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In my last post, I shared an example of a woman who broke, mentally, physically, and spiritually. I described the moment when her body took over and announced that it couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t take one more ounce of anger coming at her, that she had nothing left to give to make things work. It was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, and the moment when the broken and dysfunctional system collapsed.

Sometimes we need to break to change, to be brought to our knees. But often we can make changes while we’re still standing, although we have to be willing to do things differently. If we don’t change our own behaviors, nothing will change.

The first step in getting free from this anger-defensiveness cycle is awareness. That is, to be able to see the patterns we’re acting out—how, in trying to stay safe and keep the peace, we’re actually playing a part in the continuation of this harmful pattern. Jumping to self-blame, still trying to figure it all out, making nice when none of it feels nice, smoothing the awkwardness, and making it all seem okay, like nothing happened—all of our fixing is just our part in keeping the broken system running.

After awareness comes acceptance. We must accept that our need to make things right and eliminate conflict may have become hardwired in us, and therefore not get caught up in judging it and ourselves, once again falling down the rabbit hole of self-criticism and avoiding the issue at hand: the anger and defensiveness. As a species, we need to survive, and deeply wired into us is the belief that maintaining relationships will make that possible. While this may not align with reality, our bodies still believe it, so we will do anything to maintain the........

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