Reconciliation Part One: an act of attunement

By Crystal King

Atonement requires Attunement.

In order for us to encounter real reconciliation, we must understand attunement first. Attunement is the ability to recognize and “tune in” to another person’s needs or internal state. It’s like setting our radio frequency to the same station that another is experiencing internally. Whether it is a joyous station or an angsty and melancholy station, tuning in to their affect or mood state opens a path to connection. When we are listening to the same station as another, communication has a bridge to walk across.

LEGO UNIVERSE EXAMPLE ON ATTUNEMENT

Picture a 4 year old girl building a tower on the floor with her LEGOS. She is completely engaged, focused, and in such a concentrated state that she notices nothing else around her. An attuned father walks over and observes her. He observes her furrowed brow, her pursed lips, and her intense gaze of creativity. He can discern her need for focus, space, and productivity; he is tuning in to her station.

Maybe he walks over to her, silently sits down, and joins her in her building. She hands him a set of rectangle pieces and starts instructing. Perhaps they converse or remain silent. Either way, they begin to build together; they start co-creating a LEGO universe. This father is attuned to his daughter’s mood state. Maybe he asks a question seeking more information on how to build the LEGO set. The question aims at capturing his daughter’s vision for the universe.

Suddenly his daughter’s eyes become aglow with imagination, as she rapidly explains her vision, tripping over her words because she cannot get them out fast enough. Her excitement charges the room, and he responds with equal enthusiasm. They grin from ear to ear, remaining connected, buzzing with eager anticipation for what their creative energies will construct.

As the radio frequency has amped up and been recognized, attunement continues. It is a constant recognition of body language, tone, and mood states. At any time, the interaction between the father and his daughter can alter her mood state; shifts will need to be made, and he will need to recognize when shifts in mood states are happening if he wants to remain “in tune” with her.

Ten minutes into building, disaster strikes. The piece that was supposed to culminate the completion of the LEGO universe cannot be found.  Without this piece, the final product is ruined in her mind. Her mood state alters dramatically. Tears ensue. The ever observant father attunes to the new mood state, and they search together for the missing piece. It is found! It is placed! Her mood state shifts again and the father, still attuned, celebrates with her. Maybe they jump up and down together or simply share a smile.

Unfortunately the joy is short lived. Catastrophe is next. The weight of the final piece was too much, and when the entire structure crashes to the ground, the father witnesses his daughter’s face as all her hard work topples to a heap in front of her. He remains a witness to his daughter’s discouragement, pain, and frustration. He does not try to move her out of the emotion too quickly. Just as he celebrated her victory a few moments before, now he sits with her in her discouragement. He makes sure she sees that he understands her sadness BEFORE moving to offer solutions and distractions. She knows he GETS that this was maddening for her. After the daughter’s sadness is felt with her, maybe he offers to rebuild or maybe he offers to run around in the backyard with her to expel the angry energy that comes from suddenly watching a hard-earned masterpiece crumple into pieces.

Either way, he has remained attuned to his daughter through the ups and downs of building a LEGO universe.

The above example of attunement recognizes that life has many highs and lows, and the lows do not need to be controlled, avoided, or run away from. Attunement can recognize and respond to both the highs and the lows of another. As this daughter grows, her ups and downs will come from different sources. Some of the sources of her shifting mood states will not matter to the father because he understands they are temporary sources of frustration, but she will matter. And if he carries the ability to attune with her through those times, she will understand that she matters, and they will have a much higher chance of staying connected.

The daughter’s neurological system is expanding in this scene due to the attunement she receives. Schemas around being seen and understood are creating a path of connection for her that she is currently unaware of. This neurological pathway in her brain will serve her later in life when she seeks to expand, explore new territory, and stretch her abilities. She will naturally know how to reach out to others for support and stability. She will be less likely to fear building and creating. She will be less likely to fear the fallout from trying new things because she is seen and felt in both the highs and the lows. She will have a coherent sense of her emotions, allowing them to pass through her in a balanced way, neither over-identifying with them or suppressing and strangling them.

First she experienced feeling known as her need for concentration and creativity were understood. Next she experienced feeling seen in her discouragement of the missing LEGO piece. After that, she experienced the united celebration of finding it. Finally she experienced another person understanding the pain that comes from watching a creation destroyed. Ultimately she experienced attunement, connection. This attunement is a message that she matters and has value. It will serve as a buffer for her through all of life’s storms. The mirroring of emotion that came from the father’s attunement will create in her nervous system the ability to regulate her emotions with more ease in times of stress.

LEGO UNIVERSE EXAMPLE ON MIS-ATTUNEMENT

Now let us be realistic. At any point in the above example, there are ample opportunities for mis-attunement. This happens. It is normal. It is common, and it can be repaired fairly quickly when recognized. Picture the scene from the beginning again; the father could have run into the room feeling a giant happy burst from getting a raise that day. He could have ran to his daughter, grabbed her up in a twirl, and completely disregarded her entire state of concentration and her focused attention on her craft. This twirl could either entirely disrupt her state, or if she is a lover of surprise, it could delight her. If it disrupts her, it would create a moment of mis-attunement. Again, this is common and no big deal. We can easily get so caught up in our own state that we disregard another, and all attuning is lost in that moment. In this scenario, it is easy to repair if the daughter is vocal and demonstrative about the dysregulation the twirl caused her in her moment of concentration. The father can quickly repair the rupture, and reconnection is made as he searches for the common radio frequency. If the daughter is more of a quiet nature and stunned into a shock by the twirl, it may take a more observant father to see that he has just mis-attuned and they are on completely different radio frequencies. Still, an intentional observation of the state and body language of his daughter can quickly be made and his re-attuning can create a secure connection again.

Later in the building process, when the daughter is devastated by the fallen LEGO universe, the father might mis-attune again by bypassing his daughter’s sadness about her loss and moving so quickly to a solution that she does not feel seen at all in her moment of despair. In fact, the emotion is so quickly dismissed and covered up, it does not get digested at all. He may observe that she is still distressed and not ready for solution, but his own need for her tears to stop as quickly as they can, moves him to an entirely different radio frequency than the one she is on. It is a radio frequency from his past that unconsciously came back to tell his subconscious that tears are dangerous, and he must quickly distract her from them. Rather than acknowledging her radio frequency, he exits it so fast that she cannot even register the emotion in herself. She learns to distract from that emotion rather than feel it. (If this becomes the pattern, later on in life, that is the emotion that will clog up her neural pathways, and she will have to work hard to create a template to learn to feel that emotion and allow it to pass through.)

The above LEGO universe scenario can occur around various topics between any two people of any age, whether it is a mother and son, a grandmother and granddaughter, a husband and wife. Attunement is necessary for all of life because it is a primary way we regulate our nervous systems. Some people attune easily to young children and others are more natural at attuning to teens or adults. Regardless of our natural bent, if we want repaired, connected relationships, we will need to learn attunement with others at all stages of their life.

SOME TENETS OF ATTUNEMENT

Attunement often creates a path to empathic connection.  But, empathy without attunement cannot take us as far in connecting. Both are necessary and can work in tandem. Over-empathizing can actually pull us out of attunement. We can deeply feel what we believe another is feeling to the point where it starts to overwhelm us. However, attunement actually tunes in to their radio frequency and understands what they are feeling without being emotionally overtaken by the music on their station. Below are some guidelines of attunement:

1- Focused witnessing of another’s affect, body language, tone, and emotion.

2- Asking clarifying questions to understand when we don’t yet get it.

3- Communicating we see their emotion.

4- Allowing the other person the time they need to let the emotion move through them (without judgement).

5- Accepting another’s emotion without the need to over-identify with it or personalize it.

6-Observing what their emotion brings up in us without making their emotion about us.

Emotions rise, peak, and then fall. They naturally move through us, and when we are seen and felt in that process, we move through the emotion without getting too stuck or emotionally constipated. Unfortunately, when our emotions are continuously pushed away, shamed, judged, dismissed, buried, avoided, minimized, and ruled invalid, then we get stuck in the process of metabolizing them, and the emotional pipe gets clogged, a river gets dammed. And this essentially damns us to a life in which that emotion comes out sideways as bitterness, hostility, arrogance, insecurity, etc. Our damned emotions eventually block our ability to function at a life-giving capacity.

When we are uncomfortable sitting with certain emotions, this discomfort equates to moments of mis-attunement. Our own moments of dysregulation impair our ability to attune to others. Attunement requires the ability to stay with an emotion (for ourselves and others) as long as needed to feel seen, understood, and responded to. Attunement allows emotional states to pass through and not get stuck.

CULTURAL THEMES THAT BLOCK ATTUNEMENT

There are some common adages such as, “pick yourself up by your bootstraps”, or “man-up.” There is nothing inherently wrong with these adages except when they perpetuate the idea that people, specifically men, are not supposed to feel; they are supposed to act only. From very early on, boys are actually attuned to less than girls are attuned to. This common cultural norm is an attempt to make men “tougher.” Unfortunately, it does not take into account that emotions have to be processed or they will get stuck, whether the emotion is in a boy or a girl. Emotions, specifically core wounds, have to be felt, and when we distance ourselves from feeling them, they don’t just disappear. The strangled pain goes underground and can turn into a neurosis, an obsession, a personality disorder, a psychosis, extreme dysregulated mood states, etc.

So the attempt to make boys “tougher” has actually just turned them into a wall of stone that lacks the ability to attune and empathize with others. While everyone may be different in what they feel emotions around, the emotions themselves are still a force that needs to follow the pathway of movement in our bodies so they don’t get stuck. Just as gravity follows the same laws, regardless of gender, the biology of emotion is going to follow the same laws regardless of gender.

These adages mean well, and they are often used to remind someone that responsibilities in life cannot be neglected even while one is suffering.  Indeed there is a time and place to take action, move forward in the face of loss, and pick up the pieces of a crumpled life. The damage comes when these adages are poorly timed or given as a message to circumvent feeling the initial pain of the loss.

When we attune with another, we know not to give these tropes to someone still wrestling with their grief. To do so would cause more damage and severe them from their grieving process, spiraling them into shame instead, shame for feeling sad at their loss, shame for not moving on fast enough, shame for being “weak.” If they are in the middle of true grief and are made to feel embarrassed by their pain, they will take the shame detour. In taking the shame detour, their grief does not get processed, their pain gets stuck, and they become hardened. We humans will find all kinds of ways to avoid our grief naturally. We do not need to be given more adages that keep us from feeling our real pain, plunging us into the pain of shame instead. Feeling real pain is productive pain that eventually allows the emotion to move through us, but feeling the pain of shame sends us into all kinds of detours from grief. These shame detours lead to one path: the path of isolation. Lack of attunement is one of the main ingredients creating isolated and lonely mood states.

DISCLAIMERS: WHAT ATTUNEMENT IS NOT….

Attunement is NOT agreement. Specifically, it is not beneficial to agree with someone who is doing the following: feeding on lies about themselves, spiraling in shame cycles, hatefully scorning themselves, spewing remarks of disgust about someone else, etc. This person is actually not a person in the grieving process. It is a person who NEEDS to feel some of their strangled emotions and grieve, but they are understandably avoiding their grief. Supporting the avoidance of grieving is not attunement and not useful for anyone.

Attunement is reflecting back and showing depth of understanding for where another is in their headspace and state of mind, but it does not necessarily mean sitting in agreement with where they are in their head. The perception of their reality is definitely shaping their feelings, and we can attune to those feelings without agreeing with them.

Attunement is NOT foregoing discipline or boundaries in relationships. Let’s go back to the LEGO universe example and remember when the daughter is upset by the toppling of the bricks. What if it is time to go at that very moment? Perhaps, they need to get in the car and go on an errand. Her emotion has not been worked through and she does not want to leave, but it is necessary. Her behavior gets loud and takes over. Emotion can still be attuned to even while behavior is addressed. Attunement does NOT mean that we ignore behavior and forgo discipline, but attunement as a general rule of thumb, actually aids in discipline.  Exactly what that may look like is beyond the scope of this article, but for now, it is important to remember that both discipline and attunement can and should be done simultaneously.

BACK TO RECONCILIATION

The above article on attunement sets the table for reconciliation. Without the understanding that reconciliation first requires the ability to attune, we will not get very far in the reconciliation process.  Attunement is the precursor to reconciliation and without reconciliation, there is no bridge between hearts.

In the example above with the daughter building her LEGO universe, the attunement she receives allows her to stay in connection with her father. Imagine that at every point along the way, there is mis-attunement. Now imagine that there is no repair for those mis-attunements. Imagine this mis-attunement happens day after day, month after month, year after year with no repair. The father and the daughter would have little to no relationship, or a tension-filled one at best. There would be an absence of connection in their relationship and the gap between them would be wider than the grand canyon. Over time, constant mis-attunement can shape the entire dynamic of a relationship. We may wake up one day to find that we don’t know our son, our spouse, our sibling. There is a giant chasm between the two of us, and it is hard to pinpoint where the chasm even came from. Those repeated moments of mis-attunement with no repair, often cause chasms of disconnection. If we find ourselves in this spot, we must first learn to attune, and then start the process of reconciliation.

Tuning into the radio frequency of the one we have mis-attuned with and caused tremendous pain to will start the reconciliation process.  In short, attunement paves a path for atonement. Please see “Reconciliation Part Two: An Act of Atonement” for how atonement works.

ARTICLES:

Reconciliation Part Two: an act of atonement