I have received several comments and emails regarding the transformative weekend workshop my husband and I attended last week. IMAGO is a powerful vehicle for transforming unconscious relationships into conscious ones. Because 1) I truly believe that our hope for survival as a species is to become more aware, more conscious of ourselves and others and because 2) one way to do so is to try to understand each others’ stories, I will share what this is all about and encourage you, if you are experiencing a road block in any relationship, to look into these workshops (they are offered world-wide) and/or look into the different books written by Harville Hendrix and Helen Hunt. Ok….well….let’s get down to business….
The Workshop (or 6 months of therapy in 3 days)
First of all let me clarify that our workshop was not therapy in its traditional sense – it was more therapeutic via a psycho-educational route. Therapy is available for couples who wish to pursue what they have learned further. This is also the first step in training to become certified as an IMAGO therapist as well as training to learn how to teach the workshops. Training to becoming a certified IMAGO therapist requires licensure as a psychologist, social worker, professional counselor and such. For those who feel inspired to teach the workshops, but do not have those credentials, you can become an IMAGO educator and co-lead workshops with your spouse. One thing I will mention is that IMAGO is one of many relationship theories. What I like about this one is that it can be successfully incorporated into many theoretical frameworks when in therapy or working with couples.
The IMAGO workshop is an application of the theory and principles of the IMAGO Process for couples interested in improving the quality of their relationship. IMAGO means "image." As you read on, you will understand why this "image" and more specifically "mirror image" is so important in this theory.
Stages of Relationships
Every relationship has stages and couples cycle through these stages. Some manage to do it better than others. We start out in the romantic love stage. We all are familiar with this one and it is a favorite. It is the falling in love stage where everything looks clearer, colors are more vibrant, the air around us smells better, music seems to be playing in the background and there is a spring in our step. But there is a catch….that stage is not meant to last for many reasons (including biological ones), but that is not the focus of IMAGO.
Sometime after the six month mark and definitely before the two year mark, we sober up. We are no longer intoxicated and begin to become disillusioned, frustrated, and angry. We’ve reached an impasse. This is the crucial “tipping point” addressed through IMAGO. It is where reactivity can be transformed into intentionality and the unconscious couple can become conscious. But, there is a choice to be made here. Many people believe that love just happens. And maybe this is true of romantic love. However, it takes much more than a whim for that love to grow. It requires a re-commitment, a decision or choice to see our couplehood as an opportunity for growth and healing.
Out of respect to our relationship, I will not share specifics about our relationship here. But, I will speak in generalities and in some cases I may talk about me specifically. I have known my husband for 10 years and we have been married for 8 years. We have experienced these stages. Our problem was that we seemed to continue to get stuck in the power struggle and seemed to cycle between power struggle and re-commitment over and over. This past year, was probably the most difficult and most challenging we have had, but our problems did not start this year. They actually started about 33-34 years ago.
Childhood Wounding
In the movie Castaway with Tom Hanks, his character is stranded on a deserted island for 4 years. Early into that part of the movie, his character takes a volleyball, creates a face on it with his blood and gives the ball the name “Wilson”. Hanks’ character than projects onto the ball pretty much all that he would like in another person. As the movie progresses, Hanks’ character begins to argue with “Wilson” even though “Wilson” doesn’t speak. He even gets angry with the ball. When he finally loses “Wilson” at sea, the loss of that connection is painful to watch.
IMAGO works within the framework that we all come into this world fully alive as core energy with an innate desire to connect. This is what babies do - they spend their time trying to make eye contact. When we look into an infant's eyes we also feel that desire for connection. This need for connection does not change and even the absence of another, humans find a way to connect. Facebook is a great example of this although Facebook does give us a false sense of connection.
As infants grow, messages are sent to the child by their caregivers and other well meaning adults in their life. These messages are interpreted in a variety of different ways by the child, probably far different than the parental sender intended.
We hear messages like "you shouldn't feel that way" and interpret them as "this feeling is not ok." Parents will say "don't touch that" or "don't eat that to their children." We don't mean anything by it - we are just trying to protect them. However, if said enough, the message it sends is that exploration is not ok.
As their core begins to fill with messages that "they" are not ok, certain parts are lost. We say lost because these parts never fully disappear since energy cannot be created or destroyed. As human beings, self preservation, survival of the fittest happens at a very basic level. In order to stay alive, if you will, you adapt to the home environment you are born into in order to fit in. If you come from a family where feelings are not expressed, you repress yours. If anger is the only thing you witness in your household growing up, it becomes one of the few emotions you allow yourself to express. The same is true if you come from a home where only positive emotions were expressed. You shun the negative ones and do not learn to cope with those very well.
One thing to note is that IMAGO does not blame parents for these wounds and encourages you not to do that. Parents do their best with what they know at the time. And when you learn that all of us carry with us these childhood hurts and not all of us are given the means to heal and grow, you can begin to understand that our parents really did not know better. It is easier to forgive from this standpoint.
Hailstorms and Turtles, Oh my!
We make adaptations to our way of being to survive. You can see this best if you focus on circumstances of abuse. Sometimes we look at abuse victims and wonder how they survived. The answer was careful adaptation.
In IMAGO, they refer to these adaptations as maximing/maximizers and minimizing/minimizers, affectionately known as a "hailstorms" and "turtles" in our workshop. Turtles tend to avoid, shut down and withdraw. They keep feelings in, tend to diminish emotion, deny dependency, withhold feelings, thoughts and behaviors, tend to be inner directed, takes direction mainly from self, tend to dominate others and alternates between passive aggressive and dominance/control.
Then you have the Maximizers. Hailstorms tend to be critical, nagging and demanding. They let their feelings out (especially the angry ones), exaggerate emotions, tend to be dependent on others, exaggerate needs, tend towards clinging, have unclear self boundaries, ask for direction from others, act impulsively, alternate between passivity and aggressiveness and tend to act submissively and manipulatively.
So, you are both either one or the other, or you are two of a kind. Two of kind is a dangerous combination. Two Hailstorms that collide in a fight can turn into a disaster quickly and the same is true for two low energy turtles who retreat and pretty much avoid each other in rough times. Most of the time, the combination is "Hailstorm/Turtle."
Mating Season
So, flash forward to your young adult years. You are looking for a mate. But, guess what you are really looking for (from an IMAGO point of view)....your parents! We love the familiar. It is why certain sights, sounds and smells trigger warm childhood memories and the same is true for the negative ones. This happens at an unconscious level. On the outside it looks like you are seeking someone with positive traits, but at the same time, in a parallel universe known as your unconscious, you are also choosing someone with similar negative traits of your parents.
I have personally experienced this in my own life with my husband. This is the reason that when I first heard about IMAGO years ago, I felt it would be helpful in our relationship. My husband is the perfect blend of both my mother and father in both positive and negative ways.
This is one of the reasons each relationship stage tends to play out the same with each potential mate you are with. If you have ever heard that "you are dating the same person in a different pair of pants," this is what they are talking about.
So, you meet "the one" and enter into a kind of emotional symbiosis where we believe that:
"We both want the same things"
"We agree on so many things. We have so much in common."
You feel:
..."like I have always known you." (A sense of recognition and the irony here is that you really have always known that person;-)
..."one with everyone and everything.”(A sense of timelessness)
...."you complete me." (A sense of wholeness).
...."I can't live without you."
And with flight of fancy you.....get married!
As you embark on your honeymoon, you pack your bags, but there are more bags than you bargained for. In addition to the clothes and sexy lingerie you likely packed, you each brought along a bag marked "unmet needs" and another one marked "lost parts." And together we embark on Happily Ever After.....not!
Re-Commitment, Awakening, and Real Love
At some point in the power struggle, a choice must be made. Marriage is certainly not for the faint at heart. Some of us go on to re-commitment, going deeper to find the true origins of these tensions. As I have seen time and again, it is never about what you think it is about. Couples begin to peel away the layers in their relationship to find that in each of us is a hurt child looking for someone to help them find the lost parts and to help meet their unmet needs. There is reciprocity here - there are two hurt children (some more hurt than others) that need to heal. There are also two adults that need to grow. In this process, there is an awakening that leads to real or what they can “vintage love”.
Growth and Healing
IMAGO theory posits that our love relationships serve two purposes: growth and healing. Healing for each partner from what are called "wounds of childhood". These wounds can be minor as a parent who unknowingly makes you feel “inadequate" by doing everything for you to the more severe involving any form of abuse. The one helping the other heal is simultaneously given the opportunity to stretch themselves beyond their comfort zone and, in doing so, grow.
But, this purpose is not realized if couples give up on their relationships. Too often people are very quick to let the relationship go. It is the easy thing to do of course. However, when you go on to another potential mate, the same problems that plagued you in your previous relationship/marriage follow you into the next. It has nothing to do with the person you are with, but more with what that person triggers in you (childhood wounds).
When your partner does something that annoys you, instead of picking a fight with them, IMAGO encourages you to look within yourself and find out what that annoyance reminds you of from your childhood. It also requests that you look for the hurt child in your partner (not treat your partner like a child). The majority of us will rush to the aid of a hurt child and try to comfort them. But, in our own relationships when someone is raging (tantruming) we let them drown. IMAGO helps you develop compassion for this unexpressed side of your partner that is trying to emerge and teaches you to get out of your comfort zone to comfort the child inside your partner.
Our Favorite Argument Topics
In the workshop, they identified the top two things couples fight the most about are money and sex. Studies have confirmed this. On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the worse, those two issues are a 10 at the top of the pyramid. But below them there are more minor issues. IMAGO teaches you to tackle the ones at the bottom of the pyramid (number 1's and 2's). If you can unravel the mystery behind these minor problems (childhood wounds), the pyramid begins to crumble and the items at number 10 are now minor problems rated as a 1.
Exits
IMAGO goes beyond discussing the catastrophic relationship exits like affairs, untreated mental disorders or addictions, domestic violence etc. It focuses more on those that contribute to what they call the “invisible divorce.” These include too much TV viewing, computer use (including Facebook), working, sleeping, reading, playing sports, eating, friends, cleaning and focusing too much on children. There are many more, of course, and others may be true to you. Between the time couples hit the power struggle and before they enter the re-commitment stage, these “symptoms” come up. Rather than connect, we avoid connection by overindulging in all these things. This is a sign that your relationship is in trouble and will either compel you to reconnect or bow out (ideally with grace). By the way, per our instructors, couples that are working through affairs in the IMAGO framework tend to “bulletproof” their marriage.
Our journey
When we are single, and I am speaking from the female perspective, we love to talk with our girlfriends about the guys we are dating. We don’t leave much out. We tend to be quite open about the good, the bad, and the ugly. But, when we marry, that piece of paper changes everything. It is almost a license to have a relationship be practically perfect in every way in the eyes of the world. The problem is that this is rarely the case. Never judge a book by its cover, or in this case, by the happy faces waving to you from the front door. You have no idea what goes on within that home when you leave and the doors close.
My husband and I had been experiencing significant problems in our marriage as far back as 2004. However, nothing ever happens in a vacuum. In the midst of trouble, there were also wonderful moments and times. However, we were not on the same page about getting help for our troubles and kept blowing them off. I have learned in recent years that what you resist persists.
This is the point where my husband and I were when we came back to the US late last year. We were at a point where it was do or die for our relationship. We could not continue to resist because the way things were going, we would likely not have a marriage left if we waited to return to the US in summer of 2009. We shared the reason for our departure with our friends in Warsaw who soon began to share in turn about how their own marriages were struggling. We received much support in the most unlikely of places. Leaving our marriage would be the easy way out, but we have two wonderful children who deserve parents that are willing to exhaust all means of repairing the disconnection between them.
We both entered therapy in December 2008/January 2009 separately amid the most stressful time of our life. With this workshop, we have taken everything we learned separately and have incorporated into this IMAGO work. For the first time this year, we have come full circle and our relationship has slowly been transformed into a sacred one that we have no doubt will endure over time. We know for sure that we are exactly with the person we need to be with.
Tools
IMAGO offers a variety of tools to help with reconnections. For some of us, they may seem cumbersome. However, if applied to your everyday life, your relationship will continue to evolve. Among these are various communication tools that are optimally performed seated face to face, knee to knee, while holding hands. This creates the space called “us.” There is a lot of acknowledgement, appreciation, and all kinds of little things that do wonders for relationships.
One thing they provided was a weekly homework sheet where you choose days of the week to engage in certain conversations and to do things for your partner. At first, we wondered how we were going to fit it into our hectic lives, but we did and amid the chaos that is our lives, it was a very pleasant and insightful week.
We also took home some practical tools that our children will be using to help us refocus. We have been fighting much less this past year, but when we fight, you would think that My husband and I are dueling in a court of law. Our children have witnessed our heated words.
Speaking from my own childhood experience, I grew up in a household where I NEVER saw my parents argue or fight. I have no idea how they managed this especially since I now know that they had their fair share of arguments. I was never privy to this growing up.
This is an honorable action I suppose. But, for me personally, this actually ended up hurting me more than helping. I never knew that relationships had discord until I found myself knee deep in it and sinking further wondering what was going so wrong. This is why, for me, it is important that children not only watch their parents argue, but also watch them reconcile (at least the PG version of that). They need to know that all relationships have arguments and what we have learned this year is how to argue more effectively so that we are not hurtful as we have been in the past.
One suggestion made by our workshop presenters was to give the children a box of plastic lizards. Why lizards? Because when we argue (becoming hailstorms or turtle), at a biological level we are activating the “reptilian” part of our brain. This is the part of our brain that tells us to “fight or flee” a dangerous situation. When we argue, most of the time we feel threatened. However, our reptilian brain does not realize that we are living in 2009 and that the person lashing out at us is not a rabid animal we would have encountered millions of years ago. The children are to throw the lizards on the floor in front of us to remind us that “it’s just the lizards.”
Another aspect that we implemented was using glass stones to help mark our positive experiences as a couple and as a family. We purchased glass stones (you can find them at Bed Bath and Beyond). For every positive experience as a couple or family or positive resolution to a conflict, we place a glass stone in a vase. The purpose is to remind us of all the positive aspects of our relationship when we are feeling frustrated or going through difficult moments.
Closing Thoughts
I have attended many a workshop of this sort in my lifetime one my own beginning with my high school “Senior Encounter” in 12th grade. This was not much different from encounter only that it focuses on couples. Every time I attend these things, I come away on a high, rather intoxicated as a matter of fact, not very different from that of romantic love. This time, I did not come home with that feeling. As we left the “reality” of that workshop and entered our world of adaptations, I knew we would be more than ok because we no longer expect our relationship to be fine without the work necessary to make it so. And both of us fully expect to find ourselves taking this workshop again in the future because our relationship is constantly evolving.
My relationship with My husband is far from perfect. It is not supposed to be. But rather than look at our problems as such, we have shifted our thinking to think of them more as opportunities for learning and growth. We have learned to be more compassionate with each other. While we have been together for 10 years, one of the many things we realized was that we have a lifetime to learn about each other. We have developed a newfound curiosity about each other we have not felt since we first met. We are on the same page about what we want from our life together. As turbulent as last year was, it has brought us to a far better place than we could ever imagine.
Endnote
Please note that this is a synopsis of our experience and should not replace the input of a certified IMAGO therapist if your relationship is in trouble. You can find a trained therapist by visiting IMAGO International. You can also find information on becoming a certified therapist or trainer at this site.
If you are intrigued and wish to learn more, I highly recommend the following books (click on title to purchase):
Getting the Love You Want: the New Couples Study Guide
Keeping the Love You Find: A guide for singles
Giving the Love That Heals (This was the first book I read when i became pregnant with my first child. It focuses on parenting within this framework and it made me interested in the other titles listed above)
All titles are available in Spanish as well and likely in other languages.
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