A Glimpse Inside Terry’s World
Terry Explains the Relationship Grid
REAL ADVICE:  From RLI Faculty Member Kim Ploussard
Coloring In the Esteem Spectrum, by Laura Longmire
FEATURED PRODUCT: Now in Paperback, The New Rules of Marriage

RLI News and Staff Essays
NEWS: Staff and Champion Program Updates
RLI CHAMPION SPOTLIGHT:  Making Connections with Wendy Whelihan
ESSAY:  Creating a Circle of Health, by Susan M. Brady

Tips, Tools & Testimonials
CLIENT TESTIMONIAL: The Benefit of Boundaries
A USEFUL TOOL:  The RLI Relationship Grid
THERAPIST TESTIMONIAL:  Lisa Merlo-Booth Softens Our Edges

The man my husband refers to as "God" talks about what a long, strange trip it's been.  So far summer sure has been strange, but perhaps it's been a too-short trip - I can't believe it's already August, and here we are at our second (summer) issue of the Relational Lifeline!

We will always use this newsletter to let you know about the progress and activities of RLI (to model intimacy, maybe this counts as telling you about us?).  Susan does this below, and also tells you more about some of the great people we have working with the institute.  But also, as we stressed in the last issue, we really want both to create a resource to support everyone's personal practice of relational living, and to help create a relational community to further support your practice.

In this issue, we are focusing on The Relationship Grid, and the inner workings of it: self-esteem and boundaries.  Those of you who have already begun this practice know that these are essential pieces in/of changing your relationships - indeed, your life.  In fact, I've become convinced that the color and quality of my life are defined by my relationship with my self.  It's all relational - so even when I say "my life", it comes back to relationship.  (Spirituality is also an integral relationship here, but that's a tangent for a future issue - stay tuned.)  As for those of you who are new to relational living - fasten your seat belts and keep going! 

We have a feature on Lisa Merlo-Booth, our Director of Faculty, describing how RLT's boundaries and self-esteem have changed her life and her professional practice.  A few people have shown us courage, generosity, and vulnerability in sharing their own relational practices in this issue:  Maryann B. tells us about how she lovingly protects not only herself, but also her loved ones through her own work with boundaries.  Using The Relationship Grid as a tool, our own Susan Brady tells us how she reels herself in to temper herself.  RLI Champion Wendy Whelihan tells us what the model has meant to her.  And I've also shared a bit of my own experience.

You'll hear us speak to being humble and right-sized, knowing what's "ours" vs. "theirs", and responding in ways that are self- and other-loving.  As these personal experiences show, self-esteem and boundaries really are two sides of the same coin - you can't do one successfully without the other.  This is where the rubber hits the road, and the magic begins. 

Lovingly, and with you in practice,
Laura Longmire
laural@relationallife.com

Editors Note: You can read all about this tool and how Terry used it with a variety of clients in his book The New Rules of Marriage which is now available in paperback at the RLI bookstore.

Several years ago, I developed a tool for both mental health professionals and the general public that gives an accurate snapshot of where you are and where you need to go at any given moment. It is an easy way to help you practice coming “to center”, “down from grandiosity” or “up from shame” and likewise either pull your self in from being boundaryless or open up from being walled off.

With the grid in mind, you can do a mental freeze and ask yourself, “Where am I, and where do I need to go?” To use the grid, you first check your self-esteem: Do you feel deflated and shame-filled, or do you feel inflated and grandiose?

Next you check your boundaries, starting first with your containing boundary:  “Am I uncontained and letting too much out, or walled-off and letting nothing out?” Then check the protective part of your boundary:  “Am I too porous or not open enough?”

It is important not to over think your position when using the Relationship Grid.  Simply place yourself in the appropriate quadrant. The beauty of it is that once you know where you are it will instantly and unfailingly tell you where you need to go in order to come to center.

For example, if you are boundaryless and one-down, chances are that your predominant need is for more protection and solidity. Close your eyes or look down at the floor and in your mind’s eye, see the protective part of your boundary grow stronger; feel how it shields you. Let yourself relax within this circle of protection. You don’t have to steel yourself against emotional upset or attack because your boundary will do that for you.

Conversely, if you are boundaryless and one-up, and if you’re feeling like a big, angry victim, stop it!  Chances are that your predominant weakness will be containment. Strengthen the inside of the boundary. Feel it pressing in against you, like a hand on your stomach, sucking it in, reining you in. Do not offend from the victim position. It’s not warranted, it’s not attractive, and it’s not good for you.  Use the grid to help you come down into same-as, and let your boundary protect you from the stimulus you got yourself so upset about. Wait until you’re less reactive before thinking honestly and fairly, “Is there anything to this, or am I just ready to let it fly? Am I battling a caricature instead of seeing the life-sized issue in front of me?”

On the opposite side of the chart, are those who react by being walled off. If you are walled off and one-down, you feel de-energized and disillusioned. If you’re like a lot of people who adopt a walled-off, one-down position, you’re often passive. Perhaps you’re depressed or just resigned to what you’ve decided is your fate. You don’t want contact, or you don’t know how to make contact. You have a sense of failure before even beginning. It’s too difficult, too overwhelming, or just too ungratifying. You’d rather be left alone to comfort yourself as best you can with your usual distractions.  Perhaps you’re addicted to or dependent on some substance, process, or person outside of your primary relationship.

You must have courage to rouse yourself from limbo. The combination of shame and walls is hard to punch through. You have to make yourself start moving again, make yourself reengage. Your lethargy is like that horrible feeling of getting up in the morning when it’s still dark and making yourself get to the gym to work out. But that’s all it is. Your resistance is no more substantial and no more difficult to conquer than that. You fear real commitment – to a person, to work, or ambition, or everything. You fear you will fail. Far and away the most effective remedy for such fear is simple action and repetition. Don’t stall.

For someone in this position, “trying,” “understanding,” or “working on things” may be little more than sophisticated procrastination.

On the other hand, if you are walled off and one-up, you have to ask yourself, “What are you being so high and mighty about?” “Who are you kidding?” I want you to really see the way you walk around as if whomever you’re with isn’t good enough, isn’t quite worth your while. I want you to let in just how mean you are being. Yes, overtly shaming of others and mean.

Simply put, lose the attitude and connect with your partner (or child or parent or co-worker).  Bring yourself down from your superiority and out from behind those walls. Come back into engagement. You were dying in there in your empty fortress.

Coming to Center

Like many people, you may find that you reside mostly in one quadrant of the grid. You may also realize that in a former relationship your behavior was in another quadrant. Or you may feel that you skip around quite a bit from day to day, or even from minute to minute.

Here’s the deal on using the grid: Keep it simple.

If you are in a shame state, bring yourself up. If you’re being grandiose, bring yourself down. If you are boundaryless, pause and reset your boundary. If you are walled off, take a deep breath and get back into engagement.

That said, this does take practice; it also takes courage to look at yourself, recognize where you are and will yourself back to center. Like a beginner at anything, at first you will find this internal work stilted, arduous and largely ineffective. Press on! Wait until the first time someone says something provocative to you and you feel that whoosh against your psychological boundary bounce off. Or the first time you feel a hot wave of shame and, rather than feeling rotten for hours and hours about it, you can breathe your way back into center in a matter of a few minutes.

I look forward to your excitement the first time you don’t just intellectually understand but have the palpable experience that this technique really does work – that you can directly and powerfully impact your own state of mind.

Warmly,
Terry

REAL ADVICE

Harmony, Disharmony and Repair in Long-Term Relationships
By Kim Ploussard, LMCH and CRC

Editor’s Note: Ms. Ploussard is an RLI faculty member who contributes to Terry’s REAL Advice Blog. In this essagy, she helps readers explore the inevitable question: “Oh My God, who is this person I married?!?”.

Get Kim’s REAL Advice here…

ESSAY

Coloring In the Esteem Spectrum
By Laura Longmire

Though I didn’t have words to describe it before I met Terry, I’ve always been plagued by a lack of humility.  I’m far more familiar with the “not enough” end of the esteem spectrum.  I do, however, very much dabble in both the one-up and the one-down.  Knowing that is a great thing.  But even better is knowing what to do about it. 

Terry taught me initially how to stop myself from feeling less-than (not in one brilliant rite of passage, but over, and over again).  Honestly, the self-talk felt really dorky at first; I didn’t believe the “new” thoughts, and it just felt silly (I’m enough and I matter, I hold myself in warm regard despite X, reminding myself of the abundance in my life, etc.).  But it did seem to work, so I stuck with it. 

Today my practice is much more fluid.  I don’t know how much time I actually spend “same as” everyone around me.  Lots of times I have true affection and gratitude for the people and situations in my life.  But I also move around a lot – feeling at least a little above or beneath people around me. 

My first clue is usually how I want to behave.  If I want to hide or retreat, I’m feeling somehow less-than.  If I want to retaliate or sharply correct someone not asking for my input, I’ve gone one-up.  These pulls in myself are usually enough to alert me that I’m doing it, and I need to bring myself back to center.  A private spiritual connection or quick prayer also helps immensely.  (How does my God actually view me and the other people in this situation?  Surely not on the hierarchy I’ve defaulted to.)

But even if I can’t talk or pray myself into grace and humility, I also usually know enough to just behave myself or wait until later to take action.  A couple of times this week in fact, I’ve simply waited out an uncomfortable situation that triggered me.  In one instance I was working on reminding myself that someone else’s behavior was about them and not me (thank you boundaries – what they were saying about me genuinely was not true, and I didn’t deserve it).  I got a heartfelt apology that I might have cheated myself of had I retaliated in that heated moment.  Because I wasn’t all riled up in self-righteous indignation, I actually accepted the apology, and we moved on.

In another situation I finally reached out to someone else and softly and honestly expressed that I was uncomfortable and was hoping we could work our situation differently.  Because I behaved myself and was simple and not resentful, they were not threatened, and we saw that actually we both really wanted things to change in similar ways.  It turned out to be a very sweet, easy, and pretty intimate exchange. 

That’s the part I really love – I share myself today more than I ever have.  That’s another esteemable act.  When I was running around hiding my every move (because everything was evidence of my morbid flaws), I cheated myself of a great deal of love and connection.  That’s the best fuel for feeling good.  Now that I don’t believe I’m something to hide, I put myself out there.  I have fantastic friends, a sweet husband and a marriage where we really are ourselves (the better and the worse), and I’m pursuing the career I’ve always wanted and getting terrific feedback along the way.  The “dorky” self talk was a small price to pay.  My life has started to mirror my dreams.

FEATURED PRODUCT

Now in Paperback:  The New Rules of Marriage by Terry Real

Terry's latest bestseller is an invaluable guide on how to make a 21st century relationship work and is a must-read for therapists and clients alike. Now in paperback, it makes an affordable and portable resource for therapists to keep in stock for clients.

It also makes a great gift for yourself or for someone you care about.

Stock up today! Purchase the paperback edition at the RLI online bookstore by August 31 and receive 10% off. Just type in promo code: NRMP. 

RLI News & Staff Essays

NEWS: Staff and Champion Program Updates

By Susan M. Brady, RLI President

Hello!  I hope this newsletter finds you well and enjoying some summer respite (or looking forward to some). 

As our Editor Laura has highlighted, our goal is to make this newsletter a practical, helpful, and maybe even inspiring read for you. I will continue to keep you posted on the “business” of RLI and what we’re up to, but the primary purpose of this newsletter is to give you some tips and tools so that your personal practice of Relational Living can flourish. I thought I’d lead the way in this issue, and share with you the tool that I rely on these days to stay in relational practice.  (Read Susan’s Essay: The Circle of Health.)

NEWS UPDATES
The debuts for RLI in several cities around the country this year have gone very well, and we are looking ahead to a very busy fall. Check out our Calendar of Events where you can also register for programs.

INTRODUCING:  Adolescent & Young Adult Interventionist Joins RLI

Terry and I are very excited to welcome Elizabeth (Beth) McGuire onboard. Prior to joining RLI, Beth launched her own company EMW Consulting – specializing in interventions and treatment planning for young adults. Before starting EMW, Beth worked as a Community Residence Counselor with adolescents at McLean Hospital, in Massachusetts.  She is trained as a Dialectic Behavioral Therapy (DBT) Skills Coach through Behavioral Tech, Inc., is in the process of getting her certification in Terry Real’s Relational Life Therapy model (RLT™) and is a graduate of Boston College’s Graduate School of Social Work.

As RLI’s Adolescent & Young Adult Interventionist, Beth will provide independent intervention consultation for adolescents and young adults who struggle with substance abuse and/or psychological problems and assist families with education and therapy for appropriate individualized residential placement. Additionally, Beth will provide one-on-one counseling services for adolescents, young adults and their family members.

Read Beth’s Bio on our staff page. If you are a parent in need of help with a child, or a therapist looking to learn more about Beth’s services, please call us at 877-REAL-414. Beth would be happy to talk with you!

Champions UNITE!

While we have been working hard here at RLI headquarters, I want to highlight and acknowledge the power and impact that many of our RLI Champions have had on our success. In Denver, a group of champions lead by the great Dee Marcotte have joined me on several calls over the past few months to learn what we need to make Denver a successful community of practice, and to lend local wisdom on what to do and how best to use our resources. We have a terrific bunch of folks in Minneapolis/St. Paul that will be coming together under the leadership of Wendy Whelihan [Read Wendy’s “Champion Spotlight” below] to help us with the growth of RLI there. Pods of Champions have emerged in Boston, Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and elsewhere – and I want to say THANK YOU to those of you who have played a role with me in these early months of “launching” the Institute.

As Terry has said, this is a grassroots effort, and we are committed to creating communities of practice where people can create a life of Full Respect for themselves and with others. If you have not volunteered to be an RLI Champion in your local area, please consider doing so. There is no set amount of activity volunteers need to do to be a champion; any amount of time you give to “get the word out” and help guide us as WE get the word out is invaluable. Please e-mail me directly if you are interested in becoming a Champion. sbrady@relationallife.com

RLI CHAMPION SPOTLIGHT

Making Connections with Wendy Whelihan

RLI Champion Wendy Whelihan was first introduced to Terry’s work by a client who had read I Don't Want to Talk About It.  Because it was key to her client's understanding of what had happened in her recently-ended marriage, Wendy also read it and found it to be “the truest relationship book I'd ever read.”

When we asked Wendy why she has become so excited and involved in RLT and RLI, she said that her involvement with Terry’s model hinged on three things:  “The first is that this work is spiritually congruent with how I want to live my life, personally and professionally. The second is that the net gain of practicing RLT™ is that clients actually get better. Much better. The third reason is that I have fun practicing therapy this way.” 

At first just eager to spread the word, Wendy is now helping to build “a community of like-minded therapists who can support each other in developing better practices.” She reports that “connections are being built that extend beyond the four walls of each of our offices.”  Wendy goes on to share, “behind the four walls of my office, I feel lucky to be able to do work that literally changes how people treat each other in deep and sustained ways.  When I think about my own kids growing up, I can't help but be optimistic that maybe, if I practice what I preach, braving their way into intimate relationships will be just a little easier than it was for the generations before them.” 

Thanks Wendy!!  If you are interested in finding out more about the rewards and how-to’s of becoming an RLI Champion yourself, please contact RLI’s President Susan Brady.

ESSAY:  Creating a Circle of Health

By Susan M. Brady

I have found a virtual place that I strive to be on a moment-by-moment basis. This place has helped me to over-react less. This place has allowed me to turn IN towards those I love instead of walling off into the “safety of avoidance.” This place has kept me with my imaginary “palm up” as harsh words or critical thoughts or conflict come towards me, allowing me to at once protect myself from things that don’t feel true and to let in things that I need to change about myself (though this is painful at times). This is the place where I notice my experience of “appropriate shame” and where I throw myself an imaginary lifeline to fish myself out if I’m lingering in shame for too long. It is also this place where I lure myself down from basking in the glory of feeling “right” or self-righteous or “one-up.” It’s my “playground” for sanity.

Where is this place? It’s the CIRCLE OF HEALTH. For those of you who haven’t seen the latest iteration of the Relationship Grid™, we have added recently a VERY necessary and special element to the image: a circle which resides in the middle of the grid (at the intersection of the four quadrants) and allows for all of us to have a haven – a place to work towards on a hard day and live in or go back to on a good day where we can sustain our relational practice.

By neither being off the charts boundaryless, or overly walled off; by neither going into shame with thoughts of “not good enough’s” or up to grandiosity into the “better than’s” I get to feel the feeling of psychological health. Nothing I say or do in less skillful moments feels as GOOD as being in the CIRCLE of HEALTH.

The Circle of Health and the image of it in my mind is my version of practicing second consciousness. Of choosing “door b” and refraining from reacting as my adaptive child would. It’s my new definition of what it is to be a healthy adult. It is the lens through which I see life and monitor where I am emotionally and pick up on where others might be.

Terry has often said that Relational Living and Full Respect Living is a moment-by-moment practice. My moment-by-moment (imperfect) practice is focused on the Circle of Health. I invite you to find this same place for yourself. It feels really good to be there.

Tips, Tools & Testimonials

CLIENT Testimonial

The Benefit of Boundaries

RLI workshop client Maryann B. shares her story

Before I met Terry and learned about his work, I seemed to let everything in and everything out; no psychological filters.  Both my internal boundary, which I would learn to use to protect myself, and my external boundary, which I would learn to use to protect others, were weak at best.  I made myself crazy about every unkind word or act that came my way.  And when I was angry about what someone said or did (or didn’t say or do), I would let them know it in no uncertain terms.  I learned to throw my hurt and anger at others when I was a kid, and I got to be pretty good at it by the time I was an adult. 

The art of boundary practice has absolutely changed my life.  I will often still have thoughts and feelings about unkind words or acts that are directed my way but, most of the time, I do not feel wounded by others as I once did.  As a result, I no longer have a ferocious need to defend myself or to retaliate.  That’s not to say that the urge to lash out at someone whom I think has wronged me won’t start to sweep me away or that in a weak moment, I won’t consider or even go to some kind of retaliation.  But knowing as I do now that my angry responses can be abusive, I work hard to will myself into health.  Most of the time, I am able to stop, breathe, sit with the pain or discomfort of the situation, and move into the next moment without offending or abusing anyone with an angry response of my own.  From this second consciousness, as Terry calls it, I am better able to ask for what I want and need in a respectful and, as appropriate, loving way.  And when I can speak from a place other than anger, I am more likely to get what I want. 

I have come to learn that what others say and do is about them and their bad day, not about me.  A bad day for them is still a good day for me if I can be my best self independent of what is going on around me.  With the skills and understandings I have come to learn about boundary practice, I have been able to change my relationship to myself, my husband, my children, my parents, my sister, my friends, colleagues, and acquaintances-even strangers.  From my perspective, boundary practice is a liberating and spiritual experience.  It helps me to remember that the only things I can control are my words and actions.  And I know that by keeping myself accountable, I am doing my best, which is all any of us can really do.

Many therapists find, that the tool is also helpful as they begin to practice Relational Life Therapy, especially when dealing with a grandiose client.

Click on the graphic above or on this link to download your copy of Terry's Relationship Grid.  Use it as a tool in your life and your practice today so you can increase your personal skill at living a balanced, relational life.

THERAPIST TESTIMONIAL

Softening Our Edges

Laura Longmire Interviews Lisa Merlo-Booth

Editor's Note: I had the opportunity to interview Lisa Merlo-Booth about her work with Terry, and how she practices RLT. What follows is a brief summary of what I learned. 

Lisa Merlo-Booth met Terry about ten years ago in a supervision group that Terry was running.  After Lisa’s accompanying Terry to as many of his workshops as she could, it was obvious to Terry that she should be involved in training others to practice this model clinically.  Lisa is now RLI’s Director of Professional Development and Coaching.

Soon after Lisa and Terry met, she started personally using Pia Mellody’s self-esteem and boundaries work, which is central to RLT.  As a result, Lisa says she now understands herself better.  She learned that her way of coping with a challenge in a relationship was first to shut down, and then later to pop-out in passive-aggressive ways.  Today, Lisa is able instead to deal with issues as they occur, and in difficult moments to separate her own stuff (our “edges”, as she calls them) from the things that are actually about other people.  

Lisa started working with her self-esteem and boundaries because RLT holds that doing this work yourself is the best way to learn it, and then to teach it to others.  But she now knows, as a person using this model first-hand in her daily life, that this practice is also life-changing.  As a professional using this model, Lisa’s work with clients now goes deeper.  Because she remains empathic and relational, she can be more direct in addressing clients’ relational defects.  Because she’s honest about her own experiences, she also normalizes her clients’ experiences.  Lisa believes that staying relational with our clients, with anybody, absolutely requires that we know our own triggers and anti-relational reactions.  Our own edges will most definitely come up in therapy, and unless we do this work personally, including with clients during sessions, our own one-up or one-down approach will play out with clients.  Anyone using this model professionally is as effective in teaching it to clients as they are in practicing it personally.  

As someone who practices these principals, Lisa also uses her experiences to help clients understand that this is a process, and that as they practice themselves, they too will feel increasingly stronger, and get triggered less.  She shares her own challenges in still getting stuck occasionally, and how she handles it differently today - getting into less trouble, and getting out of it more quickly.  “We have to forgive ourselves that – this is a lifelong process.”  In other words, as a Relationship Coach using the RLT model, Lisa stays humble enough to admit her own issues.  That helps the work to be personal, and to stay relational.

Check out Lisa’s very busy BLOG http://lmerlobooth.typepad.com/. For more information on Lisa’s background, check out her faculty bio at http://www.terryreal.com/about_rrs/faculty.html

RLI Staff:
Terry Real, Founder, RLI

Susan Brady, President
& CEO, RRS

Tyler Horn,
Partner & Project Manager, RRS

Laura Longmire, Editor, Relational Lifeline Newsletter

Beth McGuire, Intervention Consultant and Family Therapist

Lisa Merlo-Booth,
Director of Faculty, RLI

Lisa Sullivan,
Director of Operations,
RRS