Today I want to talk to you about your connection toolbox and I’m sure that most of you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about – but we all have one.  We get our toolbox the day we are born and in that toolbox are tools that we are given in a sharing way I guess by our primary carer – or the person who takes care of us day in day out.

We exchange behaviour during our early years so that we are able to get our needs met.  For any of you who are mums you know that your baby cries in very specific ways – you know what that cry is  – do they need a nappy change  – do they need a feed  – do they need a sleep or do they just need a hug.

We know as mums what those cries are.  We learn what those cries are and we learn to meet our child’s need based on these cues.

This exchange between parent and child is the beginning of our emotional and connection toolbox.

What most people don’t know is that really early learning fills our toolbox for the rest of our lives.  For those of us who grew up in wonderful home where we were really connected and our needs were met that is great news that is fantastic.

But for some of us who maybe didn’t grow up in a home that was supportive or not as supportive as we would have liked.  Or we felt like our needs were not met in a way that would have been helpful to us.

We carry our toolbox with us into the rest of our relationships into adulthood and later life.  Our toolbox goes with us where ever we go.

What I say to people is that you need to do an audit on your toolbox because the toolbox you were given as a child may actually be getting in the way of you being happy as an adult.

I think one of the problems we can encounter when we start to dig around inside of our toolbox to do  our audit – is most of the stuff in there you can’t see and you can’t remember because of how old you were when you learned most of it.

I work with women with women in my clinic and online to try to get them to see first of all that they have a tool box and secondly the kind of tools that they use.

So how do you deal with closeness and connection?  How do you deal with rejection and abandonment? How do you deal with bids for repairing in a relationship? How do you deal with emotional distress?

They are all taught to you really early in your life.  Those tools in your toolbox the ones from your history are the ones you are using today.

I suggest you get familiar with your toolbox and that you start looking at it and pulling out those tools and seeing if the tools work for you today.  If they don’t work for you today you need to start looking at how are you going to change your behaviour to fit more closely with how your life is now.

Okay that is it for me today have a look inside your tool box – pull out your tools see if they still work and if they don’t it might be time to do an audit and change some of the tools from your everyday life.

If you would like some help with your relationship or connection toolbox you can contact me and see what services I offer here >>> https://debbicarberry.com.au/work-with-me/

Debbi

Debbi Carberry is a clinical social worker in private practice in Brisbane, Australia where she specialises in relationship transformation. She has helped hundreds of women and couples who were struggling in their various relationships. If you feel that you would like some additional support in your relationship click here to find out about Debbi’s ground-breaking online course, “Rewire your Brain for Better Relationships”.