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Relationship issues can be one of the toughest things to work through in our life, whether that be family, friends, work colleagues, or even our partner. Knowing how to identify issues and find solutions fast is essential to preserving these relationships.

 

If you don't know anything about Root-Cause Therapy, then I will tell you a little bit about it now.

 

Root-Cause Therapy is a trauma healing method that uses regression to allow the completion of unprocessed emotions which are still presently causing unwanted thoughts, behaviours and symptoms in one's life.

 

With advanced ways of testing and discovering the actual causation of the currently presenting unease within oneself, we find the actual cause which could be reflecting itself through negative life patterns, thoughts and choices.

 

A qualified practitioner facilitates the client to tap into the self-healing mechanisms of the deeper parts of their mind in an empowering safe container, whilst still conscious and awake.

 

Assumptions and ‘theories’ are no longer necessary as we create a way for the mind and body to consciously access and reassess from a clearer perspective, whether this is in the past or negative projections into the future.

 

Each session with an RCT therapist is structured in such a way that they can help prioritise and work through life-long symptoms and past hurts in a gentle yet thorough way...

So when it comes to relationships, they are circumstances which we relate. 

 

Here is the definition of Relationships

relationship

rɪˈleɪʃ(ə)nʃɪp

noun

>the way in which two or more people or things are connected, or the state of being connected. 

>the state of being connected by blood or marriage.  

>an emotional and sexual association between two people.

and the last one

>the way in which two or more people or groups regard and behave towards each other.

 

and in Root-Cause Therapy, we believe that behaviours stem from safety or unsafety, or trauma or safety when it comes to specific building blocks as to how we should be and react in relationships from childhood imprinting (it can go back further into generational of course as well). 

 

How we behave towards each other ultimately affects the quality of the relationship, and the quality of the relationship ultimately affects how happy and safe we feel in our lives. 

>How to become aware of Negative Patterns (in ourselves and clients) and how to identify the root cause of Relationship Issues

 

Negative Behavioural patterns can be summarised simplistically into the following 4 categories;

C losed

O pen

P ush

P ull

 

Closed - This represents when we close our hearts, when we shut off. This often happens when we get hurt and a)don't know how to express our emotions or feel safe to show or express our emotions or b)we go into anger, self-blame and our nervous system shuts down and doesn't know what to do with the energy or pain. 

It can be a combination. This can be from what was witnessed in childhood, like seeing how our parents resolved (or didn't resolve) arguments or disagreements. Maybe we saw one parent shutdown. Or sometimes, as a trauma response, we do the opposite of what our parents did, so we decide that, because we didn't see healthy conflict, that conflict in any way is not good. So we do the opposite by closing off to avoid being 'bad' like our parents were growing up. This is just an assumption, with RCT we can really discover why which could be different for each individual. 

 

Open - When we are open to others, it's because we are open with ourselves. Essentially our heart is open. 

Whatever arises from the other, even in conflict, even if we are triggered, if we have built resilience and empathy enough for ourselves, then we can hold space for the others' grievances and comments or allegations (which may or may not be true). There is a spaciousness within ourselves and we can hold the other person's emotional charge as well. They can feel safe with us. 

For some of us, we were modelled on this and the relationship with our caregivers towards us, held a safe space when we wanted to argue, be emotional and overwhelmed. They taught us how to do this for others. 

For others of us that weren't so lucky, we got taught that being open, speaking our truth or expressing our emotions is unsafe. This lack of safety imprints that it's not safe in a relationship, my survival is at risk, our nervous system is activated and we can go into shutdown or attack. 

Also, if we were imprinted that we had to console another, say our parents growing up, otherwise, they would threaten our safety or made us feel scared or unloved, then we can almost open too much and take their emotions on and give all of our power and values away... to save them to make ourselves feel safe. There is an unbalance in this. 

 

Push - This can be defined as being pushy with our partner. It can come from control issues, which are rooted in fear. For example, you need to do this, you need to do that, generally trying to control their lives. Control issues may show up in other areas of their life, but noticing it in relationships is important as we wouldn't want to be controlled, or have been and didn't like it, so it's an important pattern to break.

One of the root causes of this may be, this is what we saw in terms of our parent's dynamics growing up, so we are unconsciously playing out the 'this is how you have a loving relationship' program

Or it could be from many deep-seated insecurities, and the fear of not having control of a partner (from past experience) or simply just the insecurities.

 

Pull - When I think of pull, I think of a planet with a strong magnetic field, wanting to pull in everyone and everything around them. The saying 'the world doesn't revolve around you'.

There is definitely a sense of being alone, of feeling unsafe without having people around to fulfil needs and desires. Of course, as a human we do need others to help fulfil needs and desires... but it becomes unhealthy when we always expect others to fulfil these for us. It's linked to a victim mentality, where all internal emotions are based on others' actions or inactions.

When in a conflict in a relationship, it is natural to want to protect oneself, but this 'pull' motion is more so like a fawn response, where we want them to come even closer and console us, no matter the issue to be resolved. It is, you could say, an immature or 'baby' response... 

Saying something like this sounds judgy, but it could literally be that someone has a lot of trauma in their formative years where they didn't get the attention that they needed (or on the flip side, overly responsive parenting, not giving the child autonomy so they could grow and mature).  This can also cause what's called 'enmeshment', where if the person reacts to issues in the household or relationship in a certain way, then everyone else needs to feel that way as well, or they will make sure that they will do so.

 

Now, I am not saying that one person is like this, or that you slot into this category. You, your client or someone you know may express all of these traits at different times. or show one more than the other. There is no right or wrong. The more that we can become aware, and start to shift by awareness, the better our relationships will get and the happier our lives and communities will be. 

 

I want to share something with you that I have noticed, from training hundreds of practitioners, conducting thousands of client sessions and also from my own journey in my relationship

EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE MENTIONED, WHEN WE "DO" THEM TO OUR PARTNER IN RESPONSE TO CONFLICT OR DISAGREEMENTS, WE ARE ACTUALLY DOING IT TO OURSELVES

 

OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH OURSELVES REFLECTS OUR RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHERS

 

ONE OF THE BEST QUOTES THAT I HEARD AROUND THIS IS 'ITS YOU VS YOU'

 

So for example, when a client shuts down from someone that they are in a relationship with when they shut down from the others, they also close off from themselves, they dismiss their inner voice.

>How to Shift a Relationship into a more Positive State 

 

Now sometimes we have to, as we think terrible things and irrational thoughts when we are emotionally charged (drop an emoji if you have been there) and that is totally fair enough. and I will go into a few little tools in a moment that can be used outside of therapy.

 

So 1. Notice when conflict comes up, which one from the COPP acronym is showing up most predominantly

 

2.   What could be the root cause of that? Is it something that I witnessed growing up? Is it something that I have learnt from a past relationship?

 

3.   What do I need to do (usually the opposite of what you are doing). Do I have an inner child that needs tending too? How can I show up for myself? Is there a strong emotion propelling these thoughts? Can I breathe through the emotions? How can I regulate my nervous system to calm myself? 

 

4.   What would the happiest, older and wiser version of me do? The one that is in an incredible and happy and mutually respectful relationship, what would they do? Close your eyes and picture, feel, see and ask them. Embody that version of you. (give my own example).

 

5.   If the behaviours are a pattern and they keep on repeating, then add it to the list of what you want to work on with your RCT therapists.

If you are watching/reading this and you're not a practitioner, but you are looking for guidance on how to heal your own relationship, I will drop our Practitioner Directory here so you can take a look for someone. If you do decide to ever do the Certification training, then you can essentially get free sessions with a practice buddy in the community.

 

>If you are a Practitioner of some sort, you will learn how to assist clients to heal Generational and Childhood Trauma that could be the causation using the Root-Cause Therapy framework.

 

For those of you that are watching and want to be RCT therapists or are RCT therapists, I will take you through what this would look like in session, either working with someone individually or as a couple.

 

If you are working with a couple, then you could use the following assessments to determine how each person operates and then essentially translate to one other what they are like in terms of being in a relationship and how they handle conflict.

 

Here are some that you can use, either before the session or in-between sessions;

- The 5 love languages quiz words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time and physical touch

- Attachment Styles: secure, anxious-avoidant, anxious and fearful-avoidant (all linked to how was nurtured with their main caregiver)

- COPP reactions 

 

Now, this isn't to encourage the 'this is how I am so just deal with it' kind of thing. We are in relationships to grow, and we also work out relational trauma from childhood in our relationships in adulthood.

 

Some people may have been in abusive or controlling relationships in the past, so their nervous system is often activated by even the smallest triggers.

 

All of these, if we are willing to be vulnerable and open, can be worked through. Either at the time of conflict or immediately after. If not then we can suppress and build up emotions, stories and resentments, This can cause a resentful undercurrent in a relationship...  it lurks under the surface of the relationship and if it doesn't get to completion/resolution and people have not expressed how they feel... then it builds up internally. This is why people end up exploding, doing hurtful things to each other or end up breaking up. Because they cannot handle the build-up of how the conflict makes them feel anymore, they reject the other because they are trying to find a way out of the built-up pain. 

 

When we come back to what I said earlier, it's you vs you. So what happened to you when you were a dependant isn't your fault, but as an adult, it's up to you to start becoming self-aware, self leading and own some responsibility for the patterns and for your healing to continue to become or peel back the armour to become a more loving, open, a person with good boundaries, self-love and high integrity. 

 

Your relationships highly impact your relationship with yourself, and your relationship with yourself determines who and what you allow to be close to you and how you are treated. 

 

Now the RCT Framework. So using the Testing Sheet to help you to best guide the session, we firstly go through the intention (either for one or both of the parties, for RCT sessions, they must be done privately and separately).

 

The intention may be to stop getting into toxic relationships, it may be to improve their current relationship (or how they feel in a relationship) or maybe they need healing post-breakup. 

 

Then we go through and check any past experiences that they may be consciously or subconsciously holding onto still from the past. This can go back as young as childhood. You should also have some of their history and information on upbringing to help you see any repeating patterns from childhood or generationally that you can help them bring to light. 

 

Then we get feedback on all areas of their lives, we tend to compartmentalise our life, but each part affects the other, like cogs in a wheel, so we get feedback from the clients themselves and how they feel about each area of their lives... we are never making assumptions, judgements or giving this feedback on a clients reality.. we are merely there to help them heal themselves and give them clarity on their life. So we get their perspective on how they are feeling about each area, and we may highlight and discuss any that deep 'low' or high'.

 

Then we look at behaviours and thoughts, surrounding the relationship that can be monitored. AGAIN this is their own journey and perspective. We would work with each couple individually. Just like in real life, in a healthy relationship, we would have our own lives, but some aspects overlap. 

 

I myself have had a lot of failed relationships, but my current relationship, which has lasted 6 years, has been the most successful, even though we live and work and raise a child together because we see our journeys as individuals, that overlap.

 

I will discuss at the end an example of how, as an RCT Practitioner, you can structure these sessions in a way that honours the individual and also the dynamic of the relationship. 

 

So the next part is the future, if you have read my book 'The Natural High' then I have an example in there of a client who sabotaged his relationship due to the 'negative' unconscious goal in his future.  You can get a copy here or online where you normally purchase your books. 

 

Then we look at the physical. A common pattern that I see with this is people who have been in relationships where they haven't felt safe to express themselves, tend to suppress a lot of emotions and I see it coming out as physical ailments and issues like cancer even years after the relationship and having left. What I see is a lot of people's physical issues naturally heal indirectly when we heal their emotional pain and trauma. You can work on these directly, kind of like reverse engineering, or you can help the client work through their repressed emotional pain and it often naturally improves any health issues and pain. 

 

Okay so in the next part, we want to check which limiting beliefs someone has. I am going to just read out a few from the main list which could be contributing to relationship issues.

• I am alone
• I am not good enough
• I am not worthy of love
• I fear conflict

 

When we get into relationships, some of them could be a passing relationship that matches the wounds that we need to heal, and some are meant to be our soul mates and truly care and show that they care about us, we can feel safe with them.

 

When we start to heal these core wounds, then sometimes a relationship ends because it was actually a trauma bond. A trauma bond is someone else that our wounds feel attracted to because they are unresolved, our unconscious mind seeks out someone to replay our unresolved issues in an effort to finally heal them. 

 

Then we have here on the EXTRA LIMITING BELIEF SHEET, now these are specifically for relationship issues. Some of the beliefs are more specific here to deal with relationship issues;
- I am always betrayed
- Love is meant to be painful etc

 

We check these with the clients through their subconscious using applied kinesiology. We are guiding the clients to do this themselves, so we don't need to physically touch them and the sessions can be delivered in person or online. 

 

Then we get to the healing part, so the healing part is something that we obviously teach in-depth in the training itself. The Certification training, where you also get to experience and give sessions in the student community, is currently on sale for PIF or there is a payment plan as well.
>>>Here is the link if you would like to take a look at that and grab it at the reduced price.<<<

So in the healing part, we are slightly relaxing the client to be able to access the memory database of the mind. We are helping the client to heal themselves and asking their UCM where the root cause is. If there are any students here you can probably attest that it's incredible what can come through. Some memories people are aware of, as they get flashbacks or PTSD about certain events, some were totally UC but verifiable... people have gone back to 1 year old, in the womb hearing their parents arguments in their relationships, a child being scared and hiding because their parents are fighting. These can be the causes of having fear of conflict, fear of speaking their truth, or creating chaos in a relationship because that is their 'blueprint' for love. 

 

Essentially, what we are doing in healing is helping the completion of the emotion that wasn't completed, expressed and was suppressed, along with the information, creating a belief system or structure that impacts a person, how they behave and see and interact with the world.

 

Each time you do a healing on someone in this way, you are releasing them from the weight of decades of negative self-talk, pain, and unhelpful patterns.

 

One of the most powerful things about RCT is that it can heal in particular PTSD unbelievably well, without having to take a client to each and every painful/traumatic event. You ask permission to go to the root cause, their mind and body determine firstly if it's safe to do so, and then take you to the root cause that they can handle without it being overwhelming or unsafe from a trauma healing perspective. As you help them release and resolve the original event or trauma, any linked or similar events get cleared in the later part of the healing process (not including the 'healing hangover' which someone may experience in the days after the session as the neurological pathways and emotions continue to leave the body, sometimes from childhood).

 

The outcomes for clients are incredible. They feel lighter, more connected with themselves, brain fog lifts, memory improves... any symptoms that trauma can cause start to release from the client and they get a new lease on life/... feeling lighter and clearer. 

 

The ideal amount of sessions, depending on the history, we found from our addiction and mental health clinic in Melbourne is around 6-8 sessions. 

 

For a couple we would recommend seeing them together for the intake, then individual sessions every 2 weeks each, as you don't want them to be emotionally sensitive together, so it's good to space it out. Then you want to bring them back together in the middle and at the end, just as a touching base, how the dynamic and behaviours are going and then the final one to see how they are going to move forward. 

 

 

Here is the link again, the discount ends soon so jump in now. It is all self-paced, internationally recognised with the ability to ask questions under each lesson. We have an amazing and supportive student community and we include business training and how to create your own signature program using the RCT framework. 

CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE ROOT-CAUSE THERAPY PRACTITIONER TRAINING AND ENROL

 

We do offer a Practitioner bundle as well, I will link that here if you're interested - Learn what the difference is between Root-Cause Therapy and Embodied Processing and learn about the New Practitioner Bundle Option