You can save your marriage

Transcription

1 You can save your marriage But first, you need to turn off your negative feelings By Barbara A. Schmitz Brian said his divorce was nearly final when he decided he had to try to save his marriage, in part for his children. Andrew, too, decided to do anything in his power to keep his wife and the rest of his family intact, even though his wife wanted out. While most spouses give up on their mate and their marriage when a divorce is that close to final, some do not. And for those, Larry Bilotta, from You Can Save This Marriage, gives hope. Larry Bilotta Brian, from Oregon, took Bilotta s course online, and has since reconciled with his wife. It really gave me insight into marriage, and the core issues that affect your marriage, Brian said. The most important thing I got was the ability to finally have control of my emotions and to rid myself of negative emotions. With that freedom, I was able to act and do the things I wanted to do. Within four weeks of starting the program, Brian s wife noticed the changes in him. She was so impressed that she agreed to give it another try. The change in him has also changed her. Think of electricity going between two conductors. If you change one to cement, you immediately stop conducting electricity. That electricity was the tension we ve always had in our marriage. Once it was removed, it gave us hope. It was our biggest problem and the biggest thing stopping us from enjoying our marriage. Andrew, from Australia, also had a miserable marriage and turned to Bilotta and the Internet after finding out his wife was involved with another man. Andrew said the course taught him to keep control of his imagination. I had pictures in my mind what was going on and that created emotions. But I didn t know if it was true. It was only the picture I had created. In addition, Andrew said he learned that if something is good or bad just depends on your point of view. You d think I would have been devastated when my wife went overseas to give herself to another man, or when she came back and said, I love you, but I am not in love with you, he said. But this has actually been the best experience of my life. That s because Andrew said he learned how to control his emotions. So instead of dwelling about his wife and her lover, he focused on moments he felt great in his own life. It allowed him to come to peace and release his negative energy. While Andrew isn t back with his wife yet, they have made strides. His wife realized that everything was not wonderful, despite the new man in her life and she left him. Most husbands bug off, but because I stayed calm and happy, she knows the 36 MARRIAGE winter 2012

2 door is open, Andrew says. She married me as a young girl, so she never was single. She needs to find out what life is about without me. She needs to grow in herself. I m giving her that opportunity to experience life apart from me, and that s OK. Bilotta took an unusual route to get into the marriage counseling business. He worked in advertising for several decades, but in the 1990s, he discovered how to finally turn his own unhappy marriage of 27 years into a happy one. He s been sharing that information since. His method is based on his own research. Not only did he interview many couples, but he also started to research why people feel bad as he tried to turn off the pain that his wife Marsha created in him. He learned that there is something within us the amygdala in the brain that ties current events to similar negative events in the past. He also discovered that a midlife crisis is merely the pain of childhood being realized into adult life. In 1990, he created Flag Pages, a type of personality test that helps individuals discover who they really are at heart and where they succeed in life. But the test is also instrumental in helping people find direction and solving relationship struggles. The Flag Page is now offered online to simplify the complex ideas of psychology in order to quickly and easily understand the motivations of people. It has steps to overcoming your negative feelings Step 1: No matter how negative an event may seem, it has no meaning. Events themselves have no meaning except the meaning you give them. Control what you can, stay calm and let events take their course. Step 2: To control your reaction to a negative event you need to control the little almond-shaped organ in your brain called the amygdala (pronounced uh-mig-dull-uh ). Your amygdala ties current events to similar negative events that have happened in the past. The amygdala can create such a strong emotional reaction that it literally shuts off your brain. To stop your amygdala from alarming you, you need to ask yourself: Is this event in front of me being affected by an old memory? Is this event relevant to the actual situation that is happening right now? Since your amygdala does not seek full confirmation, it is up to you to do so. Step 3: : Use your imagination to be quicker on the draw than your amygdala. When you connect a positive memory to a current negative event, you immediately override your amygdala. Instead of reliving a negative memory from your past, you would then see a good memory on your imagination TV or i-tv that plays in your brain. Your imagination is so powerful it can override your five senses. Step 4: You are the one who actually decides how other people treat you. So to get them to treat you right, you need to understand that your imagination is the most powerful MARRIAGE winter

3 been used to reduce stress and create understanding in a wide range of areas from businesses to marriage. Meghan and LaMorris Crawford, from Indiana, took the Flag Page personality test at a marriage conference at their church in Spring They both were surprised how accurate it was and how much they learned about each other. (Read more about them in Spotlight Couple on page 10). While some wouldn t necessarily think that taking a personality test could change your marriage, Meghan and LaMorris would argue it can. That s because both have changed their behavior now that they better understand each other. Their pages showed that Meghan wanted fun in their life, and LaMorris said he s since learned to make more time for fun in their marriage. It really showed me that it is OK to have a good time, and that I can t be all about business and providing for the family all of the time, he said. It s made me be more spontaneous and readjust my thinking that it s OK to not work one day On the other side, Meghan now understands that it goes against LaMorris s personality to give her constant affirmation, which is something her personality needs. It made me realize it wasn t natural for him, she said. So she s learned to accept that, and be glad when LaMorris does provide affirmation. LaMorris said he believes that the refusal to change is why most marriages don t last. I recognize that it s not the responsibility of my spouse to change, but that it s my responsibility. And when both spouses feel that way, and they allow God to change them, then the marriage can be very successful. Meghan said they ve also learned that life isn t just about them. It s about realizing what you can do together, and what God planned for you, she said. My biggest focus now is how can I love my husband more because then I can love my children better. Bilotta said if a man wants to stay married he must make his wife s life easier. When he does not, he is losing her heart, he said. She will hold against you every little thing you don t do Today s women today work outside the home and make their own money. They don t want to take care of the kids and the home all by themselves, too. They want their husband to be involved with parenting, he said, to help bring in money and to help around the house. And if they don t get the help, many will divorce, particularly those who suffered some type of abuse as a child. Women file percent of divorces, he pointed out. Bilotta said there are eight steps that lead to divorce, and the speed of which a spouse goes through those phases depends on the amount of childhood pain he or she withstood. 38 MARRIAGE winter 2012

4 Like all couples, Bilotta said he and Marsha had different programming instructions from their parents. Much of a child s programming occurs from birth to age 10 and is based on what parents do, rather than what they say, he said. However, that programming starts to take over in the child at about age 30, particularly when people are weak, tired or bored. You can be yourself as long as you are well rested, he said. But when you start to lose that energy, then the program will take over. In fact, it goes into action without you even realizing that you re acting like one of your parents. That s where the phrase comes, you re just like your mother, or you re just like your father, Bilotta said. Marsha and I were at odds with each other because our two sets of parents programmed us in completely opposite ways. But I couldn t get away because I was programmed by my parents to stay married... Bilotta said his parents came up with an agreement that allowed them to literally lead separate lives. My father had his gambling and influential asset. It alone has the power to decide how you feel because your imagination TV has complete control over your entire network of 10 million nerves. The bottom line is this: the only reality in life is on your imagination TV. But it is the feelings you give off that determine how other people will treat you. How do you think other people would treat you if they felt vibes coming from your nervous system that are edgy, critical, fearful or uncertain? They will deal with you in a negative way. So if you don t like the way someone has treated you, before you decide to snap back at them, first check to see if you were giving off bad vibes by looking at the pictures or thoughts in your imagination TV. In other words, treat others the way you want to be treated. Step 5: Your feelings are the immediate result of what s on your i-tv. At no point does reality play a role. So, if your i-tv fills up with bad pictures your nervous system physically makes you feel bad, and vice versa. Since your nervous system is completely obedient to your i-tv, you feel things whether they are real or not. In a nutshell, what this means is that your feelings are the direct result of the negative or positive pictures on your i-tv. Step 6: To understand the real power of belief, you need to understand how it relates to desire, fear and hope. Belief is what you believe about any particular situation. You must pass through either hope or fear before you can have that single convincing feeling we know as belief, the acceptance of the truth of anything. Thus, if you believe in something, you ll be free of doubt if you choose only one path either hope or fear but not both. If you choose to remain torn, 50 percent hope and 50 percent fear, you will find yourself worried and stressed out. If you do not control the pictures on your i-tv, they will control you by affecting your nervous system and making you feel bad. So don t let your amygdala control your life by letting it make irrational decisions like a certain look someone gave you

5 and intellectual pursuits, and my mother had alcohol and socializing, but they never fought or criticized. That was my program from childhood you re nice to each other and you do anything you want. Marsha, on the other hand, was programmed to treat her husband just as her mother had treated her father with verbal abuse. She forcibly revealed to Bilotta how his parent s programming made him self-centered. She needed me to see the truth. The brain is programmed with this information and when it turns on, you are not free to choose, he said. People tell me during interviews that they know what they are doing is wrong, but they don t know how to stop. It s as if they are possessed by the instructions of their first 10 years. Bilotta said 85 percent of the people who take his course are male, and they are much more successful than women in saving their marriages. Men are highly motivated to save their wives and kids, and are excited to learn what I m teaching, he explained. They are talking to each other and forming a support system. I do a live call every Friday, but outside those calls, they call each other in between. Bilotta created the Chaos to Purpose Scale to show how you were parented can impact your marriage. Purpose children learn that intimate relationships are safe since their parents enjoyed each other. In addition, Purpose children are made to feel important and valuable from both parents. Those children will have the same wonderful qualities as their parents. The men learn that their childhood will be reproduced, whether they or their spouse want it to be. You must realize there is a way to decommission the programs you don t want, he said. You just have to be serious about learning On the other end of the spectrum, a Chaos kid is suffering some form of neglect or emotional, verbal or physical abuse. They are extremely likely to have marriages that end in divorce. In between is the Twilight Zone. These are parents who are so busy working or getting their own pleasures when not working that they let the children raise themselves, Bilotta said. Children in this zone have a very uncertain morality or no morality at all since the parents weren t teaching. 40 MARRIAGE winter 2012

6 how. You need to realize that when your wife gets taken over, she doesn t want to be like that. She is being forced to be like that. That gives you compassion for her. You shouldn t take it personal. It is literally her mother treating you like the way her mother treated her dad. Bilotta said what he really tries to do is to teach people how to turn off their negative feelings. The source of human behavior is not your own freewill, he explained. It is a combination of the pain, instructions in your brain from the first 10 years, plus this thing inside all of us the amygdala that is simply evil. So while it may sound hopeless, it doesn t have to be. If people learn to eliminate their negative feelings, they can save their marriage. If you don t feel good, he says, you can t do good. means they think you re incompetent. Does that person really think you re incompetent? Maybe, but your amygdala did not allow a debate. It was convinced, and now you believe you are. Do you really want to live a life where you act on information before it has been confirmed? Step 7: Don t try to fix your attitude. No matter how hard you try to control your attitude, deep down inside, your amygdala and i-tv remain unaffected. When you try to control your attitude, your bad vibes are still being broadcasted to the people around you even though you are trying to act as pleasant as your willpower will allow you. This makes people view you as a hypocrite or phony. Attitude is only the symptom, not the source. Here s what you are not aware of, but other people can plainly see: Facial expression Body language Words you use and how they are received by others Tone of voice Do you really want to live a life where you re constantly held back by your negative feelings? If not, you need to change the pictures (images) on your i-tv. So the next time something happens in your life that you find to be upsetting, stop the chain of events before it has a chance to start. First, remember that an event has no meaning except the one that you give it. Then think of the greatest memory of your life. Try to think of every little detail and then write your memory on a piece of paper and memorize it. Then, the next time your negative feelings start to take over, think of this wonderful memory. Try to really relive this memory by recalling your feelings, thoughts, or the things you saw, smelled or even tasted during this precious moment of your life. When you practice reliving your memory on a daily basis, you ll find it becomes your natural reaction when a bad event happens in your life. For Larry Bilotta s full seven-day mini course, go to MARRIAGE winter