The part from Resilient Loving that I find most helpful

 

What I find helpful (when I remember), is to imagine that the person who is seemingly blaming or criticising is like a pressure cooker, that has reached boiling point and has to let the steam out or else it will explode.

I haven’t met anybody yet that would feel blamed or criticised by the steam that is coming out of the pressure cooker. It is a good thing that the valve is working properly and letting the steam out. If it wasn’t working properly, the results would be messy and dangerous. The steam is alerting us of the heat and pressure inside the cooker. It is an innocent messenger. In a similar manner, if we feel like saying (or if we blurt out) words that amount to blame or criticism, those words are letting us and others know that there is an unmet need or that we have betrayed ourselves and gone beyond our values or boundaries or simply that we have reached boiling point emotionally! If we are at the receiving end, our partners may be unable to identify ‘what is cooking’ inside them, but they have reached a point when they can’t hold it in any more. They are sending an SOS message. They are not blaming or criticising us. They need time alone. Even though it is never helpful to interrogate them, sometimes it helps if we give them options about what to do next. For instance, yesterday I noticed that my husband was showing signs of overwhelm while we were designing something together that he wanted. I stopped and asked him whether we were looking at too many options and he was feeling lost. I suggested moving on and coming back to it later. That seemed to be the cue he needed to check with himself, so he paused and then he said ‘No. I want to carry on.’ He was calmer. I don’t know exactly why. My guess is that he was feeling it was all getting out of control and my question made him realise he still had control over what to do next.


I really like this metaphor of the pressure cooker. It reminds me that meltdowns and shutdowns are not aimed at me. They are not personal. 

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