This YouTube conversation explains how past trauma can be activated within current relationships and gives practical guidance to prevent it from ruining the relationship. Key recommendations: acknowledge and name your feelings openly (use simple phrases like "I felt vulnerable" or "rightly or wrongly I got in my head"), avoid attacking or using defensive "weapons" (silent treatment, venomous remarks), set down your weapon and communicate so your partner can soothe your wound, and use vulnerability as a test of whether the relationship is healthy.
How to not let past trauma in a relationship affect your current relationship or how to deal with it when it does.
I mean, one of the nice ways of doing that is just to acknowledge it. If you're in a, if you're in a relationship that, where good communication is a thing, which it will only be a thing if you foster it, if you cultivate a culture in your relationship where communication is is out in the open and valued, then you can, you can talk about it. Hey, you know, you were, I know you were out tonight having a good time with your friends, and I'm a little embarrassed because I got in my head tonight and I got in my head because you didn't text me. And I'm sure it's because you were just having a really great time and, you know, you were just enjoying catching up with your friends. But I got in my head because you didn't. text me for three hours. And then when I got in my head, it ignited all this stuff from my past of, you know, jealousy and thinking that you must be talking to some attractive person and flirting and whatever. And I. I'm just telling you because it's. I know me, and I don't. My typical response to something like that is to go cold, and I don't want you to feel my coldness. and misread it. I just tonight kind of, it activated that part of me that, you know, I don't particularly like that's a, most people don't talk like that. And by the way, you don't, it's not that you have to use very heady language for any of it. You can just say, oh, I made, that made me feel a bit vulnerable or I feel a bit scared or I felt a bit strange when that happened. It's probably nothing, but I wanted to let you know because I got in my head over it. Even just that idea, I got in my head over it and allowing someone giving someone credit for being able to help you, you know, for, for being able to soothe you, which they can't if you don't talk about it or if you pretend that you don't have any stuff. And, and then what happens is you build up resentment or fear or it explodes in some other way, and then someone doesn't know what the hell is going on. So I think that's that's the key is be open about it. Avoid when you know that something is past stuff for you that's being kind of activated by your current relationship. Avoid pointing the finger and making them wrong or going on the attack. Express what's going on in your head. And a nice phrase is rightly or wrongly. Rightly or wrongly. I got in my head over that and it and I wanted to just tell you about it because I don't want there to be any strange, I don't want there to be any strange tension between us. That rightly or wrongly is a phrase, is a lovely phrase because it allows them to set aside their ego. If I say what you did tonight was wrong, then your ego immediately comes out to meet me. There's a great concept that I talk about in some of my videos. which is weapons versus wounds. When our trauma is activated, when something from our past gets triggered, we immediately bring out our favorite weapon. And our favorite weapon might be going on the attack. Our favorite weapon might be freezing someone out and going cold. It might be the silent treatment. It might be saying something venomous to that person so that we can make them feel bad and cry, and then we feel important to them because we know we've had an effect on them. There are all these different weapons we have. the problem is when we're using a weapon, someone can't help our wound because they're too busy defending themselves from whatever is happening. So what we have to do is be brave enough to set down our weapon and just talk and actually communicate. Because then if they're not, if they can set their ego aside and they're not defending themselves against our favorite weapon, Now they can actually do the job of being a healer for our wound.
It's so true. And even just like from the other partner's perspective, like creating those safe places for people to be able to be vulnerable, like reciprocating that is so important too.
And it's a good test of your relationship, frankly. Like knowing what happens when I set my weapon down and bring a kinder, more compassionate, more vulnerable me to the table. who comes out to meet me when I do that? Is it someone who, when I put my weapon down, they take their best shot because they realize we've not got our guard up? That's a problem. That's a sign of a really unhealthy relationship or partner. So kind of in some ways, this is a much quicker route to knowing what you have because you only really know what you have once you set those weapons down and you bring yourself to the table. People go years in a relationship without ever really knowing what they have or what that relationship can be because they act out of fear.
