THE RELATIONAL TOOLBOX
San Diego Therapy utilizes a myriad of successful therapeutic aspects from eclectic psychological modalities. However, when Edging Life's toolbox was created, these eclectic therapeutic elements were fused with daily realities such that one doesn't have to enter a therapy room and pay money in order to better their relationships (couple and/or family). "Personality Parts Pie Pieces" is the couple's equivalent to "Family Fantasy Friends."
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At San Diego Therapy, Lily can help provide quick intervention to couple's escalation, personalized and tailored replicable concepts (tools) and expedient new angles of insight to get you shifting and moving in new directions . . . and fast. You will notice change in your relational dynamic at home whether you are an individual, couple or a family. Fill your toolbox with tools that have real life application in the direction of building rather than deconstructing. The vision underpinning each tool of Edging Life is:
- building a shared relational blueprint framework of understanding
- being happy in the now and
- moving into a shared vision of future
- proving points
- attempting to change or "soften" (EFT step 7)
- practicing positive fighting techniques
- cultivating eye contact and empathetic listening (yes this is ideal, but the reality is, when two people are have two intensely differing views causing friction in the relationship (usually the point in which they seek therapy), the likelihood of one sitting down and really "empathically hearing" the other has the probability close to that of winning the lotto. Furthermore, when this scenario of "eye contact and empathic listening" is dynamically modeled and "set up," there becomes a desired expectation for outcome. When the desired outcome is not reached or manifested, the process meant to be effective, literally becomes a sabotaged "set up" for emotional failure and distancing, discouragement, resentment and eventual terminality of the relationship). The process reinforces the hurt and unmet self ego needs. This process does not cultivate relationship ego.
- learning therapeutic language structure for regurgitation
- reflective analysis of the past
TO REPEAT . . . Edging Life is NOT about further habituation of deleterious neurotransmitter patterns which happen as the result of the above mentioned bullets.
Edging Life is not about giving you a neuro-communication map with directions and roads leading you out of the relationship (by re-hashing the above bullets), which unfortunately is what often ends up happening in traditional therapies due to below the surface intrinsic foundational tenets of the practice.
Reminder!!! Currently there is not substantiated research proving the efficacy of couple's therapy on relationships in terms of cultivating happiness and/or decreasing divorce rates. So why spend your money to focus on therapeutic issues? Focus on "edging your life" by:
- building a shared relational blueprint framework of understanding
- being happy in the now and
- moving into a shared vision of future
San Diego Therapy has combed through years of psychology from: Bolby and his attachment theory to Bowen and the differentiated self, family systems, EMDR, Solution Focused Therapy, Satir, Strategic, Emotionally Focused Therapy and more . . . in order to acquiesce effective underpinnings for an effective blueprint structure and toolbox for success.
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Lily Kotila views functional happy relationships as the goal. "Personality Parts Pie Pieces" enables you to have fun with relational and/or familial Ego States by identifying different parts of personalities and actually giving them names. It is a great way to bring humor into a relationship because it allows for embodiment of created characters with shared known reference points (bonding) into the dynamic which can often be funny.
The purpose of these characters is 3-fold:
1. To create a "shared platform" for perspective of an experience other than words.
2. On one side, to decrease anger/blame and on the other side to decrease disappointment/hurt (or any 'negative' emotion) as these created characters externalize parts of the person's personality and therefore remove personal ego which is sensitive and can be easily angered or hurt. On a side-note, they often make people laugh.
3. Personality Part Pie Pieces help individuals and partners to catch accurate glimpses of "the self's" emotional states and behaviors, and to reflect on various aspects of their personalities. By creating time and space for these externalized personality Pie Pieces, individuals become more familiar with their inner selves in terms of what environmental variables affect them and in terms of how they exhibit their personality in the world.
The more one knows the environmental aspects that onset or activate personality parts, the more one has regulatory ability and control of mood and interpersonal manifestations of behavioral choices. Once these personality part pie pieces are identified, familiarity with personality parts and the environmental conditions influencing them become more known with time.
Along with personality familiarity, there is an increased likelihood of successful behavioral modification, thought and emotional response. Sometimes, when we are in ourselves, it is hard to accurately see ourselves. So by identifying these Personality Pie Parts and externalizing them, this process helps us to accurately view who we are in the world as it gently holds our egos for a moment to give us true insight without self-blame or defenses.
We can come up with Personality Pie Part characters and/or references of characters ourselves and or a partner can assign ones for us and vice-versa. We don't always have to like the assigned aspects of self-character. In fact, we can create fun character returns for the ones we don't like. The idea is to role play and have fun and bring in humor in order to expand internal awareness of self, other and of the relational dynamic.
With respect to time, the stopping or pausing of time is an asset in that it calls attention to a personality ego-state allowing for reflection and ownership of that part of self. Also with respect to time, the repetition of Personality Pie Parts (over time) is an asset in terms of familiarizing one's self with aspects of personality, thus being able to easily identify and manage internal states allowing for the control of unproductive behaviors.
For example, if "Evelyn" is an angry ego state . . .and "he" detected a slight Evelyn presence (hahaha), he might say, "Hey Evelyn baby, I love ya but maybe you wanna come for a visit next week?" She might notice her soma-sensations and or thought processes associated with an "Evelyn" state prior to her full onset and do some internal self thinking or talk in order to not get so mad at partner for not meeting personal ego needs. On the reverse side, he might be doing something that annoys her and she might warn him, "Hey babe. Are you wanting a visit from Evelyn?" Then this referrence gets him to stop and pause and self examine his behavior in terms of what he is doing that is not productive for the relationship. His reflection of self may be able to come up with an identifiable personality aspect."
"Marathon Man" might be greeted as he arrives home at the door. This might be appropriate if he comes home from work at 8pm for the 3rd night in a row and what you would really like is to have a shared dinner with him. You can let him know that you'll see him in another 26 plus miles. You can even throw on a pair of sneakers to make a funny point.
Evelyn and Marathon Man are just two examples of personality characters you can create in order to pause time, bring attention to internal states of emotion and demonstrate in a loving way how relational behaviors affect you.
The Personality Pie Part concepts are offshoots of Ego-States therapy. Please do not think of them as an attempt to split apart the individual. We are all dances of emotions in which there is a "step change" with any given song. It is natural. People do not dance Waltz to Samba music. People don't dance cha-cha to the hustle. Therefore, when the song changes tune, you change your step to fit the beat.
The more you have awareness of the steps that are in line with the music, the more you are in tune with the beat, the more beautiful your relational moves and understanding of self will be. Life doesn't always play the same music . . . do you listen to the same song over and over and over again? No. Yet that is our typical approach to dynamics in relationships: to view and treat each other as if we are always performing one dance (insert primary person's name here).
More ego state examples to be provided in a future blog.
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