emotional fusion

Where Is All Your Energy Going? The Answer Might Surprise You.

What’s the one area of life where you waste the most energy?

Many people would say social media, but I have a different suggestion for you: your relationships. 

How much mental and emotional energy do you spend on these behaviors?

  • Wondering whether someone likes you.
  • Wondering whether you’re annoying someone.
  • Detecting potential upsetness in others. 
  • Assuming you know what people think or need.
  • Trying to be the kind of person others want you to be.
  • Worrying about others’ reactions.
  • Trying to get approval, attention, or agreement from others.
  • Trying to get other people to behave better.

The more energy you put into this kind of relationship-focus, the less you have to direct yourself or work towards your goals. And the more anxious your relationships tend to be.  

This is the relationship paradox, according to Bowen theory—when less life energy is bound up in our relationships, we tend to have better relationships.

We’re also more likely to set and meet our goals.

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I Need You, So Please Go Away

How much time do you spend every day doing these things?

  • Wondering whether someone likes you (or doesn’t).
  • Anticipating negative reactions from others.
  • Worrying about an email or text you sent (or haven’t sent).
  • Thinking about what you “should” be doing.
  • Scolding yourself for not doing enough.
  • Imagining worst case scenarios.

Thank God I don’t get a report on this, like my daily screen time usage. It would be pretty embarrassing.

The more you require positive reactions to regulate yourself, the more time you will spend focusing on others’ reactions.

I think pandemic life has increased this anxious focus on others. It’s easier to assume that people don’t like you over a Zoom call, or that a friend resents you for not keeping in touch. The less you connect with your partner, the more you will personalize their bad moods.

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Are You Directing or Reflecting?

When you’re close with someone, it’s easy to treat them like they’re an extension of yourself. You might act as if your family, friend group, or workplace is one giant blob of humanity. Because if the blob is anxious, you feel anxious. If the blob thinks that Bob from accounting is a mess, then yeah, maybe you do too.

The fancy word for this stuck-togetherness is emotional fusion. When fusion is strong in relationships, more of our decisions are influenced by how other people might react (or have reacted). It becomes difficult to know your own mind, what you believe and value. Your choices quickly become about stabilizing the blob instead of following your best thinking.   

The more fusion there is in relationships, the more we tend to treat people like they are ambassadors representing us. You might worry more about your boyfriend’s fashion choices, how your parents act in public, or how well your kid performs in school, because these variables have become a direct measure of your own worth.  

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Please Calm Me Down

Gaining quick love, attention, and agreement from others can inhibit our own ability to calm ourselves down. (1)

When we feel distressed, we want to find and eliminate the cause as quickly as possible. In our search for an explanation, we often focus on the people closest to us. You may begin to think, “If that person would only do X, then I could feel better.”

Have you ever said something like this to someone close to you?

“If only you. . .

  • helped more
  • encouraged me more
  • agreed with me
  • listened better
  • reassured me
  • changed your behavior

. . . then I would feel better.”

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The Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Woman

It's National Hugging Day (3)Nothing can make a person less capable than getting married. Maybe you’ve heard the phrase, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” But in many relationships, the opposite is true.

Lately, I’ve been paying attention to how my abilities will weaken or even disappear when my husband is in the house. When he’s away on a work trip, I can take out the trash with ease. But when he’s around, walking the twenty steps to the alley feels like a Herculean task. When I’m driving by myself, I have no trouble navigating to a new destination. Put him in the passenger seat, and I might ask him if I’m making the correct turn. (more…)