Coaching practices for The Gottman Method After a Loss
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For The Gottman Method After a Loss, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- Everyone keeps telling me to move on and get over the loss, but the grief is huge and it won’t go
- We had a bad fight and now I’m just waiting for things to feel normal again on their own
- We’re not fighting, but we’ve drained the reserve of goodwill between us
- Something I built my life around has ended
- Once a fight gets going there’s no off-ramp
Practices that may help
- The Gottman Method, Made Practical
Drawing on decades of observing couples in a research "love lab," John Gottman identified patterns that distinguish stable relationships from failing ones: avoiding the "four horsemen" of criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling; making repair attempts; turning toward bids for connection; and keeping a high ratio of positive to negative interactions. The observational research base is substantial, though much of it is correlational. - Treating grief as a form of gratitude
When something ends and you feel grief, recognise that the grief is proportional to the love — and let it be both.
Mono no Aware: The Pathos of Things - Actively restore the ratio after a major rupture
After a bad fight, the ratio is temporarily negative -- restoration requires intentional positive investment.
The Magic Relationship Ratio: Gottman's 5-to-1 Principle - Turn toward bids for connection
Respond to your partner’s small bids for attention rather than turning away or against them.
The Gottman Method, Made Practical - Reframing loss as transformation
When something ends or is lost, practise asking what it is becoming rather than only mourning what it was.
Zhuangzi and the Practice of Perspective Shift - Make and accept repair attempts
Use small gestures — humor, apology, a softened tone — to de-escalate mid-conflict.
The Gottman Method, Made Practical - Debrief and repair after the conflict is over
The conversation after the fight -- done calmly -- is where lasting repair happens.
Repair Attempts: Gottman's Key to Surviving Conflict in Relationships - Catch the four horsemen
Spot and replace criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling during conflict.
The Gottman Method, Made Practical - Deliberately engage loss-oriented work
Set aside dedicated time to directly face the grief — the emotions, the absence, the meaning of the loss.
The Dual Process Model of Grief, Made Practical - Identify your natural grieving style and adjust for it
Know whether you tend toward more loss or more restoration orientation — and compensate accordingly.
The Dual Process Model of Grief, Made Practical
Related concerns
- Gottman Flooding Break
If you are flooded, take a real break and signal it clearly -- then return.
Self-soothe and signal when stonewalling
- The Gottman Method After A Setback
Drawing on decades of observing couples in a research "love lab," John Gottman identified patterns that distinguish stable relationships from failing ones: avoiding the "four horsemen" of criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling; making repair attempts; turning toward bids for connection; and keeping a high ratio of positive to negative interactions. The observational research base is substantial, though much of it is correlational.
- The Gottman Method When Burned Out
Drawing on decades of observing couples in a research "love lab," John Gottman identified patterns that distinguish stable relationships from failing ones: avoiding the "four horsemen" of criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling; making repair attempts; turning toward bids for connection; and keeping a high ratio of positive to negative interactions. The observational research base is substantial, though much of it is correlational.
- Accepting Loss Grief
When something ends and you feel grief, recognise that the grief is proportional to the love — and let it be both.
Treating grief as a form of gratitude
- Adjusting To Loss
A loss looks catastrophic in isolation and trivial across the whole portfolio of your life.
Zoom out from the single loss to the aggregate
- Anicca And Grief
When grieving a loss, ground the experience in the insight that what ended was always impermanent — and that grief itself is impermanent.
Integrating loss through the lens of anicca
Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.