Why Mindfulness Can Help You Both with Uncertainty
By Carol Juergensen Sheets LCSW, CSAT, CCPS-S, PCC
You as the addict are working hard to create safety, which is a new truth. The mind is conditioned to create certainty, which is a survival mechanism.
The traumatized partner’s mind is on a perpetual search to find more certainty, which can lead to more suffering, and yet it is the survival skill attempting to keep the partner safe.”
A partner’s attempts to find safety can exacerbate her fears because her primary need is to feel safe and survive. This can create more suffering because she is in that hypervigilant state to know the truth. It can be an auto-exacerbating cycle that results in more pain.
To the Partner: My goal is to teach you how to become aware of your emotionality and identify what emotion is driving your mind state. My job is to help you use compassion so that you can surrender to what has happened to you and through compassion find an identity that is separate from partner betrayal. When you do this, you decrease reactivity and begin to trust yourself again so that you can appreciate who you are and your own intuition. You develop an improved sense of confidence that allows you to attune to the reality that the addict’s behaviors affect you but are in no way, shape, or form because of you. The addict acted out because he is an addict. He did not act out because you were not good enough or not worthy of his love. You could not cause his acting out.
A secondary gain of mindfulness is that over time, you can learn to be present with the uncertainty, which is a normal response that is manifested out of betrayal trauma in a manner that was not reactive driven. When you learn this, you will not only survive, but thrive because of the self-growth that has occurred because of your trauma.
Darrin Ford explains in his “Isomorphic Path to Intimacy” that to gain intimacy as a couple it needs to begin with self-intimacy, and furthermore, partners need to practice distress tolerance and be present with the uncomfortable emotionality that is an inevitable outcome of a partner’s natural state manifesting from the betrayal.
He states that it is only by having a mind focused on the utilization of “constructively compassionate” interventions will the partner then be able to gain the ability to remain present with herself.
“Constructively compassionate” is defined as allowing oneself to be fully present with the experience of oneself, while fostering a mutual acceptance of suffering, to bring a kinder reaction to distressing emotionality. This is intimacy with the self.
That intimacy then ripples out into every other aspect of the partner’s life. This allows the betrayal trauma response to calm as you gain the ability to be present with the natural normal distress resulting from the discovery that the addict has betrayed them. Your reactivity decreases and your distress acceptance takes the charge out of the fear equation.
The secondary gain is that you begin to apply this constructively compassionate mindset to others as well.
The Early Recovery Couples Empathy Model incorporates these skills to help you to become less reactive to your environment and the reality of the betrayal. You replace the fear with a constructive compassion that is reinforced using the Ford Isomorphic Path to Self-Intimacy.
I know that you want to be less fearful of the unknown, and yet, you are afraid to stop looking for clues that he is acting out because you do not want to be betrayed again. It is an auto-exacerbating cycle.
As you read this blog, ask yourself if just for the morning, afternoon or evening, you might consider staying in the moment and creating a mindset that is reassuring and reminds you that you can choose to focus on the events of the day that create certainty: the blue sky, your baby’s breath, the rhythm of your walk, your beautiful home… what ever is safe and true for the moment.
When you do this exercise hopefully several times a day you create a more peaceful experience that is more self-compassionate and kind to you. You deserve a break from the fear and an opportunity to lean into the other parts of your life that bring you happiness.
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