OLSON MFT CLINIC BLOG
This Month's Feature: Rachel Brookens, MA, tLMFT
Rachel Brookens, MA, tLMFT, graduated from Mount Mercy University in 2023 with her Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy. She is currently attending MMU in their Ph.D program where she is studying the experience of rage in the couple and family system.
Rachel is currently practicing at Regenerative Connections Psychotherapy in Marion. Her clinical interests include anger in the couple or family system, partner intimacy and parenting support, as well as pregnancy, prenatal, and postpartum. Rachel's approach to therapy uses collaboration through an attachment and trauma-informed lens, while working to deconstruct and reconstruct meaning in your life within an existential framework.
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The Pause… How do we actually stop fighting, though?!
By: Rachel Brookens
We’re told our brains are habitual, but what if I told you our brains are predictive? Would that change how you feel about the next disagreement you and your partner will inevitably find yourselves tackling together?
If we are looking to pull our relationship back from the brink, or to enrich our relationships to the full connective experiences they truly can be, we must put in the work. Just as a trail through the woods doesn’t start as a visually carved-out path, we as humans in relationship must decide and choose to create new pathways of interaction in our own relationships.
This is truly the path less traveled. And this path less traveled must be repeated, over and over again if we wish to create a well-worn pathway. There we will be able to find reprieve in the comfort of our hard work, our bodies and minds resting in the predictability of disagreements becoming conversations rather than escalating in intensity.
Let me paint a quick picture for you. You and your partner just got home for the evening, you both had rough days at work. All the sudden, out of nowhere pleasantries have turned sour and you’re looking at another disagreement well on its way to an argument. This is one you know so well, from many times before. Is it about the dishes? Dinner? Does it even matter?
I know how desperately you must want to pull this souring moment back from the brink of disaster. You’re already feeling the threat of the weeds in the woods around you, how much poison ivy is out there anyway? What about those prickly thorn bushes? You looked forward to this time with your partner all day, and you get so little of it during the week. if you really sit back and think about it…the impact of those weeds isn’t just momentary, it lasts for some time afterwards.
So, what do we decide to do in this not-so-ideal position under such pressure – do we say that nitpicky remark on the tip or our tongue? Do we stay silent? Which step to take into those weeds? What direction? How the heck can we tell if we’re going the right way?
Well, surely, we can’t know the answer to any of those questions, really. Our brains our predictive but not clairvoyant. But we absolutely can decide to do something even more powerful than taking a blind step into the brush.
We can PAUSE.
Enacting the pause illuminates some very important things while actively communicating with someone. First, it allows us to take a breath and realize everything we’re feeling is important and valid. It is not always important or valid because it is “right”, but rather because our system, mind and body is activated by what is happening. This means we know our next step. We can dig into what is really going on within ourselves.
Secondly, the pause illuminates your choice to create space and care in your relationship. Communicating this explicitly with your partner in the moment can be a game changing decision. Afterall, is it easy to get mad at this communication?
“Hey somethings coming up for me and I don’t quite know what it is yet. I’m going to take a minute to figure out what is going on with me. I’ll be back in a minute.”
The list of benefits goes on, but it is important for me to tell you why the pause is such an important step for anyone who wishes to decrease the frequency, intensity, or residual backlash of disagreements in partnership.
By enacting the pause, we honor ourselves and our partners by exploring who we are as people. When we continue to grow and learn about ourselves this directly effects how we show up in our relationships, allowing us to understand our own mind and body and being able to communicate that more clearly within that relationship.
Pausing for ourselves and our partners is a step or a leap of faith that can illuminate the entire rest of the path out of those weeds, and into a much more peaceful, connected place filled with mutual appreciation and respect. So, in your exploration of the pause, I wish you luck – and I commend you on the courage it takes to start.
Happy trails!
-Rachel