Knowing Your Autobiography and Be Willing to Rewrite it

Why have an exercise that includes knowing your autobiography and being willing to rewrite it?

Dr Daniel Hughes in his book “8 Keys to building Your Best Relationships” writes:
“…events that occurs in your past have a major impact on your relationship patterns, and if you want to change these patterns in any way, it is helpful to understand what sorts of effects these past events have had on your perceptions, wishes, and behavior when it comes to your relationships. Furthermore, while past events cannot be changed, there is every reason to believe that the impact of the events on your current relationships can change.” (Page 22)

In the Gottman-Rapport Conflict management assessment they talk about the “Assumption of Similarity”. In a nutshell, they talk about how we project our assumptions of how to relate, where we come from etc. onto our partner. This leads, many times, to misunderstanding. Becoming one means that we explore and are curious about our partner’s upbringing, learning how they were influenced by their family of origin. And as we explore and listen to each other, we then discern how our past is still our present as well as how we want to assimilate the best of the best of where we came from.

So here are the 10 areas Daniel Hughes encourages us to explore:

1. Sharing Positive Emotions: Did members of your family express love and affection openly with hugs and kisses, words and terms of endearment? Did you share your joys and accomplishments with one another and were these met with pleasure and affirmations in return?
2. Sharing Vulnerable Emotions: Did you and the members of your family feel comfortable telling one another about fears, disappointment, failures, and unhappiness that were experienced? Was it OK to cry and to seek comfort? When you shared your distress, did you receive mostly emotional support or practice advice?
3. Expressing Anger: Was there a place for anger in your family, both in the general atmosphere and in disputes between individuals? Was there a way to express anger toward your parents or were all expressions of anger thought to be disrespectful? Did your parents usually express anger when they disciplined you? Were your parents often angry at each other, and if so, how was the anger expressed and did it result in a resolution of arguments? If they seldom or never expressed anger toward each other, how do you think that affected their relationship? How did their expression of anger influence your expressions of anger?
4. Resolving Conflicts: After family conflicts, was there any effort to acknowledge the conflict and repair the relationship? Was the conflict dwelled on and reenacted endlessly? Was the conflict denied as if it had never happened? Did conflict lead to a reduction of the problem or an Increase in the problem or did they have no effect on the problem? How do you replicate this dynamic now?
5. Expressing Differences? Are variations and differences in thoughts feelings, intentions, accepted and even encouraged or were they seen as being wrong and unacceptable? Di you believe that you had to keep many of your thoughts and feelings plans secret, out of fear that your parents would be critical and rejecting? How does this dynamic play out now in your relationship with your parnter?
6. Setting Limits and proving Discipline? Do you recall discipline as being harsh, permissive, or moderate? Did it relate to your behaviors only or also your thoughts and feelings? Did it consist in relationship withdrawal? Corporal punishment? What were you discipline for most? How does this dynamic play in your relationship with your partner and with your nuclear family?
7. Being Close or Distant: Were your parents routinely available to assist you when you were struggling, to listen to you when you wanted to share an experience, or to just have fun together with you? Would you describe your parents as being available, sensitive, and responsive? Were they unpredictable in their responsiveness for reasons often unknown to you or having nothing to do with you? Were they predictable in their lack of availability or emotional responsiveness to you? Would you describe your family as having been warm, cold, or somewhere in between? How does this dynamic play out now in your relationship with your partner? Your family?
8. Handling Loss? Did you experience any losses in the family during your chlldhood or adolescence? Were there any deaths? Was there separation? Or Divorce? Were these events addressed openly? Did you receive support in dealing with them? How does this theme of handling loss play out in your relationship with your partner?
9. Managing Traumatic Events: Were there any events that you would consider to have been traumatic (highly stressful)? Were these caused by your parents or other important adults? How do you manage such an event at the time? Did your parents or other important adults assist you in dealing with it? How does this theme/dynamic affect you now personally? In your relationship with your partner?
10. Having important relationships with Other Adults? Were there Adults in your life outside of your immediate family who cared for you for significant periods of time? Were there adult you spent time with, learned from, and felt valued by and who helped you feel good about yourself and your life? Did these relationship enable to change the meaning of your relationship with your parents in any way?

Hughes, Daniel A. 8 Keys to Building Your Best Relationships. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 2013

Hughes ends this chapter by writing:
“We often are told to let sleeping dogs lie or that the past is the past. My response to the first is, Sleeping Dogs may well awaken at the most inopportune moments. Better to wake the dog when you’re in a position to care for it and tame it. And to the second I would say, If the past were to stay in the past we would not have to take notice of it….We cannot change the events of the past but we can change the meanings we give to them”
P. 35