Getting the Love You Want, 20th An. Ed. (31 page)
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Authors: Ph.D Harville Hendrix
BOOK: Getting the Love You Want, 20th An. Ed.
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(review chapter 11)
Time:
Approximately 45 minutes.
Approximately 45 minutes.
Purpose:
This exercise will help you create more safety and passion in your relationship by helping you let go of your negative thoughts and behaviors toward your partner and replace them with loving thoughts and behaviors.
This exercise will help you create more safety and passion in your relationship by helping you let go of your negative thoughts and behaviors toward your partner and replace them with loving thoughts and behaviors.
Comments:
When you focus on your partner’s negative qualities, your tend to ignore the positive traits. If you go one step further and criticize your partner for having those negative traits, your partner becomes defensive and may go on the attack. This climate of negativity feeds on itself. This exercise turns the tables. It focuses your attention on your partner’s positive traits and encourages you to praise your partner more often. The result? You begin to feel much more positive toward each other and to treat each other with more love and respect. This positive climate is also self-reinforcing. What you pay attention to is what you get.
When you focus on your partner’s negative qualities, your tend to ignore the positive traits. If you go one step further and criticize your partner for having those negative traits, your partner becomes defensive and may go on the attack. This climate of negativity feeds on itself. This exercise turns the tables. It focuses your attention on your partner’s positive traits and encourages you to praise your partner more often. The result? You begin to feel much more positive toward each other and to treat each other with more love and respect. This positive climate is also self-reinforcing. What you pay attention to is what you get.
Directions
Do this exercise separately and then, using the Imago Dialogue, talk about what you learned about yourself with your partner. Work alone through point 5. Then invite your partner into dialogue for point 6. Do the remaining steps on your own at a later date. It is important that you follow the instructions exactly as stated.
1. Take out several sheets of lined paper. Think about all the negative words you use to describe your partner. Include words that you have spoken in a heated situation, when name calling, and negative words you have thought about your partner but not spoken out loud. Write down these words in a column on the left side of your paper, one word or phrase on every second line. (This leaves room to write a sentence or two by each trait.)
2. Now recall a behavior your partner has done that illustrates each negative word or phrase. Write it beside the word. Here is an example:
| Negative Trait | Related Behavior |
|---|---|
| Always late | Last night, she was late coming home for dinner. |
| Neglectful | She forgot to get me anything for my birthday. |
| Controlling | She always wants things her way. We always watch the movies that she wants to see. |
3. Look through your list and circle the trait that bothers you the most.
4. Now write a second list of your partner’s positive traits and behaviors. Write down as many positive traits as you wrote down negative traits.
Example:
| Positive Trait | Related Behavior |
|---|---|
| Kind | Yesterday she drove our elderly next-door neighbor to his doctor appointment. |
| Funny | When we were out to dinner with friends, she had everyone laughing. |
| Hardworking | Last weekend she painted both bedrooms. |
5. Now go back to your list of criticisms. Look at the first negative behavior on your list. Close your eyes and visualize your partner doing that behavior. When you have it clearly in mind, release the image and then bring to mind a positive behavior your partner has done that you do like. (Look at your list of positive traits for suggestions.) Hold the positive image in your mind and note how you feel. Do this for all the negative words on your list.
6. Use the Imago Dialogue to discuss with your partner what you learned about yourself doing this exercise. (This is not a time to talk about what you don’t like about your partner. You are sharing self-discoveries.)
7. In the next few days, when you have a negative thought about something your partner has done, release it and think of something he or she has done that you do like.
8. In the next few days, make it a point to tell your partner about only the positive things he or she has done that you appreciate. If you have a negative thought or memory, release it.
9. When your partner does or says something that you wish hadn’t happened, refrain from criticism. Instead, use the Behavior Change Request Dialogue (
Exercise 14
above) to make a request for a positive change in behavior.
Exercise 14
above) to make a request for a positive change in behavior.
(review chapter 2)
Time:
Approximately 15–30 minutes.
Approximately 15–30 minutes.
Purpose:
The purpose of this exercise is to integrate aspects of your disowned self, your false self, and your lost self, making you more aware of your essential wholeness.
The purpose of this exercise is to integrate aspects of your disowned self, your false self, and your lost self, making you more aware of your essential wholeness.
Comments:
Because you have been faithfully performing these exercises for several weeks, you have been enlarging your sense of self by eroding your false self, integrating your denied self, and recovering your lost self. This exercise is designed to help you become more conscious of these changes. You can do the exercise separately or together.
Because you have been faithfully performing these exercises for several weeks, you have been enlarging your sense of self by eroding your false self, integrating your denied self, and recovering your lost self. This exercise is designed to help you become more conscious of these changes. You can do the exercise separately or together.
Directions
1. Take out a sheet of paper and draw a vertical line down the middle.
2. Now draw two horizontal lines across the paper so that the sheet is divided horizontally into thirds. Your page should now be divided into six equal boxes, as in the illustration below.
3. Flip through your notebook until you find your response to the Imago Workup (
Exercise 3
) and the Partner Profile (
Exercise 5
). In the top left box of the paper you have just divided into six boxes, list the predominant negative traits of your caretakers and your partner. Label these traits “My Disowned Self.” Think about the extent to which these negative traits may be true of you. Has anyone, especially your partner, told you that you possess these traits? For the moment assume that these traits are descriptive of you. What would you be like or how would you behave if you didn’t have these traits? Write a description of the person you would be without these negative traits in the upper right box of your paper. Write them as short, positive statements beginning with the word “1.” For example: “I am warm.” “I am responsible.” “I am nurturing.”
Exercise 3
) and the Partner Profile (
Exercise 5
). In the top left box of the paper you have just divided into six boxes, list the predominant negative traits of your caretakers and your partner. Label these traits “My Disowned Self.” Think about the extent to which these negative traits may be true of you. Has anyone, especially your partner, told you that you possess these traits? For the moment assume that these traits are descriptive of you. What would you be like or how would you behave if you didn’t have these traits? Write a description of the person you would be without these negative traits in the upper right box of your paper. Write them as short, positive statements beginning with the word “1.” For example: “I am warm.” “I am responsible.” “I am nurturing.”
4. In the middle box on the left side of your page, list your caretakers’ positive traits and your partner’s positive traits. It may be that some of these positive traits are a description of your lost self, parts of yourself that you repressed in childhood. Label this box “My Lost Self.” Look at this box and ask yourself if you have ever been asked by your partner or other significant people in your life to develop these traits. Assuming that these traits represent repressed aspects of yourself, how would you behave or what would you be like if you had these traits? Write your answers in the middle box on the right side of your page. Once again, use simple, positive statements in the present tense: “I am artistic.” “I am spiritual.” “I am conscientious.” “I am creative.”
5. Think about the traits that you had to develop in order to get or keep your parents’ love, and think about the kinds of things you do today to try to get people to like you. List those traits in the bottom box on the left side of your page. (Examples: “I try to be perfect.” “I am compliant.” “I am super-responsible.” “I always try to please.” “I don’t express my anger.”) Label this box “My False Self.” Now think about
the way you would be and behave if you were free of such adaptive characteristics. List these traits and behaviors you would have in the bottom box on the right side of your page. Use simple, positive statements: “I am assertive.” “I can express anger.” “I can relax and don’t have to try to be perfect.”
the way you would be and behave if you were free of such adaptive characteristics. List these traits and behaviors you would have in the bottom box on the right side of your page. Use simple, positive statements: “I am assertive.” “I can express anger.” “I can relax and don’t have to try to be perfect.”
6. On top of the three boxes on the right-hand side of your page, write the words “My True Self.” These three right-hand boxes are a description of your true potential. Read this description once a week. As you read it, note areas where the description does not match your current reality. Visualize yourself changing so that the description is a valid one.
Time:
One minute, three times each day.
One minute, three times each day.
Purpose:
This exercise uses the power of visualization to amplify the positive changes you have been making in your relationship.
This exercise uses the power of visualization to amplify the positive changes you have been making in your relationship.
Comments:
This exercise becomes a daily meditation.
This exercise becomes a daily meditation.
Directions
1. Three times each day, do the following: Close your eyes, take several deep breaths, and visualize your partner. Gradually refine the image until you see your partner as a whole, spiritual being who has been wounded in the ways you now know about. Hold this image in your mind and imagine that your love is healing your partner’s wounds.
2. Now visualize the energy of love that you are sending to your partner coming back to you and healing your wounds. Imagine that this energy flows back and forth between you in a continuous oscillation. When a minute is up, open your eyes and continue whatever you were doing.
IN THE PROCESS of writing this book, I have become acutely aware of a truth so aptly stated by the poet John Donne, that “no man is an island,” and by Walt Whitman, who said, “I contain multitudes.” The pulling together of the ideas and clinical material presented here has deepened my awareness of my dependence upon many resources, persons, and experiences. The new vistas would not have been possible were it not for the intellectual giants upon whose shoulders I stand, and the contributions of many able teachers, stimulating students, trusting couples, supportive friends, and family. To all of them, I want to express my appreciation and ask forgiveness for any unwise liberties I may have taken.
Many special friends gave me much encouragement—some I want to mention by name. Dr. Robert Elliott read early versions of the manuscript and provided loving confrontation when my ideas needed more clarity and accuracy. Dr. Pat Love first introduced my ideas into a graduate school program on marriage and family and provided valuable feedback. Reed and Carolyn Whittle read later drafts of the manuscript and gave valuable advice along the way. Judy McCall graciously consented to read and comment on the final manuscript and helped
with the endorsements. Drs. Joan and Robert Thorne opened doors for me to the professional community when I moved to New York and provided emotional support for the whole project.
with the endorsements. Drs. Joan and Robert Thorne opened doors for me to the professional community when I moved to New York and provided emotional support for the whole project.
I also want to express my appreciation for the enthusiasm, support, and stimulation of the many therapists in Dallas and New York who studied at the Institute for Relationship Therapy and helped me test these ideas in their practice of marital therapy.
I am deeply indebted to the many couples who trusted me with their relationship and allowed me to use their stories for research and for the enrichment of this book. I learned most of what I know about couples from them.
I want also to thank Henry Holt and Company for their excitement about the ideas even before they saw a manuscript, and for waiting patiently for its completion long after it should have been due. I especially appreciate the patience and support of my editor at Holt, Channa Taub, who gently but firmly kept my feet to the fire, and my agent, Julian Bach, who shepherded me through the contract process and gave me valuable guidance in the world of publishing. Tamera Allred read several of the last drafts, and made many helpful suggestions. Sharon Morris provided excellent editing assistance. Finally, my thanks to Yvonne Singleton, my secretary, for her typing skills and patience when I wanted sections of the manuscript ready “yesterday.”
In the second edition in 2001, I included my appreciation to Barney Karpfinger, who had become my new agent. His support was invaluable for that edition and for all other books published before and after that revision. I am especially grateful for his continuing support for this third edition. Not only is he my agent; he is my friend. His friendship has enriched my life. And for more than two decades he has been a champion for the development of my career as a writer.
My appreciation also goes to the people at Henry Holt and Company who came up with the brilliant idea of publishing this twentieth anniversary edition and working so patiently with me on the revision. I am especially thankful for John Sterling, president and publisher; Sarah Knight, my editor; Claire McKinney, publicity director; Richard Rhorer, marketing director; and Maggie Richards, vp director of sales and marketing.
I continue to feel grateful to Norris Chumley for his excellent direction of the video series for public television and again to Jo Robinson, my writer, who helped with the second edition and answered the call once more for help with the third edition. Sanam Hoon, my assistant for many years, deserves thanks for helping in many capacities including many tedious details for this edition. I also want to thank Meghan Doherty, my personal assistant, for handling all the scheduling details and doing the nitty gritty work of the revised bibliography. Thanks also to Nancy Jones, the first executive director of the Institute for Imago Relationship Therapy, who stabilized Imago institutionally in its early days, and Rick Brown, who helped it grow and expand its services. My deep appreciation also goes to the Board of Imago Relationships International: Tim Atkinson, executive director, and Farrah Daniels and Linda Thompson of the staff, who have been unambivalent in their dedication to Imago and have shepherded its expansion internationally.
My indebtedness to Oprah Winfrey is unlimited. She first exposed Imago to millions of people in 1988, putting
Getting the Love You Want
on the
New York Times
bestseller list. Repeated invitations to be on her show have returned this book to the bestseller list eleven times, and she has rated my second appearance on her show in 1989 among her top twenty shows in her twenty years on television.
Getting the Love You Want
on the
New York Times
bestseller list. Repeated invitations to be on her show have returned this book to the bestseller list eleven times, and she has rated my second appearance on her show in 1989 among her top twenty shows in her twenty years on television.
Finally, I am deeply indebted to all the couples who have read this book and passed it on to others, to other professionals and
friends who have recommended the book, and to all the Imago therapists, especially the Master Trainers and Faculty of the Institute who have helped to develop and deepen Imago Relationship Therapy and make it available in this country and around the world.
friends who have recommended the book, and to all the Imago therapists, especially the Master Trainers and Faculty of the Institute who have helped to develop and deepen Imago Relationship Therapy and make it available in this country and around the world.
Most important, my deepest appreciation goes to my wife, Helen LaKelly Hunt, who has been my partner in this enterprise. Without her support and intellectual contribution, this book and others would not have come into being and Imago Relationship Therapy would not have been born. I also want to thank my six children for their support and patience while the book was written and revised. I also appreciate the lessons I have learned from them over the years. They and Helen have helped me to live the ideas and become a more whole person. They, and I, were all excited for the completion of the second edition, and are now again thrilled that this third edition is done!
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