Recently I posted a pretty good rationale for not cleaning my basement on my day off. It was a light way to describe the concept of “Radical Acceptance.” Well, let’s say that today is the day to clean that basement, that you can’t stand it anymore, it has to get done, and you’ve decided to do it now. Good for you! I found a book (click icon below to purchase) that describes a four-step way to make this project something more, something that helps you grow and change in your life.

(True confession: I found it while reading O Magazine at the health club. A guilty pleasure!)

The “SHED” process involves four steps:
1. Separate the treasures. Look through your stuff and keep things you truly want and need, or things that have deep meaning for you.
2. Heave the trash. The rest of it is out of here! Personal note: my dad is really good at this step. I remember him saying things like, “Does it work? No? Throw it out!” or “Do we use it? No? Throw it out!” This was a good thing, because my dad had a lot of kids.
3. Embrace your identity. In this step, the author, Julie Morgenstern, encourages you to discern your present and future goals, dreams, hopes, and so forth, and to look at your “shedding” process as part of a larger effort to be your best self, and live your daily life by drawing upon the best in yourself.
4. Drive yourself forward. In this step, you become more active and directive in your re-engagement with life. You pursue the goals and dreams you discerned while shedding not just the old stuff in your basement, but also the old habits, ways of scheduling your time, and other default assumptions and behaviors you have about yourself and your life.

So if you’re looking for a step-by-step way to change your life, not just your basement, you might want to give Morgenstern’s book a try!

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Lately I’ve been reviewing the work of John Gottman, a well-known psychotherapist, researcher, and scholar who has devoted his career to helping couples. The Gottman Institute offers great workshops for couples, and Dr. Gottman has published several books on marriage, interpersonal problems, couples with children, you name it.

Here’s a link to a great page on the Gottman Institute’s Web site. It offers several basic tips for couples, and a few surprises. For example, one of the tips is, “Edit yourself. Couples who avoid saying every critical thought when discussing touchy topics are consistently the happiest.” This flies in the face of a common assumption: that if we just express everything that’s on our minds, we’ll be a healthier couple. Not so! I like Gottman’s work because he models it on his extensive observation of healthy couples, couples he calls “masters of marriage.” Gottman has found that these healthy couples usually don’t sound like they’re amped up on self-help books. They’ve figured out how to relate authentically with one another, dealing with both positive and negative emotions. But they’ve also learned that, well, I’ll say it this way: they’ve learned that discretion is often the better part of happiness!

Check out Gottman’s work. It’s a great way to learn how to improve your relationship!

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I posted on this late last year, but it keeps coming up in my work with clients, so I think it’s worth posting again. How do you really clear the air in your relationships? How do you talk to others in a healthy way, particularly when tempers are short?

This technique was developed by Gaelen Billingsley, another great therapist in Seattle. (I suppose someone might say it will hurt my business if I recommend someone else who does what I do, but hey, that’s how good she is!). It’s a method in which you state clearly three basic things:

1. Your feelings. Keep them simple, and take full ownership of them. I feel mad. I feel upset. I feel scared. I feel nervous. I feel frustrated. If you’re saying, “I feel like you don’t respect me,” that’s not a feeling. It’s a thought, a judgment, an assumption. Usually the word “like” is a clue that you’re expressing a thought, not a feeling.

2. Your thoughts. Again, take full ownership. “I think you don’t respect me because you said something I thought was insulting.” Did you notice that statement contains two thoughts? You think he doesn’t respect you, and you think so because he said something you thought was insulting. It helps to sort out your thoughts from your feelings because otherwise, how can the other person really respond to your problem? If you’re lost in your feelings and convinced the other person harmed you, you’re not in a position to listen to the other person’s perspective, let alone reconcile.

3. State clearly your request. “I just want you to hear me out. That’s all.” Or, “I want to know what you were really thinking about me when you said that.” “I would like us to talk this out. Can you help me?”

Finally, think about this: the other person may not honor your request. She might not want to talk. He might not want to tell you what he was really thinking. That’s disappointing, but it’s the other person’s right to respond in whatever way they choose. Thank them anyway for giving you time to state clearly your feelings and thoughts. And keep practicing this technique. It’s not a once-in-a-lifetime thing to do. It’s a new way of relating.

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So, it’s your fault. You did something, and you regret it. Maybe it was relatively small: you said something really insulting to your partner. Or you were acting out at work and made a fool of yourself. Maybe it was big: you had an affair. You seriously harmed someone emotionally. You behaved badly. So, now what?

Not every problem in life can be solved by following a step-by-step plan, but sometimes it does help to take things in order, one thing at a time. Here’s a way to work through your big mistake, make sense of it, and make amends. Whether or not you’re able to restore your relationship with another person, you can at least make peace with yourself. So here goes:

1. Face up to what you did. Take out a pad of paper if you like, but find a way to really acknowledge to yourself what happened. “I stepped out on my partner. I knew better, but I did it.” Or, “I said something hurtful. I didn’t mean it, but that doesn’t matter. I hurt my friend, and it’s my fault.” At this stage, don’t express remorse, just get the facts straight. What did you do? What happened when you did it? Fess up to yourself.

2. Get in touch with your own feelings about what you did. Now’s the time for remorse, if you feel it. Remember that feelings are usually simple things: they fall into four basic categories–mad, sad, glad, afraid. If you find yourself saying, “I feel like I let her down,” that’s not a feeling. It’s a thought, an assumption, a judgment. “I feel lousy because I let her down”–that’s better. “Lousy” is the feeling. And what’s under “lousy?” Feelings like guilty, ashamed, embarrassed, frustrated, sad, remorseful, and so on. One more thing about feelings: realize that you’re not an angel. You’re human, so some of your feelings won’t be P.C. “I also feel mad,” you might say to yourself. “Yeah, I screwed up. Big time. But I’m still mad at him about what he did.” That’s just another feeling. It doesn’t hurt to get it out there. Notice it. Jot it down. Reflect on it.

3. Think about the reasons–not excuses, but reasons–why you did what you did. A reason is not an excuse, not a cause for pardon. It’s just a reason. You had a tough childhood, so that’s why you did it? Okay. That’s a reason, but it’s not an excuse. Thinking about the reasons for your behavior is a good thing to do, but not because it “gets you off the hook.” It’s a good thing to do because it helps you get past your own unproductive guilt, or your own unproductive defensiveness. You’re not absolving yourself. You’re just getting some perspective on the circumstances that led to your unfortunate behavior. “I cheated on my partner,” you might say, “because I’ve never had a stable relationship and I got scared. I wasn’t thinking… Maybe I stepped out because I wanted to go first, I was so convinced that he would hurt me.” Again, that’s not an excuse. It’s just a little bit of perspective about your thoughts and actions.

4. Decide what you’re going to do next. This step could look like a lot of different things. It could be any of the following, or something else entirely:
–Apologize, but make it good. Truly apologize for what you did. State clearly to the other person what specifically you regret, and let the other person know that you understand that they feel whatever it is they feel about it. Don’t ask them for anything. Just offer the apology, offer it sincerely, and leave it at that. Let the next step be theirs.
–Resolve to do better. You might have lost the relationship at this point, or perhaps the other person just doesn’t want to deal with it, or talk with you about it. Draw whatever lesson you can from what happened and move forward. Notice when you’re slipping back into useless guilt trips, or useless defensiveness. Notice it, then lead yourself back to your current life.
–Forgive yourself for what you’ve done. This might be the hardest part, at least for some of us. Remember that you are a flawed, fallible human being. You can learn from your mistakes, but you can’t avoid them. This kind of self-forgiveness is not cheap. It takes time–time you spend with yourself, reflecting soberly on what happened, and what’s next for you. But it’s the healthiest way for you to use this difficult time to learn about yourself and, well, grow up a little bit!

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Do you feel caught in an endless loop of fighting with your partner? Is it hard to get out of it once it’s started? You’re probably right about a lot of things that make you mad. But then—and just stay with me here for a minute!—so is your partner. When two people are arguing, most of the time they are both right about something, even if one of them is only 0.01% right!

Let’s assume it’s your partner who is right only 0.01% of the time. (I’m guessing you’re OK with that!) If you’re fighting, consider this: tell your partner that he/she is right about that one little tiny thing. Your partner says, “You didn’t support me last night when I was telling you about my bad day!” You could say, “You’re right. I wasn’t supportive the whole time we were talking. I wasn’t there for you when you needed me.” Then you could just stop talking, and let your partner take in the fact that you didn’t defend yourself. You acknowledged the 0.01% thing that your partner was right about. (Maybe you were supportive 99.99% of the time, but you just chose not to point that out!)

Your partner is stuck now. How can I respond when someone agrees with me? Attack again? Most people won’t attack again, at least not right away. Agreeing with your partner—just a little bit—can open a moment of silence in the middle of a fight. It could get you talking again, but this time without shouting.

Therapist and author David Burns came up with this technique. He calls it the “disarming technique.” It can be a simple way to change the way you communicate in your relationship. It could stop the fighting. (Just be sure that you’re agreeing with something that’s true! Be authentic!)

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A few weeks ago I recommended a great book on forgiveness. This book talks about forgiving those who have hurt you, but it also talks about forgiving yourself, especially if the person who hurt you is unwilling (or unable) to work things out with you.

This is important because most of the time, when people are angry or bitter—or just deeply sad—because someone hurt them, they are also angry with themselves for being vulnerable to the hurt. “How could I have been so stupid?!” I hear clients say. And it’s easy—when you’re really upset—to forget that you didn’t know then what you know now. Most of the time, you couldn’t have protected yourself from being betrayed, or lied to.

So one of the most important tasks before you in your recovery from a hurtful relationship—or a relationship that ended in a way that was hurtful—is to look with compassion on yourself, to reconcile yourself to yourself … to give yourself a break. When it happened, you did what you were able to do. You thought and felt and acted with all your might. Now that it’s over, you might be kicking yourself for not doing this, not saying that. I encourage you to notice this (understandable) self-scolding, and treat yourself with more compassion, more understanding, and yes—more love.

Click on the image below if you’d like to purchase Janis Abrahms-Spring’s great book on forgiveness:

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A colleague of mine has a great tool for clearing the air in your relationship. It’s a simple process of stating your feeling, your thought, and your request to the other person. But for some reason, as simple as it is, it can be hard for a lot of people to do it! Hard because you might not like the response you get, or hard because the feelings and thoughts you have are painful. But it’s worth it, and you become stronger and healthier the more you talk honestly with your partner.

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