We all have sensitive areas in our lives, memories, and shared experiences. When these are triggered, they can ultimately cause moments of disconnection between our partners and loved ones. Maintaining healthy relationships is challenging--especially when couples get caught up in repetitive negative patterns. As we work towards developing deeper connections and living more authentic lives, these emotional raw spots get in our way.  

So how do we identify these emotional bruises before they leave permanent scars on our existing relationships? Join Dr. Sam Jinich and  Dr. Zoya Simakhodskaya, Executive Director of the New York Center for Emotionally Focused Therapy, as they discuss how to interrupt these raw spots, break negative cycles, and build deeper, more meaningful connections. 

Here’s a quick glance at what you’ll learn from Sam and Zoya during this episode:

-How to react when you feel like your partner doesn’t understand or is not being sensitive to your feelings. 

-How to identify sensitivities or emotional raw spots, which may have been formed earlier in childhood or by previous relationships. 

-The importance of sharing our raw spots with our partners and loved ones, so that we can work together to avoid or be more gentle with those emotional bruises. 

-Feeling safe, loved, and accepted in our relationships, instead of unsafe, undervalued, and unloved. 

-Finding empathy for ourselves and others.

"We all have [raw spots]. You have them. I have them. Every single listener has them. And they usually are things that we had experienced, most likely growing up, but it can also happen later on in life." --Dr. Zoya Simakhodskaya

"If we want to change the way that our raw spots are pressed from others, by others, we need to understand also our role and our part in having those raw spots pressed." --Dr. Sam Jinich