How We Become - A Therapeutic Guide for Reflection

If you have read the previous chapter, a very warm welcome back. If you are new to my Substack, I’m delighted to welcome you to How We Become – A Therapeutic Guide for Reflection. A good place to start is with Chapter 1: Preparing to Take Part.

How many times have you heard, or even said, ‘It’s good to talk’? And let me just say right off the bat: it is, of course! Less attention, however, is paid to identifying how and why we communicate the way we do, and the importance of learning to also truly listen.

In this chapter we delve into all of this.

Let us begin.

The Role and Use of Listening in a Therapeutic Context

Therapeutic processes recognises that for change to occur and become secure, the mere act of speaking about something is not always enough. If a new sense of safety is to become embedded, certain conditions need to exist:

• We need space to explore, provided by someone listening and hearing without interfering

• We need our experience to be safely contained, through a sense of non-judgement by our listener.

• We need to be given the freedom to feel and express our feelings. This, perhaps most importantly, provides us with an opportunity to re-integrate our emotions in potentially healthier and more authentic ways.

Listening to and truly hearing one another, without immediately wanting something back for oneself, is a skill to be developed. Most adults are perfectly capable of sitting still and not saying anything while someone else is talking, giving the impression (and indeed believing) that they are listening.

However, the active listening required in a healing context is a very different thing. It demands concentrating on hearing what the speaker is saying, without inferring our own meanings, and without allowing our own thoughts, feelings, agreements, disagreements, or interpretations to disrupt.

Like all skills, this requires practice but acquiring this ability will provide profound benefits: giving each other space to be actively heard and understood in this way is a hugely important part of creating and maintaining safe, open and loving relationships.

Fear not, I’m not asking that you become each other’s – or anyone else’s – therapist, I am simply encouraging you to use a technique that brings calm, authenticity and a grounded sense of connecting.

Effective Speaking

Listening well is important, but being able to communicate clearly holds no less significance. You might have the best listener in the world rapt in attention, but if you struggle to say what you feel or express what you think, it doesn’t matter how good the listener is, you will still struggle to be heard.

Challenges Related to Communicating Authentically

Fear of

upsetting someone

not being heard

being belittled

Uncertainty about

your own feelings

the other’s internal emotional state

Lack of confidence in

own opinions and thoughts

your motivations

Blocked by

anger quickly rising

overwhelm of emotions/tears

mind going blank

Being aware of how our words may impact others is an important social skill that keeps connections safe and ourselves and the other comfortable.

The problem arises when these skills are driven by fear or anxiety.

Perhaps you grew up in a household where feelings and thoughts were rarely discussed or enquired about, or you were told to stay quiet if you did. Or, even if you did speak, perhaps your feelings and thoughts were belittled, or you were simply dismissed. It may be that anger or shouting was frequently used.

The above communications styles may not have come from the express intention of hurting you but were simply the communication style or even wounds your caregivers themselves carried forward into parenting you. Or, and it’s important to acknowledge, that for some, they were used as ammunition to control or hurt. All for the same reasons of unacknowledged wounds and historical experiences.

The truth remains: Experiencing whichever pattern resonates with you above, or anything between, consistently during childhood and/or adolescence, activates an automatic behavioural response – often without realising it. That it is better to stay quiet, or to shout, or to match your responses to what you think the other wants to hear. All this to keep you safe from retaliation or to increase your chances of being heard.

We will explore this more in the exercises to come. But notice what, if anything, came up for you when reading this, of physical sensations, thoughts and emotions. Acknowledge it, then let go of any urge to analyse for now.

From a wider view, but still intrinsically felt, you may feel less allowed to express emotion or vulnerability as a man, or express assertiveness and confidence as a woman. If you are non-binary or have transitioned, you may feel conscious about how others judge your identity, impacting how you express yourself. There are infinite nuances within all this that hold great importance, and that you should keep in mind, but for ease of focus, I will keep the main attention on your closest relationships through the series.

Background Theory

Before we move onto the listening and reflection exercises, I want to talk a little bit about the core theory I am grounding this series in. I remind you that this is background content you do not need to remember, I am simply introducing it so it can begin to filter through as we move through the series. It will crop up again where appropriate.

Attachment Theory and Neuroscience

The theoretic basis for the reflections and exercises contained in this series lies in attachment theory and neuroscience.

Attachment theory simply means that how you were cared for as an infant and child, and how you bonded with your primary caregivers, lays the foundations for how you relate to your own emotions and feelings, and to other peoples, in adulthood.

Neuroscience is the study of the brain and nervous system, which is involved in every process in our bodies. In this book we will focus on how our brain processes memory and emotions from birth, infancy and onwards.

Attachment Theory

Attachment theory, developed in the 1950s by British psychologist John Bowlby, identifies two core attachment styles:

Secure, where an infant or child’s physical and emotional needs are intuitively met without excessive disruption or trauma, allowing them to develop a secure sense of self.

Insecure, where physical and emotional care are constantly disrupted in some way, resulting in the child developing a less secure way of feeling about themselves and their relationships with others.

Both types of attachment are carried on into adulthood, making those who experienced secure attachment more likely to be able to form solid and secure adult relationships and those whose childhoods were marked by disruption more likely to struggle in this regard.

It should be noted that the disruption experienced need not have been the result of profound and consistent emotional or physical abuse but might have emanated from a series of seemingly less significant disruptions in care or circumstances, or even a specific traumatic event.

It’s important to remember that human beings are of course not quite as binary as simply ‘secure’ or ‘insecure’ (we will delve into the theoretic nuance in a later chapter), but the idea of secure and insecure attachments can anchor your exploration in something outside yourself, and this is useful especially in recognising internalised shame, self-blame and projections.

Neuroscience

The great significance that Bowlby afforded to the period of infancy in our emotional and relational development is supported by neuroscience. How we are cared for, and how we bond and attach with our primary caregivers during this time of exponential brain development has been found to create a type of imprint for how we continue to feel, relate and communicate.

This initial imprint is comprised of, among many other things, the neural connections and pathways (a kind of traffic system in the brain) that were created by the early stimulation we received.

In terms of attachment theory, the ongoing care we are given as we develop reinforces these neural connections, creating a secure attachment style in those who receive consistently good enough care, but an insecure attachment style in those whose care has suffered frequent disruption.

A helpful way to think of it is that these early neural connections are like grooves in a piece of wood. The longer you run a tool along the same grooves, the deeper they become.

This would present an upsetting prospect for those whose start in life is difficult, were it not for neuroscience’s discovery of neuroplasticity, the brain’s capacity for change, which can persist even into old age. With repeated stimulation and exposure to alternative models of behaviour and thinking, our brains have the capacity to physically change their neural connections and pathways.

This means that, over time, even those whose early care has created in them an insecure attachment style which has perhaps spilled over problematically into their adult lives, can still develop healthier and more secure attachments.

Using the groove analogy again: Any shifts you create, or experience later, need the same continued and consistent action to become embedded.

Being listened to and truly heard, like you are invited to do in this series, can provide exactly the stimulation needed to deepen these healthier grooves.

Exercises

There are three exercises below in the couples section, and three in the individual section, if you are doing this on your own. You can debrief after each exercise and come back to the next one on a different day, or you can continue if you feel in a safe flow. Should you feel overwhelmed or (if you’re doing this with someone) slip into an argument at any point, revisit the secure base guidance before continuing.

I recommend you always start with the secure base before any exercise session.

COUPLES

Exercise 1. Paraphrasing

This exercise provides an opportunity to briefly revisit your childhood – and especially how your family communicated - with your partner while developing important listening skills. We will delve deeper into the different aspects of your childhood as we move through the series, so this is just to practice your speaking, listening and paraphrasing skills.

Pay close attention to this during the exercise: Do you ever stop yourself from saying something? Do you feel anger rising at any point? Do you feel emotional while listening or speaking? Do you feel bored or disengaged? Simply notice for yourself.

• Take turns reflecting on your childhood, focusing on the way you communicated with and felt heard – or not – by your primary caregivers or other significant figures in your childhood. This is simply a sharing exercise and focus mainly on listening. Set aside around 10 - 20 minutes. It can be helpful to set a timer and give equal time to each.

• Now take turns speaking about specific experiences that may come up while your partner practices active listening by paraphrasing what you have just said and repeating it back to you, try to do this without inference or interpretation. Then continue speaking. For example:

Partner A: I remember feeling very anxious when I wanted to ask my parents for anything, as they’d often get angry.

Partner B (paraphrasing): You felt anxious a lot as a kid whenever you asked for anything.

Partner A: Yes. I still feel like that sometimes now. Yesterday I was nervous asking my boss for help with something.

Partner B (paraphrasing): Even now you feel nervous when you need to ask for anything, like your boss yesterday.

When you have finished, swap roles so that both partners practice this active listening and paraphrasing.

You can keep going for as long or as short as you feel comfortable.

Remember, it’s OK to get it wrong, it’s OK to try again (and again), and it’s OK to laugh! Take your time and focus mostly on practicing the process itself. These exercises are purely a primer to help you enter a different listening and speaking mode.

Now take a few minutes to reflect on the questions at the beginning: Did you ever stop yourself from saying something? Did you feel anger rising at any point? Did you feel emotional while listening or speaking? Did you feel bored or disengaged?

In the last chapter I asked you to reflect on expectations you feel are placed on you that you feel unable or unwilling to meet– or that you meet begrudgingly – and explore why you think you feel this way.

It may not have created any obvious connections for you during the exercise but take a few minutes to share with each other any thoughts or realisations that may have come up around this, especially why you might find it difficult to communicate it. If none did, or only for one of you, that’s OK. Stay within your own frame of reference. You may offer gentle observations, but if your partner is not receptive, allow them to hold their reality without pushing further.

Note down in your notebook any thoughts that may linger and remember that you are in a process, and things might reveal themselves later for either or both of you.

Debrief here or continue with the next exercise if you feel comfortable to do so.

Exercise 2. Hopes and Fears

This exercise allows you to explore how much you currently understand about your partner’s state of being and feeling. Although simple, it can be a difficult task if you are experiencing a heightened sense of conflict in your relationship, or you are feeling resentment at not being heard – especially if your partner’s interpretations of your hopes and fears were wide off the mark.

But no matter how mistaken their understanding, try to stay centred in yourself and remember that patience and generosity are needed on both sides to build better mutual understanding. By practising authentic listening, you increase the chances of both partners learning to truly hear one other and beginning to understand what lies beneath what they are saying.

• Ask your partner this question: ‘What do you imagine my hopes and fears are for this process?’

• When asked this question, answer as succinctly as possible with what you imagine is your partner’s felt experience in mind, and try to avoid inference of your own feelings and thoughts.

• Paraphrase your partner’s answer, repeating it back to them.

• When you have finished, swap roles and repeat the question, answer and paraphrase process.

• Next, repeat the exercise, but this time asking each other the direct question: What are your hopes and fears for this process?

• As previously, once your partner has finished speaking, paraphrase their answer, repeating it back to them

After the exercise you can set aside 10 - 20 minutes to share how you experienced the above process. Again, stay within your own frame of reference. And remember, even though it might feel treacherous, bringing your fears into the open and allowing them to be worked through patiently is what avoids rupture. Discomfort is normal, and you can stay safe by pacing yourself accordingly.

Debrief here or continue with the next exercise if you feel comfortable to do so.

Exercise 3. What Can I Do and What am I Doing?

The last exercise invites you to step into agency and actively use what you have talked through.

Ask each other the following in turn (do all three questions in one go, then swap):

• What might I be doing now in how I communicate that is familiar to you from your past/childhood? Keep in mind that this does not mean it’s your fault or responsibility, it simply helps highlight a received familiarity in the other.

• What do you possibly find challenging in how I communicate?

• Lastly, what am I doing, or what can I do to facilitate a sense of safety when you wish to communicate?

You might not have an answer straight away, or at all. That’s OK. If needs be, take a day or two to reflect, then sit back down for a few minutes and share. Try to be aware of an urge to place blame, and stay within your own experience of something, rather than something being done to you.

Grounding Exercise

If you wish, you can now finish by closing your eyes and scanning your body for tension. Close your eyes, then inhale slowly through your nose and relax any tension as you exhale through your mouth. Let your shoulders and jaw drop with each exhale. If it is helpful, imagine a pale-yellow colour as you inhale and a calm blue colour as you exhale.

INDIVIDUAL

If you are reading/working through this series on your own, you may be wondering how to execute similar exercises. A good place to start, is by observing yourself.

1. Noticing and Familiarity

First, spend a few days noticing the following:

How often is your mind drawn to

analysing what you might say next

feel the urge to say something but stop yourself

say something and then regret saying it

looping in anxiety

shutting down

Keep notes, and when you have a few things down on paper, you can set aside some time and reflect, focusing on the way you communicated with and felt heard – or not – by your primary caregivers or other significant figures in your childhood. Include things like:

• How was I met when I was angry or sad?

• How did they respond when I asked for something?

• Was I asked about my day? Did I feel listened to?

• Did I ever feel misunderstood?

When you have reflected on this and written down your answers, take a few moments to close your eyes and simply breathe calmly. Don’t force your mind anywhere, simply allow it to travel where it wants. Open your eyes and reflect on the following:

• Is there a connection between what came up while answering these questions, and to what I observed about myself in the world?

• How do I think my past experiences play a part in my reactions to current communication scenarios?

• What do I long for when I speak to someone?

• If I receive it, do I allow myself to communicate authentically, or do I still struggle to be honest?

• What is my fear?

2. Noticing and Supportive Statements

Next, I would like you to observe yourself in the world again for a few days. Keep the following in mind:

• Who, if anyone, am I more drawn to listening to?

• What are the qualities about this person?

• When and with whom does my mind drift?

• Do emotions occasionally come up for the other if they share something emotional about themselves, or do they come up around my own experiences?

Often, the way we listen to others is reflected in the way we were listened to, or not, growing up. If you never felt there was a place for your own thoughts, ideas or feelings, you might retreat and not share, or indeed do the opposite and rush to make room for yourself in conversations.

Or you may have experienced that there was only room for the other, and you needed to keep your own things inside to be liked or loved.

In the last chapter I asked you to reflect on expectations you feel are placed on you that you feel unable or unwilling to meet– or that you meet begrudgingly – and explore why you think you feel this way.

It may not have created any obvious connections for you during the exercise but take a few minutes now and think about whether these expectations also rear their head in how you communicate, then write down your reflections as supportive statements.

For example:

I speak quickly and share a lot because I was often talked over or not given space. I was expected to only listen.

Or

I find it difficult to speak openly because I’m worried my words can impact someone negatively. I often had to manage others’ emotions growing up. I was expected to absorb everything.

3. Paraphrasing

Even if you are doing this exercise on your own, you can still practice paraphrasing – meaning simply repeating something someone said back to them as a way of making them feel heard. It doesn’t have to be a constant response like in the couple’s exercise above, but you can keep it in mind as an invitation to pause, along with: Do I need to offer opinions or self-references here, or can I simply acknowledge what they have said? What do I think they need?

Slowing down and focusing on the other can often have a calming effect as it invites space for trust. This trust can in turn make someone more aware of you and your needs as well. If you find that you often are the one giving space and listening more than speaking, reflect on why you think this might be, and if you feel comfortable, make it part of your ‘active step (below) to allow more space for yourself.

Grounding Exercise

If you wish, you can now finish by closing your eyes and scanning your body for tension. Close your eyes, then inhale slowly through your nose and relax any tension as you exhale through your mouth. Let your shoulders and jaw drop with each exhale. If it is helpful, imagine a pale-yellow colour as you inhale and a calm blue colour as you exhale.

COUPLES AND INDIVIDUALS

Active Step

From this chapter onwards I am introducing a last exercise called ‘active step.’ Any of the steps in this and following chapters can be taken at any time, whether now or in the future.

This chapter’s active step is:

What is one thing I can do differently when I communicate?

This could be:

• Accepting the tears that might come in difficult conversations and speak anyway, allowing them to purely exist without questioning.

• If you often respond from anger, take a step back to recalibrate before responding. That doesn’t mean you don’t have a reason to be angry, it just gives you a chance to feel more in control of what you want to be heard.

• Speak where you usually stop yourself

• Pause where you would usually rush in and speak

• Or something else you are becoming aware of that you would like to change

If you decide to take the step, it is important to do it consistently. If the step is too big, it might be hard to keep practising. Choose a step that feels a little challenging, but not so much that it stops you from continuing.

Discomfort is normal and tends to wane with time. High and persistent anxiety is not and means you need to choose a smaller step, or no step at all for now. That’s more than OK, it’s healthy and supportive to pace yourself according to your needs.

THE DEBRIEF

This is an abridged version of the list. For the full text you can click here.

If you wish to log feeling words and notes, you can download a workbook to help you here.

• Express, like at the beginning, one feeling word and one physical sensation.

• Provide one ‘I notice’ statement (each). The ‘I notice’ statement should be about yourself and related to what you have reflected on.

• One sentence on what might feel historically familiar to you.

• One self-compassion statement.

• Write down for yourself how the ‘I notice’ statement possibly manifests itself in your relationship/s.

Preparing For the Next Chapter

In the next chapter we are going to explore family history and attachment. I could get you to dive straight into the details of your own childhoods, but I think a far better place to start is on the periphery and then work our way in. One thing we often fail to reflect on in our own introspection is how our individual families become themselves, and in turn through that, how we become ourselves.

We are not just randomly put together with disparate stories that have nothing to do with each other. We are all interconnected, and your grandparents and great grandparents’ stories are all part of who you are today, and how you see and experience the world around you.

So, before you move onto the next chapter, I invite you both to create a family tree each. It could be simply and quickly done with pen and paper, or more elaborate on a computer or with illustrations. There’s no right or wrong here. If helpful, you can download a template here.

Start with yourself and your parents and grow the family tree as far as you have knowledge from there. Wherever possible Include notes on significant events that happened to each person on the tree. This could be anything from deaths and traumatic events to significant relocations and changes in jobs and relationships, or more general things like poverty or exposure to rigid belief systems. Use whatever knowledge you have. Again, this can be just quick scribbles and doesn’t have to be elaborately researched unless you feel compelled to do so. In which case please do. But no judgement from either partner on this.

If you are adopted, estranged or simply hold little knowledge about your wider family, write down what you may know, however small, then spend some time reflecting on what comes up for you of feelings and thoughts. This could be sadness about now knowing, curiosity about your history, frustration with the lack of information available to you or a sense of indifference. Write down your thoughts however you wish, in keywords, a flow of consciousness or in a more structured way.

Ending Note

This chapter holds a lot, but there is no rush in moving through it. Take your time, and pay attention to any feelings of overwhelm or destabilising shifts in yourself or others. Reflection is not a race, it is a slow and deliberate process where you are not only encouraged to take your time, but it is imperative you do.

I wish you well, and if you have any questions or reflections to share, please don’t hesitate to message, or to leave a comment.

Next Chapter: Wider Family History