Identify the sensitive areas of pain and avoid speaking carelessly.

Identify the sensitive areas of pain, and don’t be a person who says something but doesn’t mean it.

I often hear voices like this in life: I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, I just meant what I said! In intimate relationships, partners often say this when apologizing to each other: I really didn’t know you were angry at the time, I just said it casually, with no other meaning.

The words "Words are spoken but no intentions are spoken" seem sincere at first glance, but they cannot withstand scrutiny and are more like a defense for mistakes. There are situations where words do not express what one wants, but unintentional mistakes between partners often cause great harm to each other.

We are usually unwilling to hide our feelings when it comes to the people we love, so sometimes it is inevitable that we will hurt the other person through some unintentional words and deeds. These occasional stings are often superficial and fleeting.

However, almost everyone has at least one particularly sensitive spot, an emotional sore spot that cannot bear to be touched. Once this sore spot is poked, the blood will spread throughout the relationship, causing us to lose our emotional balance and plunge into endless arguments and conflicts.

What exactly is this "painful place"? Dr. Sue Johnson, the founder of EFT (emotionally focused therapy), defines it as:

In a person's attachment relationship from the past to the present, the accumulation of attachment needs due to continuous neglect, indifference, and rejection The sensitive reaction causes the person to experience "Double D" feelings, that is, emotional deprivation (Deprived) and abandonment (Deserted). "Double D" is a pain point that all partners can experience.

These sensitive sore spots often arise from past traumas in our relationships with significant others, first and foremost our parents, but also siblings and other family members, as well as past and present close relationships. spouse.

Of course, sore spots can also arise in current relationships. Even if you are generally happy at the moment, there may be sore spots if you feel emotionally deprived or abandoned. It may occur during major changes or critical moments, such as giving birth to a child, serious illness, or unemployment, etc. At this time, if there is no support and response from the other party, this feeling will arise spontaneously. In addition, the pain may also come from the long-term neglect of the partner, and the lack of love will penetrate our pain deeply.

Two signs that a sore spot has been touched on for you or your partner:

First, the mood and tone of your conversation change drastically in an instant. For example, you and the other person were joking around, and now one of you is upset or angry, or on the contrary, one of you has become distant and cold. You feel blindsided, as if the rules of the game have suddenly changed without anyone telling you that the injured party is sending new signals while the other party is trying to make sense of them.

Second, the reaction to touching the sore spot seems a bit exaggerated. For example, you may just make a joke, but the other person will not forgive you, and may even cry. You may think this is a bit of a fuss, but the sensitive part of pain is often associated with the details in the details, thus transferring personal emotions to painful scenes in memory and making it impossible to extricate oneself.

The sensitivity of pain and primitive attachment needs are related to the sudden emergence of fear, and to the sudden control of our deepest and most powerful emotions. To truly understand the pain, we must further examine the sensitivities that trigger the critical impact, understand the deeper emotions behind them, and present them in a way that is conducive to dealing with the pain.

Otherwise, we flash past these emotions and go straight into defensiveness—usually anger or numbness, which sends exactly the wrong message to our partner. In rocky relationships, we cover up our vulnerabilities so that our partners never see us for who we really are.