“Even while your are triggered, you can take a moment, or twenty, and access your Wise Adult self, the part of you that can stop, think, observe, and choose. Disharmony is to your relationship as pain to your physical body. It's a signal that something is wrong, that someone needs to get their hand off the stove. Our prefrontal cortex can process that signal and choose what to do about it. On the other hand, you and me consciousness knows just what to do in times of disharmony: (1) wrap yourself in rightness, (2) attempt to control your partner, (3) give vent to every emotion and infraction, (4) retaliate, (5) shut down - or some combination of all five of these losing strategies.”