Photo courtesy reportergimmi

EDITORS NOTE: This is a guest post from Mary Ann Crossno, LMFT, a good friend of mine who is also a family therapist. She expounds on the last post in the Taking Your Shape series. Due to this being Thanksgiving week, this will be the only post for the week. Enjoy the time with your family. See you after the break.

What is it that creates the intensity in certain conversations with your spouse? What moves a conversation between two people from the issue at hand into personal meltdown – emotional reactivity?

Emotional reactivity turns out to be nature’s way of informing us of where we are on the path of emotional maturity (another way of thinking about differentiation).

So one of the measuring tools we have for getting clear about how much growing up we have to do is time to reactivity – how quickly do you lose it? How easy is it to push your buttons? How many buttons do you have that can be pushed? How often do you stoop to pushing your partner’s buttons – either to have it your way or just to keep them from having it their way? Read more »