Responsiveness is the Key: Principle #4
We’re exploring my revised principles for healthy relationships as explored in my new book, It’s Never Too Late to Heal, due out winter 2022.
Principle #4– Behaviors occur on a continuum. Behaviors in children and adults correlate to the parents’ own neurodevelopment and attachment status. Responsiveness is the key.
On one end of the continuum, you’ve got people who are very calm, flexible, relatable, empathetic, and easy to connect with. On the other end, you’ve got people who are rigid, cold, lacking empathy, and difficult to connect with. The people who are easier to connect with have either had most of their early needs met (and were likely “easier” babies and children) and/or they’ve done their healing work. The people who are more difficult to connect with have often had difficult experiences and not enough support. Their difficult experiences may have started in the womb, at birth, or in early life; or they experienced trauma and either had no support or inadequate support to heal in relationship. Most people fall somewhere in the middle of this continuum.
The behaviors we see from children and adults alike constitute a complex communication of previous experiences, unmet needs, met needs, attempts to connect and heal, and the relationship experiences we had when we were growing up.
I call behavior that we repeat patterns.
We will repeat patterns unconsciously, habitually, without realizing it unless and until we bring them into conscious awareness.
When we begin to understand that the process of changing our behaviors is more complex than just learning to do something differently, we can have more compassion and room for one another and our journey to wholeness, and we can work on our behaviors in present time/the present moment. Do you handle someone’s anger just fine, but if someone starts to cry you just want to run away? Do you find yourself clinging in certain relationships, even when you seem just fine in your other relationships? These are all examples of previously unmet and met needs and how they can show up as behavior patterns for all of us later in life.
What do you notice about your own patterns? What do you do when you’re feeling stressed or having some big feelings? Do you find that you move toward or away from others in certain situations? Are some things easier for you to handle than others? Do you find this to be true for others in your life as well?
Consider bringing in some curiosity and wonderment to your own behaviors this week. Those behaviors are there for a reason and they provide clues for you about things that are undone and may need a little extra support and love. It may take time, but you can get to the place where you can find gratitude for your story, for your experiences, and for your behaviors, as well as for the behaviors of those you love.
Please note: If you are healing from an abusive relationship, wanting to look at your own patterns, and to heal the relationship from a safe distance, this book is for you. If you are currently in an abusive relationship, you may feel trapped in a cycle of physical, verbal, emotional, sexual, and/or financial abuse. Your partner or significant other may be twisting things around to make you feel responsible for their behavior. In situations where abuse is actively happening, while it is not at all my intention, how I phrase my advice throughout this book may be misinterpreted: it may come across that I am suggesting that you, the victim of abuse, need to take more responsibility. In no way do I mean that or think that. Once you are out of the abusive situation and you are feeling some safety, your healing journey can deepen as there will be more space for introspection, recovery, and healing from the abuse. At that point, this book can be a big help for your recovery process.
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