John gets defensive in conflicts and calls himself horrible, but his coach suggests he's protecting himself. Instead of shame spiraling, John could ask what he needs to do differently, turning guilt into motivation to become who he wants to be.
What I'm getting from you is to be inquisitive, like instead of being defensive, ask her what it is that I need to do or we need to do to be able to address it in a healthy fashion.
There it is. There it is. Okay, so let me ask you this, and this is the big part for you, for you to move past it. I think that you would be more equipped and be able to tolerate talking about what happened more if you had fully processed your relationship to what you did. So let me ask you this, right? You only get defensive defensive when it happens because you feel like you have something to defend. So when it gets brought up, does it make you feel guilty and shameful like you mentioned? Does that happen?
Yes. Yes.
Okay, so what is that about? Talk to me about that.
Well, there's a couple things about it. Well, because it makes me feel like a horrible human, for one. I, I mean, when I look back on it, I don't think it's— I really don't believe that's my natural character.
There it is.
Okay, make excuses. There it is right there.
There it is right there. You nailed it. You just answered your own question. John, if you really— let's change your mindset on this. What if you looked at it like this? My wife is actually doing me a favor. She's doing— she's giving me a hookup. She's bringing up the past. She's reminding me of a version of myself that I don't want to be, that I'm not. And it helps me to remind me of who I don't want to be. Sometimes we look at shame and guilt, we think that the shame and guilt is a negative thing. But in reality, shame and guilt can be super powerful because they motivate us to change, right? If I didn't feel shame about some behaviors that I did, I probably wouldn't be motivated to do anything about them, right? So the shame is kind of— it's a reminder to me that I'm not living in alignment with who the man that I want to be, the man that I aspire to be. So in essence, there's an opportunity there for you to be reminded not of, not of what you did and how terrible you are and that that's your identity, but to be reminded of how bad it can be when John doesn't take care of John. When John doesn't live in alignment with who John knows he needs to be.
