Getting Triggered in a Group

Getting Triggered in a Group: A Powerful Portal to Self-Knowledge

Getting triggered in a group can be an unforgettable experience—unforgettably uncomfortable–because in a group, there may be people you don’t know very well or people you don’t trust…and there may be a lot of them! All these people have just witnessed you losing it. This can offer the opportunity to work with things like shame, embarrassment, conformity pressure, scapegoating, feeling left out, feeling judged, social anxiety, and fear of being different.

Triggering that occurs in a group setting can be especially powerful (and hard to manage) if your early wounding occurred in a dysfunctional family setting or an unfortunate school social experience in grade school or high school. Adult groups often mirror some of the dynamics of your early family, school, or peer group experiences. This is because we get conditioned, or “trained,” to behave in particular ways or take on particular group roles in these settings. And now that we’re adults in an adult peer group, we may unconsciously revert to the same group role we played in our childhood family, in school, or on the playground. Your role in your early family might have been the black sheep, the golden child, the protector, daddy’s girl, momma’s boy, the identified patient or family scapegoat, mother’s helper, the rescuer, the sickly one, the rebel, or the parentified child.

Relationships with Authority

I like to remind people that we all started out little and dependent in a world of big people. These people were the authorities—parents, grandparents, teachers, clergy, coaches. Pause now to remember the big people who influenced you as a child. Were they fair? Did they cope well with their own emotions? Did you trust them? How did you feel about yourself in their presence? Did they give good guidance? Did you feel acknowledged and valued by them? Did any of them use you or abuse you? Keep these things in mind as you read this section on leadership and authority. And remember, groups, like individuals, have both conscious and unconscious motives and behaviors. The way a group behaves with respect to leadership or authority is often confusing—because most people are not aware of what we might call “the group unconscious.”

No matter what the setting of the group, whether it is a work group, a learning group, a social group, a support group, or a stranger group, someone has to take leadership to keep things on track. This could be a designated group leader, facilitator, teacher, or boss. Or in less formal groups, it could be anyone who knows how to lead or take initiative. Once a leader is identified in a group (even an informal leader), this person now becomes a projection screen. Some members will give away their power to this person. Others will try to wrest power away from this person. Members may become very vigilant about what this person rewards and what she punishes or ignores. They may hold the leader to an unrealistically high standard. Attitudes toward a group leader (including a non-leader who takes initiative) will vary—depending on what that person triggers in you. And this may have a lot more to do with your triggers than with the leader’s skill or personality.

Recall a Triggering Event

You have just spent some time reflecting on your early relations with people in authority roles. Now, with this in mind, see if you can recall an adult group experience where you got triggered by the leader or a group member. Remember, if you were feeling critical or judgmental, this can be a sign that you are triggered. Can you bring back the memory of this incident? What was the triggering event or stimulus? What was your reactive feeling, body sensation, and story? Did you have an overt reaction—one that other group members could observe? As you recall all this, going slowly through this memory, how do you feel now as you replay the scene in your mind with your observing self actively witnessing? Be with this for a while. Notice if your triggered self was worried about how you were being seen or whether you were being judged. Was your triggered self more concerned about other group members’ opinions or the leader’s? As you go back to the thoughts you were having during this triggering episode, did you blame anyone? Did you expect the leader to do more to protect you?

Expecting that the leader should have protected you (based on a fear of being unprotected) is an extremely common trigger. This may not even be what triggered you in the first place, but when you get one of your other core fears triggered in a group, then you get to witness an additional layer of your trigger signature—feeling let down, betrayed, disappointed by the person who was supposed to take care of you. If you recognize this as one of your triggers, pause now to acknowledge that you carry some vulnerability around being let down by someone in authority. See if you can feel empathy for the part of you who sometimes feels unprotected or not taken care of. If you expand your breathing to make space for this, maybe an old memory will surface. But don’t work too hard to get a memory. A memory will arise if your system is ready for it. Trust your own inner rhythm of zooming in (to see the memory up close), or zooming out (to view the memory from a distance) as you connect with old memories. What does this memory show you about your predisposition to feel safe vs. unsafe?

Another Common Scenario

It often occurs that reactivity will go on for a while in a group, and most of the group members might be triggered without necessarily being conscious of it. Witnessing two other group members in a conflict can be triggering to the whole group because members become sort of “wired together,” similar to how it is with couples. The group has a shared reality and a shared destiny, and its functionality affects everyone. If two group members (or sub-groups) are at odds, this affect everyone’s ability to get their needs met. The same is true of a couple system, a family system, an organizational system, a governance system, and even a planetary system. Keep this in mind so you can become a more astute observer and responsible participant in the systems you belong to.

Tips and Suggestions

It is impossible to be prepared for every possible group situation, but here are a few more suggestions: If you’re just beginning to get uncomfortable, and you’re not yet triggered, you can slow things down by saying, “I need a few minutes to think about that.” If you are triggered, and you don’t want to disrupt the group, you might say, “I’m taking a brief break, but I’ll be back.” If you need someone to quickly back off and they have no sophistication regarding the concept of triggers or the idea of pausing, you may need to say something stronger like, “I’m so upset right now I can’t hear what you’re saying….I need a break to calm myself down.” In all these examples, because the speaker is taking responsibility for their experience and not blaming anyone, it is likely that these statements will be met with acceptance.

Self-Inquiry in Groups

In most groups, the whole group is not going to stop what it’s doing while you process your personal trigger reaction. The important thing is that you recognize you have been triggered (because you know your trigger signature, and you know the additional behavior patterns you have with respect to groups). When you notice some aspect of your trigger signature, silently begin your pause practice, followed by being with your feelings as you hold a compassionate space. Support this with conscious, deep breathing. In a group you might not be able to do much, if any, self-inquiry. You may need to put that on hold until you get home and are in a safe and quiet location. So, when you do get home (or to a quiet place) after being triggered in a meeting or group, come back to being with your tender feelings. Take some time attending to your feelings. This does not mean you should crank up these feelings or intensify them. Simply allow them, and watch them change, flow, expand, contract, or get stuck somewhere. Don’t worry if you don’t experience resolution or closure. Just being with yourself like this is valuable in itself.

Further Resources

This article is an excerpt from my new book, From Triggered to Tranquil. The book deals with many aspects of the human condition, culled from my 55-year career listening to peoples’ intimate concerns. Besides being a great read, it is also a self-paced self-healing guide to help you be a better human.

How to Get Your Copy
Order it now from any bookseller. Here is a link to some reviews of the book and ordering information: http://www.susancampbell.com/products/books/Triggered_to_Tranquil.htm.

Upcoming Events

Hear Free Interviews with Nine Relationship Experts 
My friend and colleague, positive psychology practitioner and coach Anne Nelson, specializes in guiding couples to strengthen intimacy by being their authentic selves.

She’s hosting a complimentary interview series about Making Your Marriage Fulfilling by Being Who You Are. It starts November 6, and it brings together 9 experts (including me) on cultivating connection, intimacy, and fun in your marriage).
Sign up here to join us at no cost:   https://fullythriving.com/Susan

Getting Real: The Power of Conscious Communication  
A weekend in-person workshop with Susan Campbell

May 7-8, 2022  10am-5pm both days (yes, 2022. I am only doing one in-person workshop per year now)

Cost: $350

“You can only be as honest as you are self-aware.”

GETTING REAL teaches 10 truth skills that make you a more present, aware, spontaneous, authentic communicator. Most people have fears and insecurities which interfere with being fully present and honest. These insecurities can be healed. If you learn to put your attention on your here-now experience, rather than trying to control the outcome of your communications, you discover the real source of personal power, love, and inner security.

In this workshop, you will learn how to:

•   communicate with presence, authenticity, and spontaneity (even when you feel fear about it)

•   be aware of how you impact others

•   clear the air and keep it clear

•   repair rifts in trust and connection after a misunderstanding

•   keep your present relationships free of accumulated unfinished business

•   come back to being present after your fear-buttons have gotten pushed

•   communicate from the deepest parts of yourself—so you can be truly heard and accepted

•   notice and free yourself of all the ways you “go on automatic” as you communicate or listen

•   replace these “control patterns” with honest, spontaneous self-expression

•   recognize all the various disguises that mask the “need to control”

•   ask for what you want without being controlling

•   say “no” or mark your boundaries with compassion and sensitivity

•   embrace and value the silences in human communication

•   heal past trauma and unprocessed pain

•   communicate about difficult topics in ways that foster deep intimacy and trust

The workshop is intended for people who want to join with like-minded others to explore honesty as a spiritual awareness practice, getting to the essential self that is beyond conditioned fears, beliefs, and control patterns. Emphasis will be on developing communication skills and relationship practices that you can take home and integrate into your daily life.

Cost: $350

Time/date: May 7-8, 2022 (Sat-Sun), 10am-5pm both days

Location: Sebastopol, CA, one hour north of San Francisco (directions to follow registration)

REGISTER NOW: Call Susan’s landline, (707) 829-3646 or email: drsusan@susancampbell.com

Led by: Psychologist Susan Campbell has worked as a relationship coach for over 50 years. A former professor at the University of Massachusetts, she is author of 11 books on relationships and communication. Her website is www.susancampbell.com

Coaching Skills Webinar: Doing Parts Work in Coaching (via Zoom) A 4-week webinar training for new and experienced coaches 

Time: 4 consecutive Thursdays in January and February, 2022, beginning January 20, 11am-12:30 pm PDT (2-3:30pm Eastern time) and ending February 10.

Cost: $200 (visa, paypal, venmo, transferwise, and mastercard accepted)

To register or get more info, call or email Susan at (707) 829-3646 or drsusan@susancampbell.com

Content/Goals:
You will learn and practice how to use various types of parts work, for your own growth and in your work with clients, such as:
-top dog/under dog (from Gestalt Therapy)
-empty chair work (from Gestalt)
-dreamwork (from Gestalt)
-The Committee (from Virginia Satir)
-your inner family (from psychodrama)
-wish and fear as two sides of a coin
-giving voice to various parts of your body or various emotions (from Gestalt)

You will be given homework assignments to practice with a homework buddy on a separate zoom or phone call during the week.  This will require an additional hour per week of your time.

All sessions will be recorded and archived on the web, so you can re-listen to them if you have to miss a session.

Honesty Salon in Webinar Format 

Beginning November 10, I will offer a six-session Honesty Salon in webinar format (zoom). It is scheduled for 6 consecutive Wednesdays, noon-1:15 pm Pacific time, and ending December 15. This offering is full, but contact me at the email address below if you want to get on the waiting list in case someone drops out.

Cost is $200 for the 6 sessions. An Honesty Salon is a small group experience where we practice the 10 Truth Skills with one another, sharing whatever arises in the present moment. We use a set of simple communication guidelines that assist us in un-hooking from identification with mind chatter and being innocently open to whatever arises.

Between sessions, participants will have the option of meeting in dyads or triads to de-brief and do practice exercises. All sessions will be recorded and archived on a private page, so if you miss a session, the recording will be available to you.

To register or get more information, email me at drsusan@susancampbell.com  If you are interested in this offering, and the announced  time is not convenient, I may be able to change the time.  So please contact me about that at the email address above.

Practicing Compassionate Self-Inquiry–Recording Now Available on You Tube

The recording of my recent talk for The Stoa, titled Practicing Compassionate Self-Inquiry, is now available on You Tube. I guide the group in how to “be with” our upset emotions as a way to heal our fear of emotional pain–so we can cope more effectively and compassionately with “the normal pains of adult relationships.” The link to this one-hour program is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fjbkg90WkgM

Free Monthly Group Coaching Session on Zoom–November 2 at 10am Pacific Time

Subject: Culture Wars and Covid: To Vax or Not to Vax

I have resumed my free monthly group coaching sessions. From now on, I will be sending out a link in my monthly newsletter for these calls which will happen on the first Tuesday of each monthat 10am Pacific time. In these calls, I generally present an idea or a practice and then work with a few volunteers, followed by group sharing and Q and Sometimes I will start with the Q and A part, or with check-ins, and offer what I have in response to what is coming up for people. This month I plan to facilitate a discussion and practice around the topic of “our polarized positions re vaccines and mask-wearing.” We focused on this same topic last month, and the discussion was very rich. I led some group practices to help participants get “from triggered to tranquil” (the title of my new book). I plan to do that again. Here is the You Tube link to last month’s webinar titled, Culture Wars and Covid: To Vax or Not to Vax: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYAKtg9BAX8&t=1698s

Check this monthly newsletter for a new link each time. I generally send the newsletter out a few days before the first Tuesday of the month. On rare occasion, I may change the time of the free First Tuesday webinar, so check the announced time each month.

Below is the link and phone-in information for Tuesday November 2, 2021 at 10am. These sessions will be recorded and posted publicly on my You Tube channel. If you subscribe to me on You Tube (drsusan95472), you will be notified when these recordings appear.

susancampbell99@gmail.com is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: susancampbell99@gmail.com‘s Zoom Meeting
Time: Tuesday, Oct 5, 10-11am Pacific US time

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/6627890203?pwd=YTRVOHpaTEY3TkgvOFJoeU1CdmptQT09

Meeting ID: 662 789 0203
Passcode: 4373
One tap mobile
+16699006833,,6627890203#,,,,*4373# US (San Jose)
+13462487799,,6627890203#,,,,*4373# US (Houston)

Dial by your location
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+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
Meeting ID: 662 789 0203
Passcode: 4373
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kekA6kAy2e

Video Available of My 80th Birthday Party

If you attended my 80th birthday celebration on zoom in July, thank you so much! I said I would post the link for the video for those who missed it. The “party” was me answering questions about my life–on such topics as my spiritual mentors, my sexuality, the early childhood experiences that shaped me, finding my calling, how it feels to be 80, and much more. Here is the link to the You Tube recording of this fun and interesting 90-minute event attended by over 100 people.
https://youtu.be/b2AodrJx9cA

The 10 Truth Skills You Need to Live Authentically

Here is a summary of the 10 truth skills detailed in the book, Getting Real. For those of you familiar with my latest book, Five-Minute Relationship Repair, you may see that that entire book is about truth skill #6, Taking Back Projections. This is such a complex and often difficult-to-master truth skill. So I thought it deserved a whole book. 

Now here’s the list:

1. Experiencing what is  You have a felt body-based sense of your present feelings and sensations. You can notice and not identify with your judgments, projections, and interpretations.

2. Being transparent  You can disclose to others what you are feeling, sensing, imagining, or saying to yourself—with the simple aim of “knowing and being known,” free of the need to explain or defend.

3. Knowing your intent  You can consciously reflect on the intent of your communication. Is it to relate or to control? Are you revealing yourself in the interest of transparency or are you managing and strategizing in order to avoid discomfort?

4. Asserting what you want and don’t want  You can express a desire clearly and impactfully, without expecting to get everything you ask for. You mark boundaries when you need to.

5. Thriving on feedback  You are open and curious about others’ impressions and reactions to you.  This is different from being dependent on others’ reactions.

6. Taking back projections  You know how to learn from situations where your buttons or “favorite fears” get triggered. You can differentiate your fear-stories from what really happened.

7. Revising an earlier statement  You can re-visit an interaction if your feelings change or if you discover later that you have mis-spoken or were on automatic. You can say, “If I had it to do over….”

8. Holding differences  You can hear and empathize with someone else’s feeling or viewpoint while at the same time holding a different feeling or viewpoint. You can “be with” the tension of holding both in your awareness at once.

9. Sharing mixed emotions  You can communicate your multiple feelings about an issue or situation, e.g. You may wish to clear the air with someone while also fearing that your words might feel hurtful to the other.

10. Embracing silence  You can allow some space after you have spoken. You do not fill in the space with explanation or justification. You can experience the nonverbal emanations in the silences during a conversation.  You can tolerate uncertainty, ambiguity, not knowing.

Practicing these skills brings you to a deep and abiding sense of serenity, presence, and compassion. These three words that describe the qualities that we begin to embody when we practice Getting Real.

Dishonesty As A Trauma Response

Dishonesty as a Trauma Response

In my new book, From Triggered to Tranquil, I help people notice when subtle trauma responses are interfering with their ability to be present to themselves and communicate authentically with others. This morning, as I write this, I am playing with the idea that “dishonesty is a trauma response.” Here’s why I say this:

First, let me explain how I define dishonesty in this context—the context of human relating where communicating feelings and needs, listening with an open mind, asking for what you want, and marking boundaries, are essential ingredients for honest communication. As I often say, “You can only be as honest as you are self-aware.” You can’t be honest when your truth is unavailable to yourself because you are in a freeze reaction. And you aren’t being honest when you know your feelings and wants but do not feel safe to reveal them or to reveal that you do not feel safe (perhaps because you are seeing the other person, or the social situation, as a threat). Obviously, these are not situations where you are being intentionally dishonest. And there is a deeper, but unconscious, “honesty” at work in these survival reactions, as well—the organism’s honest attempt to survive, to protect oneself from perceived or imagined danger. I show in the book how most of the dangers that trigger us these days are interpersonal dangers….things like the danger of feeling disconnected from someone who is important to us, or the danger of a challenge to our self-image or our power.

But, getting back to how trauma responses can mess with our ability to connect authentically to one another, so many examples come to mind. See if you recognize yourself or someone you know in the following:

Roy and his girlfriend Raina have not had sex in 6 months, even though he has tried to initiate. And he has noticed her becoming more and more unavailable, even for conversations. The  “honest,” way to deal with this would be for Roy to invite Raina into a discussion about this matter, telling her he is frustrated and fearful, and asking if she is still committed to their partnership or if something has changed.

Why can’t he do this? And does it even occur to him to do this? The answer to both of these questions has something to do with the fact that somewhere in his past, something happened that had him either cut off (repress) feeling his need for touch and connection or had him conclude (unconsciously) that his feelings don’t matter so why bother expressing them. The “something” that happened is some sort of developmental trauma. It could have been the consistent experience of being neglected or over-controlled. So, the you learn that your voice doesn’t matter. Or it could have been the experience of being criticized, judged, put down, or abused whenever you drew attention to yourself. So, you learns it’s safer to stay invisible.

Roy functions quite well in most aspects of his life. He has friends and a good job. Evidence of his past trauma only shows up in his intimate relationships. He knows he is unhappy but feels helpless to do anything to change the situation. He does not know where to look or what to do to make his intimate life more authentic and satisfying. He complains to friends about Raina’s lack of interest in him, he makes excuses for her in his mind like assuming she is depressed or stressed at work—anything to avoid the emotional risk of feeling his fears and expressing his unmet needs.

What is the risk here for Roy? And where does the hope lie? Since Roy rarely feels relaxed anymore when he’s with Raina, almost anything he says will be laden with the energy of tension or anxiety. The hope lies with Roy learning to notice his tension/anxiety as it is occurring, then developing the practice of attending to this tender part of him with loving acceptance, acknowledging his fears rather than attempting to override them. This creates a compassionate space for these feelings to be held and witnessed. He slows his communications way down—pausing and attending to himself when he begins to freeze, get tongue-tied, or go on autopilot…..giving himself support for what he is feeling before attempting to step further out on a limb into the unknown.

In the new book, I show you how to take emotional risks and step out onto an untested limb slowly and mindfully—never going too far without offering yourself enough self-support to enable yourself to feel safe to keep going. As you step out toward another person, seeking whatever you are seeking, sometimes the other will offer the support and reassurance you seek, and sometimes they won’t. In your past, perhaps it seemed like no one was there for you at the end of that limb. That’s why you’re cautious. It’s okay to be cautious.

This stepping out there while being mindfully cautious is a self-healing practice. It may be hard to admit it when you feel the need to slow down and feel your way forward. This may not fit with your desire to present a confident image. But it is how you authentically feel. And once you try this slower, more mindful pace, and make it a practice, you will find that authenticity brings with it a sense of power like no other. Being present to yourself has a power all its own.

I hope you will get your copy of From Triggered to Tranquil soon. It deals with so many aspects of the human condition, culled from my 55-year career listening to peoples’ secrets. Besides being a great read, it is also a self-paced self-healing guide to help you be a better human.

How to Get Your Copy
Order it now from any bookseller. Here is a link to some reviews of the book and ordering information: http://www.susancampbell.com/products/books/Triggered_to_Tranquil.htm.

Upcoming Events

Getting Real: The Power of Conscious Communication  

A weekend in-person workshop with Susan CampbellMay 7-8, 2022  10am-5pm both days (yes, 2022. I am only doing one in-person workshop per year now)

Cost: $350

“You can only be as honest as you are self-aware.”

GETTING REAL teaches 10 truth skills that make you a more present, aware, spontaneous, authentic communicator. Most people have fears and insecurities which interfere with being fully present and honest. These insecurities can be healed. If you learn to put your attention on your here-now experience, rather than trying to control the outcome of your communications, you discover the real source of personal power, love, and inner security.

In this workshop, you will learn how to:

•   communicate with presence, authenticity, and spontaneity (even when you feel fear about it)

•   be aware of how you impact others

•   clear the air and keep it clear

•   repair rifts in trust and connection after a misunderstanding

•   keep your present relationships free of accumulated unfinished business

•   come back to being present after your fear-buttons have gotten pushed

•   communicate from the deepest parts of yourself—so you can be truly heard and accepted

•   notice and free yourself of all the ways you “go on automatic” as you communicate or listen

•   replace these “control patterns” with honest, spontaneous self-expression

•   recognize all the various disguises that mask the “need to control”

•   ask for what you want without being controlling

•   say “no” or mark your boundaries with compassion and sensitivity

•   embrace and value the silences in human communication

•   heal past trauma and unprocessed pain

•   communicate about difficult topics in ways that foster deep intimacy and trust

The workshop is intended for people who want to join with like-minded others to explore honesty as a spiritual awareness practice, getting to the essential self that is beyond conditioned fears, beliefs, and control patterns. Emphasis will be on developing communication skills and relationship practices that you can take home and integrate into your daily life.

Cost: $350

Time/date: May 7-8, 2022 (Sat-Sun), 10am-5pm both days

Location: Sebastopol, CA, one hour north of San Francisco (directions to follow registration)

REGISTER NOW: Call Susan’s landline, (707) 829-3646 or email: drsusan@susancampbell.com

Led by: Psychologist Susan Campbell has worked as a relationship coach for over 50 years. A former professor at the University of Massachusetts, she is author of 11 books on relationships and communication. Her website is www.susancampbell.com

Coaching Skills Webinar: Doing Parts Work in Coaching (via Zoom)

 A 4-week webinar training for new and experienced coaches 

Time: 4 consecutive Thursdays in January and February, 2022, beginning January 20, 11am-12:30 pm PDT (2-3:30pm Eastern time) and ending February 10.

Cost: $200 (visa, paypal, venmo, transferwise, and mastercard accepted)

To register or get more info, call or email Susan at (707) 829-3646 or drsusan@susancampbell.com

Content/Goals:
You will learn and practice how to use various types of parts work, for your own growth and in your work with clients, such as:
-top dog/under dog (from Gestalt Therapy)
-empty chair work (from Gestalt)
-dreamwork (from Gestalt)
-The Committee (from Virginia Satir)
-your inner family (from psychodrama)
-wish and fear as two sides of a coin
-giving voice to various parts of your body or various emotions (from Gestalt)

You will be given homework assignments to practice with a homework buddy on a separate zoom or phone call during the week.  This will require an additional hour per week of your time.

All sessions will be recorded and archived on the web, so you can re-listen to them if you have to miss a session.

Honesty Salon in Webinar Format 

Beginning November 10, I will offer a six-session Honesty Salon in webinar format (zoom). It is scheduled for 6 consecutive Wednesdays, noon-1:15 pm Pacific time, and ending December 15.

Cost is $200 for the 6 sessions. An Honesty Salon is a small group experience where we practice the 10 Truth Skills with one another, sharing whatever arises in the present moment. We use a set of simple communication guidelines that assist us in un-hooking from identification with mind chatter and being innocently open to whatever arises.

Between sessions, participants will have the option of meeting in dyads or triads to de-brief and do practice exercises. All sessions will be recorded and archived on a private page, so if you miss a session, the recording will be available to you.

To register or get more information, email me at drsusan@susancampbell.com  If you are interested in this offering, and the announced  time is not convenient, I may be able to change the time.  So please contact me about that at the email address above.

Free Mini-Workshop on Compassionate Self-Inquiry at The Stoa

I will be offering a free, zoom-based mini-workshop at the exciting and stimulating internet platform called The Stoa on Thursday, October 28, at 9-10am Pacific time, noon-1pm Eastern.  Here is the blurb from The Stoa website:

Susan will guide the group in a self-compassion exercise that she does with all of her counseling clients. The practice is designed to help you develop spacious presence as your default mode. Then, she will engage in dialog with group members to help you integrate this practice into your personal life or your coaching/counseling work with others. This practice is described in Susan’s latest book, From Triggered to Tranquil: How Self-Compassion and Mindful Presence Can Transform Relationship Conflicts and Heal Childhood Wounds.

Pre-registration is required for this free event.

To register, via thestoa.com website, visit https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMpdu2grzwjGNAnB7wsXRtfTcu9hfY79Ufz

Free Monthly Group Coaching Session on Zoom

I have resumed my free monthly group coaching sessions. From now on, I will be sending out a link in my monthly newsletter for these calls which will happen on the first Tuesday of each month at 10am Pacific time. In these calls, I generally present an idea or a practice and then work with a few volunteers, followed by group sharing and Q and Sometimes I will start with the Q and A part, or with check-ins, and offer what I have in response to what is coming up for people. This month I plan to facilitate a discussion and a listening practice around the topic of “our polarized positions re vaccines and mask-wearing.” That should be interesting. And if people get triggered, we will do some group practices to get “from triggered to tranquil” (the title of my new book).

Check the newsletter for a new link each time. And on rare occasion, I may change the time on Tuesday to an hour earlier or an hour later, so check the announced time each month.

Below is the link and phone-in information for Tuesday Oct 5, 2021 at 10am. These sessions will be recorded and posted publicly on my You Tube channel. If you subscribe to me on You Tube (drsusan95472), you will be notified when these recordings appear.

susancampbell99@gmail.com is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: susancampbell99@gmail.com‘s Zoom Meeting
Time: Tuesday, Oct 5, 10-11am Pacific US time

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/6627890203?pwd=YTRVOHpaTEY3TkgvOFJoeU1CdmptQT09

Meeting ID: 662 789 0203
Passcode: 4373
One tap mobile
+16699006833,,6627890203#,,,,*4373# US (San Jose)
+13462487799,,6627890203#,,,,*4373# US (Houston)

Dial by your location
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Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kekA6kAy2e

Join Our Community of Loving Relationship Explorers

If you’re single and seeking a more heart-centered dating experience, read on. There’s a kinder and more fulfilling way to approach dating and new relationships–at the FREE How to Inspire Love Summit. Join me in this one-of-a-kind LIVE ONLINE EVENT by clicking here:
www.kyyndr.com/drcampbell

My free mini-workshop on “Being Present in Dating and Relating” will occur Saturday, Oct 3, 5-6pm Pacific US time. I will be joined by over 30 other Dating and Relationship Experts helping you master…
sexual polarity
deep listening
playful connecting
how to attract your ideal match
spiritual partnership
overcoming the narcissist/codependent death spiral
compassionate communication
overcoming betrayal
healing each other in intimacy…and so much more…

Besides hearing useful content, you will also have the opportunity to join discussion and sharing groups who meet regularly to build a community of aware, like-minded people. Learn more at:
www.kyyndr.com/drcampbell

Video Available of My 80th Birthday Party

If you attended my 80th birthday celebration on zoom in July, thank you so much! I said I would post the link for the video for those who missed it. The “party” was me answering questions about my life–on such topics as my spiritual mentors, my sexuality, the early childhood experiences that shaped me, finding my calling, how it feels to be 80, and much more. Here is the link to the You Tube recording of this fun and interesting 90-minute event attended by over 100 people.
https://youtu.be/b2AodrJx9cA

The 10 Truth Skills You Need to Live Authentically

Here is a summary of the 10 truth skills detailed in the book, Getting Real. For those of you familiar with my latest book, Five-Minute Relationship Repair, you may see that that entire book is about truth skill #6, Taking Back Projections. This is such a complex and often difficult-to-master truth skill. So I thought it deserved a whole book. 

Now here’s the list:

1. Experiencing what is  You have a felt body-based sense of your present feelings and sensations. You can notice and not identify with your judgments, projections, and interpretations.

2. Being transparent  You can disclose to others what you are feeling, sensing, imagining, or saying to yourself—with the simple aim of “knowing and being known,” free of the need to explain or defend.

3. Knowing your intent  You can consciously reflect on the intent of your communication. Is it to relate or to control? Are you revealing yourself in the interest of transparency or are you managing and strategizing in order to avoid discomfort?

4. Asserting what you want and don’t want  You can express a desire clearly and impactfully, without expecting to get everything you ask for. You mark boundaries when you need to.

5. Thriving on feedback  You are open and curious about others’ impressions and reactions to you.  This is different from being dependent on others’ reactions.

6. Taking back projections  You know how to learn from situations where your buttons or “favorite fears” get triggered. You can differentiate your fear-stories from what really happened.

7. Revising an earlier statement  You can re-visit an interaction if your feelings change or if you discover later that you have mis-spoken or were on automatic. You can say, “If I had it to do over….”

8. Holding differences  You can hear and empathize with someone else’s feeling or viewpoint while at the same time holding a different feeling or viewpoint. You can “be with” the tension of holding both in your awareness at once.

9. Sharing mixed emotions  You can communicate your multiple feelings about an issue or situation, e.g. You may wish to clear the air with someone while also fearing that your words might feel hurtful to the other.

10. Embracing silence  You can allow some space after you have spoken. You do not fill in the space with explanation or justification. You can experience the nonverbal emanations in the silences during a conversation.  You can tolerate uncertainty, ambiguity, not knowing.

Practicing these skills brings you to a deep and abiding sense of serenity, presence, and compassion. These three words that describe the qualities that we begin to embody when we practice Getting Real.

Holding Multiple Perspectives

In This Issue…

1. Blog: Holding Multiple Perspectives

2. Upcoming Events:  Getting Real Coach Training webinar, web-based Honesty Salon, free monthly group coaching call, how to subscribe to this newsletter

3. The 10 Getting Real Truth Skills:  Let’s make the 10 Truth Skills a household word, helping to create a beneficial human presence on Planet Earth.

Holding Multiple Coexisting Perspectives

When you hold the tension of opposites, something new emerges—a higher level synthesis. The best laboratory for learning to do this is an interpersonal relationship—like when you want A, and your partner wants B. You want to spend the day at the beach, and he feels like going hiking in the mountains. Or maybe you value consistency and familiarity, and your partner values variety and novelty. In dealing with differences or disagreements, you basically have three choices: you can try to get the other person to see things your way; you can accommodate to minimize conflict; or you can learn to feel and keep feeling the inner tension created by your wanting one thing and your partner wanting something else. Many people assume they have only the first two choices—to dominate or to submit. But in a world full of complexity and change, these first two options lead to solutions that are often simplistic or shortsighted. Holding the tension enables you to draw a bigger circle around two or more competing views so that you can see that they are complementary parts of a much larger whole instead of mutually exclusive. In the book, Getting Real, I call this the ability to Hold Differences. I think this is a rather advanced skill—but a very important one in these times of conflict and polarization.

We Fear Differences and “Being Different”

At some point in our histories, we learned to fear differences. We got the idea that if you see one thing, and I see something else, one of us must be wrong; or if you want one thing and I want something else, one of us must lose. We learned that if a person reveals his unique point, angle, or range of view, he is opening himself up to being challenged. Or maybe he will be judged as “different.” Many of us have painful memories of being judged as different in some way. I hear these memories often from clients and workshop participants. “Being seen as different” or feeling different is an emotional trigger for a lot of people….maybe even most of us. What do you think?

Valuing Learning vs. Comfort

So, if we fear our differences, how might we find harmony in this world of diversity? How might we get beyond win/lose and either/or? I think we first need to recognize both the inevitability of disagreement between people and the possibility of harmony through approaching conflict as an opportunity to see more of what is really going on. To see more, we have to want to see more. We have to be open to learning, and have learning as a higher value than winning or being right or protecting ourselves from discomfort. What prevents getting from A (comfort and being right as the priority) to B (learning as the priority)? Well, lately, I am seeing what a big role emotional triggers play.

Managing Emotional Triggers

While you are triggered, you’re operating from your lizard brain, where it’s all about survival. It’s not about understanding, or cooperation, or creative problem solving. Cooperation is the domain of the higher brain. But that’s off-line when you are triggered. (And most people are in a triggered state far more often than they realize–especially now, with so much uncertainty in our world.) So, when triggered, it’s very unlikely that you will be curious to learn more about the inner world of the person whose behavior triggered you. Being triggered limits your range of options and narrows your perceptual field. In that state, you’re just not going to be a very good problem solver. But real, long-term survival (of the relationship, the species, the company, the group) is best served when everyone has access to their higher brain capacities.

From Either-Or to Both-And

So how can a person get from being triggered to being resourceful and cooperative? This has been a major focus of my work for many years. The short answer is: learn to recognize when you are triggered; learn to regulate your nervous system; and learn to bring tenderness and compassion to the fearful places in your psyche. My latest book, Five-Minute Relationship Repair (co-authored with John Grey) lays out the longer answer. Using the book as a self-guided workbook will give you the skills you need to get from either/or to both/and.

Five-Minute Relationship Repair is available at www.susancampbell.com or amazon.com.

Upcoming Events

Coach Training Webinar: Using the 10 Getting Real Truth Skills in Coaching

 A 6-week webinar for new and experienced coaches with Susan Campbell, Ph.D., author of GETTING REAL and other titles

Time: 6  consecutive Thursdays, beginning October 1, 2020, noon-1:30 pm PDT (3-4:30 pm Eastern time), and ending Nov 5.

Cost: $300 (visa, paypal, transferwise, and mastercard accepted)

To register or get more info, call or email Susan at (707) 829-3646 or drsusan@susancampbell.com

Content/Goals:

You will learn and practice how to use the 10 Getting Real Truth Skills to:

-work skillfully with clients’ resistances to change

-help clients build their capacity for self-witnessing

-use your perceptions and feelings as useful data in a coaching relationship

-use your feelings and responses to a client to further your own inner development and self-awareness—thus, refining yourself as an instrument for positive change

-help clients heal unfinished emotional business and past traumas

-guide clients in practicing the daily authenticity inventory

-guide clients in practicing compassionate self-inquiry

You will also learn how to integrate these tools into your existing coaching style and repertoire.

You will be given homework assignments to practice with a homework buddy on a separate phone call during the week.  This will require an additional hour per week of your time.

All webinars will be recorded and archived on the web, so you can re-listen or view a webinar if you have to miss a session.

Honesty Salon in Webinar Format 

In Sept and Oct, I will offer a six-session Honesty Salon in webinar format (zoom). It is scheduled for 6 consecutive Thursdays, 4-5:15 pm Pacific time, beginning Sept 24.

Cost is $200 for the 6 sessions. An Honesty Salon is a small group experience where we practice the 10 Truth Skills with one another, sharing whatever arises in the present moment. We use a set of simple communication guidelines that assist us in un-hooking from identification with mind chatter and being innocently open to whatever arises.

Between sessions, participants will have the option of meeting in dyads or triads to de-brief and do practice exercises. All sessions will be recorded and archived on a private page, so if you miss a session, the recording will be available to you.

To register or get more information, email me at drsusan@susancampbell.com  If you are interested in this offering, and the announced  time is not convenient, I may be able to change the time.  So please contact me about that at the email address above.

Free Monthly Group Coaching CallI will be hosting my free Getting Real group coaching call  Tuesday, Sept 1, 4-5pm Pacific time. We use a telephone conference line. To get on the conference line  from the US or Canada call (712) 770-4010 and then enter pin number 781976 (plus #).

On the call, I will respond to everyone’s questions re problems you encounter in your relationships—whether they be in marriage, dating, work, friendship, or child rearing. As I address your questions, I will also invite sharing from the group regarding your best practices for dealing with relationship problems. These calls always involve lively discussion and deep sharing. I hope you will join in.

To call in from the UK, dial: 44-330-998-1227 (local access number)

To call in from Germany, dial: 49-209-8829-4402 (local access number)

From France: 33-1-7890-0674

From Australia: 61-2-8077-0511

To find other local access numbers outside the US, contact www.freeconferencecallHD.com

Replay Available 

If you miss the call and would like to access the recording, call (712) 770-4019 and then enter pin number 781976 (plus #).

TO SUBSCRIBE TO THIS NEWSLETTER

Every month I send this newsletter containing a lead article with useful tips for conscious communication. I also announce upcoming events, including a free monthly group coaching call and other free offerings. If you received this as a forward and want to subscribe, click this link: http://eepurl.com/cVmbk

The 10 Truth Skills You Need to Live Authentically

Here is a summary of the 10 truth skills detailed in the book, Getting Real. For those of you familiar with my latest book, Five-Minute Relationship Repair, you may see that that entire book is about truth skill #6, Taking Back Projections. This is such a complex and often difficult-to-master truth skill. So I thought it deserved a whole book. 

Now here’s the list:

1. Experiencing what is  You have a felt body-based sense of your present feelings and sensations. You can notice and not identify with your judgments, projections, and interpretations.

2. Being transparent  You can disclose to others what you are feeling, sensing, imagining, or saying to yourself—with the simple aim of “knowing and being known,” free of the need to explain or defend.

3. Knowing your intent  You can consciously reflect on the intent of your communication. Is it to relate or to control? Are you revealing yourself in the interest of transparency or are you managing and strategizing in order to avoid discomfort?

4. Asserting what you want and don’t want  You can express a desire clearly and impactfully, without expecting to get everything you ask for. You mark boundaries when you need to.

5. Thriving on feedback  You are open and curious about others’ impressions and reactions to you.  This is different from being dependent on others’ reactions.

6. Taking back projections  You know how to learn from situations where your buttons or “favorite fears” get triggered. You can differentiate your fear-stories from what really happened.

7. Revising an earlier statement  You can re-visit an interaction if your feelings change or if you discover later that you have mis-spoken or were on automatic. You can say, “If I had it to do over….”

8. Holding differences  You can hear and empathize with someone else’s feeling or viewpoint while at the same time holding a different feeling or viewpoint. You can “be with” the tension of holding both in your awareness at once.

9. Sharing mixed emotions  You can communicate your multiple feelings about an issue or situation, e.g. You may wish to clear the air with someone while also fearing that your words might feel hurtful to the other.

10. Embracing silence  You can allow some space after you have spoken. You do not fill in the space with explanation or justification. You can experience the nonverbal emanations in the silences during a conversation.  You can tolerate uncertainty, ambiguity, not knowing.

Practicing these skills brings you to a deep and abiding sense of serenity, presence, and compassion. These three words that describe the qualities that we begin to embody when we practice Getting Real.

Unmasking the Need to Control

In This Issue…

1. Blog: Unmasking the Need to Control

2. Upcoming Events: Getting Real Weekend in Northern CA  April 17-18, 2021, Coach Training Webinar, Honesty Salon via zoom webinar format; free group coaching call tomorrow (Oct 6)

3. The 10 Getting Real Truth Skills:  Let’s make the 10 Truth Skills a household word, helping to create a beneficial human presence on Planet Earth.

Unmasking the Intent to Control

In my various books, I put forth the distinction between communicating to relate and communicating to control. This blog will summarize some of the points I make in my books.

Every communication has an intent behind it. Most of us do not pay enough attention to this hidden intent—in ourselves and in others–especially if the intent has something to do with control—like trying to control an unknown outcome or trying to mask one’s anxiety about feeling “not in control.” In my research, I discovered that almost 90% of human communication comes from the (usually unconscious) need to control. Most of us are not aware of when we are communicating from a need to protect ourselves vs. when we are expressing our feelings and thoughts from the need to know and be known, i.e. to exchanging feelings and information, back and forth, trusting that whatever the outcome, we can deal with this as it unfolds.

The intent to control reveals itself in many disguises:
•denying that you feel pain when you’re hurting
•trying to impress others
•manipulating to get what you want
•being nice or agreeable to avoid a hassle
•lying to protect someone’s feelings
•assuming you know something that you really cannot know instead of living with the uncertainty of the situation (e.g. jumping to conclusions or making assumptions about what someone else’s behavior means)
•keeping silent to avoid conflict
•playing it safe, trying not to rock the boat
•trying to appear more “together” or composed than you really feel

As you look down this list, you’ll notice that all of these things have something to do with avoiding uncomfortable feelings (e.g. anxiety about feeling not in control) or avoiding an unwanted outcome (e.g. being judged, feeling rejected). Perhaps you recognize yourself in one or more of the above examples. If you do, then you’re probably aware enough to admit that this sort of controlling doesn’t really work. We may cling to the illusion of control and continue trying to predict or manipulate the outcome. For example, we may try to make ourselves feel more comfortable by assuming we know how someone else is going to react to us. But we really cannot know this sort of thing. Such things are unknowable until they are revealed in time. If you are focused more on avoiding the discomfort of “not-knowing” than on communicating and really listening to others, you are not present. You’re in your head or in the future—like in a chess game: “If I make this move, my opponent will have to make that move.” This is an example of the intent to control. This sort of strategizing keeps you in a state of chronic fear or anxiety. Trying to avoid uncertainty is very stressful. On the other hand, when you relax your grip, allow things to unfold, and pay attention to what is actually going on (vs. what you wish or fear), you become naturally more confident.

Most people are not even conscious of the fact that most of their self-talk and communication with others comes from the intent to control. It’s no wonder that they often feel frustrated and out of control. You see, the more you try to control things, the more out of control you feel. When you are more focused on creating a favorable outcome or a favorable impression than on expressing yourself authentically, you are reinforcing your fears and anxieties. You are, in a sense, affirming that if things do not turn out according to plan, you will not be okay. This puts your well-being on pretty shaky ground. The fact is you will be okay. And the only way to really discover this and learn to trust yourself is to risk feeling what you feel and expressing yourself authentically. Feeling and expressing what’s so for you in each moment is what I call “getting real,” or “relating.” There is a big different between communication that comes from the intent to relate vs. communication that comes from the intent to control.

 Controlling is Largely Unconscious

Most peoples’ communications are tarnished by unconscious defense mechanisms designed to protect them from feeling anxious, not knowing, hurt, rejected, judged, controlled, or not in control. Every one of us has been hurt by other people at some time in our lives as we have tried to express ourselves authentically, offer love, or get our needs met. Somewhere in our past we learned various strategies to protect ourselves in order to minimize further damage.
But healthy human communication is not really about protecting ourselves from discomfort or controlling how others react to us. Healthy communication is about knowing and being known, helping each other heal, and learning from experience. It is not about getting one’s own way. It’s about creating mutually beneficial solutions. It is not about avoiding uncomfortable feelings.  It is about feeling what we feel and sharing what we feel and think in the present moment. It is not about controlling what we feel. It is about sharing what we feel and think. I call this sort of open-hearted sharing, “relating.”

So now that you know the difference between relating and controlling, go forth and notice the intent behind your own communications!

Upcoming Events

Getting Real: The Power of Conscious Communication  

A covid-safe in-person weekend workshop outdoors with Susan Campbell [Everyone will be screened with an interview; we will be seated 6 feet or more apart, wearing (personalized!) masks; group limited in size to assure safe distancing]

April 17-18, 2021  10am-5pm both days

Cost: $350

“You can only be as honest as you are self-aware.”

GETTING REAL teaches 10 truth skills that make you a more present, aware, spontaneous, authentic communicator. Most people have fears and insecurities which interfere with being fully present and honest. These insecurities can be healed. If you learn to put your attention on your here-now experience, rather than trying to control the outcome of your communications, you discover the real source of personal power, love, and inner security.

In this workshop, you will learn how to:

•   communicate with presence, authenticity, and spontaneity (even when you feel fear about it)

•   be aware of how you impact others

•   clear the air and keep it clear

•   repair rifts in trust and connection after a misunderstanding

•   keep your present relationships free of accumulated unfinished business

•   come back to being present after your fear-buttons have gotten pushed

•   communicate from the deepest parts of yourself—so you can be truly heard and accepted

•   notice and free yourself of all the ways you “go on automatic” as you communicate or listen

•   replace these “control patterns” with honest, spontaneous self-expression

•   recognize all the various disguises that mask the “need to control”

•   ask for what you want without being controlling

•   say “no” or mark your boundaries with compassion and sensitivity

•   embrace and value the silences in human communication

•   heal past trauma and unprocessed pain

•   communicate about difficult topics in ways that foster deep intimacy and trust

The workshop is intended for people who want to join with like-minded others to explore honesty as a spiritual awareness practice, getting to the essential self that is beyond conditioned fears, beliefs, and control patterns. Emphasis will be on developing communication skills and relationship practices that you can take home and integrate into your daily life.

Cost: $350

Time/date: April 17-18, 2021 (Sat-Sun), 10am-5pm both days

Location: Sebastopol, CA, one hour north of San Francisco (directions to follow registration)

REGISTER NOW: Call Susan’s landline, (707) 829-3646 or email: drsusan@susancampbell.com

Led by: Psychologist Susan Campbell has worked as a relationship coach for over 50 years. A former professor at the University of Massachusetts, she is author of 11 books on relationships and communication. Her website is www.susancampbell.com

Coach Training Webinar: Facilitating Groups Using the 10 Getting Real Truth Skills (via Zoom)

 A 6-week webinar for new and experienced coaches with Susan Campbell, Ph.D., author of GETTING REAL and other titles, using Zoom

Time: 6  consecutive Thursdays, beginning Thursday, January 7, 2021, noon-1:30 pm Pacific time (3-4:30 pm Eastern time), and ending Feb 11.

Cost: $300 (visa, paypal, transferwise, and mastercard accepted)

To register or get more info, call or email Susan’s landline at (707) 829-3646 or drsusan@susancampbell.com

Content/Goals:
You will learn and practice how to facilitate workshops that teach Susan’s getting real practices in novel, fun, and useful ways. Specifically, you will learn how to:

-create a safe group context that welcomes emotional pain, vulnerability, and reactivity/triggering. (All these things can be used as grist for the healing and growth mill.)

-help clients develop their ability to be with emotional discomfort in a way that fosters healing trigger sensitivities and trauma

-work skillfully with difficult group members

-work skillfully with your most challenging group situations

-teach exercises that stretch participants’ capacity to ask for what they want and mark boundaries

-teach exercise that deal with learning from conflict and differences

-learn about stages of group development and which types of exercises work best at different stages

-teach exercises that help participants “relate more and control less”

-teach exercises that help participants learn to clear the air and keep it clear

-use your own authentic feelings and responses to participants in helpful ways—thus, refining yourself as an instrument for positive change

–teach exercises that help participants heal unfinished emotional business

–teach exercises that help participants develop their capacity for inner witnessing

You will also learn how to integrate these tools into your existing coaching style and repertoire.

You will be given homework assignments to practice with a homework partner on a separate phone call during the week.  This will require an additional hour per week of your time.

All calls will be recorded and archived on the web, so you can re-listen to calls or hear a call if you have to miss a session.

Bio: In addition to her Getting Real work, Susan has taught group process/group dynamics and T-groups at Stanford, Harvard, and UCLA business schools.

Honesty Salon in Webinar Format 

Next January-February I will offer a six-session Honesty Salon in webinar format (zoom). It is scheduled for 6 consecutive Wednesdays, beginning January 27, 2021, noon-1:15 pm Pacific time.

Cost is $200 for the 6 sessions. An Honesty Salon is a small group experience where we practice the 10 Truth Skills with one another, sharing whatever arises in the present moment. We use a set of simple communication guidelines that assist us in un-hooking from identification with mind chatter and being innocently open to whatever arises.

Between sessions, participants will have the option of meeting in dyads or triads to de-brief and do practice exercises. All sessions will be recorded and archived on a private page, so if you miss a session, the recording will be available to you.

To register or get more information, email me at drsusan@susancampbell.com  If you are interested in this offering, and the announced  time is not convenient, I may be able to change the time.  So please contact me about that at the email address above.

Free Monthly Group Coaching Call, Tuesday October 6

I will be hosting my free Getting Real group coaching call Tuesday, October 6, 4-5pm Pacific time.  We use a telephone conference line. To get on the conference line  from the US or Canada call (712) 770-4010 and then enter pin number 781976 (plus #).

On this month’s call, I will respond to everyone’s questions re problems you encounter in your interpersonal, family, or peer group relationships. I will also encourage dialogue about how to relate more and control less in your daily communications. As I address your questions, I will invite sharing from the group regarding your best practices for dealing with relationship problems. These calls always involve lively discussion and deep sharing. I hope you will join in.

To call in from the UK, dial: 44-330-998-1227 (local access number)

To call in from Germany, dial: 49-209-8829-4402 (local access number)

From France: 33-1-7890-0674

From Australia: 61-2-8077-0511

To find other local access numbers outside the US, contact www.freeconferencecallHD.com

Replay Available 

If you miss the call and would like to access the recording, call (712) 770-4019 and then enter pin number 781976 (plus #).

The 10 Truth Skills You Need to Live Authentically

Here is a summary of the 10 truth skills detailed in the book, Getting Real. For those of you familiar with my latest book, Five-Minute Relationship Repair, you may see that that entire book is about truth skill #6, Taking Back Projections. This is such a complex and often difficult-to-master truth skill. So I thought it deserved a whole book. 

Now here’s the list:

1. Experiencing what is  You have a felt body-based sense of your present feelings and sensations. You can notice and not identify with your judgments, projections, and interpretations.

2. Being transparent  You can disclose to others what you are feeling, sensing, imagining, or saying to yourself—with the simple aim of “knowing and being known,” free of the need to explain or defend.

3. Knowing your intent  You can consciously reflect on the intent of your communication. Is it to relate or to control? Are you revealing yourself in the interest of transparency or are you managing and strategizing in order to avoid discomfort?

4. Asserting what you want and don’t want  You can express a desire clearly and impactfully, without expecting to get everything you ask for. You mark boundaries when you need to.

5. Thriving on feedback  You are open and curious about others’ impressions and reactions to you.  This is different from being dependent on others’ reactions.

6. Taking back projections  You know how to learn from situations where your buttons or “favorite fears” get triggered. You can differentiate your fear-stories from what really happened.

7. Revising an earlier statement  You can re-visit an interaction if your feelings change or if you discover later that you have mis-spoken or were on automatic. You can say, “If I had it to do over….”

8. Holding differences  You can hear and empathize with someone else’s feeling or viewpoint while at the same time holding a different feeling or viewpoint. You can “be with” the tension of holding both in your awareness at once.

9. Sharing mixed emotions  You can communicate your multiple feelings about an issue or situation, e.g. You may wish to clear the air with someone while also fearing that your words might feel hurtful to the other.

10. Embracing silence  You can allow some space after you have spoken. You do not fill in the space with explanation or justification. You can experience the nonverbal emanations in the silences during a conversation.  You can tolerate uncertainty, ambiguity, not knowing.

Practicing these skills brings you to a deep and abiding sense of serenity, presence, and compassion. These three words that describe the qualities that we begin to embody when we practice Getting Real.

Why Do People Feel Safe With Me?

In This Issue…

1. Blog: Why Do People Feel Safe with Me?

2. Upcoming Events: Getting Real Weekend in Northern CA  April 17-18, 2021, Coach Training Webinar, Honesty Salon via zoom webinar format; free group coaching call (Nov 3), free tele summit on Conscious Communication.

3. The 10 Getting Real Truth Skills:  Let’s make the 10 Truth Skills a household word, helping to create a beneficial human presence on Planet Earth.

Why Do People Feel Safe with Me?

Sometimes the thought occurs to me, “I wonder why people feel safe with me.” I know I am not the only safe person in the world, but, over the years, I have gotten so much feedback—especially from friends and intimate partners—that it’s remarkably easy for them to tell me their most difficult truths. Now, if I got this feedback only from clients, it would not mean nearly as much—because a coaching relationship is quite different from a romantic one or a long-term friendship. And the feedback that I’m a safe person is not only something friends and lovers tell me. They show me they feel safe by telling me things that are not easy to hear—things like: my best friend telling me she fears I am in denial about my partner’s gambling addiction; my husband telling me that he had a one-night stand on his last business trip; my boyfriend telling me that he no longer finds me sexually attractive; my date telling me that he is in trouble with the IRS even though he lives a lavish lifestyle.

So, as I am wondering what makes me easy to talk to about such things, here are a few things that occur to me:

  1. I place a high value on being a safe person. I make it my intent to provide an open space for others to speak into.
  2. I am not judgmental, perfectionistic, critical, or unrealistic in my expectations about how people should be. I think this probably comes from or correlates with how I treat myself. I have a very forgiving relationship to my own foibles. I do see them. I believe I am realistically and compassionately self-critical. But I do not expect that I should be different. If I really want to change something, I’ll put in the work that this requires.
  3. I value learning and personal development….so I am super curious about how it is for others. And it just seems natural to me that even if the truth hurts, the insight and learning that comes from hearing someone’s uncensored truth is much more rewarding than staying comfortable.

As I ponder this short list, I know more could be written here. But I do not seek answers as much as I seek insight into how a person in the latter stages of life begins to come to terms with “this life I have lived.” Who have I shown myself to be? What have I contributed? Have I put into Life’s pot more than I have taken? What feels unfinished? As someone who has been alive for 80 years, these questions come up now more than they used to. So, as I bring questions like these into my awareness, I trust more will be revealed.

Upcoming Events

Getting Real: The Power of Conscious Communication  

A covid-safe in-person weekend workshop outdoors with Susan Campbell [Everyone will be screened with an interview; we will be seated 6 feet or more apart, wearing (personalized!) masks; group limited in size to assure safe distancing]

April 17-18, 2021  10am-5pm both days

Cost: $350

“You can only be as honest as you are self-aware.”

GETTING REAL teaches 10 truth skills that make you a more present, aware, spontaneous, authentic communicator. Most people have fears and insecurities which interfere with being fully present and honest. These insecurities can be healed. If you learn to put your attention on your here-now experience, rather than trying to control the outcome of your communications, you discover the real source of personal power, love, and inner security.

In this workshop, you will learn how to:

•   communicate with presence, authenticity, and spontaneity (even when you feel fear about it)

•   be aware of how you impact others

•   clear the air and keep it clear

•   repair rifts in trust and connection after a misunderstanding

•   keep your present relationships free of accumulated unfinished business

•   come back to being present after your fear-buttons have gotten pushed

•   communicate from the deepest parts of yourself—so you can be truly heard and accepted

•   notice and free yourself of all the ways you “go on automatic” as you communicate or listen

•   replace these “control patterns” with honest, spontaneous self-expression

•   recognize all the various disguises that mask the “need to control”

•   ask for what you want without being controlling

•   say “no” or mark your boundaries with compassion and sensitivity

•   embrace and value the silences in human communication

•   heal past trauma and unprocessed pain

•   communicate about difficult topics in ways that foster deep intimacy and trust

The workshop is intended for people who want to join with like-minded others to explore honesty as a spiritual awareness practice, getting to the essential self that is beyond conditioned fears, beliefs, and control patterns. Emphasis will be on developing communication skills and relationship practices that you can take home and integrate into your daily life.

Cost: $350

Time/date: April 17-18, 2021 (Sat-Sun), 10am-5pm both days

Location: Sebastopol, CA, one hour north of San Francisco (directions to follow registration)

REGISTER NOW: Call Susan’s landline, (707) 829-3646 or email: drsusan@susancampbell.com

Led by: Psychologist Susan Campbell has worked as a relationship coach for over 50 years. A former professor at the University of Massachusetts, she is author of 11 books on relationships and communication. Her website is www.susancampbell.com

Coach Training Webinar: Facilitating Groups Using the 10 Getting Real Truth Skills (via Zoom)

 A 6-week webinar for new and experienced coaches with Susan Campbell, Ph.D., author of GETTING REAL and other titles, using Zoom

Time: 6  consecutive Thursdays, beginning Thursday, January 7, 2021, noon-1:30 pm Pacific time (3-4:30 pm Eastern time), and ending Feb 11.

Cost: $300 (visa, paypal, transferwise, and mastercard accepted)

To register or get more info, call or email Susan’s landline at (707) 829-3646 or drsusan@susancampbell.com

Content/Goals:
You will learn and practice how to facilitate workshops that teach Susan’s getting real practices in novel, fun, and useful ways. Specifically, you will learn how to:

-create a safe group context that welcomes emotional pain, vulnerability, and reactivity/triggering. (All these things can be used as grist for the healing and growth mill.)

-help clients develop their ability to be with emotional discomfort in a way that fosters healing trigger sensitivities and trauma

-work skillfully with difficult group members

-work skillfully with your most challenging group situations

-teach exercises that stretch participants’ capacity to ask for what they want and mark boundaries

-teach exercise that deal with learning from conflict and differences

-learn about stages of group development and which types of exercises work best at different stages

-teach exercises that help participants “relate more and control less”

-teach exercises that help participants learn to clear the air and keep it clear

-use your own authentic feelings and responses to participants in helpful ways—thus, refining yourself as an instrument for positive change

–teach exercises that help participants heal unfinished emotional business

–teach exercises that help participants develop their capacity for inner witnessing

You will also learn how to integrate these tools into your existing coaching style and repertoire.

You will be given homework assignments to practice with a homework partner on a separate phone call during the week.  This will require an additional hour per week of your time.

All calls will be recorded and archived on the web, so you can re-listen to calls or hear a call if you have to miss a session.

Bio: In addition to her Getting Real work, Susan has taught group process/group dynamics and T-groups at Stanford, Harvard, and UCLA business schools.

Honesty Salon in Webinar Format 

Next January-February I will offer a six-session Honesty Salon in webinar format (zoom). It is scheduled for 6 consecutive Wednesdays, beginning January 27, 2021, noon-1:15 pm Pacific time.

Cost is $200 for the 6 sessions. An Honesty Salon is a small group experience where we practice the 10 Truth Skills with one another, sharing whatever arises in the present moment. We use a set of simple communication guidelines that assist us in un-hooking from identification with mind chatter and being innocently open to whatever arises.

Between sessions, participants will have the option of meeting in dyads or triads to de-brief and do practice exercises. All sessions will be recorded and archived on a private page, so if you miss a session, the recording will be available to you.

To register or get more information, email me at drsusan@susancampbell.com  If you are interested in this offering, and the announced  time is not convenient, I may be able to change the time.  So please contact me about that at the email address above.

Deeper Relationships, Healthier Bodies

I am honored to be featured in The Healthy Couple Summit, a free interview series happening later this week! There you will also hear from many of my, and perhaps your, favorite relationship experts—including Lion Goodman and Carista Lumiere, Susan Bratton, and Ariele Ford. The interviews are conducted by my new friend and respected colleague, TJ Anderson, a rising star in the healthy lifestyles field.

The summit is about creating a healthy lifestyle that brings you and your partner together… and improves your energy, focus, mood, sex life and overall relationship.

To sign up, go to this link: https://drsusan95472.krtra.com/t/eXU36J8PRirK

During this free event, you’ll learn how to…

  • Reduce physical stress, improve your relationship, and optimize your mind and body naturally.
  • Tap into the proven communications strategies for decreasing conflict in your relationship
  • Get closer with your partner. With a healthy, unburdened body, you can finally start enjoying a more passionate, sexy, healthy and stress-free relationship.

By working together with a romantic partner, you can improve your chances of success on your health journey.

Here, again is the link to sign up for this free series: https://drsusan95472.krtra.com/t/eXU36J8PRirK

Free Monthly Group Coaching Call, Tuesday November 3

I will be hosting my free Getting Real group coaching call Tuesday, November 3, 4-5pm Pacific time.  We use a telephone conference line. To get on the conference line  from the US or Canada call (712) 770-4010 and then enter pin number 781976 (plus #).

On this month’s call, I will respond to everyone’s questions re problems you encounter in your interpersonal, family, or peer group relationships. I will also encourage dialogue about how to relate more and control less in your daily communications. As I address your questions, I will invite sharing from the group regarding your best practices for dealing with relationship problems. These calls always involve lively discussion and deep sharing. I hope you will join in.

To call in from the UK, dial: 44-330-998-1227 (local access number)

To call in from Germany, dial: 49-209-8829-4402 (local access number)

From France: 33-1-7890-0674

From Australia: 61-2-8077-0511

To find other local access numbers outside the US, contact www.freeconferencecallHD.com

Replay Available 

If you miss the call and would like to access the recording, call (712) 770-4019 and then enter pin number 781976 (plus #).

The 10 Truth Skills You Need to Live Authentically

Here is a summary of the 10 truth skills detailed in the book, Getting Real. For those of you familiar with my latest book, Five-Minute Relationship Repair, you may see that that entire book is about truth skill #6, Taking Back Projections. This is such a complex and often difficult-to-master truth skill. So I thought it deserved a whole book. 

Now here’s the list:

1. Experiencing what is  You have a felt body-based sense of your present feelings and sensations. You can notice and not identify with your judgments, projections, and interpretations.

2. Being transparent  You can disclose to others what you are feeling, sensing, imagining, or saying to yourself—with the simple aim of “knowing and being known,” free of the need to explain or defend.

3. Knowing your intent  You can consciously reflect on the intent of your communication. Is it to relate or to control? Are you revealing yourself in the interest of transparency or are you managing and strategizing in order to avoid discomfort?

4. Asserting what you want and don’t want  You can express a desire clearly and impactfully, without expecting to get everything you ask for. You mark boundaries when you need to.

5. Thriving on feedback  You are open and curious about others’ impressions and reactions to you.  This is different from being dependent on others’ reactions.

6. Taking back projections  You know how to learn from situations where your buttons or “favorite fears” get triggered. You can differentiate your fear-stories from what really happened.

7. Revising an earlier statement  You can re-visit an interaction if your feelings change or if you discover later that you have mis-spoken or were on automatic. You can say, “If I had it to do over….”

8. Holding differences  You can hear and empathize with someone else’s feeling or viewpoint while at the same time holding a different feeling or viewpoint. You can “be with” the tension of holding both in your awareness at once.

9. Sharing mixed emotions  You can communicate your multiple feelings about an issue or situation, e.g. You may wish to clear the air with someone while also fearing that your words might feel hurtful to the other.

10. Embracing silence  You can allow some space after you have spoken. You do not fill in the space with explanation or justification. You can experience the nonverbal emanations in the silences during a conversation.  You can tolerate uncertainty, ambiguity, not knowing.

Practicing these skills brings you to a deep and abiding sense of serenity, presence, and compassion. These three words that describe the qualities that we begin to embody when we practice Getting Real

Spotting Sub-liminal Triggering

The Getting Real practices help us free ourselves from the fears and limited thinking of the ego-mind, so we can meet each new moment with our open, authentic, loving presence.

In This Issue…

1. Blog: Dealing with Unconscious Triggering

2. Upcoming Events: Getting Real Weekend in Northern CA  April 17-18, 2021, Coach Training Webinar, Honesty Salon via zoom webinar format; free group coaching call (Dec 1)

3. The 10 Getting Real Truth Skills:  Let’s make the 10 Truth Skills a household word, helping to create a beneficial human presence on Planet Earth.

Dealing with Unconscious Trigger Reactions

I just finished writing a new book about the inner work of healing one’s own trigger reactivity (to be published in 2021). I was motivated to write this as a follow-up to Five-Minute Relationship Repair partly because of my observation that so much of human communication (especially between intimates!) is actually triggered communication. Some people feel hurt or angry (triggered) and don’t realize it, so they continue speaking in a normal tone of voice, but their communication is full of static or “noise.” The other person hears these seemingly reasonable words, but in their gut, they know something is off.

Mary’s husband Bruce tells her, “I’m going to bed now.” Mary feels disappointed. She was hoping for a longer evening together. But does she tell Bruce this? No, her fear of rejection has been triggered so she’s no longer in touch with her authentic feelings and needs. She goes on automatic: “You’re always so tired! We need to get you to a doctor.” She tries to bypass her own feelings and instead makes it his problem (You’re always so tired). In so doing, she creates more distance from him and from her own truth. She’s not talking about herself—she’s over on his side of the net—making it his problem. Bruce feels mistrustful of her remark but isn’t sure why. He senses that she’s upset, but she hasn’t given him anything real to respond to. So, he says nothing and goes to bed with an uneasy feeling. (Now, he is triggered, too, and doesn’t know it.) They get up the next day feeling distant and cold toward each other.

If Mary had been aware of being triggered, she could have slowed down her tendency to react automatically. And maybe she would’ve had access to more authentic options. For example, she might have said:
“Aw shucks, I was enjoying our talk….I was hoping for more time together.”
Or maybe: “Before you go, can I have a hug? I got my feelings hurt just now and need some reassurance.”
Or even: “I notice I just got triggered when you said that. I’m pretty sensitive about anything that seems like rejection.”

Can you see how any of these options might lead to a more sensitive and real conversation? Hearing how she feels or hearing she is triggered, he can address this and perhaps reassure her that her fears are unfounded. Instead of accumulating more unfinished emotional business, they could clear the air and come back to feeling connected with each other.

Upcoming Events

Getting Real: The Power of Conscious Communication  

A covid-safe in-person weekend workshop outdoors with Susan Campbell [Everyone will be screened with an interview; we will be seated 6 feet or more apart, wearing (personalized!) masks; group limited in size to assure safe distancing]

April 17-18, 2021  10am-5pm both days

Cost: $350

“You can only be as honest as you are self-aware.”

GETTING REAL teaches 10 truth skills that make you a more present, aware, spontaneous, authentic communicator. Most people have fears and insecurities which interfere with being fully present and honest. These insecurities can be healed. If you learn to put your attention on your here-now experience, rather than trying to control the outcome of your communications, you discover the real source of personal power, love, and inner security.

In this workshop, you will learn how to:

•   communicate with presence, authenticity, and spontaneity (even when you feel fear about it)

•   be aware of how you impact others

•   clear the air and keep it clear

•   repair rifts in trust and connection after a misunderstanding

•   keep your present relationships free of accumulated unfinished business

•   come back to being present after your fear-buttons have gotten pushed

•   communicate from the deepest parts of yourself—so you can be truly heard and accepted

•   notice and free yourself of all the ways you “go on automatic” as you communicate or listen

•   replace these “control patterns” with honest, spontaneous self-expression

•   recognize all the various disguises that mask the “need to control”

•   ask for what you want without being controlling

•   say “no” or mark your boundaries with compassion and sensitivity

•   embrace and value the silences in human communication

•   heal past trauma and unprocessed pain

•   communicate about difficult topics in ways that foster deep intimacy and trust

The workshop is intended for people who want to join with like-minded others to explore honesty as a spiritual awareness practice, getting to the essential self that is beyond conditioned fears, beliefs, and control patterns. Emphasis will be on developing communication skills and relationship practices that you can take home and integrate into your daily life.

Cost: $350

Time/date: April 17-18, 2021 (Sat-Sun), 10am-5pm both days

Location: Sebastopol, CA, one hour north of San Francisco (directions to follow registration)

REGISTER NOW: Call Susan’s landline, (707) 829-3646 or email: drsusan@susancampbell.com

Led by: Psychologist Susan Campbell has worked as a relationship coach for over 50 years. A former professor at the University of Massachusetts, she is author of 11 books on relationships and communication. Her website is www.susancampbell.com

Coach Training Webinar: Facilitating Groups Using the 10 Getting Real Truth Skills (via Zoom)

 A 6-week webinar for new and experienced coaches with Susan Campbell, Ph.D., author of GETTING REAL and other titles, using Zoom

Time: 6  consecutive Thursdays, beginning Thursday, January 7, 2021, noon-1:30 pm Pacific time (3-4:30 pm Eastern time), and ending Feb 11.

Cost: $300 (visa, paypal, transferwise, and mastercard accepted)

To register or get more info, call or email Susan’s landline at (707) 829-3646 or drsusan@susancampbell.com

Content/Goals:
You will learn and practice how to facilitate workshops that teach Susan’s getting real practices in novel, fun, and useful ways. Specifically, you will learn how to:

-create a safe group context that welcomes emotional pain, vulnerability, and reactivity/triggering. (All these things can be used as grist for the healing and growth mill.)

-help clients develop their ability to be with emotional discomfort in a way that fosters healing trigger sensitivities and trauma

-work skillfully with difficult group members

-work skillfully with your most challenging group situations

-teach exercises that stretch participants’ capacity to ask for what they want and mark boundaries

-teach exercises that help participants “relate more and control less”

-teach exercises that help participants learn to clear the air and keep it clear

-use your own authentic feelings and responses to participants in helpful ways—thus, refining yourself as an instrument for positive change

–teach exercises that help participants heal unfinished emotional business

–teach exercises that help participants develop their capacity for inner witnessing

You will also learn how to integrate these tools into your existing coaching style and repertoire.

You will be given homework assignments to practice with a homework partner on a separate phone call during the week.  This will require an additional hour per week of your time.

All calls will be recorded and archived on the web, so you can re-listen to calls or hear a call if you have to miss a session.

Bio: In addition to her Getting Real work, Susan has taught group process/group dynamics and T-groups at Stanford, Harvard, and UCLA business schools.

Honesty Salon in Webinar Format 

Next January-February I will offer a six-session Honesty Salon in webinar format (zoom). It is scheduled for 6 consecutive Wednesdays, beginning January 27, 2021, noon-1:15 pm Pacific time.

Cost is $200 for the 6 sessions. An Honesty Salon is a small group experience where we practice the 10 Truth Skills with one another, sharing whatever arises in the present moment. We use a set of simple communication guidelines that assist us in un-hooking from identification with mind chatter and being innocently open to whatever arises.

Between sessions, participants will have the option of meeting in dyads or triads to de-brief and do practice exercises. All sessions will be recorded and archived on a private page, so if you miss a session, the recording will be available to you.

To register or get more information, email me at drsusan@susancampbell.com  If you are interested in this offering, and the announced  time is not convenient, I may be able to change the time.  So please contact me about that at the email address above.

Free Monthly Group Coaching Call, Tuesday, December 1

I will be hosting my free Getting Real group coaching call Tuesday, December 1, 4-5pm Pacific time.  We use a telephone conference line. To get on the conference line  from the US or Canada call (712) 770-4010 and then enter pin number 781976 (plus #).

On this month’s call, I will respond to everyone’s questions re problems you encounter in your interpersonal, family, or peer group relationships. I will also encourage dialogue about how to relate more and control less in your daily communications. As I address your questions, I will invite sharing from the group regarding your best practices for dealing with relationship problems. These calls always involve lively discussion and deep sharing. I hope you will join in.

To call in from the UK, dial: 44-330-998-1227 (local access number)

To call in from Germany, dial: 49-209-8829-4402 (local access number)

From France: 33-1-7890-0674

From Australia: 61-2-8077-0511

To find other local access numbers outside the US, contact www.freeconferencecallHD.com

Replay Available 

If you miss the call and would like to access the recording, call (712) 770-4019 and then enter pin number 781976 (plus #).

The 10 Truth Skills You Need to Live Authentically

Here is a summary of the 10 truth skills detailed in the book, Getting Real. For those of you familiar with my latest book, Five-Minute Relationship Repair, you may see that that entire book is about truth skill #6, Taking Back Projections. This is such a complex and often difficult-to-master truth skill. So I thought it deserved a whole book. 

Now here’s the list:

1. Experiencing what is  You have a felt body-based sense of your present feelings and sensations. You can notice and not identify with your judgments, projections, and interpretations.

2. Being transparent  You can disclose to others what you are feeling, sensing, imagining, or saying to yourself—with the simple aim of “knowing and being known,” free of the need to explain or defend.

3. Knowing your intent  You can consciously reflect on the intent of your communication. Is it to relate or to control? Are you revealing yourself in the interest of transparency or are you managing and strategizing in order to avoid discomfort?

4. Asserting what you want and don’t want  You can express a desire clearly and impactfully, without expecting to get everything you ask for. You mark boundaries when you need to.

5. Thriving on feedback  You are open and curious about others’ impressions and reactions to you.  This is different from being dependent on others’ reactions.

6. Taking back projections  You know how to learn from situations where your buttons or “favorite fears” get triggered. You can differentiate your fear-stories from what really happened.

7. Revising an earlier statement  You can re-visit an interaction if your feelings change or if you discover later that you have mis-spoken or were on automatic. You can say, “If I had it to do over….”

8. Holding differences  You can hear and empathize with someone else’s feeling or viewpoint while at the same time holding a different feeling or viewpoint. You can “be with” the tension of holding both in your awareness at once.

9. Sharing mixed emotions  You can communicate your multiple feelings about an issue or situation, e.g. You may wish to clear the air with someone while also fearing that your words might feel hurtful to the other.

10. Embracing silence  You can allow some space after you have spoken. You do not fill in the space with explanation or justification. You can experience the nonverbal emanations in the silences during a conversation.  You can tolerate uncertainty, ambiguity, not knowing.

Practicing these skills brings you to a deep and abiding sense of serenity, presence, and compassion. These three words that describe the qualities that we begin to embody when we practice Getting Real.

Making Amends with the People We Love

The Getting Real practices help us free ourselves from the fears and limited thinking of the ego-mind, so we can meet each new moment with our open, authentic, loving presence.

In This Issue…

1. Blog: Making Amends

2. Upcoming Events: Getting Real Weekend in Northern CA  April 17-18, 2021, Coach Training Webinar, Honesty Salon via zoom webinar format; free group coaching call (Jan 5)

3. The 10 Getting Real Truth Skills:  Let’s make the 10 Truth Skills a household word, helping to create a beneficial human presence on Planet Earth.

Making Amends

If you discover that your actions have caused harm to another person, expressing regret or saying what you wished you’d done differently may not be sufficient to bring closure to the matter. You may want to ask, “Is there some way I can make it up to you?” This question is appropriate only if you sincerely wish to make amends, of course. And while you’re contemplating if you sincerely want to, remember that achieving closure on the matter is as much for you as for the other person. It will help you get a sense of completion so your attention will no longer be distracted by this unfinished emotional business.

What Parents Can Do

When I work with families, it often occurs that parents do things in a fit of reactivity that they realize later have really hurt their children. When they recognize the hurt they have caused, they often feel relieved to know there is something they can do to remedy the situation. When they ask the child, “Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?” the child is usually very appreciative. Often just hearing that question from a parent helps to heal old parent-child wounds, as well as the present one. After hearing this question, children are often moved to completely let go of the hurt they were carrying: “No, I don’t need anything from you. Just hearing that you’re sorry means a lot to me.” I coach children not to be too easy on their parents, however–especially if the child has a pattern of protecting the parent from discomfort. For a child, the act of deciding on something a parent can do for you and then asking for it, can create an even more profound healing–for the parent as well as the child.

What About Property Damage?

Sometimes children do dumb, unconscious things that cause real harm to parents, also.  I recall one family meeting where Timmy had broken his dad’s expensive wrist watch, and Leon, Timmy’s dad, was expressing his anger. When Timmy asked, “Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?” Leon got a big grin on his face, gave his son a hug, and said, “Let’s make a list of some possibilities!” Working together they came up with a list of ten things that Timmy could do to help himself and his dad get closure on the incident–things like wash my truck, cook me breakfast, and do your homework without being nagged. What started out as an extremely unpleasant family situation ended up being mutually empowering and fun. It also gave both father and son some practice in creative problem solving and win-win negotiating.

Upcoming Events

Getting Real: The Power of Conscious Communication  

A covid-safe in-person weekend workshop outdoors with Susan Campbell [Everyone will be screened with an interview; we will be seated 6 feet or more apart, wearing (personalized!) masks; group limited in size to assure safe distancing.] The outdoor space will have heaters available.

April 17-18, 2021  10am-5pm both days

Cost: $350

“You can only be as honest as you are self-aware.”

GETTING REAL teaches 10 truth skills that make you a more present, aware, spontaneous, authentic communicator. Most people have fears and insecurities which interfere with being fully present and honest. These insecurities can be healed. If you learn to put your attention on your here-now experience, rather than trying to control the outcome of your communications, you discover the real source of personal power, love, and inner security.

In this workshop, you will learn how to:

•   communicate with presence, authenticity, and spontaneity (even when you feel fear about it)

•   be aware of how you impact others

•   clear the air and keep it clear

•   repair rifts in trust and connection after a misunderstanding

•   keep your present relationships free of accumulated unfinished business

•   come back to being present after your fear-buttons have gotten pushed

•   communicate from the deepest parts of yourself—so you can be truly heard and accepted

•   notice and free yourself of all the ways you “go on automatic” as you communicate or listen

•   replace these “control patterns” with honest, spontaneous self-expression

•   recognize all the various disguises that mask the “need to control”

•   ask for what you want without being controlling

•   say “no” or mark your boundaries with compassion and sensitivity

•   embrace and value the silences in human communication

•   heal past trauma and unprocessed pain

•   communicate about difficult topics in ways that foster deep intimacy and trust

The workshop is intended for people who want to join with like-minded others to explore honesty as a spiritual awareness practice, getting to the essential self that is beyond conditioned fears, beliefs, and control patterns. Emphasis will be on developing communication skills and relationship practices that you can take home and integrate into your daily life.

Cost: $350

Time/date: April 17-18, 2021 (Sat-Sun), 10am-5pm both days

Location: Sebastopol, CA, one hour north of San Francisco (directions to follow registration)

REGISTER NOW: Call Susan’s landline, (707) 829-3646 or email: drsusan@susancampbell.com

Led by: Psychologist Susan Campbell has worked as a relationship coach for over 50 years. A former professor at the University of Massachusetts, she is author of 11 books on relationships and communication. Her website is www.susancampbell.com

Coach Training Webinar: Facilitating Groups Using the 10 Getting Real Truth Skills (via Zoom)

 A 6-week webinar for new and experienced coaches with Susan Campbell, Ph.D., author of GETTING REAL and other titles, using Zoom

Time: 6  consecutive Thursdays, beginning Thursday, January 7, 2021, noon-1:30 pm Pacific time (3-4:30 pm Eastern time), and ending Feb 11.

Cost: $300 (visa, paypal, transferwise, and mastercard accepted)

To register or get more info, call or email Susan’s landline at (707) 829-3646 or drsusan@susancampbell.com

Content/Goals:
You will learn and practice how to facilitate workshops that teach Susan’s getting real practices in novel, fun, and useful ways. Specifically, you will learn how to:

-create a safe group context that welcomes emotional pain, vulnerability, and reactivity/triggering. (All these things can be used as grist for the healing and growth mill.)

-help clients develop their ability to be with emotional discomfort in a way that fosters healing trigger sensitivities and trauma

-work skillfully with difficult group members

-work skillfully with your most challenging group situations

-teach exercises that stretch participants’ capacity to ask for what they want and mark boundaries

-teach exercises that help participants “relate more and control less”

-teach exercises that help participants learn to clear the air and keep it clear

-use your own authentic feelings and responses to participants in helpful ways—thus, refining yourself as an instrument for positive change

–teach exercises that help participants heal unfinished emotional business

–teach exercises that help participants develop their capacity for inner witnessing

You will also learn how to integrate these tools into your existing coaching style and repertoire.

You will be given homework assignments to practice with a homework partner on a separate phone call during the week.  This will require an additional hour per week of your time.

All calls will be recorded and archived on the web, so you can re-listen to calls or hear a call if you have to miss a session.

Bio: In addition to her Getting Real work, Susan has taught group process/group dynamics and T-groups at Stanford, Harvard, and UCLA business schools.

Honesty Salon in Webinar Format 

Beginning January 27, I will offer a six-session Honesty Salon in webinar format (zoom). It is scheduled for 6 consecutive Wednesdays, beginning January 27, 2021, noon-1:15 pm Pacific time and ending March 3.

Cost is $200 for the 6 sessions. An Honesty Salon is a small group experience where we practice the 10 Truth Skills with one another, sharing whatever arises in the present moment. We use a set of simple communication guidelines that assist us in un-hooking from identification with mind chatter and being innocently open to whatever arises.

Between sessions, participants will have the option of meeting in dyads or triads to de-brief and do practice exercises. All sessions will be recorded and archived on a private page, so if you miss a session, the recording will be available to you.

To register or get more information, email me at drsusan@susancampbell.com  If you are interested in this offering, and the announced  time is not convenient, I may be able to change the time.  So please contact me about that at the email address above.

Free Monthly Group Coaching Call, Tuesday, January 5

I will be hosting my free Getting Real group coaching call Tuesday, January 5, 4-5pm Pacific time.  We use a telephone conference line. To get on the conference line  from the US or Canada call (712) 770-4010 and then enter pin number 781976 (plus #).

On this month’s call, I will respond to everyone’s questions re problems you encounter in your interpersonal, family, or peer group relationships. I will also encourage dialogue about how to relate more and control less in your daily communications. As I address your questions, I will invite sharing from the group regarding your best practices for dealing with relationship problems. These calls always involve lively discussion and deep sharing. I hope you will join in.

To call in from the UK, dial: 44-330-998-1227 (local access number)

To call in from Germany, dial: 49-209-8829-4402 (local access number)

From France: 33-1-7890-0674

From Australia: 61-2-8077-0511

To find other local access numbers outside the US, contact www.freeconferencecallHD.com

Replay Available 

If you miss the call and would like to access the recording, call (712) 770-4019 and then enter pin number 781976 (plus #).

The 10 Truth Skills You Need to Live Authentically

Here is a summary of the 10 truth skills detailed in the book, Getting Real. For those of you familiar with my latest book, Five-Minute Relationship Repair, you may see that that entire book is about truth skill #6, Taking Back Projections. This is such a complex and often difficult-to-master truth skill. So I thought it deserved a whole book. 

Now here’s the list:

1. Experiencing what is  You have a felt body-based sense of your present feelings and sensations. You can notice and not identify with your judgments, projections, and interpretations.

2. Being transparent  You can disclose to others what you are feeling, sensing, imagining, or saying to yourself—with the simple aim of “knowing and being known,” free of the need to explain or defend.

3. Knowing your intent  You can consciously reflect on the intent of your communication. Is it to relate or to control? Are you revealing yourself in the interest of transparency or are you managing and strategizing in order to avoid discomfort?

4. Asserting what you want and don’t want  You can express a desire clearly and impactfully, without expecting to get everything you ask for. You mark boundaries when you need to.

5. Thriving on feedback  You are open and curious about others’ impressions and reactions to you.  This is different from being dependent on others’ reactions.

6. Taking back projections  You know how to learn from situations where your buttons or “favorite fears” get triggered. You can differentiate your fear-stories from what really happened.

7. Revising an earlier statement  You can re-visit an interaction if your feelings change or if you discover later that you have mis-spoken or were on automatic. You can say, “If I had it to do over….”

8. Holding differences  You can hear and empathize with someone else’s feeling or viewpoint while at the same time holding a different feeling or viewpoint. You can “be with” the tension of holding both in your awareness at once.

9. Sharing mixed emotions  You can communicate your multiple feelings about an issue or situation, e.g. You may wish to clear the air with someone while also fearing that your words might feel hurtful to the other.

10. Embracing silence  You can allow some space after you have spoken. You do not fill in the space with explanation or justification. You can experience the nonverbal emanations in the silences during a conversation.  You can tolerate uncertainty, ambiguity, not knowing.

Practicing these skills brings you to a deep and abiding sense of serenity, presence, and compassion. These three words that describe the qualities that we begin to embody when we practice Getting Real.

My Daily Authenticity Inventory

The Getting Real practices help us free ourselves from the fears and limited thinking of the ego-mind, so we can meet each new moment with our open, authentic, loving presence.

In This Issue…

1. Blog: Your Daily Authenticity Inventory

2. Upcoming Events: Getting Real Weekend in Northern CA  April 17-18, 2021, Coach Training Webinar, Honesty Salon via zoom webinar format; free group coaching call (Feb 2)

3. New Podcasts Featuring Susan: “Pink Noise” and “Rebel Love”

4. The 10 Getting Real Truth Skills:  Let’s make the 10 Truth Skills a household word, helping to create a beneficial human presence on Planet Earth.

Your Daily Authenticity Inventory

A few days ago, I was a guest on Sheri Hauser’s “Pink Noise Radio Show.” Sheri, who is also an Authentic Relating facilitator, is a delightful host. One of the many topics we discussed was how to skillfully communicate your boundaries in various situations. I suggested in the interview that the practice I have used, and still use, is what I call, the Daily Authenticity Inventory. This got me thinking that I ought to remind people about this practice—because I think it is one of the easiest tools for becoming a more authentic communicator. So, I am publishing it here, in this month’s blog. I hope you will try it. And please listen to the whole conversation between Sheri and me. Scroll down to see details about how to access the downloadable podcast—under “Hear Susan’s Interview on Pink Noise.” 

Now, Here is the Exercise….

You have probably had the experience of being in a situation where you were not very present to your own feelings, needs, or boundaries. Perhaps you were distracted, caught by surprise, were triggered, were in a control pattern, or didn’t know what you were really feeling. Or maybe you simply said nothing, instead of expressing your needs, ideas, or feelings.
This practice is based on the Truth Skill, Revising, in my book, Getting Real. It is called the Daily Authenticity Inventory.

1. Think of a situation at work or at home where you did not speak up, did not express your truth, or went temporarily “unconscious.” Maybe you were wanting something you were afraid to ask for directly or feeling something you didn’t feel comfortable admitting. Maybe you said yes when your authentic answer would have been no; or perhaps you pretended something didn’t bother you when it really did. Identify the specific situation, and ask yourself, “What reason did I give myself (then or now) for not speaking more authentically?” Perhaps you were afraid of upsetting or hurting the person. Or maybe you’ve tried to speak about this before, and things have not gone well.

2. Now, ask yourself this question, “If I had felt completely safe or confident that I could handle an unwanted or unexpected outcome, what would I have said?” Say the exact words you would say to this other person if you had been more authentic. Imagine yourself saying these words to that person as you speak.  Notice what you feel. Notice your self-talk. Make sure that what you say in your revision is something you actually feel or felt, want or wanted, can know to be true (because it is about yourself/on your own side of the net). This might be things like…..your wants, feelings, your thoughts, your self-talk, your assessments (based on data), and your observations with your five senses (what you saw, read, heard, smelled, sensed, etc.). In other words, you are not coming back to this matter to explain, justify, defend, come across as more polished, etc.

There is another situation where this exercise is useful also. It sometimes occurs that you will say something one day, and then later, maybe the next day, realize you were “under the influence” of one of your automatic personality patterns—in other words, you were behaving unconsciously. So, in this case, you were not withholding your truth intentionally. You were just on automatic and not aware of this fact until later. So, in this case, your reason for not being authentic would be you were in a pattern or something of this sort. So, you can use the exercise in this situation also.

Here’s an example: My boss and I were scheduled to have lunch at a local restaurant. She got there before I did. As I walked over to the table where she was sitting, she said, “You’re late.” I felt defensive, went on automatic, and said, “Nobody’s perfect.” That was my automatic, inauthentic reply. If I had been more self-aware, what I would have said is, “When I hear you say that I’m late, I notice a defensive reaction coming up. I feel the urge to explain myself. But for now, I think I’d just like to tell you how sorry I am to make you wait.”

3. Then, ask yourself: Would it be appropriate, and could I now go to this person, and say this? And if the answer is yes, are you willing to create an opportunity to have this conversation soon?

Steps to Take When Revising 

Here are some additional tips (not part of the exercise):

When dealing with any situation needing revision:
(1) First, let the other person know that you have had some second thoughts, and make sure you have their attention; invite them into conversation, stating that you’d like to revise what you said or did, and you want to see if they are available for this.

(2) Don’t make excuses. Take responsibility for your words or deeds.

(3) Then, report what has changed for you–what you are aware of now that you were not aware of at the time, e.g. “I had the realization that…”  “I want to let you know what was really going on with me….”  “I want to make amends…” etc. Use I-messages to help you stay in your own experience.

(4) Inquire about how your words or actions impacted the other person.

(5) And finally, listen to what the other person has say, and aim to be more present this time.

Benefits You Can Expect

Here is a summation of the benefits you will gain by continuing to use this practice:

• Sharing your afterthoughts is a way of clearing up unfinished business.

•Sometimes after you state what you wish you’d had the presence to do differently, the other person joins you and offers a revision of her own.

•Often, after you have heard about how your actions affected the other person, you feel sincere regret or empathy; or you see more of the whole picture and realize that you were reacting automatically.

•When this practice is used by people in a conflict situation, it fosters a softer, more open-hearted, attitude between conflicting parties.

•After you use this practice for a while, you will probably notice that the gap gets smaller between when you could have said your true feelings and when you actually do express these. By going out and coming in again, you train yourself to be more present the next time. This practice will you become increasingly more self-aware at the very moment you are communicating rather than having to wait until later to recognize that you need to revise something.

Upcoming Events

Getting Real: The Power of Conscious Communication  

A covid-safe in-person weekend workshop outdoors with Susan Campbell [Everyone will be screened with an interview; we will be seated 6 feet or more apart, wearing (personalized!) masks; group limited in size to assure safe distancing.] The outdoor space will have heaters available.

April 17-18, 2021  10am-5pm both days

Cost: $350

“You can only be as honest as you are self-aware.”

GETTING REAL teaches 10 truth skills that make you a more present, aware, spontaneous, authentic communicator. Most people have fears and insecurities which interfere with being fully present and honest. These insecurities can be healed. If you learn to put your attention on your here-now experience, rather than trying to control the outcome of your communications, you discover the real source of personal power, love, and inner security.

In this workshop, you will learn how to:

•   communicate with presence, authenticity, and spontaneity (even when you feel fear about it)

•   be aware of how you impact others

•   clear the air and keep it clear

•   repair rifts in trust and connection after a misunderstanding

•   keep your present relationships free of accumulated unfinished business

•   come back to being present after your fear-buttons have gotten pushed

•   communicate from the deepest parts of yourself—so you can be truly heard and accepted

•   notice and free yourself of all the ways you “go on automatic” as you communicate or listen

•   replace these “control patterns” with honest, spontaneous self-expression

•   recognize all the various disguises that mask the “need to control”

•   ask for what you want without being controlling

•   say “no” or mark your boundaries with compassion and sensitivity

•   embrace and value the silences in human communication

•   heal past trauma and unprocessed pain

•   communicate about difficult topics in ways that foster deep intimacy and trust

The workshop is intended for people who want to join with like-minded others to explore honesty as a spiritual awareness practice, getting to the essential self that is beyond conditioned fears, beliefs, and control patterns. Emphasis will be on developing communication skills and relationship practices that you can take home and integrate into your daily life.

Cost: $350

Time/date: April 17-18, 2021 (Sat-Sun), 10am-5pm both days

Location: Sebastopol, CA, one hour north of San Francisco (directions to follow registration)

REGISTER NOW: Call Susan’s landline, (707) 829-3646 or email: drsusan@susancampbell.com

Led by: Psychologist Susan Campbell has worked as a relationship coach for over 50 years. A former professor at the University of Massachusetts, she is author of 11 books on relationships and communication. Her website is www.susancampbell.com

Coach Training Webinar: Helping Clients  Work with Trigger Reactions and Communicate Authentically (via Zoom)

 A 6-week webinar for new and experienced coaches with Susan Campbell, Ph.D., author of GETTING REAL and other titles, using Zoom

Time: 6  consecutive Wednesdays, beginning Wednesday, March 10, 2021, noon-1:30 pm Pacific time (3-4:30 pm Eastern time), and ending April 14.

Cost: $300 (visa, paypal, transferwise, and mastercard accepted)

To register or get more info, call or email Susan’s landline at (707) 829-3646 or drsusan@susancampbell.com

Content/Goals:
You will learn and practice how to help clients learn to use Susan’s getting real truth skills and trigger work skills. Specifically, you will learn how to:

-create a safe container that welcomes emotional pain as a portal to discovering one’s lost or disowned parts;

-help clients develop their ability to be with emotional discomfort in a way that fosters healing trigger sensitivities and trauma

-work skillfully with resistance

-work skillfully with your most challenging clients

-teach exercises that stretch clients’ capacity for self-compassion

–teach practices that help clients heal unfinished emotional business

–teach practices that help clients develop their capacity for inner witnessing

-use your own authentic feelings and responses in helpful ways—thus, refining yourself as an instrument for positive change

You will be given homework assignments to practice with a homework partner on a separate call during the week.  This will require an additional hour per week of your time.

All calls will be recorded and archived on the web, so you can re-listen to calls or hear a call if you have to miss a session.

Honesty Salon in Webinar Format 

Beginning March 18, I will offer a six-session Honesty Salon in webinar format (zoom). It is scheduled for 6 consecutive Thursdays, beginning March 18, 2021, noon-1:15 pm Pacific time and ending April 22.

Cost is $200 for the 6 sessions. An Honesty Salon is a small group experience where we practice the 10 Truth Skills with one another, sharing whatever arises in the present moment. We use a set of simple communication guidelines that assist us in un-hooking from identification with mind chatter and being innocently open to whatever arises.

Between sessions, participants will have the option of meeting in dyads or triads to de-brief and do practice exercises. All sessions will be recorded and archived on a private page, so if you miss a session, the recording will be available to you.

To register or get more information, email me at drsusan@susancampbell.com  If you are interested in this offering, and the announced  time is not convenient, I may be able to change the time.  So please contact me about that at the email address above.

Free Monthly Group Coaching Call, Tuesday, February 2

I will be hosting my free Getting Real group coaching call Tuesday, February 2, 4-5pm Pacific time.  We use a telephone conference line. To get on the conference line  from the US or Canada call (712) 770-4010 and then enter pin number 781976 (plus #).

On this month’s call, I will respond to everyone’s questions re problems you encounter in your interpersonal, family, or peer group relationships. I will also encourage dialogue about how to relate more and control less in your daily communications. As I address your questions, I will invite sharing from the group regarding your best practices for dealing with relationship problems. These calls always involve lively discussion and deep sharing. I hope you will join in.

To call in from the UK, dial: 44-330-998-1227 (local access number)

To call in from Germany, dial: 49-209-8829-4402 (local access number)

From France: 33-1-7890-0674

From Australia: 61-2-8077-0511

To find other local access numbers outside the US, contact www.freeconferencecallHD.com

Replay Available 

If you miss the call and would like to access the recording, call (712) 770-4019 and then enter pin number 781976 (plus #).

Hear Susan’s Interview on “Pink Noise”

I was recently interviewed by the beautiful and talented Sheri Hauser for her “Pink Noise” radio show and podcast. We spent a little over an hour digging into how to live an authentic life. Topics ranged from asking for what you want to noticing your listening patterns to sexual vulnerability. We covered a lot and had a lot of fun. Here’s what Sheri wrote to me afterwards:

“I listened (to the podcast) in the car with my friends while driving in the mountains, and they were blown away by the amount of actionable insights into communication techniques.”

You can listen on SoundCloud at
https://soundcloud.com/user-994444991/pn_19_susan-campbell

Hear Susan on Rebel Love Podcast

If you want to learn to catch and calm your emotional triggers, and heal childhood wounds in the process, listen to my recent interview with Talia on her Rebel Love Podcast. In our interview, I describe how I help my clients distinguish between when they are communicating from their triggered brain vs their higher brain centers. I then describe how to use self-compassion and mindful presence to heal emotional sensitivities and childhood wounds. Trigger reactions don’t have to disrupt loving connections. They can be a portal to deeper intimacy between two people. Tune in here to listen:
https://rebellove.com/ep5susan

The 10 Truth Skills You Need to Live Authentically

Here is a summary of the 10 truth skills detailed in the book, Getting Real. For those of you familiar with my latest book, Five-Minute Relationship Repair, you may see that that entire book is about truth skill #6, Taking Back Projections. This is such a complex and often difficult-to-master truth skill. So I thought it deserved a whole book. 

Now here’s the list:

1. Experiencing what is  You have a felt body-based sense of your present feelings and sensations. You can notice and not identify with your judgments, projections, and interpretations.

2. Being transparent  You can disclose to others what you are feeling, sensing, imagining, or saying to yourself—with the simple aim of “knowing and being known,” free of the need to explain or defend.

3. Knowing your intent  You can consciously reflect on the intent of your communication. Is it to relate or to control? Are you revealing yourself in the interest of transparency or are you managing and strategizing in order to avoid discomfort?

4. Asserting what you want and don’t want  You can express a desire clearly and impactfully, without expecting to get everything you ask for. You mark boundaries when you need to.

5. Thriving on feedback  You are open and curious about others’ impressions and reactions to you.  This is different from being dependent on others’ reactions.

6. Taking back projections  You know how to learn from situations where your buttons or “favorite fears” get triggered. You can differentiate your fear-stories from what really happened.

7. Revising an earlier statement  You can re-visit an interaction if your feelings change or if you discover later that you have mis-spoken or were on automatic. You can say, “If I had it to do over….”

8. Holding differences  You can hear and empathize with someone else’s feeling or viewpoint while at the same time holding a different feeling or viewpoint. You can “be with” the tension of holding both in your awareness at once.

9. Sharing mixed emotions  You can communicate your multiple feelings about an issue or situation, e.g. You may wish to clear the air with someone while also fearing that your words might feel hurtful to the other.

10. Embracing silence  You can allow some space after you have spoken. You do not fill in the space with explanation or justification. You can experience the nonverbal emanations in the silences during a conversation.  You can tolerate uncertainty, ambiguity, not knowing.

Practicing these skills brings you to a deep and abiding sense of serenity, presence, and compassion. These three words that describe the qualities that we begin to embody when we practice Getting Real.

Anxiety as the Entry Point for Compassionate Self-Inquiry

The Getting Real practices help us free ourselves from the fears and limited thinking of the ego-mind, so we can meet each new moment with our open, authentic, loving presence.

In This Issue…

1. Blog: Anxiety as the Entry Point for Compassionate Self-Inquiry

2. Upcoming Events: Getting Real Weekend in Northern CA  April 17-18, 2021, Coach Training Webinar, Honesty Salon via zoom webinar format; free group coaching call (March 2)

3. Recent Podcasts Featuring Susan: “Pink Noise” and “Rebel Love”

4. The 10 Getting Real Truth Skills:  Let’s make the 10 Truth Skills a household word, helping to create a beneficial human presence on Planet Earth.

Anxiety as the Entry Point for Compassionate Self-Inquiry
Many of us suffer from a subtle, or not so subtle, sense of anxiety or restlessness. This prompts us to seek constant stimulation, keep constantly busy, or keep our minds busy with constant worrying or thinking. It’s almost as if we are afraid that if we stopped to rest or relax, if we let go of the sense of control that thinking offers, we might become aware of something we can’t deal with. What is this thing we fear we cannot deal with? Have you ever paused to ask yourself that question? Let’s do that now.

What Do I Fear I Cannot Deal With?
In my Honesty Salons and workshops I guide people to slow down and pay attention to their inner state—to their feelings, body sensations, and breathing, and to their impulses to move toward, away from, or against an experience—as they communicate and listen to others. When people do this, they often discover that their anxiety is a form of “resistance to what is.

Pause to Look Inward
Anytime you encounter inner resistance to something, I will guide you to create an inner pause where you become open and curious. You accomplish this by putting your attention on your breathing—on the sensations of breathing in and out—and withdrawing attention from thoughts and worries. This creates an inner sense of safety and a spacious presence that can hold space for whatever arises next. It’s very important to know how to regulate your nervous system in a way that provides this inner calmness and safety. Without this ability to self-regulate, you really cannot do much meaningful inner work—you’re just too anxious about the outcome, afraid you cannot handle something.

The Crucial Discovery
And, when people do inner work like this, here is the discovery they make about what they’re afraid they can’t handle: They are afraid something will happen that brings up a particular type of emotional pain or distress that they really were too small or inexperienced to cope with at an earlier stage of life. As a child, they may have been left to fend for themselves in a violent family situation. As an infant, they may have been left to “cry themselves out,” instead of being picked up and held or fed. If we consider situations like this, it is easy to imagine what a small person might feel—they would understandably fear they were “not enough” or “not up to the task” of adequately protecting themselves or getting their needs met (like the need for food).

Unfinished Situations Seek Completion
Early traumatic experiences like these leave imprints. If we are not supported in expressing and being held with our childhood fears and traumas, we are left with a kind of emotional unfinished business that continues to seek completion all our lives. The way this emotional unfinished business shows up is via our anxiety, our fears, our trigger reactions, and our self-protective communication habits (like “going along to get along”).

Activate Your Self-Healing Capacities 
So, if we want to feel truly safe in this world, it is important to complete this old business—to make it a practice to notice our inner signals of anxiety, fear, and interpersonal triggering, and to pause to connect with ourselves. This activates our inner self-healing capacities. “The noticer” recognizes that a vulnerable part of ourselves needs tender loving care. As we learn to hold space for this part, our inner good mother archetype is activated—the good mother who instinctively know what this needy or hurting child needs: “I am with you. I see you and love you just as you are—even if you are upset or confused about what to do. Your pain or distress does not make you unlovable.”There are a few more steps to this inner self-healing practice (which are detailed in Chapter 15 of the book, Five-Minute Relationship Repair). So, if you want to deeply engage with and heal childhood wounds, you might want to read about and practice the Compassionate Self-Inquiry practice in that chapter. But, even having the intention to pause frequently throughout your day to check in with your inner state….even this, will get you started on the journey of taking responsibility for your own inner safety.If you want to live your most authentic life, knowing how to restore your own sense of safety is an important step. If you don’t feel safe, you’ll be living from fear and anxiety. Your words and actions will come from the motivation to protect yourself. But when you can use your fear or anxiety as a starting point for checking in to see what your inner insecure child really needs, then you are beginning to activate your own self-healing.

Upcoming EventsGetting Real: The Power of Conscious Communication
A covid-safe in-person weekend workshop outdoors with Susan Campbell [Everyone will be screened with an interview; we will be seated 6 feet or more apart, wearing (personalized!) masks; group limited in size to assure safe distancing.] The outdoor space will have heaters available.

April 17-18, 2021  10am-5pm both daysCost:

$350

“You can only be as honest as you are self-aware.”GETTING REAL teaches 10 truth skills that make you a more present, aware, spontaneous, authentic communicator. Most people have fears and insecurities which interfere with being fully present and honest. These insecurities can be healed. If you learn to put your attention on your here-now experience, rather than trying to control the outcome of your communications, you discover the real source of personal power, love, and inner security.

In this workshop, you will learn 

how to:•   communicate with presence, authenticity, and spontaneity (even when you feel fear about it)•   be aware of how you impact others•   clear the air and keep it clear•   repair rifts in trust and connection after a misunderstanding•   keep your present relationships free of accumulated unfinished business•   come back to being present after your fear-buttons have gotten pushed•   communicate from the deepest parts of yourself—so you can be truly heard and accepted•   notice and free yourself of all the ways you “go on automatic” as you communicate or listen•   replace these “control patterns” with honest, spontaneous self-expression•   recognize all the various disguises that mask the “need to control”•   ask for what you want without being controlling•   say “no” or mark your boundaries with compassion and sensitivity•   embrace and value the silences in human communication•   heal past trauma and unprocessed pain•   communicate about difficult topics in ways that foster deep intimacy and trustThe workshop is intended for people who want to join with like-minded others to explore honesty as a spiritual awareness practice, getting to the essential self that is beyond conditioned fears, beliefs, and control patterns. Emphasis will be on developing communication skills and relationship practices that you can take home and integrate into your daily life.

Cost: $350

Time/date: April 17-18, 2021 (Sat-Sun), 10am-5pm both days

Location: Sebastopol, CA, one hour north of San Francisco (directions to follow registration)

REGISTER NOW: Call Susan’s landline, (707) 829-3646 or email: drsusan@susancampbell.com

Led by: Psychologist Susan Campbell has worked as a relationship coach for over 50 years. A former professor at the University of Massachusetts, she is author of 11 books on relationships and communication. Her website is www.susancampbell.com

Coach Training Webinar: Helping Clients  Work with Trigger Reactions and Control Patterns (DATE CHANGED TO THURS)A 6-week webinar for new and experienced coaches with Susan Campbell, Ph.D. author of GETTING REAL and other titles, using Zoom

Time: 6  consecutive Thursdays, beginning March 11, 2021, noon-1:30 pm Pacific time (3-4:30 pm Eastern time), and ending April 15.

Cost: $300 (visa, paypal, transferwise, and mastercard accepted)

To register or get more info, call or email Susan’s landline at (707) 829-3646 or drsusan@susancampbell.com

Content/Goals:
You will learn and practice how to help clients learn to use Susan’s getting real truth skills and trigger work skills. Specifically, you will learn how to:-create a safe container that welcomes emotional pain as a portal to discovering one’s lost or disowned parts;-help clients develop their ability to be with emotional discomfort in a way that fosters healing trigger sensitivities and trauma-work skillfully with resistance-work skillfully with your most challenging clients-teach exercises that stretch clients’ capacity for self-compassion–teach practices that help clients heal unfinished emotional business–teach practices that help clients develop their capacity for inner witnessing-use your own authentic feelings and responses in helpful ways—thus, refining yourself as an instrument for positive changeYou will be given homework assignments to practice with a homework partner on a separate call during the week.  This will require an additional hour per week of your time.All calls will be recorded and archived on the web, so you can re-listen to calls or hear a call if you have to miss a session.

Honesty Salon in Webinar Format [DATE CHANGED TO WEDNESDAY]
Beginning March 17, I will offer a six-session Honesty Salon in webinar format (zoom). It is scheduled for 6 consecutive Wednesdays, noon-1:15 pm Pacific time, skipping March 24, and ending April 21.Cost is $200 for the 6 sessions. An Honesty Salon is a small group experience where we practice the 10 Truth Skills with one another, sharing whatever arises in the present moment. We use a set of simple communication guidelines that assist us in un-hooking from identification with mind chatter and being innocently open to whatever arises.Between sessions, participants will have the option of meeting in dyads or triads to de-brief and do practice exercises. All sessions will be recorded and archived on a private page, so if you miss a session, the recording will be available to you.To register or get more information, email me at drsusan@susancampbell.com  If you are interested in this offering, and the announced  time is not convenient, I may be able to change the time.  So please contact me about that at the email address above.

Free Monthly Group Coaching Call, Tuesday, March 2
I will be hosting my free Getting Real group coaching call Tuesday, March 2, 4-5pm Pacific time.  We use a telephone conference line. To get on the conference line  from the US or Canada call (712) 770-4010 and then enter pin number 781976 (plus #).On this month’s call, I will respond to everyone’s questions re problems you encounter in your interpersonal, family, or peer group relationships. I will also encourage dialogue about how to relate more and control less in your daily communications. As I address your questions, I will invite sharing from the group regarding your best practices for dealing with relationship issues. These calls always involve lively discussion and deep sharing. I hope you will join in.To call in from the UK, dial: 44-330-998-1227 (local access number)To call in from Germany, dial: 49-209-8829-4402 (local access number)From France: 33-1-7890-0674From Australia: 61-2-8077-0511To find other local access numbers outside the US, contact www.freeconferencecallHD.com

Replay Available
If you miss the call and would like to access the recording, call (712) 770-4019 and then enter pin number 781976 (plus #).

Hear Susan’s Interview on “Pink Noise”
I was recently interviewed by the beautiful and talented Sheri Hauser for her “Pink Noise” radio show and podcast. We spent a little over an hour digging into how to live an authentic life. Topics ranged from asking for what you want to noticing your listening patterns to sexual vulnerability. We covered a lot and had a lot of fun. Here’s what Sheri wrote to me afterwards:“I listened (to the podcast) in the car with my friends while driving in the mountains, and they were blown away by the amount of actionable insights into communication techniques.”You can listen on SoundCloud at
https://soundcloud.com/user-994444991/pn_19_susan-campbell

Hear Susan on Rebel Love Podcast
If you want to learn to catch and calm your emotional triggers, and heal childhood wounds in the process, listen to my recent interview with Talia on her Rebel Love Podcast. In our interview, I describe how I help my clients distinguish between when they are communicating from their triggered brain vs their higher brain centers. I then describe how to use self-compassion and mindful presence to heal emotional sensitivities and childhood wounds. Trigger reactions don’t have to disrupt loving connections. They can be a portal to deeper intimacy between two people. Tune in here to listen:
https://rebellove.com/ep5susan

The 10 Truth Skills You Need to Live Authentically

Here is a summary of the 10 truth skills detailed in the book, Getting Real. For those of you familiar with my latest book,

Five-Minute Relationship Repair, you may see that that entire book is about truth skill #6,

Taking Back Projections. This is such a complex and often difficult-to-master truth skill. So I thought it deserved a whole book. Now here’s the list:

1. Experiencing what is  You have a felt body-based sense of your present feelings and sensations. You can notice and not identify with your judgments, projections, and interpretations.

2. Being transparent  You can disclose to others what you are feeling, sensing, imagining, or saying to yourself—with the simple aim of “knowing and being known,” free of the need to explain or defend.

3. Knowing your intent  You can consciously reflect on the intent of your communication. Is it to relate or to control? Are you revealing yourself in the interest of transparency or are you managing and strategizing in order to avoid discomfort?

4. Asserting what you want and don’t want  You can express a desire clearly and impactfully, without expecting to get everything you ask for. You mark boundaries when you need to.

5. Thriving on feedback  You are open and curious about others’ impressions and reactions to you.  This is different from being dependent on others’ reactions.

6. Taking back projections  You know how to learn from situations where your buttons or “favorite fears” get triggered. You can differentiate your fear-stories from what really happened.

7. Revising an earlier statement  You can re-visit an interaction if your feelings change or if you discover later that you have mis-spoken or were on automatic. You can say, “If I had it to do over….”

8. Holding differences  You can hear and empathize with someone else’s feeling or viewpoint while at the same time holding a different feeling or viewpoint. You can “be with” the tension of holding both in your awareness at once.

9. Sharing mixed emotions  You can communicate your multiple feelings about an issue or situation, e.g. You may wish to clear the air with someone while also fearing that your words might feel hurtful to the other.

10. Embracing silence  You can allow some space after you have spoken. You do not fill in the space with explanation or justification. You can experience the nonverbal emanations in the silences during a conversation.  You can tolerate uncertainty, ambiguity, not knowing.Practicing these skills brings you to a deep and abiding sense of serenity, presence, and compassion. These three words that describe the qualities that we begin to embody when we practice Getting Real.

Free Interview Series: Best Relationship Practices

The Getting Real practices help us free ourselves from the fears and limited thinking of the ego-mind, so we can meet each new moment with our open, authentic, loving presence.

Free Interview Series on Healthy Relationship Habits Featuring Me and 17 Other Experts

We all need love, and most of us need help with this important part of life. Well, help is on the way–beginning March 17!

I am part of a free interview series called Unlock Secrets to Love. My interview — which is about regaining presence and activating self-compassion after you notice yourself becoming triggered–airs on March 23.

You can register using this link and watch the series wherever you are, at your own convenience. That’s a lot of value for free.
https://empowermentfestlive.com/unlocksecretstolove/Susan

Upcoming Events

Getting Real: The Power of Conscious Communication  

A covid-safe in-person weekend workshop outdoors with Susan Campbell [Everyone will be screened with an interview; we will be seated 6 feet or more apart, wearing (personalized!) masks; group limited in size to assure safe distancing.] The outdoor space will have heaters available.

April 17-18, 2021  10am-5pm both days

Cost: $350

“You can only be as honest as you are self-aware.”

GETTING REAL teaches 10 truth skills that make you a more present, aware, spontaneous, authentic communicator. Most people have fears and insecurities which interfere with being fully present and honest. These insecurities can be healed. If you learn to put your attention on your here-now experience, rather than trying to control the outcome of your communications, you discover the real source of personal power, love, and inner security.

In this workshop, you will learn how to:

•   communicate with presence, authenticity, and spontaneity (even when you feel fear about it)

•   be aware of how you impact others

•   clear the air and keep it clear

•   repair rifts in trust and connection after a misunderstanding

•   keep your present relationships free of accumulated unfinished business

•   come back to being present after your fear-buttons have gotten pushed

•   communicate from the deepest parts of yourself—so you can be truly heard and accepted

•   notice and free yourself of all the ways you “go on automatic” as you communicate or listen

•   replace these “control patterns” with honest, spontaneous self-expression

•   recognize all the various disguises that mask the “need to control”

•   ask for what you want without being controlling

•   say “no” or mark your boundaries with compassion and sensitivity

•   embrace and value the silences in human communication

•   heal past trauma and unprocessed pain

•   communicate about difficult topics in ways that foster deep intimacy and trust

The workshop is intended for people who want to join with like-minded others to explore honesty as a spiritual awareness practice, getting to the essential self that is beyond conditioned fears, beliefs, and control patterns. Emphasis will be on developing communication skills and relationship practices that you can take home and integrate into your daily life.

Cost: $350

Time/date: April 17-18, 2021 (Sat-Sun), 10am-5pm both days

Location: Sebastopol, CA, one hour north of San Francisco (directions to follow registration)

REGISTER NOW: Call Susan’s landline, (707) 829-3646 or email: drsusan@susancampbell.com

Led by: Psychologist Susan Campbell has worked as a relationship coach for over 50 years. A former professor at the University of Massachusetts, she is author of 11 books on relationships and communication. Her website is www.susancampbell.com

Honesty Salon in Webinar Format [DATE CHANGED TO WEDNESDAY]

Beginning March 17, I will offer a six-session Honesty Salon in webinar format (zoom). It is scheduled for 6 consecutive Wednesdays, noon-1:15 pm Pacific time, skipping March 24, and ending April 21.

Cost is $200 for the 6 sessions. An Honesty Salon is a small group experience where we practice the 10 Truth Skills with one another, sharing whatever arises in the present moment. We use a set of simple communication guidelines that assist us in un-hooking from identification with mind chatter and being innocently open to whatever arises.

Between sessions, participants will have the option of meeting in dyads or triads to de-brief and do practice exercises. All sessions will be recorded and archived on a private page, so if you miss a session, the recording will be available to you.

To register or get more information, email me at drsusan@susancampbell.com  If you are interested in this offering, and the announced  time is not convenient, I may be able to change the time.  So please contact me about that at the email address above.

Free Monthly Group Coaching Call, Tuesday, April 6

I will be hosting my free Getting Real group coaching call Tuesday, April 6, 4-5pm Pacific time.  We use a telephone conference line. To get on the conference line  from the US or Canada call (712) 770-4010 and then enter pin number 781976 (plus #).

On this month’s call, I will respond to everyone’s questions re problems you encounter in your interpersonal, family, or peer group relationships. I will also encourage dialogue about how to relate more and control less in your daily communications. As I address your questions, I will invite sharing from the group regarding your best practices for dealing with relationship issues. These calls always involve lively discussion and deep sharing. I hope you will join in.

To call in from the UK, dial: 44-330-998-1227 (local access number)

To call in from Germany, dial: 49-209-8829-4402 (local access number)

From France: 33-1-7890-0674

From Australia: 61-2-8077-0511

To find other local access numbers outside the US, contact www.freeconferencecallHD.com

Replay Available 

If you miss the call and would like to access the recording, call (712) 770-4019 and then enter pin number 781976 (plus #).

Hear Susan’s Interview on “Pink Noise”

I was recently interviewed by the beautiful and talented Sheri Hauser for her “Pink Noise” radio show and podcast. We spent a little over an hour digging into how to live an authentic life. Topics ranged from asking for what you want to noticing your listening patterns to sexual vulnerability. We covered a lot and had a lot of fun. Here’s what Sheri wrote to me afterwards:

“I listened (to the podcast) in the car with my friends while driving in the mountains, and they were blown away by the amount of actionable insights into communication techniques.”

You can listen on SoundCloud at
https://soundcloud.com/user-994444991/pn_19_susan-campbell

Hear Susan on Rebel Love Podcast

If you want to learn to catch and calm your emotional triggers, and heal childhood wounds in the process, listen to my recent interview with Talia on her Rebel Love Podcast. In our interview, I describe how I help my clients distinguish between when they are communicating from their triggered brain vs their higher brain centers. I then describe how to use self-compassion and mindful presence to heal emotional sensitivities and childhood wounds. Trigger reactions don’t have to disrupt loving connections. They can be a portal to deeper intimacy between two people. Tune in here to listen:
https://rebellove.com/ep5susan

The 10 Truth Skills You Need to Live Authentically

Here is a summary of the 10 truth skills detailed in the book, Getting Real. For those of you familiar with my latest book, Five-Minute Relationship Repair, you may see that that entire book is about truth skill #6, Taking Back Projections. This is such a complex and often difficult-to-master truth skill. So I thought it deserved a whole book. 

Now here’s the list:

1. Experiencing what is  You have a felt body-based sense of your present feelings and sensations. You can notice and not identify with your judgments, projections, and interpretations.

2. Being transparent  You can disclose to others what you are feeling, sensing, imagining, or saying to yourself—with the simple aim of “knowing and being known,” free of the need to explain or defend.

3. Knowing your intent  You can consciously reflect on the intent of your communication. Is it to relate or to control? Are you revealing yourself in the interest of transparency or are you managing and strategizing in order to avoid discomfort?

4. Asserting what you want and don’t want  You can express a desire clearly and impactfully, without expecting to get everything you ask for. You mark boundaries when you need to.

5. Thriving on feedback  You are open and curious about others’ impressions and reactions to you.  This is different from being dependent on others’ reactions.

6. Taking back projections  You know how to learn from situations where your buttons or “favorite fears” get triggered. You can differentiate your fear-stories from what really happened.

7. Revising an earlier statement  You can re-visit an interaction if your feelings change or if you discover later that you have mis-spoken or were on automatic. You can say, “If I had it to do over….”

8. Holding differences  You can hear and empathize with someone else’s feeling or viewpoint while at the same time holding a different feeling or viewpoint. You can “be with” the tension of holding both in your awareness at once.

9. Sharing mixed emotions  You can communicate your multiple feelings about an issue or situation, e.g. You may wish to clear the air with someone while also fearing that your words might feel hurtful to the other.

10. Embracing silence  You can allow some space after you have spoken. You do not fill in the space with explanation or justification. You can experience the nonverbal emanations in the silences during a conversation.  You can tolerate uncertainty, ambiguity, not knowing.

Practicing these skills brings you to a deep and abiding sense of serenity, presence, and compassion. These three words that describe the qualities that we begin to embody when we practice Getting Real.