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Empathic Attunement: The Roots of Trust and Resilience · Trauma Free Relationship

0:01
Let's see if you've ever had an experience similar to mine.
0:05
One time I was contacted by the local news and they wanted to
0:09
come interview me and talk to me about how I work with couples
0:13
and give some tips on helping couples through the pandemic.
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And I was super excited about this.
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It was my first TV local TV experience.
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So that evening I rushed home to tell my wife, as many of us want
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to do, turn to our attachment partners when something good
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happens. And I burst into the house ready
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to share this good news. And my wife and my younger son
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were in the middle of an argument.
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And I realized right then and there, this is not going to be
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received very well if I just blurt out my good news right
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here, right now. So I held on to it until the
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time I thought was appropriate. And then when I finally got my
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wife one-on-one, I was able to say, oh, you're not going to
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believe what happened today. And her response was, oh, that's
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great, sweetie. And then quickly shifted into
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wanting to talk about some of her frustrations for the day.
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It feels a little deflating. It feels a little bit like
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somebody has burst the air out of your balloon when that
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happens. And so that is what we call a
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misattunement. And that is what we're going to
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talk about today in pathic attunements, which are the roots
1:22
of trust and resilience. Welcome to Trauma Free
1:25
Relationship, a podcast that provides support and guidance.
1:29
To help heal the wounds of attachment trauma.
1:32
Whether you find yourself struggling with unresolved
1:34
issues in the past or have experienced trauma in your
1:37
current relationship, our goal is to provide accurate,
1:40
scientifically informed information as well as the tools
1:44
to help you create a secure connection between you and your
1:46
partner. And here's your host, Tom
1:49
Phillip. OK.
1:50
So hopefully you can share in that example a little bit.
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I'm sure we've all had that where we felt something really
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exciting. And when we go to tell and share
2:01
with somebody else, which is the most natural thing for us to
2:04
want to do, to share exciting things that are happening for us
2:07
in our life, good things that are happening, we also feel as
2:11
compelled to share things when they are not going as well.
2:14
We want to share our sadness and we want to share a grief or or
2:19
hard times. We're going through that natural
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tendency to reach out to others, especially our attachment
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figures. And we probably all experienced
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to some degree or another when that excitement or that sadness
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has been matched by the other person.
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And so that is something we called empathic attunement.
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And we're going to break it down and talk about empathy and talk
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about attunement, what those two different things mean.
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But I think those are great examples.
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And you can probably think of tons more in your life where you
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know you were feeling a certain way when you're communicating
2:56
with your partner and they're just not matching what you're
3:00
feeling. And and you can sense that on
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some level. And we often sense that in our
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bodies because that's being being pulled in through our
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nonverbal hemisphere, the right side of our brain, which is
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nonverbal sign. It picks up those those
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nonverbal cues, facial expressions, body postures,
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things such as that. Anything that's not verbal, that
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right side of our brain is picking up and it's connected to
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our body primarily. More so than the left hemisphere
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is the verbal hemisphere. And so we're feeling that it's
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resonating. Oh, this person's not getting
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where I'm coming from. They're not in tune with me.
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So before we jump into sort of the definition and kind of break
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this down a little bit more and I really want to be able to try
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to operationalize this. It get grainer with what this
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looks like in our relationships in just a bit.
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But I want to give a quote because I think this quote is
3:59
absolutely beautiful and and it says it better than I think I
4:03
could say it myself. What happens when we don't have
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that empathic attunement from our partner and this is a quote
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from Dan Hughes. It goes like this.
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When people don't respond to our inner world, then we don't
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develop words to speak about our experience.
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Having no words, it is hard to describe feelings.
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The inner world takes on a vague and nameless quality.
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Subjective experiences, like personal experiences, continue
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to occur, but they are difficult to understand and communicate.
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Your partner is not trying to be difficult when they misattune to
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you. They're not trying to be
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difficult. It is a basic truth about their
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life that they don't know what to say about their thoughts and
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feelings. They have a sense of self that
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lacks coherence, continuity, clarity and comprehensiveness.
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And I I want to quote that entirely because I think that
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beautifully sums up sometimes what happens internally when we
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run into those places of trauma, when we run into those areas of
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our experience, when there was no one there to attune to us
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about something overwhelming that happened.
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I often see this with couples that I work with that have
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affairs where the affair offender is able to say what
5:35
happened, but the the partner that got hurt, the whole world
5:41
is just turned upside down. And so sometimes even the best
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descriptions of The Who, what, when and where that the that the
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offending partner is able to describe.
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It's very difficult for the partner whose world is just
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turned upside down to be able to put into words they're
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experiencing. Because often there's such a
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misatunement between the partners that that that the
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offending partner, the partner that had the affair, is not
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really able to step into the pain and the hurt, at least not
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initially of their their partners that that now that
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they're such broken trust in that relationship.
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And So what you often have is you have the inability to
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formalize this this overwhelming experience that my whole life
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has been turned upside down and inside out and often they don't
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know the words they're they're deeply hurt.
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They're deeply confused. There's immediate broken trust.
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The the world has been it lacks any sense of coherence now and
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continuity of what it used to and and they begin to almost
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mark time between the pre affair or the pre trauma life and the
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post trauma life. And so you often see this with
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couples where I will have to work with one partner and
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really, really, really make sure that I attune to them and I can
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help them create language around what has happened.
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I can help them build a vocabulary about their
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experience and what they're going through.
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So when we talk about attunement and empathic attunement, when we
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haven't pathic attunement in our relationship, then what we have
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is, is the roots of trust and resilience.
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Because when we have a partner that we can turn to and that can
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can equal and amplify those emotions and those experiences
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that we have, then that creates a a synergy or creates the
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ability to be In Sync with somebody.
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You think about this with a a mother and an infant and a
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child. And there's videos out there
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that that show that when the baby is first born, they can
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only see about 10 to 12 inches in front of their face.
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So they are cutely aware, especially if they're
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breastfeeding of the mother's face and the the synchronicity
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that happens back and forth. The baby will make a sound and
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the mother might repeat it and and then the baby responds off
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the mother and you have these two experiences that are so In
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Sync and so linked up that they almost become one.
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And so that's a little bit what empathic attunement is about.
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And and couples that are are working towards the attachment
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bond. Oftentimes it is solidified in
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this idea of empathic attunement, meaning now our
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brains have kind of synced up and we can read each other's
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nonverbal cues. We can send messages back and
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forth that each of us can interpret with greater ease than
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we did when we first started dating, because we had to work
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towards that understanding. And we just, it's like we almost
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become one. So.
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And pathicatuman is really, really crucial for for creating
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trust and resilience in the relationship.
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It's also very fragile to break, just like trust is.
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You can build up trust over years and years and years, and
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sometimes, as we all know, within a moment, that trust can
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be broken and a relationship may never be quite the same again.
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Sometimes you can build that back, for sure, but sometimes it
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takes a while to be able to do that.
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So what exactly is empathic attunement?
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Well, I want to break it down. Empathy in itself.
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Let's just start with the first word is the ability to be able
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to see into somebody else's experience.
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So if we are empathic, we can see somebody else's perspective.
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And it's it's like we can stand into their shoes.
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Think about a good book that you have read at one point and
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you're engrossed in the character of this book and it's
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almost as if you can step into that character's shoes.
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You can see through their eyes, you're experiencing what they're
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experiencing in a first hand way.
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That essentially is what empathy is.
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It's our ability to to see ourselves into the lives or the
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experiences of somebody else. Now there's a couple of
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misnomers with empathy. First of all, just because you
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can see your way into somebody else's perspective, it doesn't
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mean it's necessarily you give up your perspective.
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Seeing your way into somebody else's perspective doesn't mean
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that my perspective is invalid. It just means I can see multiple
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perspectives. I can see where my partner's
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coming from and I feel like my perspective is valid as well.
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And and so that's one of the things I think we often confuse
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with empathy is, Oh well, if I can see their perspective, then
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that means their perspectives, right?
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And mine is wrong. And that's just simply not the
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case. So empathy is being able to step
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into your partner's perspective, get it from from within their
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own. Like I said earlier, subjective
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experience, our own personal experience.
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Attunement is a little bit different.
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Attunement means you can feel your way into what they're
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feeling. Now that's different than
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necessarily the cognitive component.
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The kind of component is, I can think about the way you're
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seeing this. I can follow the steps of how
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you got there and how you arrived at this perspective.
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But the attunement portion of that is often about me being
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able to feel my way into your perspective as well.
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So we've got about four different types of ways to think
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about empathic attunement, and one of them is sort of what I've
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talked about earlier. It's the cognitive component
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combined with the affective components.
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So it's two people that are In Sync or in attunement when
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they're effectively and cognitively present to each
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other. So let's go back to my example
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for a minute. I come home and I've got this
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great news and I walk in. What if my wife had turned and
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seen the big smile on my face and my son paused and they were
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both looking at me and I said, you're not going to believe what
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happened today. I got a call from the TV station
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and they want to come out and interview me.
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And my wife says, Oh my gosh, that's fantastic, that's so
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great. I can't wait for you to share
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some of your knowledge with them because you've worked so hard to
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to to be an expert in this area or whatever.
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My son's like, oh that's great Dad, really cool, can't wait to
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see you on TV. And all of a sudden they're
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sharing in that excitement with me.
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That would be where they are In Sync with me, me.
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So when they effectively and cognitively are present right
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there in the moment with me in that particular example, they're
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also sharing the effective states.
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So they're matching my affect, in this particular case, a happy
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or joyful affect. Now if I've had a rough day and
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I come home and I'm a little bit down and I'm kind of quiet and
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I'm not saying so much, they're not probably going to come to me
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in this joyful, hey dad, how was your day?
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And oh, I'm sorry to hear it was so bad, but they're going to
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continue to be really happy and bounce up and down for me and
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want to hug me and it's not matching.
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It doesn't. It doesn't match my affect
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state. And so obviously they would take
13:52
it down. My wife might say, Oh my gosh,
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I'm so sorry you had a bad day. Do you want to talk about it?
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My son might approach me more generally.
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Oh, Dad, I'm sorry. Would you like a hug?
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Would that be helpful? So there's concerns.
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So they're matching my affective state.
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And then of course, if they learn about maybe why I had a
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bad day, then their cognitive focus is on the same event or
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the same object as as mine is. And so they begin to understand
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why I've had a bad day, what may have led up to that and why it
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interpreted things the way I did.
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And then the last component of of empathic atunit is being able
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to be In Sync with your partner and being able to understand or
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match their intentions so that both people are congruent.
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Often times I see this a lot with couples where they will see
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see their perspective, They will be able to even match their
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affect state a little bit, their emotional state.
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But they don't trust the intentions behind it.
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Because maybe their experiences in the past says that no matter
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what somebody's saying or how they look, they might flip
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things around on you in a moment.
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And that's obviously the trust piece of of the the roots that
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that empathic attunement builds that trust and resilience.
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Because if you're not able to sort of trust the intentions or
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the tensions aren't congruent with with the way somebody is
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appearing emotionally, cognitively, then then that can
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really disorder your world. And I'm not talking about like a
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clinical disorder, but it it can really confuse the child who
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then becomes the adult who says yeah, just because somebody's
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happy doesn't always mean that that they mean for you to be
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happy and so they can switch that around.
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So there's four aspects to empathic consume it.
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But I think overall you get the idea is that we are In Sync with
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our partner. We are matching their affective
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state and we are also able to see our way into their
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perspective. Now I will tell you that a lot
16:17
of this is what creates the attachment bond that that
16:23
empathic attunement and sometimes it's just referred to
16:26
as empathy and the attunement a part of it is, is given.
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People assume that, yeah, they assume that you're you're
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matching their effect or their emotions.
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Sometimes it's just called attunement without the the
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empathy for. For my purposes today, I wanted
16:41
to combine them both. I don't want to get so hung up
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on the title itself, but you get the idea.
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Whether it's empathy or in tune or attunement or empathic
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attunement, you now understand the components that make that up
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because they really are two sides of the same coin.
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When when we're interacting with our partner, so being the the,
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the bonding process, the attachment process comes right
17:08
out of that empathic attunement. If you think of what the way
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that you and your your partner got together, and I say this to
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a lot of my couples, you know, when we first got together, what
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did we do as a couple? We played, we went out to
17:21
movies, we went out to dinner, we hung out with friends, we
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took some Rd. trips, maybe some vacations, we we had some sex.
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We really built up this friendship and we started to
17:33
learn each other's personality, each other's temperament.
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And eventually what happened is this empathic attunement took
17:42
over so that we were really In Sync with one another.
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And that's essentially why it's so important.
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And pathic attune is so important to attachment because
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it is the, it is the roots that creates the foundation that
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creates that trust and ultimately the resilience of the
18:02
couple. When I have couples that come to
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me, oftentimes, very often they are in a sort of a perpetual
18:10
state of ruptures. They may not have all the skills
18:14
they need to make the repairs to those ruptures.
18:17
So oftentimes they will have a disagreement.
18:20
They will have a misatomement of some kind.
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And what ultimately happens is they sweep it under the rug.
18:26
They go back to their the emotional baseline, if you will,
18:31
and life goes on until it happens again.
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And then they kind of sweep it under the rug, dismiss it.
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They don't really come and talk it through.
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They don't. Maybe they don't have those
18:40
tools yet for a lot of different reasons and including trauma
18:43
might be one of those but but they are in a perpetual state of
18:48
ruptures and so they don't have the empathic attunement that
18:52
gives them that resilience to be able to come back together and
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say you know yesterday I was really thinking about what
18:58
happened and I I think I I think I got a little too upset and and
19:03
I'm sorry about that. I I think I misinterpreted what
19:07
you're saying and or I got triggered and here's what
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happened to me. It really brought up something
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that was just not a happy place for me and my family growing up
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and and so it kind of hit me wrong and and I moved into a
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really defensive place and so can we sit down?
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Can we try this again? Can we talk through this?
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I'd like to share some more things with you that I've been
19:28
thinking about and I'd really like to hear from you as well
19:32
that that process of repairing and being empathically reattuned
19:38
to one another is absolutely vital for resilience in the
19:42
relationship. So there are other things that
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are really important for empathic attunement as well, or
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other benefits I should say. Not only is it the roots of
19:53
trust and resilience, it also really enhances emotional
19:58
intimacy. So it really lays the foundation
20:01
for emotional intimacy. It's where couples can share
20:04
their deepest thoughts and feelings, often without fear or
20:08
judgment from one another, and when partners begin to feel
20:11
really heard and understood by each other.
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They often can be more open and vulnerable which leads to a
20:18
deeper connection. So in pathic attunement not only
20:22
builds trust and resilience and also really enhances that
20:25
emotional intimacy with one another.
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In addition to that it really helps, as I've touched on a
20:32
second ago with conflict resolution.
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So in pathic attunement is then a valuable tool and being able
20:38
to resolve conflicts. The example I gave a few minutes
20:43
ago where I was talking as if my partner and I had had a rupture
20:47
and and after we had calmed down I came back and said, you know,
20:51
I've really been thinking about my role in that and what
20:53
happened and the way I interpreted what you were
20:56
saying. That ability to get back into
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and pathic attunement to reattune to one another is
21:04
absolutely crucial for being able to understand each other's
21:07
perspectives and emotions, for the couple, to be able to find
21:11
common ground and to work through those disagreements in a
21:15
more healthy and effective way. It also creates shared meaning
21:21
for the couple. Oh, I get where you were coming
21:24
from. Now that makes sense to me.
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See, I was thinking about this and instead you were talking
21:30
about that. Oh, that makes so much sense.
21:34
Now we can create shared meaning around it and it literally
21:38
impels us to grow together because we're working through
21:42
those ruptures, through a series of attunements and
21:46
misattunements and reattunements.
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And when we do, we start to understand each other on a
21:52
deeper level and we are able to most often have less ruptures
21:59
and be able to repair those in a much quicker manner.
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As I said before, it also really helps build trust and
22:07
resilience. It helps the couple be able to
22:10
weather storms over time. When we are attuned to one
22:14
another, we often have that shared meaning.
22:17
We often are able to to more quickly step into each other's
22:23
perspectives and to feel our way into each other's emotions.
22:28
And so we can weather outside storms even better than we we
22:33
did before. We can support each other in
22:36
ways that we can't without empathic attunement and we can
22:41
significantly enhance that resilience in our relationship
22:45
as as I've said before. So let's talk about a few ways
22:50
to actually work with and build and pathic attunement now
22:56
empathy and attunement is something that everybody and I
23:00
absolutely, 100% believe this. It is something that everybody
23:04
can build. You're given an advantage If you
23:09
were given this when you were young.
23:11
Now I recognize fully, and this is part of attachment and
23:15
relational trauma. Maybe you grew up in a family
23:18
that didn't have a lot of empathic attunement.
23:20
When you got sad and you got upset, there's no one to turn
23:24
to. There was nobody that was going
23:26
to come ask you what was wrong and sit with you in those in
23:31
those hard emotions. It it is, it is amazing to me.
23:37
And it also saddens me greatly when I do my attachment
23:41
interviews with my couples, which means that I have an
23:44
individual session with each partner, the number of times
23:49
where I've asked the question. When you were a child and you
23:54
got your feelings hurt, you were upset, You had a bad day.
23:58
You got into a fight with your best friend.
24:00
You flunked a grade or a class, excuse me, flunked a test you
24:05
thought you were going to do well on?
24:07
Who did you turn to? Who did you go?
24:09
Because everybody has bad days. It's only normal.
24:12
It's it makes us human to be able to have those days.
24:15
Who did you turn to? Who did you take those feelings
24:18
to? And the number of of couples
24:21
that I have, partners that look me straight in the eye and they
24:24
say no one. I had no one that I could take
24:28
those feelings to. I usually just pick myself up,
24:32
brush myself off, or I distracted myself, or I diverted
24:37
myself into something that I was good at.
24:40
I came home and I listened to music, or I played an
24:43
instrument, or I went and hung with my friends, or I did a
24:46
myriad of other coping things so I didn't have to focus on that
24:51
because no one was going to show up for me in that place.
24:55
And so I recognize fully that not everybody has the, the has
25:00
been given a model for how to do this with with you and you with
25:06
others. But I absolutely believe that it
25:09
is not too late, that it is something that everybody can
25:12
learn. So one of the first things we do
25:15
to build empathic attumment is we practice active listening.
25:20
We need to be able to give our partner our full attention.
25:25
We need to be able to make eye contact with them.
25:28
So that means we put down the remote, we put down the cell
25:30
phone, we take out the iPods, we what whatever it is.
25:35
When our partner comes to us, we want to make sure that we're
25:39
able to focus 100% of our attention on what they are
25:44
saying. If you'll recall before I said
25:47
that part of being In Sync or attunement is to be present to
25:52
each other, and we want to make sure we're fully present to each
25:55
other. And so practice, act.
25:57
Active listening means that we're not only just hearing the
26:00
words and we're free from distractions, but we're also
26:04
trying to get a sense of the feelings and the meanings behind
26:09
the words. When my wife comes in and she's
26:13
frustrated at my children, or she's had a bad day or whatever
26:19
it might be, and I can tell that she's down a little bit, I want
26:23
to make sure that I turn off the TVI want to make sure that I
26:26
give her 100% of my attention. I want to be able to feel my way
26:31
into not only what she's describing and saying, so I
26:35
cognitively want to be able to step into her perspective, but I
26:38
also want to feel my way into her sadness.
26:42
And I'm not going to try to fix it, solve it, take it away.
26:48
And this is especially important for guys.
26:50
I think often times we've been socialized to fix the problem,
26:54
much of our job and our work, and this is for women too, most
26:57
certainly, especially women that work inside and outside the
27:01
home. We want to fix things, right?
27:03
We want to be able to to fix our partners problem so that they
27:09
feel better because when they feel better we feel better.
27:11
It's coming from a good place, it's coming from positive
27:14
intentions. But we have to be really careful
27:17
that we don't want to jump in and try to offer advice and fix
27:21
something before they really feel felt.
27:25
Now let me say that again because I think that's a really
27:28
important message there. We want to make sure our partner
27:31
feels felt. They want to make sure that they
27:35
can feel that we are feeling with them, not just feeling for
27:39
them, because feeling for somebody is sympathy.
27:43
I can feel sorry for somebody because they've stubbed their
27:47
toe. I know what it's like to stub my
27:49
toe and I go, ooh, I kind of cringe, but I'm not really
27:53
feeling with them. I want to go over and I want to
27:56
make sure that my partner feels, felt and feels that I'm feeling
28:00
that with them. And one of the best ways to do
28:03
that is just stay present with their feelings, actively listen
28:07
to what's going on, listening to the story, and being able to
28:12
feel my way cognitively and with my feelings into their
28:17
perspective. So that's all wrapped up in
28:20
active listening. Another way to really practice
28:23
active excuse me, empathic attunement is validating
28:27
feelings. If you were in a session with
28:30
me, you would see me do this a lot because I do this constantly
28:34
with my couples and I probably probably don't even do it
28:38
enough. But I I feel like I do it all
28:40
the time and that is simply validate their feelings.
28:43
Now let me say, I'm not always validating their perspective.
28:48
They may be really upset with their partner, they may be going
28:52
off on their partner with raised voice.
28:55
But I can certainly validate the anger behind it.
28:59
And so validating your partner's feelings is a huge tool for
29:03
building and pathic attunement. You're not always agreeing with
29:06
their perspective. My wife may come home and say my
29:10
boss said this, that I think they're completely wrong, and so
29:13
on and so forth. And I'm thinking, well, I'm, I'm
29:16
a boss myself. I run a team of therapists.
29:18
I I kind of understand, but I'm not going to say that.
29:21
I'm not going to say that in that moment because that's a
29:23
very unattuned thing to do. But what I can certainly do is
29:27
say, oh honey, I'm so sorry. I can see how frustrating that
29:30
is. I can see from your role and
29:33
your perspective and what you're doing, why that would be so
29:36
frustrating for you. And so I'm just simply
29:39
acknowledging and validating the feelings behind it.
29:42
Often times what happens when we validate feelings is the person
29:46
begins to come down, They begin to to be less angry.
29:50
They begin to be less sad because ultimately what you're
29:54
telling them is that, hey, I understand where you're coming
29:58
from. I get it, I get it.
30:01
And and especially when people are are angry or frustrated and
30:05
upset, you can almost just see their whole bodies begin to
30:08
relax. When we validate their feelings
30:11
because it exactly what we're doing, we're just saying hey, I
30:14
get this and we're communicating that to them.
30:17
So active listening is helping your partner feel felt and and
30:23
being able to see your way into their perspective.
30:26
A lot of that is done internally within you.
30:30
The validating feelings portion of it often times is what you're
30:34
communicating in words to your partner that you're
30:37
understanding inside yourself. So when I'm when I'm talking
30:43
with my wife and I'm understanding, oh, I can see why
30:45
she's so upset, oh, this makes sense to me.
30:48
Oh, I'm, I'm really staying with her.
30:51
I'm tracking her feelings. Oh my gosh, Of course I can see
30:54
how frustrating given your job and now what you have to do to
30:57
make that happen. That makes perfect sense to me.
31:00
And so I'm validating that. And she's feeling, felt and
31:03
she's saying I'm saying into her perspective and I'm using my
31:06
words to let her know that I understand how she's feeling.
31:11
And then finally, one of the last things you can do is just
31:14
asked. Ask open-ended questions.
31:18
Do not be afraid to ask openended questions.
31:21
Do not be afraid to clarify things.
31:24
I think that's so important. Now.
31:26
I will say there's a caveat to this because I've seen it many,
31:30
many times in my couples that have trauma.
31:33
It is often harmful to one partner if you ask questions.
31:40
Depending on their traumatic experiences, they might often
31:44
feel like even if you ask questions or try to clarify,
31:48
that somehow you're invalidating their perspective.
31:51
So you've got to be careful with this and you've got to be able
31:53
to ask your partner. Is it helpful to you when I
31:56
clarify or ask questions? Because it might surprise you.
32:00
They might actually say no, it's actually not helpful.
32:02
What it feels like is you're challenging my perspective.
32:05
I really just want you to listen first.
32:08
So I think asking open-ended questions is a helpful way to
32:12
improve your empathic attunement skills.
32:15
But I do want you to be aware that it may not always appear
32:20
helpful to your partner. So three things that we can do
32:24
to build empathic attunement, we can actively listen, which means
32:28
that internally within ourselves what we're doing is we are
32:33
feeling our way and tracking and and and sitting with our
32:38
partners feelings. And then we're also putting
32:41
ourselves into their perspective.
32:43
How do we, how does that person see it?
32:45
Can we see it through their eyes and through their experience?
32:48
And then secondly, we are validating their feelings and
32:52
we're just letting them know, hey, I get this, this makes
32:56
sense for me. We're not always validating
32:58
their perspective, but we can certainly always validate their
33:01
feelings. And then third, we might be
33:03
asking some open-ended or clarifying questions, but we're
33:06
going to be very, very tentative about that And open-ended
33:10
questions are just that. It's like well how did that make
33:13
you feel? That's an open-ended question.
33:16
What did you do next? That's an open-ended question.
33:20
What did your coworker say when you told them that's an
33:23
open-ended question? Well, we don't want to do is use
33:26
closed questions or leading questions.
33:29
I don't understand why did you do it that way.
33:32
That's a closed question. It may it may appear a little
33:35
bit open, but it's not because it's almost a little bit leading
33:38
like you're challenging them to have to defend themselves.
33:41
So we want to be very careful about the open-ended questions
33:45
that we're asking. And again, we want to make sure
33:47
that that's even that that's helpful to our partner.
33:51
That may not be an attuned response.
33:53
And and I'll say this again because I think Bear's
33:55
repeating, it's really important that some people with trauma
34:00
that have never had anybody sit with them, that has never had
34:03
anybody validate their feelings or see into their perspective or
34:08
even just track and and and follow their emotions whether
34:13
they're all over the map or they're not.
34:15
It can feel very dangerous and it can feel like a cue, a danger
34:20
cue to them when you ask questions.
34:22
They may need you to just sit and and look interested and and
34:28
nod and and and if they're frowning, you're frowning.
34:32
Or maybe just reach out and hold a hand.
34:34
Nothing verbal at all. That may be a much more of an
34:37
attuned response. So today we talked about
34:42
empathic attunement, the roots of trust and resilience.
34:46
And I want to reiterate again, 100%, I believe that no matter
34:50
your past experience, you can begin to build these skills and
34:55
apply them in your relationship. I think if you did this over
34:59
time that you would see a tremendous amount of change
35:06
occurring between you and your partner.
35:09
And I think, I think without even addressing conflict, if you
35:13
were to actually work on empathic attunement, you would
35:16
see that conflict go down over time.
35:19
This is not a one time cure. You can't just do this once.
35:22
And and it's oh wow, we're in the place I wanted us to be.
35:26
Well, this is a huge fix. It's got to be something that is
35:29
slowly worked on. So my challenge for you over
35:32
this next week, until you listen to my next podcast and whatever
35:36
subject that might be, is to challenge yourself to improve
35:41
this skill in your relationship. How can I empathically attune
35:46
more to my partner? How can I get a show up more for
35:51
them in these places, and how can I get them to show up more
35:55
for me? Maybe maybe you'll want to sit
35:57
down and have them listen to this podcast as well as some of
36:00
the examples and definitions that I gave.
36:02
So until next time, take care of yourselves and we'll talk to you
36:06
soon. Thank you for listening to
36:08
Trauma Free Relationship, a podcast for the healing of
36:11
attachment trauma. You can find us on Facebook,
36:14
Instagram, or our website at traumafreerelationshicom.
36:18
Be sure to look for our next eisode on your favorite
36:21
streaming service.