I tend to reveal a lot about myself in my writing.  Even though as a therapist, showing oneself is tricky, I made a conscious choice to do this because I knew that is how we remove stigma and heal shame.  If I reveal an experience that someone else identifies with and has shame around, they then have the possibility of experiencing less shame.  I will also have less shame because I have shared about this part of myself.

As a child, I had areas where I excelled.  I also had areas where I felt unworthy, ugly, and not good enough.  I was given the message that I was a burden on my father’s life.  This left me with a very specific sense of shame that I fought by becoming very independent in my career.  I was determined to take care of myself and not allow anybody else to take care of me.

As I entered into the world of relationships, I discovered that I was not well equipped for them – largely because I grew up in a family with a lot of relational dysfunction.  Eventually I met a man who I thought I could marry.  We fell in love quickly.  About six months into our relationship some major problems emerged.  He would become very critical of me at times.  I gave him an ultimatum. Attend couples therapy with me or I would leave the relationship.  I didn’t want to end the relationship. I don’t even know if I would have had the strength to do so at that time. But I knew what was going on was not okay.

We started our first round of couples’ therapy.  He got angry and fumed. I cried.  This was our ‘cycle.’ When we weren’t in this dynamic we mostly got along.  After 3 years of every other week sessions, we stopped.  2 years later we started another round of couples’ therapy for several more years with a different therapist.  We eventually stopped.  I was tired of trying to make our relationship emotionally satisfying.  We had both made some changes.  But it wasn’t enough.  We were both very focused on our careers and had other parts of our lives that nourished us.  Our personal connection ebbed and flowed – but there was a lot of distance and big areas where we could not find a sense of safety or connection with each other.  I had learned much about myself and developed many parts of myself in this relationship.  I was not the person who had entered into that relationship years earlier.

Eventually I knew that I wanted to leave.  I hung in for a few more years hoping that things would improve.  Finally one day I went through what was to be my last disappointment over my husband’s lack of emotional availability.  It was as if a switch was turned. I was simply finished. I told him that I wanted a divorce.

That began a whole new and stressful cycle.  My family was hurt and disappointed.  The process of separating our lives was stressful and painful. My husband moved from grief at his loss and a sense that perhaps he had let me down emotionally to fury at me for doing this to him. His shame at having failed in his marriage was huge.  I became hated.  His anger at me was easier for him to tolerate than his shame over having failed.

I had my own shame to contend with as we split up the life we had created together.  Was what my family was saying true?  That because he had contributed more financially, because I had initiated the divorce, that because he wanted to have another go at it, that I deserved less – much less than him?  That I should walk away and hang my head in shame?

We live in a world of impermanence and imperfection. How we deal with this has much to do with the feelings we hold.  If I cannot accept the seeming imperfections of my life or myself and tend to blame others or myself, I will undoubtedly have shame under those attitudes.  If on the other hand, I can accept who I am, the cards I have been dealt and am working with them to the best of my ability, I do not have to feel as if something isn’t right about me – I do not have to carry shame, nor defend against it.

I had to reach down to a part of myself that wasn’t fully formed – the part that could stand up for myself and know that I had done my best, the part that had to say no to my families’ beliefs and ideas.  I could see the root of this belief system – right back to my father telling us that we were eating up his life – literally – and that we were shameful and undeserving of using any (his) resources.

I had not previously been able to talk about my feeling of not deserving, my feeling that if I didn’t pull my own weight equally in every area, I was not okay.  I’ve had to reframe this concept differently.  I’ve had to accept that my life has been laid out for me to confront this.  I’ve had to decide that not only is my contribution to the planet valid, but that it is okay for me to be helped by others along the way.

What is shame?  Shame is probably the most difficult and debilitating emotion that there is.  Shame tells us that we are not okay and that there is something deeply wrong with us that cannot be fixed or cured.  When we feel shame, it is as if there is a stain on us that we cannot remove.  Shame separates us from other people for it requires secrecy to survive.

We feel shame over areas where we do not feel that we are the way we are supposed to be.  We get stuck in these places. Often these areas are parts of ourselves that we do not accept.  For example:

• I fantasize about men even though I am a straight male.
• I was sexually molested and feel as if I am damaged.
• I should be able to take care of myself (or you) and am bad that I need help or can’t do it.
• I shouldn’t need anything.
• I should have been able to save my family (but couldn’t).

The list goes on and on. There are gazillion things we could feel shame over.

As a therapist, much of our training is to help others talk about the parts of themselves that they have shame over – opening that up so that it can be expressed, seen, accepted and healed. This is because healing shame involves allowing what we think is shameful to be seen and learning that we are not the horrible thing that we thought we were – undeserving, unlovable or damaged.

How does a couple resolve shame that may be at the root of some of their most difficult dynamics – like I had in my first marriage?  It is a question that has emerged for me as I have moved through my life and deeper into my work as somebody who helps couples work through their most difficult issues. Luckily for me, I had training in ‘relational gestalt therapy.’  Relational gestalt means that we share our own experience if it is helpful to the other person.  It is a more transparent form of therapy with more self-disclosure than some of the modalities out there. It focuses on the relationship between the client and the therapist.  Because this is the point of focus, instead of the client herself, we move into the realm of intersubjectivity – how do I impact you and how do you impact me.  And this is exactly where we end up in relationships and couples work.  There is no real objective right and wrong (barring things like abuse), but simply how we impact each other and how we connect and heal each other.  This perspective has been invaluable to me.  It is one of the keys to healing relationships and to finding ways to create more safety in our relationships.

We all have areas where we may feel shameful.  Do you know what your voices of shame are – the areas where you may feel as if you are not okay?  Do you know how you fight against them?  And how does that fight impact your life?

Having shame does not make you shameful.  Shame is a feeling.  But it is what you do with that feeling that is important.  Are you working on healing your shame?  Or do you hide it and fight against it, or the parts of your life that trigger it?  Do give your shame to others by judging them?

Remember the old saying, ‘you are only as sick as your secrets?’  That saying is talking about shame.  The antidote to shame is acceptance and empathy.  See if you can find a way to bring that to the parts of yourself that you judge and hide.

For more help on relationships, we should be launching WeConcile later this year – and I am still accepting beta couples at this time.

Some of the beta couples testing out the WeConcile Program are almost finished.  Here is feedback from the male half of a couple who just finished level 21: needs. Of course the names have been changed to protect confidentiality.

Susan and I are doing very well together and seem to be in a place where we are connecting better and able to relate to each other will far less conflict.

How are you changing in your relationship?

I am doing more processing before speaking.  Assessing what is “within me” and what is “external to me” in causing me to react, respond, or analyzing how I am thinking and feeling.

How is your partner changing in your relationship?

Susan seems to be more comfortable and at ease in the relationship and even when conflict should be about to occur – she is de-escalating much more quickly than ever before.

How is your relationship changing?

Truly we are feeling more confident and more competent in the relationship.  It is feeling more textured and more complete to me.  We still are not always perfectly aligned on all aspects – but we no longer seem to struggle to find a way to discuss it nor does the difference lead to a fight.  We are able to TALK without having it lead to conflict or hard feelings. In fact, we are starting to laugh about or not take personally how we each approach decisions, behave, or interact.  Rather than taking offense or assuming that something is a personal affront purposely being lobbed at the other, we are able to ask questions, share perspectives, and not jump to conclusions.

Content:

This level was easy to follow and to implement.  Given that it was similar to previous ones, we handled it fairly easily.

Feelings and thoughts:

My feelings and thoughts are that through this program, Susan and I have learned much and we have begun to apply it more naturally and do so automatically.  It is not “forced” and we don’t have to think about it nearly as much.

Conversations:

It has become easier to have conversations that previously would have been avoided or would have led to confrontations.  We are feeling freer to talk about things more openly and honestly (and for me, I have identified a new level of honesty…have started to experience things outside of just my “head”).  We share things less defensively and are more receptive to hearing (I mean REALLY hearing) the other person’s experiences, points of view, or experiences.  Rather than focusing on being right, we are willing to reach across the facts and connect on the non-logical.

Learned / Clarified:

It is becoming closer to second nature for us.  The practice is helping integrate it into how we respond to the other.  Not so much a “new” learning as it has reinforced what we are doing.

Likes / Dislikes:

I think above all, I like that we are doing it and succeeding.  Not perfectly, and not each time.  But we are doing it and seeing positive results.  This level was one where I could really see the growth and the distance traveled since Susan and I started.

I remember years ago how my father and the four of us children would go walking up the hill into the woods to look for a Christmas tree.  It was a somewhat magical time – one of those special times when we had fun with our father. The trees would be beautiful, brown branches, dark green pines and firs that were covered with snow.  Dad would be in a good mood.  We looked for a tree the right size, but one that was growing under another tree and so doomed to a stunted life or an early death.  It felt kinder to take a tree that didn’t have the same potential as the others.  It was fun running through the snow searching for the tree.  After some deliberation a decision was made.  The fated tree was chopped down and we dragged it to the house.  Sometimes a bit of the top would have to be cut off so that it fit in the living room.  The stunted side would be placed to face the back corner in the living room – hidden, leaving the rest of it to be celebrated with ornaments and lights.

Most of us tend to see ourselves as good and see others as more flawed. But like the tree with the stunted side because it grew under a bigger tree, we all have a stunted side.  If we look closely, we all have aspects of ourselves that are beautiful and aspects that are less so.  On the global scale these aspects are fairly easy to identify – philanthropy and acts of heroism as well as wars, murders, scandals, fraud, theft etc.  But seeing our ‘stunted’ sides within ourselves is more difficult because we tend to hide them: our jealousies, insecurities, and our fears – even from ourselves.  Like the Christmas tree, we show our better side.

Like everyone else, I too have parts of myself that developed in a weaker way.  While this stunted side of myself reveals where I was overshadowed and how I survived, it is also where I have my own character issues.

What is meant by character?  Character refers to qualities or traits, which determine a person’s response, regardless of circumstances, to the events of our lives.  These qualities include: courage, trustworthiness, responsibility, benevolence, compassion, accountability, honesty, insight, integrity, patience etc.  In reading the list, we recognize these qualities as important in our human development and our relationships. The absence of these same qualities will reveal ‘character issues’ – areas of greed, entitlement, fear, laziness, or some other way in which we are not fully in standing in our own power.

Obviously, we tend to look up to people who have developed these qualities of character and will be more wary of those who have not – because they can (and do) more easily cause us injury.  And often people have uneven development of these qualities that make up character.  For example, they may be generous, yet also unable to be accountable for their own actions.

Yet we often don’t ‘see’ the character of those loved ones closest to us clearly because of ‘attachment.’  Attachment means exactly what it sounds like – that we attach. I was very attached to the parts of my father that were beautiful ­– his intelligence, his talent, his uniqueness and his sense of humor, despite his flaws, his dark rages, his depressions, his selfishness. I was attached to him because I needed him and because I loved him. Attachment is part of being human, of being a mammal actually. We attach to our pets, our children, our friends, our partners, our teachers, our co-workers.  And we generally attach quickly – often before we’ve had a chance to fully ‘see’ the entire spectrum of character of the person we attach to.

Over the years, I have at times been confronted by ‘run ins’ with character issues – both my own and others.  It is not enjoyable to suddenly be confronted with one of our flaws.  Yet there is an important challenge here.  Abe Lincoln has been quoted as saying, ‘Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.’ In this he alludes to the importance of character. What kind of a tree will we be? What kind of shadow will we be casting on the world?

The wisdom of ‘know thyself’ is becoming more apparent. Will we look at ourselves and see our own flaws – those parts of ourselves that we have pushed aside and hidden away? And connected to this, when we have ‘messed up,’ can we make amends? Will we say that we are sorry and take the actions needed to strengthen the ‘weaker’ parts of ourselves?  Will we be accountable to others and ourselves? Will we build our character?

When it is an other person’s failing that impacts us however, we are often left feeling angry, sad or betrayed.  We may have to take our attachment and break it – because to stay attached would be a betrayal to ourselves.  How do we then move through these feelings to a place of acceptance and compassion?  How do we not get stuck in feeling victimized by what occurred?

It can be helpful to remind ourselves that everything that occurs to us has the potential to help us grow.  Everything can be an initiation – meaning a way to trigger transformation to a higher way of seeing things, of relating to others and ourselves.

Lets look at some guidelines to help with this process of developing ourselves.

1.     Witness yourself and your feelings. For example: I feel rejected because you aren’t treating me respectfully.

Write in your own:

2.     Allow yourself to experience the feelings connected to this fully.  For example:  hurt, anger, shame.

Write in your own:

3.     Look at what your part is – whether it is just naivety, or accepting too little, or fear, greed or entitlement.

Write in your own:

4.     Look at what the other person’s part is. For example, ‘you took advantage of me and treated me badly.’

Write in your own:

5.     Look at your choices in this moment – you may not have external choices, but you do have internal choices.

External– I cannot change this.

Write in your own:

Internal – I can choose to find another way to experience this. For example, I don’t want to hold onto anger or hurt so I decide that I want to hold an attitude of compassion and acceptance.

Write in your own:

6.     Decide what shift you are going to make, for example, ‘I do not accept being treated badly.’  Put it in a statement of intention:  ‘I will not allow myself to be mistreated.’

Write in your own:

7.     Accept that everyone is doing his or her best – if they could have done it better, they would have. This means that I accept my response and I accept the other person’s position or limitations.   For example, ‘this person is doing their best, but it is not good enough for me. They have limitations that effectively remove them from my life.’

Write in your own:

8.     Release – for example, ‘I release this person from my life with compassion.  There is no place for them, given whom we both are.’

If you can shift to this attitude of acceptance and release, you will feel lighter. You will be able to release the emotional turmoil that this event caused.  You will feel more peace and move into a place that holds more wisdom.

Write in your own:

9.     Trust – I trust that this event was part of a natural process of my own growth.  ‘As I grow, things that I no longer need fall away, like a snake shedding it’s too tight skin. As I grow, I will look more closely at the parts of me that are limited and continue to refine who I am.’

Write in your own:

Tend the stunted side of your tree – let it have light and love.  As you love that part of yourself, you will fill out and grow.

The character trait of accountability is a good way to guide yourself through this process.  Are you being accountable? To what part of yourself? To your truth, your integrity etc, or to your fears?  Is the other person willing to be accountable and to look at himself or herself?

Accountability is an essential ingredient of a relationship.  Accountability allows a person to do relational work because it means that they are willing to look at and deal with their flaws.  If only one person is being accountable, then the relationship will be lopsided.  With accountability, two people can accomplish anything in their relationship.



One of the memories that has been indelibly etched within me is a fight I had with my father. I had come home from college and found our old family cat Sissy with a huge abscess on her stomach.  She was clearly very sick and going down hill fast.  I talked my mom into taking her to the vet.  As we got ready to leave, my father walked into the house and asked what was going on.  I told him.  All of a sudden he was screaming at the top of his lungs.  How dare I do this without asking him first?  How dare I not consider him?  I screamed back (unusual for me), calling him a murderer.  He stormed out of the house.  We went to the vet anyway.

What I most take away from this event is how wronged both of us felt.  My father had been horribly abused as a child.  He had a chip on his shoulder that was huge.  He absolutely could not see anything except that he wasn’t considered.  He couldn’t see that I was trying to care for our cat.  He couldn’t see what Sissy needed. He could only see the huge gaping wound of not having been considered.  His internal reality was completely different than mine.  And at the time, I didn’t have the skill (who knows if it would even have been possible) to talk to him and help him see the bigger picture, help him not feel so unconsidered.

One of the things that I have always been good at is seeing both sides of a situation and being able to step into somebody else’s shoes.  This has been invaluable in my career as a therapist.  It has made my life incredibly difficult in other ways.  In the past, I have often been unable to hold onto my own point of view.  I step into someone else’s vision of reality so easily and mine slips away.  As a result of this, and the volatility that I grew up with, my history is such that have I bent too far for the other person’s needs and tried to make mine small or even go away.  I have been a master of self-sacrifice.  I am not that person anymore.  And I am thankful for this.

I’ve recently parted with a good friend: a friend with whom I have shared a lot, somebody who I’ve at times spent nights up worrying about, someone who I have always wished the best for.  That hasn’t changed.  The underlying feelings are the same.  It is just the outer connection that has been released.  It is like a death where you carry the person in your heart, but no longer see them in your life, because they don’t work in your life anymore.

I’ve parted with an occasional friend over the years. It is never easy and always brings up both self-questioning and grief for me.  It is hard to leave behind someone you love – or be left behind.  Sometimes the split occurred because my actions hurt the other person – even though my actions were unintentional and I was unaware.  In those situations those friends ended the friendship rather than discuss what had occurred to hurt them.  They waited too long before they found their voice. Unspoken, too many hurt feelings built up and without the ability or understanding of how to work through these differences, it cost the friendship.  Other times I did my best to let the other person know what I was struggling with, and the changes I needed made if I were to be able to continue. They were unable to address my needs.

How is it that we cannot speak our truth or hear another’s?  Why is it that we cannot tell those we love what we are experiencing or listen to each other?  If my father had only been able to talk about his feelings instead of screaming, his 200 lb 6’4” frame looming over me, we might have come to some kind of understanding.

We aren’t used to working out the hard stuff.  We aren’t use to looking at ourselves and finding our own flaws.  Doing so is a type of emotional courage that has not been well developed in our culture.  We don’t want to look at our failings.  Instead, the other person’s difficulty with us is perceived as a judgment.

As I think back, I can see that these friends felt entirely right in their position and so there was no way to bridge the gap, or to have my needs responded to.  And for me, their actions were causing debris to spill into my life.  While I did care about them, I also care about myself and so will step far enough back that I not impacted.

The problems I have in this relationship I cannot talk about with my now ex-friend.  There is no place for that dialogue.  There is no place for me to speak.  If I see a pattern going on, actions that are impacting me, and there is no place for me to speak about it, then I will have to leave. This isn’t about right and wrong. This isn’t about judgment. This is about my need to have a voice, to be considered, to be part of a living breathing connection that honors who I am, my experience and what I see.

Sometimes each of us has to walk our own path.   My path at this time is about honoring what I need.  Perhaps for this friend, she too has to walk her own path – to answer the questions of her life by the process of living it.  Somehow what I need and what she needs clash.  Each of us sees the situation from our own perspective, in line with our own evolution.  Each of us is doing what is necessary for ourselves. So this break is organic and part of the path we are both on.  I can trust that and I do.

I find it important to be able to talk about how I feel.  I find it important to listen to how the other feels. I find it important to be able to speak honestly how he or she is impacting me, in both the negative and the positive and vice versa.  And having the space to do this is necessary in any long-term relationship.  It takes the eyes of others, of our friends, to see our own failings.  Isn’t that part of why we are here, to take the rough diamond of ourselves and cooperate with the polishing of life, increasing our beauty and our brilliance?

My life’s work is about dialogue.  It is about creating the space between two different vantage points and bridging that.  It is about allowing space for feelings to be expressed and seeing if there is a way to honor both of us or even both aspects of oneself.

Are you and your partner interested in improving your relationship – but want to do it in the privacy of your own home?

I currently have Beta Couples who are ‘test driving’ WeConcile™ and the feedback is great!  I am accepting more Beta Couples, so if you are interested, please contact me.  This means that you and your partner get to use the material to improve your relationship for free. You tell me how the material has helped you, but maintain privacy around your ‘issues.’

You can email me directly at

JenniferLehrMFT.com@gmail.com

A while back I spent a week at a training workshop for therapists on Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples. While I have been working with couples for years, there is always more to learn; I believe that this is the best couples methodology available today. Currently there are new frontiers opening in brain research, child development, and the need for safe secure connections in our primary relationships. These new areas of knowledge impact the practice of psychotherapy, especially around the areas of intimate relationships as well as how we have the power to alter our feelings, perceptions and responses.

What makes a relationship work? It is one of the questions I have been asking and answering in my own life. Because of my own history, developing the ability to have healthy nourishing relationships, to be present, direct and also be vulnerable has been a long and ongoing process. I remember once watching a romantic movie over and over again, gripped with the impending connection, the hope for absolute and complete harmony, for the feeling of truly loving and being loved.

Think about your relationship or what you imagine your relationship will be like. What do you long for? What do you dream about? What are the feelings you are looking for? Connection? Love? Safety?

As babies, we are held, fed, and attended to, and we grow in this context of connection. We continue to need connection throughout our adult lives. We long to be understood, to be cared for and to be loved. We long to know that we are important; that how we feel matters. We long to flow effortlessly between connection and autonomy. But our relationships are not so easy. Distressed couples are so because they do not feel safe connecting. As situations occur that frustrate that need for safe connection, disharmonies arise between us, as do both FEELINGS and behaviors. We develop strategies to not feel our grief, anger, shame and fear. We may cut off our own longing and not feel our need for connection. We may get angry and bitter to keep from feeling the grief that is underneath. These strategies that protect us, also limit our relationships.

As a therapist, I watch how couples interact. I notice how they talk to each other, who moves forward and how, who holds back. How we respond to each other creates a pattern. Noticing the pattern is important, because the pattern itself must be addressed.
This dance we do with each other stirs deep feelings that we act out causing painful cycles of interaction that repeat and repeat.

The other important piece is the feelings themselves. In therapy, we unpack feelings that are below the surface, below the mirage of the laundry that is never put away, or the frustration of a partner who wants to stay home instead of go out. Because we get stuck in the “above ground” issues, we don’t understand what is underneath; that we don’t feel cared for, loved, respected or understood. Most of us don’t fully understand our historical relational wounds and how they impact us. We often don’t face our partners and tell them about our hurts and what we need. When we do, they sometimes cannot hear us.

While straightening this out, both the therapist and the partners sometimes get caught in compromise. “If you do this, I will do that,” etc. Compromise doesn’t deal with the deeper longings for safe connection. It is like rearranging the furniture in a room that is falling down. Changing our relationships involves learning new ways of being, reorganizing our emotions and experience, and understanding ourselves differently EXPERIENTIALLY. As we interact with ourselves and partner differently, we are actually architecting a different brain. It also means that both parties will be emotionally uncomfortable for a while. And that is a big deal. I don’t know anybody who says, “Great, I want to be emotionally uncomfortable. I want to feel vulnerable, scared, or in pain.” It is inherently uncomfortable to connect with our primary feelings and communicate our vulnerabilities, yet it is an essential part of change. While the old pattern keeps us stuck, emotional responsiveness allows our love to grow. Are you willing to be uncomfortable?

Very briefly, here’s what has to happen:
We identify the relationship pattern.
We take responsibility for our part.
We get in touch with our deeper feelings including old wounds affecting our perceptions and needs.
We take responsibility for how our part of the pattern affects our partner’s feelings.
We listen to our partner talk about his or her feelings.
We share our own feelings.
We support each other in this process.

Lets suppose we have a couple where one of the partners is closed down and the other is more volatile (this is very common). The closed down person (let’s say he) often doesn’t really know his feelings. He got away from them a long time ago, as they weren’t fun. Maybe as a child, he was criticized or his feelings weren’t supported. He suppressed those feeling; packed them away. He tends to be cerebral and logical. He doesn’t know how to open up and be vulnerable, and the idea of it is frankly, scary. The volatile partner is more connected to her emotions, but often it is anger that is expressed, not her longing for connection, or her feelings of not wanting to be abandoned, or wanting to be considered more. That partner has learned how to try to assertively get what she wants rather than be open and vulnerable as well as feel and then communicate her pain. What happens when these two get together? When they run into a conflict, he will withdraw, and she will attempt to get what she needs by moving forward, often with some anger. He hides more and she pushes more. They get caught in a cycle. Neither realizes that the cycle is caused by both of them. Both feel like it is the other person’s fault. Neither knows how to change the cycle. Neither person feels safe.

The mission of the EFT therapist is to enable both partners to experience their primary feelings and longings, explore, organize, and ultimately communicate them to their partner. This requires the partner who doesn’t have good access to his feelings to DEVELOP access to his feelings. It requires the angry partner to stop blaming and see the vulnerability of the more withdrawn partner, and later to also show her own vulnerability and need. When a couple begins to do this, they are responding to, and caring for each other rather than reacting, closing down, blaming or pushing the other away. As each develops in their ability to feel, understand feelings that they were not aware of, and open to the other, they become a stronger couple. They feel safer and more secure. They both change into people who are capable of a nourishing relationship.

Jennifer Lehr MFT

I started the process of building WeConcile™ for a number of reasons. Due to my own history and in my own journey, I’ve had years of my own personal therapy and couples therapy, involvement in the 12-steps, and attended many self-growth and healing workshops. I also did my own work with meditation, writing and other forms of self-exploration and healing work. Along the way, I got married.  All of this led me to study to become a marriage and family therapist in graduate school. I got licensed and had a private practice as well as ran groups that emphasized the connection between creativity and healing.  I also participated in a lot of additional advanced trainings around different aspects of therapy and healing.  What I became most aware of in my own life and the life of my friends and clients, was how most of us struggle in our relationships, how difficult they often are to navigate through without help and how important connection is for a sense of fulfillment and meaning.  Even with the help of professionals, and then being a professional myself, my own marriage failed. Despite a lot of couples therapy, my ex-husband and I simply didn’t get the help we needed, AND I found him to be unwilling to acknowledge the importance for each of us to examine ourselves: our beliefs, feelings, reactions and wounds.

As I attended more trainings, did my own personal therapeutic work, and worked with my clients, I learned more and more about what works and does not work in the process of healing oneself, and in helping others heal their own wounded relationships.  I knew people deserved more options in getting help for their relationships.  I also knew personally, how painful disconnection in a relationship can be.  Feeling misunderstood, unloved, alone, or simply unable to get something about ourselves understood brings up grief, frustration and for some, even desperation.

Sustaining a love that works is an ongoing process.  It includes getting to know yourself and your own triggers better.  It includes learning open and non-defensive communication.  Sustaining a love that works includes the understanding that looking at our self is an important endeavor.  Our present very much comes out of our past. Very specifically, if you are willing to look at yourself, WeConcile™ will help you and your partner de-escalate the conflicts you have, change your non productive relationship pattern to one that works, and help you both create new ways of relating. As we continue on, you will gain the knowledge, skills and support you need to make your own relationship better. Whether you are in a long-standing relationship, or sorting things out before you tie the knot, we want your relationship to be so strong that you are not afraid of anything when it comes to each other. It is a great feeling to know that you have the ability to work through any conflict or difficulty that might come up.

Creating a sustainable relationship is similar to growing a garden. A garden requires tilling the soil, planting the seeds, watering and weeding, picking and appreciating the fruit and flowers.  It requires knowledge of the seasons, meaning what to do when, and will take curiosity, love, tenderness and patience – because it takes time. You will be learning to tend the garden of your relationship and making it into the uniquely beautiful thing that it wants to be.

In this introduction, you are going to be given a glance into how WeConcile™ works by interacting with written material and the exercises. You will be taking assessments to see where you are at in your relationship and to help you decide if this program can help you improve your relationship. You will also be encouraged to share what you are learning with your partner at the end of this lesson if you feel ready to do so.

The beginning levels of WeConcile™ focus more heavily on education and exercises designed to get you to think more about yourself and your relationship, as well as some assessments.  Later on in the program, the focus shifts much more to interactive exercises to improve your communication and connection with your partner.

Note: if you are really on the fence about staying in your relationship or have extreme relationship distress, WeConcile™ isn’t going to work for you.  It is important to be committed to working on your relationship, and not ready to walk out the door.  And you have to want to understand your partner better.

Our intimate relationships are among the most important parts of our lives.  We hope to help you build yours into one that is deeply healing, loving and satisfying.

Jennifer Lehr MFT, 2011

A friend once told me that she was not creative.  I remember the moment clearly, because I did a double take and started to try to convince her of her error in perception immediately.  How could she believe that about herself?  And recently, with a client, I had some ‘soul collage cards’ that I had made that we were using in a session.  This person drifted away in thought for a moment and when I asked him where he had gone, he said that he was thinking ‘I should be more creative.’  This particular person is highly creative and is also in the process of rebuilding his identity and re-wiring himself, which is perhaps the most creative act, any human can do.  But he wasn’t recognizing this.  Instead he was seeing that he wasn’t ‘making’ something tangible, like my cards.

There is a common error in thinking that if we cannot render – meaning draw something ‘realistically,’ like drawing an apple, to look like an apple – that we are then not creative.  Or that if we are not making an object that exists in the external world that we are not creating.  I can only say ‘wow.’  Who misled you? Who told you that you aren’t creative? Don’t you know who you are and what is possible?

Life is creative and creativity.  Creativity is how bacteria adapt to antibiotics.  It is how sea animals evolved into land animals.  It is how somebody came up with the idea of sending a man to the moon and how Einstein imagined E=mc².  We are being creative when we explore new attitudes or new ways of thinking or behaving. Creativity is how we engage with our world so that we can adapt, make sense of, improve ourselves etc.  It is much bigger than being able to draw or make a piece of art.

We grow our lives. We do this with our attitudes and perceptions.  We use our minds to transform our beings. For me, this may be the most creative act possible.  We look at what we have chosen to believe.  And we get to see the results of our creativity and then make another choice, have another outcome.  For example, as a species, we believed that we could ‘use’ the earth and all would be okay.  We have found out differently.  As we explore other beliefs, for example the belief that we are part of the earth and both her caretaker as well as being supported by her, our actions change, and the outcome changes.  Or for example, if I am in a difficult relationship and I believe that I don’t deserve more, then things probably won’t get better. But if I choose to believe that I do deserve more, that relationship will undoubtedly change or end.

We grow our lives.  Using our beliefs and attitudes, as well as using or cultivating qualities such as patience, persistence, courage, wisdom, joy etc., we take where we are, and build a future that has the potential to be different.

This concept can be a bit tricky. Do you tell yourself that you are ‘bad” because of how your life is?  Like it is 100% up to you?  That creative act probably isn’t going to work for you in the long run.  Nor is the creative act of telling yourself that none of it is your fault, that somebody else messed things up for you. (Of course if you are in that category, you may not have any idea that you are creating your life.) Luckily, if you want, you can look at yourself (another highly creative act) and find a new belief.

Some of us grew up in households where we survived by trusting only ourselves. We may not trust life. If something happens that we don’t like, or are disappointed by, we may make it our fault.  We forget that life is bigger than us – a web of interaction. This is a paradox that we must hold.  We are both the creators of our own lives yet we are not 100% in charge.  For example, if you are trying to get a job, you can do your best, but ultimately, the person looking through the stack of resumes has to say to him or herself, “I like that one.” That is not your decision and not in your power.

Our control resides in our attitudes and perceptions. Regardless of how we were raised, we can revise our beliefs or our attitudes.  So when I don’t get that job, do I say, “Why does this always happen to me? What’s wrong with me? Or how long do I have to deal with this shit?” Either way, our attitude is off.  Our use of our creativity is not serving our own empowerment.

How do we not take disappointment personally?  If you looked at yourself as a little kid cleaning their room, would you want to say, “I hate this, I always have to clean my room” (not very empowering). Or “This won’t take that long and its not that bad and this is just what kids have to do.”  Can you hear the difference in self-support?

People, who hold more positive and self-supportive attitudes, tend to have doors open for them more quickly.  They are the ones who find the parking space right in front of the store when nobody else can find one.  How does that happen?  Read or Google Masaru Emoto’s book, ‘Messages from Water,’ if you want to see the physical response of matter to thought.

Our attitudes impact our world.  This also applies to our relationships.  What are you doing in your relationship that doesn’t work?  Hiding? Controlling? Assuming? How we treat others and our selves is paramount.  It is part of what makes up the fabric of who we are and our lives. Are you treating yourself with an open heart?  Your partner? Your friends?  If not, what are you doing instead, and why? Our histories have a lot to do with how we act in the present.  If you start unraveling why you do what you do, you will find the answer in looking at how you coped previously with difficult situations.  Every ‘issue’ is a strategy to avoid a wound or get a need met.

Exploring wounds and traumas allows us to understand ourselves better and allows us more choices in the present.  Instead of being on cruise control, we have more space to make a choice, more room to be creative.

Can you send yourself gratitude instead of dissatisfaction?  Can you send your world gratitude instead of dissatisfaction?  Can you send your partner gratitude instead of dissatisfaction?  This creative act alone will change your life. It doesn’t feel good to be generating criticism.

Sit down and see if you can FEEL gratitude for the many aspects of your life, your pet, friends, the color of the sky, your job, whatever.  Put your hand on your heart.  Let yourself feel.  Gratitude is an uplifting emotion.  Remember, you are a creative being and you are growing your life.



Architecting Your Own Intimacy – Repairing, Rebuilding & Creating Love

I have been deep in writing a new web-based and interactive program to help couples (or any two people) connect more fully and resolve conflicts, bringing harmony and peace to their relationship. This is something that I have been working on for nearly two years (and with some months to go before it is complete).

How I make my own life meaningful, and what inspires me, is the process of focusing on and stepping into the dark parts of myself, my relationships and my world in order to bring light, peace, beauty and love into those areas that are un-enlightened, fearful, suffering or in pain. As I look at the trauma and darkness in the world around me, this feels especially pertinent at this time. For me, life is a metaphor of bringing light into our own darkness, whether it is external in the outer world, or internal, in my own self and process. Consequently, bringing harmony, peace and love into our lives and relationships is a process that I am deeply involved in.

Because I grew up in an environment with emotional trauma, conflict and disconnection, and have spent years not only undoing the damage caused by that, transforming my own negative parts, and expanding and developing myself, this mission is close to my heart. I believe that we can all learn to engage in the ‘underground’ processes of healing, and collaborate and support each other in this endeavor.

Over the years of working both as a therapist and a couples’ therapist I have come to believe that something more is needed to help all of us with our relationships. Many of us just don’t have the skills we need. Therapy has limitations due to its cost, and many therapists, though effective with individuals, don’t have the specialized training needed to be effective when working with couples. The time constraints of people’s busy lives, and the stigma that therapy has for some also inhibit people seeking help. Additionally, I have wanted to expand out of working one-to-one to a place where I could do more writing and impact a larger group.

I began to think about a low cost way to ‘teach’ people while overcoming these obstacles. I began to wonder if I could make experiential relationship help available to the many who cannot afford couples counseling – a place where they could learn, while collaborating and supporting each other. I found the idea exciting, although scary. Am I wasting my time? Can this actually be done and can I do it? Couples therapy is hard enough with a therapist in the room. How could it possibly work on the web?

One day, a web programmer friend was visiting. As he talked about his web-based product, a light bulb went off. ‘This can be done,’ I thought. At the time, I was continuing in advanced training in couple’s therapy. So along with my knowledge of self-growth and healing and my ability to write, all the pieces were there. Thus began the birth of WeConcile™.
Let me present some broad ideas about what needs to happen in any ‘self growth’ endeavor by starting with some observations and analogies.

I was watching TV the other night and a dancer/choreographer whose name I don’t remember was talking on a panel. The other 4 people on the panel were not dancers. I was very aware of how evolved this man’s body and being appeared, how he moved his arms and gestured when he talked, how he carried himself, how his body and self seemed much more alive than the others. It was clear that as a dancer, he had developed a relationship to his body, lets call it his mind/body, extensively, and in a way the others had not. In comparison, they appeared almost unintelligent.
In contrast to those who are highly developed, are those of us who are ‘regular,’ with more typical levels of skill and ability.

And then there are those of us who have been deprived, neglected or even abused in some way while we were developing. Our development has actually been suppressed, leaving us with gaps in our skill set, or perhaps having to adapt, almost the way a tree that is growing under a large object has to bend and twist and turn to find its way to the sun, or how one that is growing in bad soil or a harsh environment may end up smaller.

This is the spectrum, ranging from the full development of one’s capacity, even beyond what most people do, through the realm of normal, all the way to a place where there are scars or underdevelopment caused by abuse or limitations.

Lets apply these ideas to relationships. Successful relationships often require all three things:
• The correcting of places where our development had been hindered (which we
are often unaware of, but our partners will be feeling the consequence of.)
• The healing of actual emotional wounds that cause reactivity and pain.
• The further development of our potential in ways that surpass the current
norm, as the ‘normal’ level of relationship skills alone often isn’t sufficient
to have a truly satisfying relationship at this time in history.

In overcoming a deficit or injury, we may actually have to overcompensate and develop capacities that are generally greater than what the ‘regular’ person has.
Given that relationships often bring up anything that is undeveloped or unhealed in ourselves, how do you get a relationship that is more peaceful, harmonious and loving? Lets switch contexts for just a moment and look at a similar but different question.

How do you get a healthier body? You have to look at what you are feeding the body, how you are using it and taking care of it. We can put it in a list:
• Learn and apply over time the guidelines of nutrition
• Learn and apply over time appropriate exercise
• Learn and apply over time the reduction of stress
• Attend to and heal any injuries
• Build up and support any areas of weakness
• Utilize a community of people who continue to develop these ideas and/
or provide support.

That was easy. We all know how to create a healthier body, whether we have the support to do it or not. But we don’t all know how to create healthier relationships. In fact, creating a healthier relationship can be incredibly difficult – just look at the divorce statistics. But the same principles apply. Lets look at what it will take:
• Education – feeding your body new guidelines of ‘relational nutrition.’
• Exercise – experiential exercises to help you ‘rewire’ and develop aspects of
your brain to improve your ‘relation-ability.’
• Communication exercises, tools and guidelines to help you and your partner
learn to communicate in a different and more supportive way.
• Questions and exercises to identify and attend to old wounds.
• Questions and exercises to identify and attend to areas needing development.
• A community of others who are involved in the same process and willing to
talk about it and support each other.

So like changing your body, changing yourself or your relationship requires education and knowledge over time. It requires the application of that education and knowledge allowing for new habits to build, and support, whether from a therapist, a friend, or a community of like-minded others.

The first question I ask a couple or family unit who is coming to see me is, “What do you want?” Or “What do the two of you want?” Generally the answer I get is: “We want to get along, we want to stop fighting, we want a peaceful, harmonious and loving relationship.”

This is what WeConcile™ will help you do. It should be out by the end of the year.

Jennifer Lehr MFT 2011

Copyright Jennifer Lehr 2011