At the beginning I took her side searching the different perspectives. I offered her the option that her PRESENCE is more of a PRESENT to her grandchildren than any present you buy from a store. Together we then looked at her feelings of inadequacy and where they might be coming from. Then we talked about what could be going through her ex-husband's head.
The caller decided to share how her ex-husband had left her for another woman and his parting words were something like, "I will never be forgiven and it is wrong but im doing it.". After listening to that, it wasn't too difficult to determine that he is motivated largely out of a sense of guilt and shame around his choices and behaviors. And it also told me why the caller felt that huge sense of inadequacy - she was feeling HIS feelings as much as, if not more so, her own feelings.
The "Geiger Counter Phenomenon" is a phrase we use for experiencing others emotions. A Geiger counter is a machine that buzzes very crazy when it is near something that is radioactive. We have a device that is close to this, we usually feel it in our stomach, and it radiates strong emotions when it finds those same emotions we find in others close to us. This is a highly effective tool if we know about it and how to use it.
According to Fred Keyser and Heidi Fox, in their book Making it Safe to Love, "It's not just being near someone else's emotions that lights up our Geiger Counter - but specifically being near the emotions they themselves are unaware of, that make it buzz!" The caller who felt so much inadequacy was, quite possibly, picking up on her former spouse's feelings around inadequacy.
As soon as you understand that you are getting a bunch of info about the person in front of you, there are millions of options you have in the circumstance - as opposed to getting reactive and/or down on yourself.
Action Step: If you ever find yourself having heavy emotions triggered by a person's behaviors around you, try the following steps: 1. Breathe in your gut (or breath where you feel the feelings the most) and question yourself about the feelings you feel (fear, anger, doubt, inadequacy, . . .) 2. Ask yourself if those feelings are true for you - report only the facts of the current situation and see if you have any reason to feel scared, angry, inadequate, etc. 3. Explore the option that the person around you might be hiding these feelings just under the surface and not even know they are there. 4. See yourself circled by a circle of love and compassion. Recognize that in that moment you are 100% protected and okay. Visualize yourself redirecting those negative thoughts to the person around you, while having compassion for them and their lack of awareness about what's going on for them.
If you take responstibity and claim all the feelings that are actually yours and not believing what you get from other people, you get to experience the power of being present for yourself and the other person in the moment, and also you get to be free from what used to set your emotions and make you feel like there was something messed about you.
Long after experiencing a divorce, couples are still very much connected and triggered by each other, and this usually has to do with how they have picked up on each other's emotions and taking them for years. This process will do many cool things towards setting you free from the hooks of the past that still trigger you.
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Emily Bouchard offers a no-cost ezine to assist blended families. Also check out Emily's blended family website.