Dear Brooke,
The model has helped me shift my general thoughts these last weeks I’ve been in scholars. But I can’t get my arms around how to use it helpfully in more engrained dynamics. In particular I’m unclear about what I’ve heard you say about the T always proving the R. My example is a dynamic btw my husband and myself. My husband and I have three children, we’ve been married 16 years. He hyper focuses on things – leaving many organizational and planning tasks undone. I try and take them all on – often leading to overwhelm and frustration he is not doing them. This is a pattern we both recognize.It is not one that works really well for us. One main reason for me being in scholars is to do my part to change my part of this.. His company is going through a reorg. He has been understandably worried about his job. His job supports our family. He has not talked much about it, but has put his head somewhat in sand. Several people in his office were laid off. He has not been. He choose to spend all day at home yesterday working on our son’s pinewood derby car. When I asked why not at work he did not really respond. I fumed inside. My thought was “he should be at work, this is not the time to be avoiding work, this is when you dig in deeper”. He continued to focus on what I felt were distracting actives all day – taking son for hair cut, working on pinewood derby car (that the boy not father is supposed to complete). My thoughts are “you need to work harder, if you don’t work hard, you risk being next”, my thoughts were also more attacking ” you are putting us all at risk, don’t you see what you’re doing??”. This makes me worried, when leads to me nagging him passive aggressively and leads to us being on edge with each other and feeling badly. I’m unclear as to how the T prove the R here. I get that the thoughts are NOT helpful, but I don’t see the T/R relation. Thank you!!!