A Key Healing Skill To Use In A Marital Crisis

In therapy and change theory an overarching process to help in the healing is technically called meta cognition.

Meta-cognition is your capacity to enable a part of you to stand back and evaluate what you (or other parts of you) are doing, feeling and thinking. This is the beginning of change. This is the beginning of wisdom. This is the beginning of your ability to create your future. This is where you find your personal power and freedom.

Without the capacity to use this process we live an unreflective life, moving from one unsatisfying cycle of pain, emptiness and/or boredom to another.

And, when a crisis occurs even with those of us who make great decisions and live, for the most part, effectively, any sort of meta cognition often goes out the window.

We live with our feelings, obsessions, fears…over and over and over again, day after day.
We default to a position of powerlessness, loss of control, negativity and reactivity.

That’s why a marital crisis, where we have such a huge emotional investment is often a “crazy” time. We default to that which we have always thought would work, but in reality only perpetuates our helplessness, powerlessness, loss of control, negativity and reactivity.

And, to boot, we don’t truly have a clue what we are doing. We only know it’s painful beyond belief.

Develop your capacity to stand back and observe, if you can, when faced with a marital crisis.