not because you should or shouldn’t be with that person in particular, but because we are meant to take every moment of difficulty as a mirror into the part of ourself that needs to learn something. Love is both immensely complex and also incredibly easy at the same time, especially if the love is long-term or has varying levels of intensity to it.

If we can commit to knowing and remembering a few of our own very inherent principles, the ones in which we decide the path we choose to take, then we can remain on the path to higher knowing. But the most important step here is to decide what principles of purpose you choose to stand and live by. Otherwise, everything that comes onto your path or you choose to go onto another’s path for, is skewed. This is why the very first component of a healthy relationship is this one:

The most crucial component of relationship work, is self work. It’s honestly the most imperative part. How you show up in and to your relationship and how you respond and interact with your partner have to be a core focus of any work you’re doing with your partner to make things better.

This goes way beyond our society’s notion of “self-care,” and simply “taking time for you.” This speaks to the deep, reflective nature of learning about how you got to this very moment and space in time. The interactions, influences, and choices you’ve made, along with the world you’ve also been dropped into - the place you find yourself right here and right now.

Learning and exploring how you got to this moment in time by the choices you’ve made despite the circumstances you’ve been given, is an exploration of your presence and a practice in mindfulness. Being mindful and knowing where you are is important because it’s where you begin.

Observe and explore: what role might you have played in the patterns you’ve participated in? Reflect, honestly, if even just between yourself and your journal. How have you willingly and unwillingly, knowingly or unknowingly, participated in any given role? Do you want to continue doing so?

These choices are internal, first and foremost. And they have to be. Because in order to change the externalized view of your life from your frame of reference, you first need to understand what your frame of reference is. It’s from this space we start making very, very, active choices. Choices about the role we play in our life and the lives of others. A witnessing, an observing happens first.

Know where you are and how you got there. If the emotion is too much, one thing I often teach my clients how to do is to get back into their body by asking two questions:

1. Where is my ass?

2. Where are my feet?

If all you can do is to keep coming back to your physical being over and over again, do it. Know where you are. And keep coming back to it over and over again. But do not stop there. There’s so much to be explored.

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