hi I'm Marty roll of uncommon knowledge
and welcome to seven powerful ways to
help your client overcome relationship
insecurities so you and I know that a
healthy loving secure and mutually
respectful relationship shelters us from
life's storms
and gives us solace stimulation and
support in life so healthy relationships
are good for us and you can see
reference one and the written written
article around this but what if some
evil destructive weed planted in the
soil of past experience is choking the
peace of mind that love the fun and true
intimacy out of your clients
relationship what if your client is
feeling so insecure that their
insecurity itself the fear that
something is or will be wrong in the
relationship is the only thing that is
wrong in the relationship seeing
problems where there aren't any is in
itself a problem and of course genuinely
insecure people know this but knowing it
doesn't help them and it's tempting to
try to reassure insecure people that
everything is fine but being in a
relationship with a really insecure
person is not fine constantly reassuring
someone who won't talk can't be
reassured is exasperatingly innovating
and ultimately futile and of course what
your client really needs is to be able
to reassure themselves and also to feel
less need for reassurance in the first
place
so take Holly a client of mine from way
back and she really found that
insecurity was damaging her relationship
and she said to me I'm going to destroy
this relationship if I carry on like
this and this is the best relationship
that I've ever had
she told me and she was with someone
called Paul and she said Paul is a
really loving gentle decent guy
she said that she really did love him
but she was constantly worrying about
how the relationship was going and
monitoring it and you know she felt that
she had to keep checking on him and
check you know how he was feeling all
the time and she said that yesterday for
example I must have asked him at least
10 times what he was thinking
I know it's driving him nuts but I just
can't seem to stop
so Holly's previous relationships had
not been great you know she'd been
cheated on and even abused and hurt in a
previous relationship her faith in
relationships was shattered even though
she badly wanted this one to work so it
was a classic case of once bitten twice
shy so I managed to help ease Holly's
anxieties so she could start to feel
more secure in her relationship and more
confident and optimistic as she began to
feel better she started giving the
relationship room to breathe and she
began to trust again and be less clingy
so here are a few of the strategies are
used with Holly and they might help you
to when treating insecure clients so
number one remind your client what's
really going on okay being careful with
what you say okay so don't talk in terms
of their anxieties or their worries but
rather talk to them in terms of their
imaginings what they've been making up
now this is not to dismiss or belittle
the very real pain and anxiety they've
been experiencing but it is to remind
them what the reality of this situation
is what they're actually doing so
instead of asking for example when you
get these overwhelming anxieties and
fears how does it make you act towards
your partner I would ask Holly questions
like okay so how has the stuff that
you've been making up in your head about
this being making you act towards him
okay this might sound like a small
trivial point but it really gets to the
heart of the situation of what's
actually going on
it helped Holly to see her emotional
patterns more objectively it also
prepared the ground for the technique I
used with her
which I'll describe next okay so number
to help them know what's real and as
distinct from what's imagined so I don't
know whether you've ever had a dream in
which you've someone that you know was
bad to you in some way in the tree and
then you've woken up feeling angry with
that person who was bad to you in the
dream but they haven't been mad to you
in real life and so the dream was pretty
convincing
you know imagination is sometimes called
daydreaming and it too can fool you into
believing in its own narrative its own
script okay you imagine some something
about someone then you feel a real
emotion towards them when and only when
I felt had developed too deep enough
rapport with Holly I suggested she close
her eyes and then I suggested that on
the count of three she could just
imagine the sound of me clapping my
hands once okay and we did this and I
counted it three and then she imagined
the sound of me clapping my hands
together then I asked her to imagine it
again but this time after the count of
three I really did clap my hands
together what happened then I asked her
and she said well you you really did
clap your hands that wasn't me imagining
it and I said yes and you can be very
good at knowing the difference really
knowing the difference between stuff you
make up in your head and reality and you
can be confident in that difference okay
and this could be a surprisingly
powerful realization because we don't
want to lead whole lives just
approaching reality through our or stuff
we've made up in our heads so for many
people it falls into the category of
unknown knowns what you know that you
don't even know you know okay sorry to
get what Donald Rumsfeld on you but it
was you know that was an insight of his
maybe the only one so it's empowering to
move the ability to distinguish reality
and fantasy into the category of unknown
known something that you know you know
and therefore can deliberately choose to
do am I making this up or not what's the
evidence for this you're really on your
way to overcoming insecurities
when you know that you know how to tell
the difference between imaginations and
realities it's a really key point also
inherent in this exercise is the idea of
having to wait calmly sometimes when
discerning what is real from what we've
just made up in our minds okay so we
used it as an instigator for Holly to
explore the idea further to enable her
to trust her imagination less
automatically so she could trust her
relationship more so she stopped doing
so much of I know what he's thinking or
he must hate me or you know just
assuming the imagination is correct but
these approaches can only really have a
chance to work well if we also remember
the next tip so tip number three help
your client relax
relationship insecurity is fueled by
anxiety and habit so we need to help our
clients learn to associate having
thoughts about their relationship with
physiological calmness feeling calm
strong emotion sends the imagination
into overdrive causing us to become
convinced that what we've just made up
in our heads is a true reflection of
reality because emotion is very
convincing the emotion of a dream can
make you wake up feeling actually angry
with the person who is bad to you in the
dream that imagination is very
convincing this is the emotional
emotional equivalent of a dog chasing
its own tail the tail moves because the
dog chases it the dog chases it because
it's moving so helping our clients to
relax while they're thinking about their
relationship is extremely empowering
because it helps them stop just seeing
everything through the lens of distorted
emotional agitation and imagination gets
to butt out for a while I mentioned that
relationship insecurity is partly driven
by habit and the next tip addresses a
particularly toxic insecurities habit so
tip number four help your client quit
mind reading
okay assuming being certain that we know
what someone else is thinking because we
can imagine what they might be thinking
is a sure way to break rapport with them
it's guaranteed to make them feel
misunderstood by you assuming we know
what someone is or must be thinking when
we really don't is called mind-reading
okay so I reminded Holly that every
relationship needs room to breathe and
use the analogy of a garden needing to
be tended but not every two minutes a
bit of watering the flowers is great
watering your flowers 24/7 won't do them
any good and I suggested to Holly that
it's a mistake to assume that just
because someone isn't talking to you
right now something must be wrong
you know Holly had fallen into a pattern
of starting many conversations with Paul
her partner with what's wrong not even
is there something wrong but what's
wrong
she was assuming something must be and
not surprisingly Paul had started to
withdraw further and further away from
her because of all this interrogation
which made him feel that she didn't
trust him to speak his own mind or
didn't even know his own mind
I told Holly how to relax with a letting
Paul have more privacy with his thoughts
or lack of thoughts where you know when
always thinking deep things and to
tolerate the uncertainty of not having
to know all the time and to remember
that many men relax by not talking okay
tip number five focus on the differences
Holly like many recovering relationship
insecurity sufferers had been hurt in
the past and in the same way that
someone may come to fear all dogs
because they were bitten by one
particular dog she felt unable to trust
in the present time the part of the
brain that processes threat tends to try
to keep her safe in future by erring on
the side of caution and over
generalizing the threat and it does this
by making us over generalize the threat
from a specific event or experience or
collection of experiences okay
so I got Holley to write down all the
ways in which Paul was different from
her abusive cheating ex-partner I then
encouraged her to relax and while in
trance really reflect and absorb those
differences and ponder the true nature
of trust tip number six help them avoid
of the certainty trap and trust properly
Holly and I spent some time talking
about how Trust is faith not certainty
people often misunderstand this it's
vital to know that even the most
trustworthy person can't ever prove 100%
that they are 100% trustworthy doubts
can always be created around anything
and anyone in life having to know for
sure whether someone can be trusted is
like having to know for sure that the
Sun will rise tomorrow before it
actually does now we're not talking
about blind faith here you have to look
at your experience you know what has
consistently happened in the past okay
you don't have faith in somebody that
they're honest when they've continually
stolen from you in the past but so all
you can do on one level is go by your
past experience that that's you know
it's always shown itself to be reliable
thus far you know has the person been
reliable up to this point and have faith
informed by your observations of the
past that they can be trusted in the
future and of course everybody will can
still be disappointed sometimes that's
really that's as much certainty as
anyone can have okay and that's fine tip
number seven help them spread the risk
at the heart of relationship insecurity
lies pessimism a lack of any faith that
the future can be a good place to be is
he or she going off me
this is too good to last you know the
kind of stereotypical thinking okay
and this leads to the desperate
compulsion to keep checking what did he
mean by that
no but what did he really mean by that
so Holly like many others that I've
treated over the years actually felt
that if Paul abandoned her it would be
the end of everything okay I asked her
we know what would it mean if he
actually left you and she know it was at
the end of the world and she realized
with a jolt that she'd been feeling as
if it would really be the end of the
world if they parted okay that this
hidden of something unconscious
assumption was truly within her if you
feel that one thing in your life like
your relationship is everything then
you're bound to be terrified at the
feeling that it might end so I got Holly
to remember all the other parts of her
life and encouraging her to develop and
maintain interests and friendships
outside of her relationship I got her to
imagine the terrible what if itself
which sounds contra intuitive and to
imagine herself being really upset but
surviving being okay that the world
didn't it isn't ending and that she can
go forward in her life and this was
incredibly powerful getting someone to
imagine okay if it ends imagine being
okay with that when someone really fears
something they avoid it in their mind
but you can ask them okay so if that did
happen what sorts of things would you do
to help you get through that difficult
time notice how you framed it as a
difficult time not as a disaster or a
catastrophe or the end of the world
so really help them focus on all their
resources and what they've learned in
life so far that would help them get
past that time with the inherent idea
that it's a something they would get
past so paradoxically we can help them
feel more confident by thinking about
the possibility of something going wrong
if we also help them feel confident that
if the worst did happen it wouldn't
actually be the worst and their be able
to manage it nothing in life is certain
and being able to relax with the
uncertainties with the confidence that
whatever happens I'll be okay is true
emotional security
people often seek that emotional
security in the wrong place by asking
for a certainty that doesn't exist
unless you're completely outside of time
and space and can see all that has and
will ever happen then that kind of
certainty isn't gonna happen Holly and
Paul's relationship improved Holly felt
more secure and Paul felt closer to
Holly because of her increased security
so he felt more intimate with her
because she was truly more intimate with
him so I hope you found that useful and
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bell below I'm mark Terrell of uncommon
knowledge and if you'd like to subscribe
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Kay comm slash blog and thanks for
watching
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