What You’ll Learn in Mindful Couples Counseling
One of my passions lies in working with couples and individuals to bring more mindfulness and compassion to their relationships. I sometimes work with couples together, and sometimes with one person in the relationship.
Here are a few of the qualities and practices we focus on together in our couples mindfulness sessions.
Mindful Communication
Mindful communication is a big topic and includes learning to respond with awareness rather than reactivity, how to speak from personal experience, seeing when we need to slow down difficult or charged conversations, and recognizing when a conversation is no longer mindful. In my experience, learning to communicate more mindfully is one of the most powerful things we can do to strengthen a relationship.
We will build skills to communicate more mindfully. This may be an exercise to do before or during difficult conversations, some mindfulness of your own experience and what triggers you, and connecting with intentions so we don’t get lost in the blame game. A lot of other skills we develop together will be related to mindful communication.
Emotional Awareness in Relationships
One of the many benefits of mindfulness practice is an increased awareness of emotional states. Together we will work to recognize emotions before they escalate too far, identifying triggers, seeing feelings clearly and without reactivity, and becoming aware of emotional states (such as defensiveness) that might carry a pattern of causing harm.
This often involves some personal practice as individuals. Through some meditation practice, we can grow our ability to see the emotional experience more clearly. Whether you’re experiencing defensiveness, anger, reactivity, or anxiety, mindfulness can help us see these experiences more clearly. And as we see them more clearly, we free ourselves from being controlled by them.
Managing Reactivity
In my experience, many conflicts in relationships involve some level of reactivity. Mindfulness can help us pause when activated, choosing how we respond rather than reacting instinctively. We grow to recognize the fight or flight response as it arises, and can create some space between feeling and action.
There are many ways we might do this. We might work to calm the nervous system before a potentially difficult conversation, or to take a break when conflict has already arisen. Learning to manage reactivity means we first must recognize where reactivity is likely to arise or already arising. From there, we create a mindfulness-based plan to pause and create space.
Conflict Resolution
Obviously mindfulness can’t eliminate conflict altogether. What it can do is change how we approach conflicts and work through them. We work to recognize the patterns of explanation, learn when to take a break, and how to repair relationships after disagreements.
Every couple has disagreements, and it’s important to learn how to best move through them in the most helpful and wholesome way. Every disagreement doesn’t need to be a fight, and we work together to create a plan to work with conflict mindfully and with compassion.
Compassion and Kindness
Compassion and loving-kindness are essential when it comes to relationships. Especially in moments of difficulty, we can lose sight of the humanity of the other person. Compassion and loving-kindness practice help us show up wholeheartedly, remembering and caring for the wellbeing of our partners and ourselves.
There are some wonderful heart practices for couples we can investigate. I have found with some dedicated practices, we can really begin cultivating these qualities toward our partners. Furthermore, there is generally a natural caring that is already in us for our partners. Loving-kindness practice can help us connect with these feelings or rediscover them.
Being More Present with Each Other
One thing that many couples share with me is that they feel they’ve lost true presence together. You watch a show, but both spend the whole time on your phones. You eat dinner but aren’t fully present with one another. Mindfulness can help you find a true presence with your partner, tuning into them and the experiecne of being together.
This is generally aided by dyads and other mindfulness-based practices. We can train the mind to be present in our relationships, so when it comes to daily life we find presence much more naturally. With time, we grow to appreciate the time together more deeply, and feel more satiated by the shared experiences.
Pattern Recognition
Just as we recognize thought patterns in individual meditation, we can recognize relationship patterns in our work together. Couples often have recurring types of conflicts, triggers that repeat themselves, and/or unhelpful patterns in arguments. It’s common and can be painful, but it also offers a lovely opportunity to begin making changes.
By recognizing patterns, we’re offered a way in. These patterns can be broken, and the actual way these patterns arise can tell us something about what needs are not being met, what we need to do to move forward, or how both parties are feeling. This often involves some journaling or noting.
Personal Practice
In my opinion, anybody who is hoping to bring more mindfulness and compassion to their relationship should be engaging in some personal meditation practice. We can talk about how to start a daily meditation practice, how to practice in a way that works for your and your relationship, and how to meet the obstacles that arise on the path.
As you develop your personal meditation practice, the mindfulness comes with much less effort in your relationship. This is one of the many benefits of daily meditation practice. When we reach for the tool of mindfulness or awareness in daily life, it is much more accessible.
Everyday Practices
On a similar note, I work with my students to incorporate mindfulness and compassion off the cushion and in their everyday life. Learning to practice mindfulness in daily life again gives us the ability to continue cultivating these qualities outside of formal meditation practice. We default toward mindfulness and compassion more often rather than reactivity and activation.
We might do this through practices like mindfulness reminders, noting difficult emotional experiences, or by practicing walking meditation. It’s important to find a way to practice that works for you. Together we can investigate and discover what manner of practice supports your wellbeing best.