Emotional Popcorn

Emotional Popcorn

Emotional Popcorn Instructions (for normal couples who just want to do this today):

  1. One person names a feeling that is happening in the present.
  2. The other person does the following:
    1.  [Mirror the other’s emotions] You are feeling Blahh Blahh Blahh.
    2. [accessing and identifying feelings] check in with their own limbic feeling state.
    3. [Naming feeling] I am feeling Blahh Blahh Blahh
    4. [Mirroring emotion a second time] Say, “and you are feeling Blahh Blahh Blahh”
    5. [affirm the attachment bond] Say, “And I’m here.”
  3. The first person does the following:
    1. [Mirror the other’s emotions] You are feeling Blahh Blahh Blahh.
    2. [accessing and identifying feelings] check in with their limbic feeling state.
    3. [Naming feeling] I am feeling Blahh Blahh Blahh
    4. [Mirroring emotion a second time] Say, “and you are feeling Blahh Blahh Blahh”
    5. [affirm the attachment bond] Say, “And I’m here.”

As a couple, repeat Stages 2 and 3  over and over (perhaps 7 to 10 times) until both people shift into core states and feel a limbic resonance and empathy with each other.

For good couples therapists, coach, guide, help them stay with the process, and interrupt them when they accidentally get caught up in content.  Any good couples therapist can get mileage by repeating Stage  2 and 3.

For RCS Therapists guiding their clients through this, they can comprehend the directions in Stages 4,5, and 6.

Stage 4)   Deepen the limbic resonance between them.  You only do this stage after they are both limbically resonating with each other.

Stage 5)   Guide client to internalizing their sense of self as limbically connected to their   experience.    Do R-CS work helping them to identify the state that they are in is a right state and help   them limbically resonate with this state that this is in is in fact who they are.

Stage 6)  Cheerlead both of them affirming that when they emotionally attune and stay with their   partner’s experience several times in a row, that it creates an experience that isn’t just  a   pleasant feeling but helps their partner become who they actually are.  Then affirm that   they truly love who their partner is and don’t like their partner’s habituated patterns   they’ve learned.  Elicit a commitment to learning how to come into their core when their   partner is not available and elicit a buy in to the notion that we have a special mission in   life to help our partners shift states into who they are.
Further directions for RCS and Couples Therapists:  Download the PDF that has directions for therapists here——>Emotional Popcorn Directions for RCS or Couples Therapists

 

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