© 2021 Kara Hoppe, MA, MFT

Adapted from Baby Bomb: A Relationship Survival Guide for New Parents, by Kara Hoppe and Stan Tatkin (New Harbinger, 2021)

Have you ever had a moment where you watched your partner just spin out? You see them get triggered when you’re not, and you have a split-second choice: am I going to help them calm down or am I going to get triggered too? Speaking about the relationship between my husband and me, Stan Tatkin (creator of the Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy) always said, “You and Charlie are in each other’s care.” In fact, when I first learned from Stan about how nervous-system regulation can be helpful for couples, he used a computer-generated picture of two stick figures, side by side, each composed entirely of a vast network of nerves. No bones or skin; just nerves. It was a nerdy image, but the point was clear: we humans relate to each other through our nervous systems and to access this we use our physical bodies and that’s when the use of toys like the perfect prostate massager can be helpful. You and your partner are, in essence, two nervous systems interacting. That might sound funny, but it also gives rise to some tools I think you’ll find useful. Individuals who do not have the courage or confidence to approach women in the real world may seek virtual relationship with an AI Girlfriend. You may also get into a relationship when you find your perfect date at legit dating apps today! Check first is snapsext legit.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the nervous system is how little attention we tend to pay to it. You might take stock of how you feel—how happy or sad or mad you are—but do you take stock of the state of your nervous system? In fact, the primary way you experience your emotions is through your nervous system. When you’re happy, for example, your nervous system might have a pleasant balance of tranquil and excited energy. When you’re angry at your partner, your nervous system is likely to be highly excited. However, it will also be highly excited when you are sexually aroused or when you see your partner after a week-long business trip. Just as players in a bitcoin casino must stay attuned to the ebb and flow of their winnings and losses, you need to stay attuned to your nervous system’s signals. Similarly, your nervous system will be low energy when you are sad or depressed, as well as when you are cozy in bed and about to drop off to sleep. In short, although you experience emotions through your nervous system, there isn’t a one-on-one correspondence between what you feel and the state of your nervous system. The nervous system is putting out data every second of every day, but those data are only as valuable as your ability to recognize and use them.

The nervous system is more intricate than we can—or need to—discuss here. For the purpose of learning to work with your partner, it is helpful to consider the functioning of the nervous system on a continuum. Picture a linear continuum that runs between calm on one end and excited on the other. Neither state is “wrong” or “bad.” There are moments to be calm and moments to be excited; moments to be low energy and moments to be high energy. For a fun way to explore new experiences, naked women chat offers a playful way to engage in exciting conversations.

Where on this continuum would you place yourself right now? Yesterday? Most typically?

Sherlocking

In Wired for Dating, Stan talks about sherlocking as a skill you can develop to vet a potential mate and then subsequently use as you build a long-lasting intimate partnership. Sherlocking—named for the expert detective work of Sherlock Holmes—is based on the nervous system “tells” through which we nonverbally communicate how we are doing at any given moment. These tells can provide clues about where we are on the nervous-system continuum at that moment and whether we might want to either raise or lower our energy level.

Being aware of your partner’s tells is an important step to becoming experts on each other. There are probably as many tells as there are people in the world, but the tells most helpful for your work with your partner involve the face, eyes, mouth, voice, posture, and movements and gestures.

Charlie and I have compiled our own dictionary of tells. For example, when he is bummed out, he keeps his eyes down and resists eye contact. His face loses color and becomes less animated. He also becomes more quiet in general, and when he does speak, his voice is low and soft. I often cry when I’m sad, and my face can have a droopy expression, with my lower lip protruding. On my own, I might not have noticed that about myself; however, Charlie’s observations ring true for me. He also says my voice is softer and childlike, and my posture becomes more hunched when I’m feeling down. Sharing our observations with each other makes it easier to be aware of our own nervous-system tells.

Over the next week, pay close attention to your partner’s tells. Think of yourself as sherlocking—that is, playing detective with respect to your partner’s tells. This will be most fun if your partner knows what you’re doing and is on board with it, and even more fun if your partner is also playing detective with respect to your tells.

Here are some tips to make sure the exercise runs smoothly.

Ease into it. Start by focusing on observations of normal daily tells, rather than tells during times of high stress. You don’t want to make your partner feel you’re putting them under an unwanted microscope. So go slow. As you both get more comfortable with this process, add in times of stress or conflict.

Resist interpretations. This exercise can run off the rails quickly if either you or your partner make assumptions about the tells you are observing. For example, “You bit your lip; that must mean you’re holding something back from me.” Or “You’re tapping your foot; that means you don’t want to hear what I’m saying.” Instead of making interpretations, check out what your partner is or was actually feeling.

Accept what you observe. At this stage, you and your partner are not trying to change or manage each other. We’ll get into that later. For now, concentrate only on observing and checking out with each other what you have observed.

Compile a dictionary of tells. As you and your partner compare your sherlocking notes with one another, build a knowledge base together. Continue to observe and learn about each other. Get to the point where you can say, “When I do X, it means I’m probably feeling Y” or “When you see me do X, it probably means I need Y.” In this way, you will become experts on each other.

The Coregulation Game

Once you have spent a while learning each other’s tells and growing your expertise on each other, you and your partner will be ready to move into the next stage and actively help each other. This involves using both your tells and your knowledge of where you fall on the nervous-system continuum. The beauty of the mercurial quality of the nervous system is that it invites us to change or modulate it—that is, to regulate it. You can learn to regulate your own nervous system, and you and your partner can learn to help coregulate each other. I like to think of the latter as the “coregulation game.” The way you play this game is to play for two winners. Your goal is to help each other move to a place on the continuum that is more comfortable for both of you. Here is a framework for the coregulation game.

The coregulation game relies on teamwork. Yes, you can and should know how to regulate your own nervous system, but having your partner on your team is an extra resource. If you’re feeling worked up or down in the dumps, your partner may become aware of aspects of your nervous system functioning that you are not, and they can help get you out of a rut that’s harder to get out of by yourself.

Plan in advance how you and your partner will play the coregulation game. You and your partner need to learn about, discuss, and plan in advance how you want to play the coregulation game with each other. Trying to coregulate each other in the heat of the moment, without having clarified what feels good to each of you, is likely to backfire. Use the exercises in this chapter to guide you in exploration and preplanning.

Regulation needs can take different forms. Our nervous system doesn’t always produce a giant explosion (as mine did); sometimes it’s a more muted version of anger or excitement—for example, it might take the form of withdrawal, collapse, or shame. Most often, the coregulation game will involve one of you calming or soothing the other when they become agitated. However, there may be times when one of you has low energy, and the other can help activate that energy.

You are your partner’s ally at all times. Regulating your partner’s nervous system should never involve opposing or ignoring your partner’s feelings. Meet your partner wherever they’re at, without criticizing or finding fault. You are your partner’s caretaker until they’re able to think clearly again.

Calling a stop. Your partner can call a stop at any point they feel unsafe or unsure, and you must immediately honor that stop.

Tending to Your Twosome

Let me introduce you to a couple who could benefit from the ability to regulate each other’s nervous systems during stressful times. You will see two scenarios. In the first scenario, the partners have no awareness of their own or each other’s nervous system. In the second scenario, they are transforming themselves into experts on each other by reading their tells and managing their nervous systems. As you read, try to identify as many nervous-system tells as you can.

Alice and Brett

“So … I lost our baby,” Alice says, after hanging up the phone with her doctor. Her face is pale, and her lower lip trembles as she sits on the couch and looks across the room at Brett, who is busy answering emails on his phone. “It was so hard to get pregnant in the first place. I don’t think I have it in me to try again.” “Alice, you can’t think that way. You have to stay strong. We’ll give it another go in a couple of months.” Brett looks at her briefly, then turns back to his emails. Inside, he’s crushed too, but he doesn’t think it would help Alice to know. She begins to cry quietly, staring at her feet. It feels like her whole world is caving in. When she looks up and sees Brett still on his phone, she feels herself sinking even lower. Brett senses Alice looking at him and glances up. He tells himself, Now is not the time to be sad. I don’t want to think about all the pregnancy losses we’ve had. I’m sick of it. Alice sees him looking at her and says, “What if we never become parents?” That’s just what Brett doesn’t want to hear. “Stop it!” he snaps. “Don’t even go there. We’ll get pregnant again. We’ll have our baby.” He can feel his own distress building, so he says, “I’m going for a run. Be back in thirty or so.” With that, he heads upstairs to get his running gear. His mind is racing as he laces his shoes. I have to get out of here, he thinks. As he heads out the door, he gives Alice a peck on the cheek. “I love you. We’ll find a way. Our baby is still out there.” Alice doesn’t say anything. She sits motionless, feeling abandoned, her breathing shallow, streaks of tears on her cheeks.

***

Pregnancy loss is hard and painful. Instead of noticing that Alice’s nervous system has plummeted to the low-energy end of the continuum and that she isn’t able to lift herself up, Brett focused on his own nervous system and his need to buoy himself. He forgot that she is in his care and that if her nervous system drops, their partnership tanks along with it. Let’s see them try this again. Alice’s phone rings, and she sees it’s her doctor. She calls out to Brett, “The doctor’s calling.” He rushes over to Alice. They sit on the couch, side by side, and he reaches for her hand as she answers the phone. As Alice listens to the doctor, Brett keeps his eyes on her face. He notices her nodding, her face growing pale, and her eyes welling up with tears. He squeezes her hand to let her know he’s right there with her. “Okay. I understand,” she says finally. “Thanks, doctor.” When Alice hangs up, she doesn’t have to say anything, because Brett already realizes it’s bad news. He turns Alice’s body toward him and puts his arms around her. He knows this is what she wants him to do. “I’m so sad,” Alice says through tears. “I know, baby. I right here with you.” They remain quietly holding each other. Brett can hear Alice crying and feel her jagged breathing. He gently rubs her back, soothing her. He feels his own anxiety and grief, but right now he’s more focused on what Alice needs. Alice feels the first big wave of emotion begin to recede. Brett’s hand on her back is comforting, and she lets out a sigh as she pulls back from their embrace to look at him. She can see his eyebrows pinching, the way they do when he’s holding in feelings. “I know this is hard for you too,” she says. He nods. “Do you want to talk?” she offers. Brett wipes a couple of tears from Alice’s face. “Thanks. I’d like that. But I think I need to go for a little walk first.” “Do you want company?” “No, thanks. I need to alone. That is, if you’ll be okay for thirty minutes or so?” “Absolutely. And if you change your mind, I’m just a text away.”

***

In this scenario, Brett leaned in to Alice’s discomfort from the beginning. He took note of her tells and tended to her nervous system, meeting her where she was, without letting his own worries about their ability to become pregnant and carry a baby to term get in the way. He understood her need was greater in that moment, and there would be time for his feelings as well. Brett’s support allowed Alice’s grief to move through her nervous system. By regulating her nervous system, Brett helped lift Alice’s energy so she could in turn support him. Being experts on each other made all the difference during a time when they both needed each other deeply.

Conclusion

I have covered some tools you can use with your partner as you become experts on each other—tools you just saw Alice and Brett model nicely in their do-over scenario. I suggest you and your partner begin by noticing where your respective nervous systems fall on the continuum between calm and excited. Practice this day to day, moment to moment, as it is continually fluctuating. Honing your sherlocking skills will help you identify and even learn to predict these fluctuations. Finally, get your coregulation game on. I presented it as an exercise, and that’s a good way to start, but once you get going, see if you can integrate it into your daily lives so you can avoid having to watch each other get triggered and spin out, and can instead rest securely in each other’s care.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kara Hoppe, MA, MFT, is a psychotherapist, teacher, feminist, and mother. She has spent more than a decade as an inclusive therapist working with individuals and couples toward healing and growing, and toward becoming grounded, integrated people with better access to their own instincts, wisdom, and creativity. Hoppe also offers workshops for parents and expectant couples, based on her book Baby Bomb: A Relationship Survival Guide for New Parents. She lives with her husband and son in Pioneertown, CA, and sees clients in private practice via telehealth. You can learn more about her at karahoppe.com.

 

Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT is a clinician, author, researcher, PACT developer, and co-founder of the PACT Institute. Dr. Tatkin is an assistant clinical professor at UCLA, David Geffen School of Medicine. He maintains a private practice in Southern California and leads PACT programs in the US and internationally. He is the author We Do, Wired for Love, Your Brain on Love, Relationship RX, Wired for Dating, and co-author of Love and War in Intimate Relationships.

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Posted by mkeane on Thursday, October 7th, 2021 @ 4:43AM
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