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Famous Terrence Real Quotes

“Thinking that you partner simply is a certain way conveniently removes you from the picture and leaves little room for you to change or repair the relationship. The usual escalation goes from some particular incident to trend thinking (she always, he never) and from there to essential character (she just is cold, he just is a child). Once you're convinced you're dealing with a character issue, you can do little but plead with your partner to change who they are. Good luck with that.”

LoveRelationshipsPsychologyCouplesCouple Therapy
Author:Terrence Real
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“I invite you to use Janet Hurley's feedback wheel, a form of speaking that has four parts. It is a structure you can use to organize your thoughts and more skillfully speak up when you are hurt. 1. This is what I recollect happened. 2. This is what I made up about it. 3. This is what I felt. And that all-important fourth step most speakers leave out: 4. This would help me feel better. In other words, this is what repair might look like. ... 1. Terry, you said you'd be home by six and you arrive at 6:45, no message or text, while I sat with the kids waiting for dinner. 2. What I make up about that is that you still have some narcissistic traits and that you value your time over ours. 3. I felt sad lonely, fearful of the impact on our children, hurt, and angry. 4. What I'd like now is for you to apologize to the kids, and to me for that matter. And tell me what you're going to do to not repeat this pattern. Notice that each step of the wheel is complete in just a few sentences. Be concise. And here are two more important tips. First, when you share your feelings, be sure to share your feelings, not your thoughts - keep them separate. "I feel like you're angry" doesn't cut it. Better would be "I make up that you're angry and about that I feel.”

LoveRelationshipsPsychologyAdviceConflictCouple Therapy
Book:Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship
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“...few things can trigger us or make us go crazy like our intimate relationships can. Love is like a Roto-Rooter - it will push every button you own; it will bring up to the surface every unhealed wound and fissure that has lodged inside your body. Nothing stimulates hurt quite the way love does. As we shall see, we all marry our unfinished business.”

LoveRelationshipsPsychologyTraumaTherapy
Book:Us: Reconnect with Your Partner and Build a Loving and Lasting Relationship
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“We all want our partners to reach in and heal the young wounded parts of us with their love. And they always, to some degree, fail us. Because they are human and therefore imperfect. Because, on the day you most need them, they have a toothache and can't be bothered. Because in that perfect moment when you throb with desire, they ate and drank too much and just want to go to sleep. The tough news here is that the only person who can with absolute consistency be there for our inner children is us. And that's okay. That's enough. Once we learn how to do it.”

LoveRelationshipsPsychology
Book:Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship
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“So, here's the first tip for working on your partner's core negative image of you: the more you refute it, the more you'll reinforce it. But the more you admit to the kernel of truth within your partner's exaggeration, the greater the odds that the exaggeration will relax. Try it. Don't defend yourself - yield. Yielding can work as a core negative image buster.”

LoveRelationshipsPsychologyCouples Therapy
Book:Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship
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“Take a break, throw some water on your face, take cleansing breaths with long exhalations, go for a walk. But don't try to grapple with relational issues from your Adaptive Child. Get yourself reseated in your Wise Adult before attempting repair. Ask yourself which part of you is talking right now, and what that part's real agenda is. If your agenda in that moment is to be right, to gain control, to vent, retaliate, or withdraw - then stop, call a formal time-out if need be, and get yourself recentered. The only agenda that will work is the one about finding a solution. Only then will you have any luck using your newly cultivated sills.”

LoveRelationshipsPsychologyCouple Therapy
Book:Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship
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“...the day you turn to the person sleeping next to you and realize that you have been had, that this is not the person you fell in love with, and that this is all some dreadful mistake—that, Framo claims, is the first day of your real marriage. Welcome to humanity. No gods or goddesses here. And what a great thing that turns out to be. While we may long to be married to perfection, it turns out it is precisely the collision of your particular imperfections with mine—and how we as a couple handle that collision—that is the guts, the actual stuff of intimacy. Harmony, then disharmony, then repair is the essential rhythm of all close relationships. It's like walking. You have your balance, then you stumble. You catch yourself and rebalance.”

LoveRelationshipsPsychologyCouple Therapy
Book:Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship
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“We tell ourselves a story about what just happened, and our feelings most often follow the story we've constructed. Belinda is being nice. Belinda is being sarcastic. Living beyond individualism requires each of us to take responsibility for our own constructions. "What I make up" is a phrase I ask my clients to use. What I make up is that you're being sarcastic. What I make up is that under your anger, there's hurt. We are not clairvoyant, and neither are we the authoritative voice of objective reality. Keep it subjective; keep it humble. "This was my experience, right or wrong. This is how I recollect it. This is the story I tell myself about it." Here's the trick. For the most part, you cannot violate someone when you speak from the I.”

LoveRelationshipsPsychologyConflictCouple Therapy
Book:Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship
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“Instead of the capacity to experience himself from the inside out, he seeks a desperate union with an external source of abundance, which he thinks will complete him. The price of his delusion is death. Unable to eat or sleep, like a severe addict in the final stages of obsession he wastes. With no capacity to speak her own words, Echo records and reiterates Narcissus's every sigh. If he is a reflection, she is the reflection of his reflection, the shadow of his shadow. Narcissus loses sensation, and the result is fatal paralysis. Echo loses her voice, and the result is also paralysis. Neither is capable of authentic relationship.”

RelationshipsPsychologyMythlogy
Book:I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression
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“I do not blame myself for running from those feelings. No one would deliberately subject himself to the discomfort I carried inside my skin unless he had a very good reason to. As a little boy fleeing into the streets and waiting neighborhood games, as an adolescent fleeing toward drugs that soothed me like a mother, I have taken flight throughout most of my life. Hurt, grandiose, blaming others for not filling me up, I was in search of the next big fix, in search of love without having the skills to love well in return. Like Perceval, I have spent a good portion of my life wandering, searching for the right question.”

PsychologyPsychology Of Self
Book:I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression
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“Even while your are triggered, you can take a moment, or twenty, and access your Wise Adult self, the part of you that can stop, think, observe, and choose. Disharmony is to your relationship as pain to your physical body. It's a signal that something is wrong, that someone needs to get their hand off the stove. Our prefrontal cortex can process that signal and choose what to do about it. On the other hand, you and me consciousness knows just what to do in times of disharmony: (1) wrap yourself in rightness, (2) attempt to control your partner, (3) give vent to every emotion and infraction, (4) retaliate, (5) shut down - or some combination of all five of these losing strategies.”

LoveRelationshipsMarriagePsychologyCouple Therapy
Book:Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship
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“First, repair is not a two-way street. Almost everyone gets this wrong. When you are faced with an upset partner, this is not your turn. This is not a dialogue. Liz doesn't air all her grievances as an invitation for Phil to then air his. You must take turns. Repair goes in one direction. When your partner is in a state of disrepair, your only job is to help them get back into harmony with you, to deal with their upset, and to support them in reconnecting.”

LoveRelationshipsMarriagePsychologyCouple Therapy
Book:Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship
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“When you're dissatisfied with an aspect of your relationship, it is critical that you say something rather than sweep it aside. But there's a difference between speaking the way most of us do in this culture and speaking in a manner that might actually get you heard. You can start by pulling your accusatory finger away from your partner's face. ... Stay on your side of the street. Don't accuse them - talk about yourself. Not "Liz, you're avoidant," but rather, "Liz, I don't feel met.”

LoveRelationshipsMarriagePsychologyConflictCouple Therapy
Book:Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship
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