My lovely husband and amazing business partner, Tim Jobe, recently spoke with the Horses & Humans Research Foundation about healing, consent, attunement, and so much more. This discussion is about relationships. . . period. ALL relationships, including those we have with horses.
Please let us know what you think and share widely.
In every field, from athletics to the arts, from leadership to therapy, mastery is often viewed as being elusive—almost even mythical. It’s easy to believe that those who reach the pinnacle of their craft have tapped into some hidden well of knowledge or they have a natural talent that sets them apart.
While gifting and art and feel certainly contribute to greatness in any field, any master will tell you that mastery is built on a deep, intimate understanding of the fundamentals and a long-term commitment to doing them over and over again.
There is nothing more powerful than returning to the basics. No matter what you are learning, the road to mastery is paved with the consistent practice of foundational principles and practices.
I love the photo at the top of this blog because it represents one of my favorite stories from one of our Practicums. This horse is named Ed, a very experienced and confident, well-trained equine. His owner says that he is “her rock.” The person you see in the photo is Krystal Raley, a seasoned professional in this field, who later agreed to become an NL trainer. The weekend this picture was taken, they both returned, again, to the basics, and then slowed it WAY down – the result was nothing short of beautiful. I shared this story, and a few others, in our recent webinar, Slow Down & Do Less (Better).
The Fundamentals of NL is not a starting point to be left behind but a cornerstone to be revisited time and time again. Everything we do is an extension of basic principles, refined and expanded upon. This is true in every discipline. In martial arts, for example, the black belt is often seen not as the end of training but as a return to the beginning—a recognition that mastery is the result of perfecting the basic movements.
In therapy, coaching, and learning, and particularly in the context of Natural Lifemanship, the fundamentals involve keen listening and attunement, embodied regulation and co-regulation, skillful management of rhythm, body energy, and pressure, and a proficient navigation of the steps needed to build genuine connection through closeness and distance.
It’s in the repetition of these principles that true expertise is developed. A true master knows that their success lies in their willingness to return to the fundamentals, to practice them with the same diligence and attention as when they first began.
In our work with clients, it’s tempting to seek out the latest techniques or to focus on novel task-based approaches. While innovation has its place (certainly!), it should never come at the expense of the foundational elements that make our work effective.
More techniques will not make up for gaps we may have in our understanding and execution of the basics. When we skip past the basics because they seem tedious or hard, the gap in our practice only becomes more glaring as we try to compensate by learning more tasks, more techniques, or more skills.
Our clients and equine partners benefit most when we are rooted in the basics, ensuring that every single interaction is grounded in the principles that foster genuine connection, healing, and growth.
Mastery is not a destination but a continuous journey—one that circles back to the basics time and time again. Each time we circle back, while the truth may not fundamentally change, it does sink deeper and deeper into our soul.
Most of us agree, for example, that “connection heals” – at the beginning of a journey this belief might not carry much depth or texture. It may be mostly theory or might even seem trite. There was a time in my journey that this belief was, indeed, a bit trivial.
I knew it was true for sure, but today when I say “connection heals,” I mean something wildly different than I did even 5 years ago. Further along a sustained and arduous healing journey of my own and with many others, “connection heals” is a belief worth fighting for. For me, it is even a belief worth dying for. THIS is the power of a pilgrimage, a lifelong journey in which we meander and quietly saunter back to the values we hold dear, over and over again.
In every field, those who achieve greatness are those who understand the power of this journey – that there is nothing more powerful than returning to the Fundamentals. By embracing this truth in our own practices and in our own lives, we can guide our clients toward lasting change and deep, meaningful healing.
As we continue to grow and evolve in our work, let us never lose sight of the importance of the basics. For it is through the relentless execution of these fundamentals that we—and our clients—can achieve true excellence.
Whether this Fall will be your first time taking the Fundamentals of NL or you’re taking it for the third, fourth or fifth time, you’re making the right decision. We encourage our community to revisit the Fundamentals often to fully embody the principles and be able to call upon them when you need them. We hope to see you in the Fundamentals this Fall!
Co-authored by Rebecca J. Hubbard & Reccia Jobe with Pecan Creek Ranch
Creating a safe place for clients to feel comfortable being themselves, free from judgment and harm, while discussing and exploring their life experiences is vital to providing effective therapy and an imperative part of the therapeutic process. However, for many clinicians and therapy teams, creating safety often stops there. Clinicians and therapy teams spend a tremendous amount of time creating an inviting and safe place for clients but put little thought into how to assist clients in developing and internalizing their own safety. If clinicians and therapy teams only focus on creating safety within their environment, and do not help clients develop their own internal safety, clients do not learn how to establish it in their own lives.
As we learn more about trauma and become trauma-informed, we must consider the impact of clinicians/therapy teams being the only generator of safety and how this can potentially recreate feelings of powerlessness and reinforce the power differential between clinicians and clients that is reminiscent of the abuser victim dynamic where one person maintains all the power.
We need to teach clinicians/therapy teams how to create a safe place and then shift the power of creating safety from the clinician to the client, making it a shared endeavor. But how do we shift the power of creating safety for the client? We begin by creating safe and brave spaces.
Merriam-Webster dictionary defines brave as “having or showing mental or moral strength to face danger, fear or difficulty.” To be brave, a person or being must take action to face the challenge or struggle. One cannot be brave by just thinking about doing it; being brave is the action of engaging in the struggle.
To create safety for oneself, a person has to take action. But taking action is scary, difficult, and sometimes overwhelming, so people avoid it. What if I fail? What if I make a mistake? What if someone sees me and laughs at me or takes advantage of me? However, meaningful change, the kind that changes core beliefs, long-held patterns, and attachment styles, requires action.
Clinicians/therapy teams must create spaces where clients can safely take action. We call these spaces brave spaces. In a brave space, clients are engaged in doing, making decisions, trying new ways of being, getting outside their comfort zone, and taking appropriate risks. Clients can make mistakes without fear of being shamed, humiliated, teased, or punished. They learn that mistakes are information to help them know what to keep and change. They challenge their beliefs that there is only one way to do something and learn that there are many ways to accomplish their goals. Creating this type of environment assists clients in developing within themselves their own safe place from which to grow.
Brave spaces and safe places have many components in common. They are both spaces free from judgment, shame, punishment, and humiliation. Both spaces are supportive and encouraging. Both provide the client a space to explore difficult topics with the help of a caring other. The components of a brave space are not all that different from those of a safe place. The difference is in helping the client to take action and engage in the struggle, thus building the muscles needed to be brave and create safety.
But how do you encourage clients to take action since taking action is an extremely vulnerable process? Below, we outline the components of a brave space that assists people in taking action. These components are each part of a recursive feedback loop that generates more opportunities for being brave and creating safety.
It is common for clinicians//therapy teams to create a welcoming physical space or atmosphere. Still, they often forget about the role of their spirit, body, and mind in creating this atmosphere. A friend and colleague, Patricia Van Horn, Ph.D., said, “Who you are is just as important as what you do.” To create the essence of all of you is welcome here, clinicians/therapy teams must mindfully create a deep sense of welcome within their body, spirit, and mind. To do this, clinicians/therapy teams must have a genuine interest in and care for their clients. It is difficult to achieve a welcoming spirit when you dislike or are uncomfortable with someone.
Clinicians/therapy teams must find within themselves something they like or admire about a challenging client. Doing this takes work. It requires clinicians/therapy teams to identify what impedes them from finding positive regard for that client.
Clinicians/therapy teams must also be fully present in their bodies. They cannot be partially present or dissociated, even minimally. So, clinicians/therapy teams must find what they need to be fully present. Do they need to see fewer clients back-to-back without breaks? Do they need to see fewer clients per day? Do they need to alter their schedule so they work mornings or evenings? Do they need to narrow the scope of their practice? Do they need to address an issue in their own therapy? This, too, takes work. Clinicians/therapy teams must be able to take a self-assessment and be self-aware to know what they need to be fully present for their clients.
Lastly, clinicians/therapy teams must believe that their clients are capable and able to achieve health and well-being. If clinicians/therapy teams have a doubt, that doubt will show up in their bodies, spirits, and minds, and the client will feel it. The client may not be able to identify it, but they will notice it, which impedes their ability to do the work. So, if clinicians/therapy teams do not believe in a client or their ability to accomplish their goals, the clinicians/therapy teams need to determine why that is and address it themselves or refer the client. Clinicians/therapy teams need to have deep faith in their client’s abilities because clients need that level of support to take the risks they need to take to achieve their goals.
Many years ago, training programs taught clinicians to offer their clients a “tabula rasa,” a blank slate, for clients to paint onto clinicians whatever they wished. Some schools of thought still prescribe this way of being in the therapeutic relationship. However, we find that being a blank slate impedes the client’s ability to engage in the risk-taking that is necessary to change their lives.
In our work, we have discovered that it is essential for clinicians/therapy teams to be authentic and present in the therapeutic relationship to create the kind of environment needed for growth and change. Being authentic means, clinicians/therapy teams experience emotions, own their emotions, apologize when they are wrong or when they have been hurtful, ask for and engage in “do-overs,” and show genuine feelings for clients. To do this well and maintain appropriate boundaries, clinicians/therapy teams must do their own work. We feel it is not fair or appropriate to ask clients to do something their clinician/therapy team has not done or is unwilling to do.
Encouraging clients to be authentic and genuine is a moment-by-moment endeavor that clinicians/therapy teams must approach with compassion and welcome. Allowing the client to express genuine thoughts and emotions is essential and sometimes difficult. Since most clients are just starting this process, they can be harsh when sharing their thoughts and feelings. It is important for clinicians/therapy teams to refrain from taking this personally and remember that the client is learning how to communicate effectively and needs the space to do it imperfectly so they can learn.
Also, clinicians/therapy teams need to remember to see this as a process and see the client’s behavior through the lens of positive intent. Doing so will help clinicians/therapy teams respond in ways that are helpful to the client on their journey of being authentic and genuine and not shut down their clients. That does not mean clinicians/therapy teams cannot discuss how the client’s words or actions impacted them as the relationship grows. Clients often are unaware of how their words or behavior impact others. By understanding how they impacted the clinician/therapy team, clients can experience a deeper relationship rooted in genuine care and growth that nurtures the client and their ability to foster meaningful relationships in their lives. When clients and clinicians/therapy teams can be authentic, further integration and healing occur.
No one likes being vulnerable. This openness with another can create fear of rejection and harm. To work in a brave space, clients and clinicians/therapy teams must be vulnerable. We can create an environment where clients feel more at ease being vulnerable when clinicians/therapy teams appropriately show vulnerability. Clinicians/therapy teams should not ask clients to be vulnerable when they are unwilling to do so themselves. Vulnerability fosters connection and compassion. An excellent way for clinicians/therapy teams to be vulnerable is to show their humanity by admitting to their mistakes and making meaningful repairs. When clinicians/therapy teams do this, they are showing the client the power of vulnerability and how it strengthens the relationship.
Another way clinicians/therapy teams can be vulnerable is by sharing a brief experience of when they similarly struggled. Sharing this experience can have the power to humanize the clinician/therapy team and the client’s experiences. However, these disclosures must be brief, accessible, and meaningful to clients. They must contribute to the work and not detract from it. If self-disclosure is about the clinician/therapy team and not the client, then disclosing is inappropriate.
When done wrong, self-disclosure can derail the therapy and negatively impact the therapeutic relationship. When done well, self-disclosure reveals the client’s struggle to be a human struggle and produces the feeling that we are in this together.
Another way of creating an environment in which it is safe to be vulnerable is to honor any attempts at vulnerability by demonstrating to the client that the clinician/therapy team will not reject or harm them. How a clinician/therapy team responds with their actions, words, and energy will either show the client it is safe to be vulnerable or shut down further attempts at vulnerability.
Of course, none of these components would be helpful if clinicians/therapy teams shamed or punished themselves or their clients for actions, behaviors, or beliefs. Clinicians/therapy teams must create an environment of compassion and curiosity so that clinicians/therapy teams and clients are free to try new things. Having a compassionate-curious stance provides the opportunity to carefully examine actions, behaviors, and beliefs in a non-threatening manner. It also allows for the possibility of new understanding, a different perspective, and alternative actions that improve relationships with self and others and shed the cloak of toxic shame that suffocates so many.
How do clinicians/therapy teams hold with compassion and become curious about themselves, their clients, and their experiences? First, they must examine their reactions and learn their impact on themselves and others. They must identify the harmful ways they engage with themselves and give themselves kindness and compassion for their experiences before they can help clients see their patterns and provide clients with compassion. They must understand that their experiences of suffering, failing, and feeling inadequate are part of the human experience. They must hold these feelings gently and give themselves understanding and kindness while addressing the changes that need to occur.
If clinicians/therapy teams do not practice self-compassion, the experience they provide clients is incomplete. When compassion is only from the neocortex, it inadvertently teaches clients the “words” of compassion but not the whole meaning and experience of compassion.
In a nutshell, therapy is about creating meaningful connections with self and others. Clinicians/therapy teams can facilitate meaningful connections by meeting clients where they are and understanding their unique experiences and perspectives. They can assume positive intent of clients’ actions and behaviors, be in the struggle with clients, and hold contradictory ideas with compassion, showing clients that they truly understand, care, and have compassion for them.
When clinicians/therapy teams do this, they teach clients how to do the same for themselves. They can explore and hold dear clients’ spiritual practices and actively bring their spirituality into sessions, conveying to clients the importance of their whole selves.
Clinicians/therapy teams can listen to clients with their whole selves (bodies and neo-cortexes) instead of just their thinking brains and hear more than the words that clients convey, which leads to a deeper understanding of clients and their experiences. When clinicians/therapy teams use this ability to listen to clients’ whole selves (bodies and words), clients feel deeply seen and can begin to hear all of themselves.
When clinicians/therapy teams notice, for instance, that a client’s body is saying no but their words are saying yes, and they pause to listen to the client’s body instead of ignoring it, they are teaching the client to listen too. Their actions convey that the client’s body signals are important information that should not be ignored or minimized. When clinicians/therapy teams help clients connect with themselves in these ways, clients discover things about themselves and their experiences that they were unaware of before. They may find new strengths, beliefs, and values or discover new fears, concerns, or worries. As clients learn how to honor and listen to what their bodies are telling them, they become more compassionate and understanding of themselves, and they become safer.
All of these practices help clients feel profoundly understood and build trust with the clinician/therapy team, laying the groundwork for clients to connect with themselves and treat themselves with compassion. Having compassion for oneself allows for deeper connection and compassion for others.
Many people believe there are only a few “right” ways to do something. This belief contributes to self-judgment and shame. It stifles creativity and problem-solving ability, leading to powerlessness and an external locus of control. It removes the ability to learn how to take appropriate risks. At its most dangerous, this belief causes us to become immobilized with fear and overcome with depression. It ceases our growth.
Helping people understand that there are unlimited ways to do something frees them up to be themselves, think outside the box, and take risks that can help them grow. People often have difficulty changing their mindset that there are unlimited ways to achieve something because they were taught as children that there are right and wrong ways to do something. This is a difficult notion to let go of, so it is easier to focus on whether something is working for clients and whether it is good for their relationships with themselves and others. Rather than determining whether or not what they did was “right.” Natural Lifemanship teaches that if it is not good for one person in the relationship, it is eventually not good for either person.
We often run into the mindset that there is only one right way. We explain to clients our belief that there are millions of ways to do things, then ask them to try. We accept their attempts as long as they are not dangerous to the clients or others.
We once had a client who did not know how to put a halter on her horse, so she hung the halter off the horse’s ear and asked the horse to follow her to the barn. To the surprise of many, the horse followed the client to the barn despite the client using the halter differently. The client didn’t have to learn how to put the halter on because we were not teaching horsemanship. Instead, we were doing therapy and trying to change negative patterns. The fact that the client attempted something was helpful because she was learning how to experiment and let go of thought patterns that kept her stuck. That she successfully got her horse to the barn delighted her and gave her confidence that her ideas could work.
Clients are often fearful of trying and making a mistake, so they ask how to do something. When we encounter this, we remind clients that there is no right way to do it. Often, this statement frees them to try. We teach clients to see “mistakes” and “failures” as information received about what worked and what did not work and to use this information in their next attempt. There is no judgment or determination about whether the attempt was good or bad.
If clients ask for help, we ask them to try their best before assisting. If, after trying with some trial and error, clients still request help, we ask what type of help they want or need. Once the client identifies the help needed, we provide it as directed by the client. Usually, when people dismiss the idea that there is one right way and they actually try, they are successful. The more clients are allowed to figure things out on their own and do it their way, the more they try to do things and the more powerful they feel about making decisions in their lives.
Clients who have experienced repeated abuse are more likely to be re-victimized. There are many ways to think about why this may occur. One idea is when individuals experience repeated abuse by a loved one, they often have to push down or ignore their alarm system to maintain the relationship. Years of ignoring the body’s response disconnects clients from the physiological responses of their body’s threat assessment, making it very difficult to recognize unsafe situations. All the clues clients use to determine whether a situation is safe or dangerous have become confused or silenced because their system was overridden repeatedly, eventually producing a dissociated system.
Helping clients reconnect to their bodies and alarm systems by recognizing what their bodies are doing in response to specific situations and helping them learn how to interpret that information correctly is vital for their future safety. Clients often push through uncomfortable situations because it is a pattern of behavior for them and because clients believe it is what the clinician/therapy team expects of them. It is vital that clinicians/therapy teams stop a client and ask the client what is happening in their body when clinicians/therapy teams notice even the slightest discomfort. When clinicians/therapy teams do this, it assists clients in learning to listen to their bodies, and it builds trust between clients and clinicians/therapy teams because clinicians/therapy teams are listening deeply to their clients’ experiences. Clients, then, are able to make decisions that are protective and healthy for themselves and act on that information in a way that is good for their relationship with themselves and, ultimately, with others. As clients learn how to connect, read their own signals, and respond in a healthy, protective manner for themselves, their safety increases, and their relationships become healthier, too.
Clinicians/therapy teams must allow clients to practice these ideas and learn to take appropriate risks. It is important to allow clients to struggle while monitoring their window of tolerance. Allowing for struggle provides the opportunity for clients to overcome and own their power. Being fully present while clients struggle offers tremendous, genuine support and a powerful quality of being deeply seen.
Many clinicians/therapy teams are uncomfortable allowing clients to struggle because this feels like allowing suffering. But it is much like the butterfly who beats his wings against the cocoon to get stronger. If the butterfly is freed from the cocoon rather than bursting out on its own, it dies.
Clients need supportive struggle to get stronger. When clinicians/therapy teams allow clients to struggle while providing them with tremendous emotional support, clients discover that they have a broken belief system (I am not smart enough. I am not good enough. I can’t do anything.) that impedes their success. Once identified, this belief system can be repaired and healed through successfully overcoming struggles.
It is important to scaffold tasks so clients can succeed and have more opportunities to stay within their window of tolerance. The goal of doing is not perfection; it is healing the broken belief systems that free clients to take control of their lives and develop healthier relationships with themselves, others, and the world.
Clinicians/therapy teams often overlook the importance of clients being able to say “no.” If clients cannot say no to something, they cannot give a true yes. No, is the barometer of choice and safety. If clients can say no to a clinician/therapy team and it is respected, clients have a choice in what the clinician/therapy team asks them to do. The client then can make the choice that they feel is best for them in the moment, which increases safety. If the client cannot say no, the clinician/therapy team requires the client to submit to their will, which decreases safety and can reinforce old, abusive relational patterns.
This is so important in our practice that we go over this in our intake. We tell clients that they have the power to answer or decline to answer questions and to decide what and how much to tell us. We practice them telling us, “I do not want to answer that,” and we show them what our response will be. We do this until we see that the client’s body is relaxed and able to set this boundary with us. Even with this practice, we know most clients will struggle to say, “I don’t want to answer that.” So, we listen with our whole selves, and when we notice a client’s discomfort, we ask, “Do you want to answer that question?” and remind them they have the right not to. Some clients test us and say, “I don’t want to answer that” to every question we ask. This usually only lasts for a session or two until they see that we actually accept their boundary.
Helping clients understand that relationships are always more important than tasks (Natural Lifemanship principle) is a fundamental shift for most people. Most clients are more focused on the task at hand than on the relationship, which can cause them to make decisions when working on a task that negatively impacts their relationship.
When the value, relationship is more important than task, is applied, it strengthens their ability to have healthy relationships. When clients are practicing new skills, clinicians/therapy teams help clients by identifying times when clients are ignoring the relationship to complete the task, which invariably is harmful to the relationship in the long term. It is a skill to negotiate both the relationship and the task, and it requires a great deal of practice.
It is not enough to talk about change, being brave, or telling people there are unlimited ways to do things. Clinicians/therapy teams must provide clients with lots of time to practice being different within this supportive environment. When clients practice new things and new ways of being, they are being brave. This feeling of bravery and the experience of being brave goes with them each time they leave sessions. The more experiences clients have, the braver they become.
In order to practice and have the freedom to try, to make mistakes, and to try something else, there has to be an environment of continual learning. This environment is fueled by curiosity, wonder, excitement, or anticipation for what will happen when we try something. No matter what happens, it is noticed and folded back in to understand the experience better. There is no judgment about what happened. There is no evaluation of whether what happened was right, wrong, good, or bad. We observe the outcome and use the information to decide on the next steps. An environment of continual learning creates within the client an attitude of continual learning that, like “a million ways,” frees clients to try new things and find their own answers.
In summary, when clinicians/therapy teams take the time to create brave spaces in addition to safe spaces, they give clients the power to create safety in their own lives, which allows clients to grow faster, become stronger, and engage in relationships with themselves and others in more healthy ways.
By Bettina Shultz-Jobe
I recently wrote a blog about how we can build strong connections with ourselves and others through rupture and repair. Many of us have not had healthy rupture and repair modeled in our lives and are, therefore, just beginning the journey of embracing this practice and this way of being in the world, so I thought it might be helpful to discuss some actionable steps we can take when seeking repair in a relationship.
Oftentimes, people use the terms “repair” and “apology” synonymously. An apology is not a repair. It is merely a part of what is needed to make a repair. Let’s discuss the most basic components of a repair, while also holding the awareness that putting steps to a process that involves human relationships (that can be quite complicated!) will always be an oversimplification. Hopefully, still useful, but an oversimplification, nonetheless.
Repair requires attunement and a deep acceptance that life and relationships are not “black and white” and perfection is never the goal. Relationships are messy and re-connection is always the goal during a relational repair and during conflict resolution.
Shame says, “I am a bad person.” Guilt says, “I did a bad thing.”
Research shows that when we feel shame, we become defensive, deny, blame others, and oftentimes, get angry at others for making us feel this way, but what we don’t do is change our behavior. When we feel shame we struggle to accept how our behavior affected someone else because it’s far too painful to think “I’m a horrible person.”
Shame is a self-focused emotion, “Me, me, me. . . I’m such a horrible person. What are you thinking of me? Are you thinking I’m a horrible person too?” When we struggle to distinguish between what I do and who I am, we move into a shame spiral, and repair becomes almost impossible.
Shame often has roots in our earliest experiences with caregivers. It may feel inherent to who you are, but that younger version of you can be nurtured into letting go of these shame messages.
Conversely, appropriate guilt is what is needed if we are to offer repair in relationships. Research shows that guilt allows us to focus on what we’ve done. Behavior is easier to change than self so when we feel guilt about a specific behavior, we are more likely to feel empathy for the person we’ve hurt. We are, therefore, more inclined to want to apologize and make things right. Acceptance of appropriate guilt – “I made a bad choice and that hurt your feelings” – is needed in order to do each of the following steps for repair.
Step 1 is about self-compassion.
“I am a good person, and I made a poor choice. My choice caused a rupture in this relationship, but I know that I can make it right. I can make a repair.” It is during this step that you can seek to understand why you did what you did without making excuses.
Feeling guilt instead of shame is very difficult for many of us, especially those of us who have survived childhood trauma, because the ability to distinguish between what I do and who I am does not emerge before the age of approximately seven or eight. This is one of the reasons that punitive child rearing can have grave effects on the development of the self. Child abuse and neglect often result in an adult who can feel shame, but not guilt. If you are struggling in this area, I encourage you to seek out counseling services with someone who specializes in complex trauma.
Listen deeply and completely so that you can fully understand the damage that was done. Allow the other to be heard without defending or explaining yourself. Remember, the goal of conflict resolution is not to be right or to make a point, it is to repair by reconnecting. This step is for deeply understanding how your actions affected the person in front of you.
Laura Trevelyan, who was an anchor and correspondent for BBC News, and currently campaigns for reparative justice in a full-time capacity, puts it this way, “When seeking repair, the more you expose yourself to the full sensory experience of whoever’s been harmed, the closer you are to finding the right next step.”
I love this! Listen so deeply, that you “expose yourself to the full sensory experience” of whoever you have hurt.
This step is about profound empathy and deep compassion for the other.
Sincerely apologize for what you have done to damage the relationship. It is important that you explicitly state “I’m sorry. . . .” or “I apologize. . .” and expand on exactly what you are sorry for. Provide details about the situation, acknowledge your role in the situation, and repeat, in your words, how your actions have affected them. It is possible that you may need to return to step two, if the person you have hurt needs to clarify how your decisions affected them. Avoid phrases like, “I’m sorry you felt hurt” or “sorry if” or “sorry but” – these are all ways of minimizing the damage done.
Lastly, ask for forgiveness, and do not assume they will forgive you right away. Remember, forgiveness itself is a very personal process that can beautifully unfold during steps 4 and 5.
The apology is very important, but it is not the repair. Apologies without repair, over and over again, will undermine trust in the apology and in the integrity of the person offering the apology.
Mend what was broken.
In this step you consider what you can do to right the wrong. One of my favorite ways to make a repair is to do what we often call a do-over or a rewind. In a do-over, you literally play the entire situation again and get the opportunity to do it differently. This step is so powerful and so often missed. I wrote a short blog to breathe life into what we mean by do-overs with this personal story.
The “rewind” is a similar concept that Tim and I have used quite a bit in our marriage. I will often make the sound of a tape rewinding (yes, I know I’m dating myself!) and then say something to this effect, “When you said ______, I really wish I had said _______. Would you give me the opportunity to go back to that moment and make a different choice?”
(I should add that the sound of the tape rewinding is lovely only if a bit of humor could bring some lightness to the conversation. As with all humor, definitely use it with caution.)
The rewind and the do-over empower us to practice and embody the change we hope to make in the future, and in the present moment both parties get to experience something different, rather than just imagine a different, hypothetical future.
Much of the time, mending what was broken in a relationship is not a one time event but a process that takes time. In situations where the rupture was large and/or took place over and over again (with little to no repair), each step in this process will also need to happen over and over again.
For example, when there has been infidelity in a relationship, each partner will need to choose to repeatedly do things differently, offering reparative experiences through every interaction to rebuild trust and connection.
At times, we might need to acknowledge that a situation feels like the one that led to the rupture in the first place and then overtly offer the reparative experience. “I can understand how this moment might feel a lot like the situation in which I caused you so much pain and heartbreak. This moment is different because I’m trying to [insert reparative behavior], and I am committed to you and to this relationship, and to the promises I made when we first started working to repair our relationship.”
When repairing a relationship with a child, try something like this: “I know in the past when things like this happened, I didn’t listen and I punished you. Right now, I am here and I am listening, and we are going to work this out together. I am going to do what I have promised, what I have committed to you and to our relationship.”
In sessions with clients, here’s one approach: “I know in the past when a big emotion came up for you, you needed to hide and work it out for yourself. Today you are not alone. I am here and I am okay with the expression of whatever emotion you may have. You don’t need to hide or suppress or get over it by yourself. I am here to listen and offer support.”
A repair is more than an apology. A repair has to be experienced. It has to be lived. It’s an opportunity to practice doing the right thing for the relationship. Practice does not make perfect, but it is certainly required for improvement and growth. It is through the embracing of repair, over and over again, that we can accept that ruptures will happen and that the world will not end.
When we are no longer scared of ruptures, we can be free to try, to show up, and to be willing to make mistakes.
As a community, I invite all of us to commit to practicing repair. The kind of repair that moves beyond an apology, and means that we vulnerably go back and try again. This kind of repair requires grace and commitment to connection from all involved – grace that provides space for do-overs, rewinds, repair, and real healing. Deep, complete healing and profound, transformative connection.
By Bettina Shultz-Jobe and Kate Naylor
One of my mentors and teachers, Margery Segal, once said that if you’ve made it to the end of a therapy (or coaching, wellness, etc.) session and haven’t needed to make a repair yet, that you need to hurry up and make a mistake. . . so you can make a repair. And she meant it!
In one of her trainings we even practiced making mistakes and repairs, because the repair is where the healing takes place – it is in the repair of a mistake that we connect more deeply, grow, and strengthen ourselves and our relationships.
AND repair cannot happen without rupture. In order to reap the benefits of repair, we must embrace mistakes, conflict, and stress.
Rupture and repair over and over again is how our muscles grow and strengthen. It’s what is needed to develop a strong, flexible, and resilient nervous system. It is how secure attachment is formed in our earliest years, and how our relationships throughout the lifespan become more intimate, fulfilling, and able to thrive in the midst of life’s tribulations. Indeed, the cycle of rupture and repair is needed to grow and thrive, so it is no wonder that Margery encouraged curiosity and the freedom to misattune and make mistakes (small ruptures), giving us a powerful opportunity to repair.
Practitioner: “It seems like that situation brought so much sadness.”
Client: “No, not really. It made me angry. . . so angry I could hardly breathe.”
Practitioner: “Goodness, I really missed you. I misunderstood what you were telling me. It makes sense that you were angry – of course you were. Can you tell me more so I can understand your anger more deeply?”
The reality is that perfection isn’t an option – much as we might like it to be. When in relationship with ourselves and others (whether it be friends, family, colleagues, or clients) we will make mistakes – learning the art of repair is then a necessary and loving way to strengthen our connections.
Many of us need to explore our history with rupture and repair and the beliefs we therefore carry in our body, mind, and soul, if we are to embody a practice that helps our clients heal through reparative experiences. You see, so many of us and so many of our clients have been robbed of the very important cycle of rupture and repair that is needed for growth. So, when I say to my client “I missed you. I didn’t get it, but I really do want to understand,” I may be the first person who has ever acknowledged a misattunement and genuinely sought to repair it in the moment. These types of interactions over and over again are a salve for attachment wounding – it’s the stuff attachment repair is made of.
Understanding rupture and repair is important for everybody and for any person in the helping professions, but it’s particularly important for those of us who do experiential work. When we do experiential work like Equine Assisted Services, real life happens in our sessions. If our clients are building a genuine relationship with a horse (and us), things will not always go as planned. In vivo, our clients will experience stress, misattunement, and conflict, and it will be up to us to model healthy ways to repair relationships with self and others. When we do experiential work, this stuff isn’t just theory, it is a practice in each and every session for us and for our clients.
Let’s discuss the cycle of rupture and repair further.
I love the way the physical body can help us understand more abstract things like emotions, attachment, and relationships. For example, when we lift weights, our muscles are, in essence, damaged. Tiny injuries to the muscle fibers, called microtears, occur when we workout. However, given proper nutrition, blood supply, and rest, these ruptures will repair allowing the muscle to grow bigger and stronger than it was before. The rupture, however, has to be such that repair is possible, and there has to be a pause that allows repair to occur.
If we continue to stress the muscles without time for rest and repair, the opposite of growth occurs. Muscles can begin to break down, a condition called Rhabdomyolysis that is life-threatening. Rupture without repair will cause our muscles to disintegrate. That said, we can’t avoid the rupture if we are to grow our muscles.
There has to be rupture AND repair for growth to occur.
Our nervous system is the same way. Our nervous system grows and becomes flexible and strong and resilient through something called allostasis, the rhythm of stress on the nervous system. For stress to build resilience it must be moderate, predictable, and short-term – in NL we often use the term eustress to describe this. Eustress can be metabolized by our bodies. We can recover from it. Eustress is a rupture for which repair is possible.
Again, the stress needs to be moderate enough that repair is possible, and there has to be a pause that allows repair to occur. When the stress just keeps coming and coming, we can no longer metabolize it. There is no pause to allow for repair – oftentimes this is called allostatic load, and it compromises the nervous system instead of building resilience.
That said, in order for our nervous system to develop resilience – strength and flexibility – it has to “work out.” We can’t avoid the rupture all together. We need moderate amounts of stress AND time for repair.
There has to be rupture AND repair for growth to occur.
Rupture and repair is also what helps us to develop secure attachment, because it is a strong yet flexible nervous system that paves the way for a strong yet flexible person – a person who can better cope with, accept, and adjust to difficult situations. Adults with secure attachment are less likely to shut down or become emotionally dysregulated when interpersonal conflict arises – basically, they handle conflict in a way that builds relationships instead of tearing them down.
Secure attachment is formed when a baby experiences a bit of stress (an inevitable experience for any human) – hunger, discomfort, over stimulation – and a caregiver comes in and offers reparative actions of connection like holding, rocking, singing, etc. Eustress (rupture) and soothing (repair) over and over again, builds secure attachment. Our need for soothing through relationship (co-regulation) continues throughout the lifespan, and it is the co-regulation (repair) that builds the “muscle” that eventually makes self-soothing possible at times.
In order to develop secure attachment at any stage of life, there has to be rupture AND repair.
It is conflict resolution – basically rupture and repair – that builds relationships with others throughout the lifespan. Again, rupture and repair is at the heart of all growth. When we have secure attachment, we believe deep in our bones that conflict resolution is about reconnecting. When our attachment is more insecure, we tend toward two extremes: rupture avoidant or rupture centric. This relationship with rupture is typically learned on a cellular level in our family of origin.
In a rupture-centric home there is often an enormous amount of chaos, conflict, and aggression, without the healthy modeling of repair. Maybe feelings are expressed, but there is seldom healthy communication about those feelings or movement toward resolution. Fear is a primary emotion in these homes, and children learn to do whatever it takes to keep their parents happy. Oftentimes, in this kind of environment rupture is a major threat to safety. Repair is not considered when survival is the primary concern.
Those of us who grew up in rupture-centric homes may handle conflict in a way that “just gets us through it.” People please, appease, become defensive, withdraw and then pretend nothing happened – whatever it takes to feel better. This is an approach that originates from survival mechanisms, and is inherently self-focused rather than relationship focused. So, we get stuck, alone with our feelings, and miss out on the relational repair; the one thing that will help us to learn that rupture doesn’t have to be so scary.
The allostatic load in this home is high because the stress just keeps coming and repair is seldom sought.
In a rupture-avoidant home, conflict is avoided at all costs. Maybe you never saw your parents fight? Or only emotions seen as “positive” were allowed. Feelings were not discussed. “Go to your room and when you are calm you can rejoin the family.” Maybe image was really important. “Don’t do that in front of your grandmother.” If you grew up in this type of home, you may have learned to internalize feelings and check out from body sensations, because the best way to keep connection with your caregivers was to always be “okay.”
Those of us who grew up in rupture-avoidant homes, might find conflict deeply threatening and terrifying, because conflict means that the relationship will be damaged beyond repair. We might find that we are scared of feelings that all people have, like anger, jealousy, and grief. The repression of such emotion leads to more conflict avoidance and the cycle continues.
The allostatic load in this home is still high because pretending that everything is okay doesn’t make it so. Our nervous system still experiences stress, but when we are young we don’t have the benefit of a caregiver who helps us repair – soothes us to completion – thereby helping us learn to self-soothe. We believe the only way to feel okay is to avoid rupture, thereby also avoiding repair.
In either childhood environment, we also miss out on the practice of conflict – so when we inevitably encounter it as adults, whether it terrifies us or feels all too familiar, we do not have the neural pathways to know what to do next.
This Sunday we celebrate those who mother – all of those who have given birth to beautiful new things and nurtured those already in existence. Those who have fully embraced and bravely unleashed the kind of creative, nurturing energy that supports, grows, heals, and then releases.
I am a mother in the more traditional sense and I do very much love this role, but my children are not the only ones I mother.
Lately, with the release of the Business Building Master Class, I have been thinking a lot about this business that Tim and I birthed back in 2010. I have thought about the birth pains, the growing pains, the complete bliss, and the utter heartbreak that this child has brought us.
In one of the interviews we did for the Business Building Master Class, Sara Sherman with Discovery Horse shared some of her thoughts about how we build a secure attachment, a healthy relationship, with this being called. . . our business.
I LOVE attachment theory. When it comes to being a mother, wife, therapist, sister, friend, daughter, and animal steward, the attachment world is my guiding light. BUT the first time I heard Sara mention this idea of having a secure attachment to our business, I lost my breath for a moment. The attachment theory lens had not yet extended to my role as a business owner. I think I said, “Sh**! I’m totally enmeshed with this baby!”
For so many of us, our EAS businesses are passion projects, and they can become all consuming. We can unwittingly become profoundly anxious, entangled or enmeshed – terms often used to describe one type of insecure attachment – with our mission, our vision, and our business. For others, the overwhelm we feel can lead to more avoidant behaviors that cause us to freeze, procrastinate, or check out – a more dismissive attachment to our business.
Sara’s first suggestion, as we begin to practice secure relating with our business, is that we let the business truly be its own entity. What do I need? What does the business need? These are separate questions and each has different answers. In conversations with employees or funders, these are also separate. “The business needs. . .” When someone does not meet this need, it’s not personal. This small shift has been powerful for me.
I am still trying very hard to practice secure relating with this entity called Natural Lifemanship, this absolutely stunning being we have lovingly birthed, nurtured, attuned to, and grown. It’s a work in progress for sure. The soft flexibility and balance between nurture and structure, closeness and distance, attunement and differentiation, and discipline and delight takes so much grit, and such a vulnerable exploration of our own story.
In a conversation I recently had with Tamasin Thomas, who Shannon and I will be chatting with in a webinar next week called, “Money Mindset: How Business, Money, and Your Story are Uniquely Connected” we discussed the importance of attuning to our business. We birth the business, and then in order to build a secure attachment with it, we first and foremost must protect it and then attune to it. (The first 2 pillars of secure attachment from a book I love called Attachment Disturbances in Adults).
Tamasin said, “Our business will tell us what it needs to grow and thrive if we listen to it.” We must first listen and then respond, and this response will certainly require that we employ all of our skills, knowledge, life experience, and so much heart and soul.
AND this is why we created the Business Building Master Class. It is our desire that you have the information, knowledge, and support you need to be responsive and flexible in your relationship with your business.
While many have had spiritual awakenings at the top of a mountain or in the depths of the sea, I think the most profound metamorphosis happens in the grueling dark of the night, with an inconsolable baby, yet another dirty diaper, an aching body that can hardly move, and the kind of exhaustion where you really think you might die. Those nights when you can’t feel your fingers for the cold, or the heat is crushing your body, when one more fence is down, one more horse is injured, one more client struggles to stay alive, and for you to make payroll or purchase another load of hay will require a miracle.
Those nights when we think that there is no way to carry on, but our love, our purpose, and our connection to those who have come before us, those who are in it with us, and those who will come after us, somehow helps us show up when we staunchly believe we can’t.
Those nights transform us.
In those moments, when we know that we are not alone, we become stronger and softer, and more secure in our attachment. It is in those moments, when we have the support we need, that we become part of an army of Mamas that are making this world a better place.
If you are looking for support and guidance as you mother your own business, take a look at our Business Building Master Class. We were not made to mother alone – it takes a village.
Mothering is, by far, the highest calling. Happy Mother’s Day to all of those who mother. Today, I honor you.
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