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We are extremely powerful creatures created in God’s semblance. As we are all universally interconnected as energy and matter in the physical universe, we are omnipresent (present everywhere), omniscient (all knowing), omnipotent (all powerful) and we are Love itself. Now that is powerful.
I can tell my couples how to do things till I’m blue in the face, but unless we play deeper change is not possible… I find that we have a tendency to look for immediate gratification, the quick fix, the easy way out, and the shortest path to the Promised Land. If this approach worked we would already be an amazingly evolved species… Unfortunately, this is not the case. This approach does not work. We have to be in it to win… We have to have skin in the game to get the desired outcome. We have to have our two feet in to walk and enjoy the Journey.
Partners expecting too much or too little from each other is a sign of a dynamic in disarray. When partners have expectations that are beyond what their partner is capable or willing to do, it is usually because they think they know best. They think they know what their partner should be about. They know what their partner should do, how they should feel, how they should respond, how they should think, and everything in between. They are usually projecting their own wishes, needs, likes and such onto their partner. They expect their partner to be the way they themselves would be.
Right about now is when the end of year crunch and stress of holiday planning starts to creep in. People fall into all kinds of categories in terms of how they do the holidays. But whether they actively plan and try to dot all their “i”s and cross all their “t”s or by just wing it nonchalantly, everyone is affected… The holidays have this funny way of getting under one’s skin, hitting raw nerves, and poking at our soul. There is something primal about holidays…
I hear how every year appears to go quicker and faster for some as their lives get busier and more complicated in their attempt to keep up with the pace of our ever moving society. This is a challenging pull to evade fraught with consequences for the relationship. We become distracted from our partner, our connection, and our love and in so doing we loose sight of each other and move away from our happiness.
Appreciation, acknowledgement and understanding are key ingredients in couple relationships. Partners feel important, content and loved when they know their partner practice these and are truly dissatisfied, unfulfilled and unhappy when they don’t. The reason is that these characteristics aid couples in feeling connected. Their absence leaves couples fumbling to get their needs met and to “feel” their partner and the relationship.
A common complaint in relationships is partners feeling disconnected from each other. I hear this as one of the primary concerns couples present with in my practice, aside from fighting a lot and not communicating. As a couple is composed of two different individuals who have different histories, upbringings, personalities, ways of looking at things and processing information, styles of communication and many other individual characteristics, it is easy to get disconnected. This gets even further compounded with current dynamics and contexts if an effort to stay connected is not made.
When partners create tunnel vision in their lives focusing all their energies on certain endeavors, they tend to loose sight of their partner and the relationship. These are the partners who feel disconnected and end up dissatisfied in their relationship.
You have a loooong to-do list. You have others to attend to. You have projects on the burners. You are busy, you juggle, you push to the limit to get to it all.You might be sleep deprived. Sometimes you might forget to eat, even though you generally go for nutritious and clean food. Heck, you might even try to stick to an exercise routine. At the end of the day everything else but you comes first… You are in the throes of demands and might feel like you are running out of steam, pulling your hair out, screaming at the top of your lungs, hiding under a rock, or all of the above.
Our mood is impacted by many variables in our lives if we let it. Our hectic lifestyles, poor self care, habits, emotional problems, the weight of our history, etc. can all have a huge impact on how we feel and therefore how available we are in our relationship(s).
People are obsessed with the difficulties in their relationship, they just keep thinking about it and hurting over it. They put too much negative mental energy into it. I don’t really blame them as I know it is very difficult and painful to be in a relationship that just keeps hurting them, but one gets out what one puts in. Negativity begets negativity.
Our relationship has a purpose. There is a reason for our relationship why we chose the partner we did. People, in more recent times, usually say they got married, or are involved in their relationship, because they love their partner, and/or have also other logical reasons why they decided to commit and stay with their partner. These are not the real reasons for why they are in their relationship! These are either socially correct or superficial reasons, and are ways for them to understand why they are with their partner.
Have you gotten over yourself, evicted your Ego, yet? Are you full steam ahead? Are you all in? Are you fully committed to really giving it your all, to throwing your whole Self in? Are you fully committed to kicking some serious butt, to creating an extraordinary life and awesomest relationship? Do these questions scare you? Do you feel a wave of terror cursing through your body? Do you feel your insides shaking? Do you feel frozen or paralyzed? Do you feel like a protagonist in a film playing in slow motion, or like you are walking in molasses?
Couples get stuck in how they relate in their relationship and no matter how they try to get unstuck, to meet their needs and to create a satisfying relationship, they just get more and more buried in dissatisfaction.
The longer we are with our partner and the more time goes on, there is a tendency for complacency, laziness, neglect, taking-for-grantedness, and boredom in the relationship.
Couples frequently come to my practice expressing that they have lost something or that something is missing in their relationship. They complain there is no passion. They share that they are good friends, but want something more in their relationship. A lot of these couples have a sexless relationship (having sexual intimacy less than one time per week) and want to express and feel their love in all realms including the physical.
Wow, the year is almost over! Here is a recap of the Season’s focus. In case you missed it, you might want to take a look at these to see what still applies and what you need to embrace to gracefully waltz into the New Year! Intentionally Plan Your Holidays And Year-End (setting up your HYP) Acknowledge And Celebrate Your Accomplishments (ASPECT 1 of HYP) Letting Go, Productivity And Meaningful Holidays (ASPECT 2 of HYP) Giving, Meaning And Success (ASPECT 3 of HYP) Giving To Yourself For Ultimate Success (Reinforcement for HYP)
Most couples can revitalize their relationship after they’ve lost desire for each other and/or after being in their non-sexual relationship (10 sexual encounters a year (less than one per month) for a while, even for decades! This is good news! These dissatisfied couples loose hope of ever having an interesting, stimulating and satisfying relationship with their partner that includes a healthy sexual component. This does not have to be the case!!
Giving in whatever manner tickles our heart is a significant path to feeling happiness. Our Giving doesn’t just touch others’ hearts and maybe even meet their needs with our gestures. Our Giving is also good for us. The act of giving and being generous stimulates the same neural network that light up when we feel physical pleasure… This week gives us a great opportunity to Give in additional ways. #GivingTuesday has become a significant part of the holiday experience. Did you participate yet? What causes are dear to your heart?
The season of renewal is finally here and with it comes an invitation to awaken to life. Note the blue skies, the sun shining, birds chirping, flowers blooming. What an enchanting time to be alive. The possibilities are countless.
I find that most couples do not have a vision of their future in place. They do not know where they are going in life. They deal with things as they come up, live pay-check-to-pay-check or floating their lives on credit cards, putting out fires, and mechanically going through their days. They cannot benefit from their inherent synergy and gifts because they do not have a vision of how they want their future to be, never mind a plan for getting there. Going through life without a plan is like going on a road trip without a map, you will not enjoy the ride!
The bottom line of the romantic relationship is feeling connected, loved and acknowledged. This is what we strive for in our relationship. This is of course not the only thing we want out of our relationship, but it sure is one of the top ones! This explains the need to partner up in life. We are social beings and need to live in relationship.
I find that most couples do not have a vision of their future in place. They do not know where they are going in life. They deal with things as they come up, live pay-check-to-pay-check or floating their lives on credit cards, putting out fires, and mechanically going through their days. They cannot benefit from their inherent synergy and gifts because they do not have a vision of how they want their future to be, never mind a plan for getting there. Going through life without a plan is like going on a road trip without a map, you will not enjoy the ride!
Our body is not just a receptacle that houses our Self. It is how the Self manifests itself. The flesh that we refer to as our body is actually all-knowing pulsating molecular energy. the material of the Self, our Being. Here we store information such as our histories, experiences, their impact, our wishes and desires, feelings, and have access to Knowledge, choices, best options, outcomes, a sense of others and community, and even love.
Without even realizing or knowing how it happened sometimes couples find that they have gotten themselves stuck in a rut. This is very common and it can happen cyclically in the relationship. The couple’s rhythm inevitably sets this up to happen. Some things that affect this phenomenon include:
In our society Freedom is one of our most valuable assets and one we tend to take for granted. How we perceive and define our freedom is directly correlated to our sense of power and our ability to design the relationship and life we want. When we get stuck looking at our situation with a murky set of glasses and limited parameters, it is inevitable that we’d feel stuck, boxed in, without options, and even controlled. It is crucial to your well-being to explore your definition of freedom and expand your parameters. If you have a limited perspective, you’ll get a limited outcome!
Our body is our most important possession. It houses, protects and enables our most precious possession our brain. Our brain creates and generates our mind and the essence of us. It makes us who we are on a daily basis. It is the CEO of Me, Inc. It is the master mind of our life. Some say it is where our soul resides.
We leave freedom and independence to be celebrated on the 4th of July, and for politicians and policy makers to worry about. But freedom is a gift that should be treasured, cherished and protected in all contexts, especially in such an intimate and influential relationship in our lives such as our relationship with our partner. In our relationship, the ability to exercise our freedom is key to our and our partner’s wellbeing and that of the relationship. Without freedom your true authentic selves can not be in relationship and the relationship can not flourish and be satisfying.
Sometimes we feel stuck and hopeless. We look at our life and relationship and wonder, What happened? This is not what I set out to create. Somewhere along the way you lost your path, you lost your self. And now, you have no idea where you want to go and how to get yourself there. You might even blame your partner for the lack of progress in your life and relationship. You can’t get your partner to do what you want. Stop trying. It won’t work – you can’t tell others what to do; they are not responsible for your happiness.
One version of couples struggling that I come across are couples with partners that are codependent. These are the couples that are stuck in patterns that they can’t seem to break, they have a lot of fighting and drama or complete disconnect (conflict avoiding), they feel they are behind their peers in terms of professional and relational achievements, and can’t seem to synchronize on handling the business of creating a joint life and getting their needs met. In these couples the partners show up in two ways:
Do you find that your interactions with your partner include some of the following? Poor or no eye-contact Giving of the back or talking to the back Talking to the air Not responding, acknowledging or answering questions Dismissing Shutting down, ignoring Withholding Lying Rejecting Forgetting Denying Shrugging of shoulders Rolling of eyes, giving the evil eye or staring down, huffing and puffing, sighing, sucking teeth Leaving, walking/turning away, or truncating discussionsr
I find that we make poor choices at almost every turn and then wonder how come our relationship and life are not as we’d prefer them to be I find that we do not own our Self and our life, that we do not know who we are and what we are meant to do I find that we do not take the time to design our relationship and our life. I find that we are not intentional about creating the relationship and life we desire. I find that we do not Live in the moment and create a fabulous relationship, and life, in every momentrnr
When we think of codependence we think of it in terms of its association with substance dependence. We think of a partner who is codependent with a substance dependent partner. But this is not the case. Codependence can be a condition and state of being and dealing with life all on its own.
Most relationships have to endure a history of trauma experienced by one or both partners and a current trauma(s). Traumas include abandonment, neglect, abuse, rejection, control, accidents, assaults/attacks, catastrophes, infidelity, infertility, loss, relocation, birthing and becoming parents, substance abuse, chronic illness, eating disorders, depression, extreme emotionality, obsessions, PTSD, unemployment, disability. Some of these are symptoms of a past trauma, but when experienced in the present they create a current trauma to the relationship.
I often find that couples hold a fairy tale expectation of happily ever after, for which I chide them. I dismiss this notion not because it seems unrealistic, but because couples go about creating their fairy tale all wrong. For you see, “happy endings” are possible… This is called unconditional Love…
People usually marry for love. A new phenomenon, only a couple of centuries old, in the history of the institution of marriage and in this culture. I say "usually" because sometimes people just get married because that is the thing to do, again speaking from today's and this culture's context.
Are You Showing Up in Your Relationship these Holidays? The Holidays are always a difficult time of year for people for many reasons. At the risk of adding to the plethora of writing on this topic, I still feel called to share with you how you can use this time as an opportunity for change and creating an amazing life and relationship. I invite you to look at the Holidays not as something to endure, get through and manage, but as a fertile ground of new possibilities.
I have noticed that when we have the foot to the pedal, we are moving so fast that we actually miss the beautiful scenery around us. We go about life trying to get things accomplished to such an extent that we burn ourselves out and end up actually accomplishing less... So, what's the point?
Our relationship is one of the biggest, most powerful asset and gift we have in our life! It is a true "treasure chest" worth a fortune. It can deliver unimaginable heights of satisfaction, peace, joy, love, happiness and success!! To cash-in on this fortune we have to polish the "gems on the rough" - the hidden treasures. Hidden Treasure #1 - Potential to Heal:
Are You Abandoned or Smothered in Your Relationship? Couples get stuck in how they relate in their relationship and no matter how they try to get unstuck, to meet their needs and to create a satisfying relationship, they just get more and more buried in dissatisfaction.
Bring Your Self to Your Relationship It is a phenomenon when we feel energized, connected, and alive past the infatuation stage of our relationship.
Have you noticed that when you are really close to what you want or to the next level in your life, things seem to go wrong?
Have you noticed that when you are really close to what you want or to the next level in your life, things seem to go wrong?
Do you find that you have so many demands and responsibilities calling for your attention and resources that sometimes you feel like crawling under a rock and going to sleep for a millennium? Do you find that everyone wants a piece of you? Your kids have practical, social, intellectual and emotional needs. Your home needs tending and your family life has a ton of minutia to be managed. Your social calendar, extra-curricular activities and other commitments grab at you at every corner. Your job, business, or profession takes the bulk of your attention and energy.
We bring a lot more into our relationship than we are aware. We are unique human beings with a unique set of history, parenting, socialization, wounding, and experiences. As we develop and journey in our lifetime, our uniqueness plays a role in all we do including how we relate to our partner. One of the characteristics that make us unique is our sense of our self. According to Harville Hendrix, author of Getting The Love You Want, our True Self, our original whole being we were born with, has been compromised over time just by the mere fact that we live in an imperfect world.
It is a phenomenon when we feel energized, connected, and alive past the infatuation stage of our relationship.
A crippling state in relationships is when partners can’t seem to get each other and get on the same page. Partners struggle with being themselves, seen, accepted, recognized and embraced. I find when couples struggle is because the partners are having a difficult time honoring themselves and each other… The partners get busy trying to be seen, acknowledged, get their needs met and have their way that they lose sight of the other and shoot themselves in the foot with their approach. They encroach on their partner bringing about the opposite of what they are actually seeking.
Usually we have good intentions and mean to invest in our relationship. Somehow this fizzles from the moment we have that thought or attitude to the next moment… We are very fickle in our thinking about the status and course of our relationship. One moment we are partners for life, the next we can’t wait to get rid of our partner… I see this day in and day out…
In my recent reading I have come across a piece of writing that has made me think of sexuality and physical intimacy from a different angle. I love when that happens! Give me material that sparks my creative juices and that I can integrate into my work for greater impact, and I’m a very happy camper. This is what tickles me!
We are what we think. We create what we think. What we resist persists. What we focus on expands. We are super powerful creating creatures… Our mind is a honing device for creating, a GPS for getting places… We create what we think whether intentionally or not.