Zero Negativity is a commitment to put aside your gripes and focus on what is going well for a set period of time.

You might need to start with an hour and work your way to a daily commitment. As you do this, you will actually change your brain! Let's learn more!

Effective communication is often described as the cornerstone of a healthy relationship, but most of us have never been taught what “effective” truly means. We speak and listen through filters shaped by our past experiences which then form our assumptions and expectations. Our mind creates stories that lead to misunderstandings and unresolved tensions. 

Have you ever found yourself in the middle of a disagreement, feeling like your emotions are running the show? Maybe your heart starts racing, your thoughts become cloudy, and suddenly it feels like you’re reliving an old argument or hurt all over again. This isn’t just your imagination—your brain and body are wired to respond this way. But the good news is, once you understand what’s happening inside you, you can learn tools to prevent or minimize this reactivity.

Let’s take a quick look at your brain. It’s like a house with three floors, each one built on top of the other as humans evolved. The oldest part is often called the "reptilian brain"—it handles survival instincts like fight, flight, fawn, or freeze. None of these defensive strategies are going to help you connect or actually protect you, but they are wired to fire if your body detects a threat.

Next comes the limbic system, the emotional center, where memories and feelings are stored. And finally at the top, there’s the neocortex, the thinking brain, where logic, reason, and problem-solving live. The prefrontal cortex is about a third of the neocortex and in it resides everything you need for the relationship of your dreams: empathy, strategic planning, the moderation of social behavior and the ability to care and work for everyone’s greater good. When all three of these parts of the brain are working together, it’s amazing! But when you’re stressed, the lower parts of your brain which are the survival and emotional centers can take over, leaving your wise relational brain to struggle to remain online. And if the threat is reinforced emotionally, we “flip our lid” and all of our awareness of this beloved partnership is irrelevant. This is why it can feel so hard to stay calm and present when you're in the heat of the moment.

Here’s where the vagus nerve comes in. Think of it as the body’s communication superhighway, connecting your brain to your heart, lungs, and gut. Its job is to help calm your body when it’s safe to relax and it senses danger is over. But here’s the tricky part: your body can’t always tell the difference between a real threat—like being chased by a bear—and a perceived threat, like a disagreement with your partner or friend. If your vagus nerve doesn’t get the signal to chill, your brain stays in survival mode, and the emotional brain will pull memories from the past, blurring them with what’s happening in the moment. Worse, you will have zero sense that any part of your present experience is connected to your past! That’s why you might react to a disagreement like it’s an old wound being reopened, but your rational mind doesn’t see it that way. Your brain and body are galvanizing all defensive  forces as if we must kill, convert or run off an enemy soldier. Your wise mind has gone off line and you are ready to go to war! This would be helpful if they were a dangerous enemy, but given you are trying to be teammates, this reactivity gets messy. 

The key to staying calm and present, especially when talking about differences, is learning to consciously calm your nervous system. Practices like deep breathing, mindfulness, and even pausing to notice how your body feels in the moment can activate your vagus nerve and tell your brain, “Hey, it’s safe now. You can relax.” Gentle and kind touch can also support such a shift if it is consensual. When your body feels safe, your thinking brain comes back online, and you can respond to the situation with more clarity and compassion instead of reacting from old pain and fear.

The Imago Intentional Dialogue offers a transformative framework for communication that bridges these gaps between the present and the past while fostering a deeper understanding. If we use such a communication system we are less likely to flip our lid in the first place. This chapter provides an overview of this powerful tool, highlighting why it’s essential for addressing hidden dynamics and creating a satisfying connection.

At its heart, the Imago Intentional Dialogue is a structured process designed to help couples move from conflict to connection. It consists of three main steps: mirroring, validating, and empathizing. These steps aren’t just about exchanging words; they’re about listening deeply, setting aside defensiveness, and genuinely seeking to understand your partner’s perspective. By practicing this method, couples can break out of reactive cycles and replace them with patterns of curiosity and mutual respect.

Mirroring is the first step and perhaps the most powerful in its simplicity. It involves repeating back what your partner has said without interpreting, analyzing, or reacting. This may sound easy, but it requires immense focus and presence. The goal of mirroring is to ensure your partner feels truly heard—not just in their words, but in the emotions and meaning behind them. By practicing mirroring, you create a space where your partner feels safe to open up, free from fear of judgment or rebuttal.

Once mirroring is complete, the dialogue moves to validation. Validation doesn’t mean agreeing with everything your partner says; instead, it means acknowledging that their perspective is legitimate, even if it differs from your own. For example, you might say, “That makes sense, given how you explained your experience.” Validation helps diffuse defensiveness and builds trust, showing your partner that their feelings and thoughts matter to you, even in moments of disagreement.

The final step, empathizing, is where deeper connection begins to form. Empathy involves stepping into your partner’s emotional world and imagining what they might be feeling. This step goes beyond intellectual understanding—it requires emotional presence. By expressing empathy, such as “I imagine you might be feeling hurt or frustrated,” you demonstrate that you’re not just listening but also feeling with your partner. This fosters an emotional bond that is vital for healing and intimacy.

What makes the Imago Intentional Dialogue so transformative is that it bypasses our usual reactive tendencies and brings us into the present moment with our partner. However, like the hidden forces driving conflict, our ability to engage fully with this process is often hindered by unconscious beliefs and habitual communication patterns. For example, if we hold a subconscious fear of being vulnerable or wrong, we might struggle to validate or empathize with our partner. This is why simply learning the mechanics of the dialogue isn’t enough—it requires ongoing practice and a willingness to explore the deeper emotions and irrational fears that arise during the process.

The beauty of the Imago Intentional Dialogue is that it doesn’t just resolve surface-level conflicts; it opens the door to uncovering and addressing the subconscious wounds and unmet needs that fuel those conflicts. Through this process, you and your partner can begin to see each other not as adversaries but as allies in a shared journey toward growth and healing. This dialogue is more than a communication tool—it’s a pathway to a deeper understanding of yourselves and each other, making it an invaluable foundation for the work ahead.

The structure of predictable steps and the scripts of dialogue provide your brain with the signals of safety: eye contact, gentle touch, gratitude, mirroring, validation, empathy, time-limited conversations, and closure. This allows our brain to keep the relational part of us online. 

Remember, you’re not just stuck in the patterns of the past. Your brain and body are incredibly adaptive, and the more you practice using communion skills that keep your nervous system calm, the easier it becomes to stay grounded—even during tough conversations. By remaining grounded in the present, you can show up as your best self, ready to listen, understand, and communicate in a way that heals instead of harms.  

Now here is the most important point. If you use the communication tool for problem solving your brain will begin to see the communication process as a threat and want to avoid using it. Our first impulse is to use communication to identify and fix the problem. This is because the competitive paradigm values critical analysis and solving problems and it is how we were trained to think. The challenge is the way our needs and desires  hook into our beloved’s pain. If we try to solve our relationship problem using only our perspective, we will injure them and create a relationship problem for them. For instance, one person desires peace and harmony and we call this a minimizing strategy. Their partner often experiences this negatively (i.e. dismissive) because a maximizing strategy will detect an issue and they believe that if it is ignored it will eventually end the relationship. The maximizer needs to be seen and heard but in trying to do that they often are experienced as critical to the minimizer. So in an effort to protect the very same relationship they are in conflict about how to best protect it - solve the problem or set it aside and move forward. 

Both of these perspectives are needed for healthy relationships. The impulse to maintain harmony is critical for the brain to feel relaxed and joyful. The impulse to find a deeper understanding for growth and healing is critical for the longterm success of the relationship. If we both value peace over growth and healing, we will hit a wall years later often resulting in affairs, addiction and divorce. If two people are engaged with problem solving without the ability to cultivate a calm connection or knowledge on how to dive deeper into the hidden forces, they will fight and make up until all of the passion is gone or is directed towards the end of the relationship. 

The more our brain focuses on problems and blames our partner for them, the more it stays stressed out, doing harm to our mental and physical health. You may be surprised to learn that it is possible to improve the health of your brain, but the real surprise is how! When we “program” our mind with positive  information about how lucky we are to have a partner, what is going well and what we like about them, and combine that with stretching to give our partner what they need to feel loved, we convince our brain that we are safe and we can really relax into joyfulness. So we encourage you to commit to the Zero Negativity Challenge with a commitment to share three positive things you appreciate about your partner (and then sit on your negative gripes) and do one caring behavior each day. If you mess up, just recommit again. This is about progress, not perfection. When your partner is sharing their appreciation or doing their act of kindness, be sure to mirror them and say thank you! 

What if their idea of appreciation and caring behaviors isn’t what feels good to you? Take a more in depth training to apply these concepts to your relationship: 

To learn more and to watch real couples using the Imago Intentional Dialogue tools:

• Empathy Made Easy: A Mini-course for Couples (1 of 3)
• Getting the Love You Want Couples Seminar and the 8-week challenge (3 of 3 plus tools for relationship repair, conflict resolution and more!)