A strategy for noticing you’re in the cycle & starting to defeat it.
One of the first things that will help improve the effectiveness of EFT therapy is to focus on catching yourself in your cycle with your partner. It is much easier to catch your partner in the cycle and call them out. However, most of the time calling out our partner just ends up pulling the two of you further into the old cycle.
It’s more effective to work on noticing and catching yourself in the cycle. If you catch yourself, even if you’re not able to get out if the cycle yet, it’s still a win. We cannot change something we don’t notice, so noticing yourself acting out your own part of the cycle is the first step.
If you’re serious about learning to catch yourself and not your partner, here’s a process to help:
1. Write down your 6 typical parts of the cycle (use the cycle diagram & behaviors list if helpful).
• Your behaviors– things you typically say or do (or behavior impulses that you experience but don’t act on)
• Your reactive emotions (annoyance, upset, frustration, anger, grumpy, numb, etc)
• Your thoughts about why your partner is doing what he or she is doing or what they are probably thinking about you
• Your vulnerable emotions (disappointed, sad, despair, worried, scared, etc.)
• Your physical sensations – what you feel physically in your body when in the cycle (tense, pressure in my chest, sick feeling, small, etc.)
2. Pick signals to watch for.
What one or two signals (from above) might be easiest to notice? What will be the easiest to catch yourself doing, thinking, or feeling? Some people find it easiest to notice physical sensations. For other people noticing specific thoughts or catching yourself saying or doing something is easier. The signal you focus on might change over the course of your journey. Pick signals that you will most readily be able to identify now.
3. Pay attention to yourself and watch for the signal.
Early in Kim and I’s EFT journey, walking out of the room was the signal I could readily catch myself doing. A frequent pattern started with me bringing up a concern. After a brief argument I would give up on being heard and walk out. I would catch myself staring at nothing, and think, “I just did it again. I walked out. I’m in the cycle.”
4. Call myself out instead of my partner.
You may be asking, “Once I can catch myself in the cycle, how do we get out?” Our tendency when we notice the cycle is to point out what our partner is doing. Instead, start by calling yourself out. For me that involved walking back into the living room and admitting, “I just did it again! I walked out on you. I don’t know what else to do. I know it scares you. I still don’t know what to do, and I’m going to walk out again.” (Kim told me later, that this acknowledgement helped ease her fear, even though I walked away again.)
If you persevere, on your own or with the help of an EFT therapist, you will eventually be able to do more than notice you’re in the cycle. You will also be able to stop yourself sometimes and get out of your cycle with your partner. Hang on until then. You can get there.
Republished from Infinity Family Therapy Blog