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Areas › Your marriage › Staying regulated in conflict
Reactions like going cold or hitting back happen fast, but just before them is a brief flash of a deeper feeling: defeat, fear, hopelessness. Catching that split second is where you find what the conflict is really about.
God says He knows what a person's soul whispers to him and is nearer than the jugular vein. The flash of fear you barely notice is real, and catching it is what stops it running you.
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وَلَقَدۡ خَلَقۡنَا ٱلۡإِنسَٰنَ وَنَعۡلَمُ مَا تُوَسۡوِسُ بِهِۦ نَفۡسُهُۥۖ وَنَحۡنُ أَقۡرَبُ إِلَيۡهِ مِنۡ حَبۡلِ ٱلۡوَرِيدِ
We created man––We know what his soul whispers to him: We are closer to him than his jugular vein––
Qur’an 50:16read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Johnson slows the moment right down to the split second in which a partner reads something into what just happened, she thinks I am hopeless, I have lost him, and then reacts. Catching that flash before the shutdown or the snap gives you something true to say instead of a defence.
Susan M. Johnson (2019). Attachment Theory in Practice: EFT with Individuals, Couples, and Families. Guilford
The EFT Tango, the five macro-moves: mirror the present process, assemble and deepen the emotion, choreograph an engaged encounter, process that encounter, and integrate it. Johnson holds the sequence is the same whatever the presenting problem.
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Slowing down to catch the fleeting primary feeling before the automatic reaction gives you something true to share instead of a defence.
Where this sits: EFT, EFT Tango Move 1: Mirroring Present Process, the split second before the reaction.