Decreasing Emotional Reactivity

Decreasing Emotional Reactivity by Jeff ZimmermanAfter a marriage fails, it is very easy to be emotionally reactive when interacting with a former spouse. 

Emotional hurts (both old and new), disappointments, unmet expectations, sensitivity to facial expressions, tones of voice, and even certain words or phrases can take on a lot of meaning — flooding one or both parents with strong feelings and causing lots of emotional reactivity.

Emotional reactivity clouds logic. If we view parents as co-pilots in the family’s airplane, an emotionally reactive pilot is frightening for all passengers.

While former spouses cannot control one another, they can instead spend their efforts working on their own emotional responses by:

  1. Recognizing they have nothing to prove to the other parent: Let go of the burden of trying to prove that you are a good parent. The other person’s judgments do not define you and should not influence your sense of well-being and worth.
  2. Listening and evaluating an idea: If the other parent has something of value to contribute, try to evaluate it first rather than fight it. Not everything is a threat. Perhaps the idea is a good one.
  3. Letting go: Let go of blame, grudges, defensiveness, etc. This will allow you to be more dispassionate and focus on making good decisions about the children.
  4. Being even-keeled: People often say that the opposite of love is hate. But hate is love turned inside-out — a negative, intense emotion as opposed to a positive one. By eliminating the negative intensity in yourself you can stay even-keeled. Then, all that is left to figure out is how to best support the children.

Getting control over one’s own emotional response can at least keep one of the family’s co-pilots thinking clearly.

Meditative and other types of relaxation skills truly help to decrease emotional reactivity by quieting the body and the mind. Our newly released book, Loving Your Children More than You Hate Each Other,  examines these skills in tremendous detail to help former spouses be the best possible parent they can be.

Contact us with questions.

My Divorce Recovery

Jeffrey Zimmerman, Ph.D., ABPP
JeffZimmermanPhD@MyDivorceRecovery.com
212-485-0033

Lauren Behrman, Ph.D.
LaurenBehrmanPhD@MyDivorceRecovery.com
212-799-7921