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________________________________________ Discover what you can do to give your relationship a chance. ________________________________________ Lauren asks:
"Why do men so often change after sex?" asked Shelley in our first phone session. "Tell me what you mean by this. What has been your experience?" I asked her.
"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. --Michael Jordan, Former Professional Basketball Player and Entrepreneur How did failure get such a bad name? When did it become something to avoid rather than something to learn from? If you fear failure, did this come mostly from your parents or other caregivers, or mostly from your school experience, or both?
You are emotionally dependent when your happiness, sense of safety, and sense of worth are dependent upon others' love, attention, and approval. When you were growing up, perhaps you heard statements like: "What will the neighbors think?" "What will__(so and so)__think if you do that?"
Christmas is almost here and you get to decide who you want to be. I don't mean if you want to be Santa Claus. I mean what kind of person do you want to be? Do you want to be a person who chooses your actions according to your fears of rejection, of getting hurt, of ridicule, or of being taken advantage of? Or do you want to be a person who chooses your actions from your deep desire to be a kind, loving, caring person?
How important is your physical health to you? Of course, most people will say that they really want to be healthy, but what are you willing to DO to be healthy? And what are you willing to NOT DO to be healthy? In other words, what is more important to you than being healthy? Is more important to: • Eat fast food, or packaged, frozen and processed food, than take the time to cook healthy meals with fresh, organic healthy ingredients?
Research indicates that children would rather be yelled at than ignored. When prisoners are being punished, they are put in isolation, because being isolated is one of the harshest punishments there is - other than physical abuse. The silent treatment is a form of punishment, a way to attempt to control children and partners into doing what you want them to do. It is a withdrawal of approval, and can cause much fear in people who are vulnerable to this.
________________________________________ Are the holidays a joy for you or do you dread them? Are you ready to heal your celebration anxiety? ________________________________________ What were celebrations like in your home? Were they fun, connected family times that you looked forward to, or was there something about these times that made you dread them? The holidays are upon us. How are you feeling about them? ___I'm feeling excited! Holidays were so much fun in my home when I was growing up. I love the rituals, the decorations, the love and the sharing of gifts.
Discover why you may be sabotaging and punishing yourself with your self-judgment and self-rejection. Would you love to manifest your dreams and have the life you want? Most people would unhesitatingly respond with a resounding "YES!" Yet, do you sometimes find yourself sabotaging yourself in achieving this? Georgette finds herself in this position and wants to know how to stop.
________________________________________ If you are single, do you relate to any of these false beliefs about being in a relationship? ________________________________________ I have discovered that many of the single people I work with have a number of false beliefs about relationships. If you are single, do you identify with any of these beliefs? People In Relationships Are Not Lonely
Have you wondered why you may be having a hard time connecting with others? "Intimacy begins with oneself. It does no good to try to find intimacy with friends, lovers, and family if you are starting out from alienation and division within yourself." - Thomas Moore
What is Social Phobia? Social phobia - or social anxiety - is the fear of interacting with others in various situations: groups, work, school, parties, on the telephone, in a market or store, and so on. People with social phobia experience extreme anxiety or panic when they know that they have to talk or interact with others. They often find themselves isolating rather than risk the rejection or ridicule that they fear.
Are you love or approval addicted?
________________________________________ What was valued and approved of in your family as you were growing up? ________________________________________ When you were growing up, how did you learn to define your worth? Here are some of the things my clients have said to me:
Are you ready to discover the way to happiness? Are you ready to discover what Epictetus knew over 2000 years ago? "There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will." ~Epictetus, AD 55-135
Are you willing to do the inner work you need to do to possibly save your relationship? Many people, like Aaron who asked the following question, seek my help because either their partner is no longer in love with them, or they are no longer in love with their partner. Aaron asks:
There are two kinds of New Year's Resolutions: - What you are going to do to accomplish your goals - Who you want to be Many New Year's Resolutions are of the first kind: - I'm going to lose 25 pounds this year - I'm going to exercise every day - I'm going to learn self-discipline - I'm going to double my income - I'm going to learn to fly - I'm going to take piano lessons And so on....
________________________________________ Do you have good friends? Are you a good friend – both with yourself and with others? ________________________________________ "A real friend is one who helps us to think our noblest thoughts, put forth our best efforts, and be our best selves." ~Anonymous What kind of friend are you? Below are some of the things good friends do. Do you: • Listen with caring and attention? • Support what brings your friend joy? • Have the courage to speak your truth when you see your friend harming herself or himself?r
Do you want to share love, but find yourself pulling away or pushing others away? Do you find yourself wanting love but being afraid to really open to it? This is the situatio Marley finds herself in:
Have you wondered why you are often able to take loving care of yourself when you are alone but you lose yourself in relationships? Discover the answer now! Do you find that you take loving care of yourself when you are alone, but that you lose yourself with someone you are attracted to, or around someone you want to connect with? This is a common issue. Val asks:
________________________________________ Are you perplexed regarding why you so often feel rejected by others? ________________________________________ Alana asked me the following question: "My whole life I have felt that I don't fit in with others - in my family, school, work - and while I have a pleasant, friendly demeanor, I also have an underlying self-consciousness, and end up attracting rejection. Aside from my children and pets, I'm quite alone...and lonely! How do I tackle this dynamic? Many thanks!" Alana, there are a number of issues here that need attention.r
Is there something you've always wanted to do but have never done? What's stopping you? "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now." –Chinese Proverb How often do you say to yourself, "I wish I had…..?"
Many people confuse boundaries - which are a way of taking loving care of yourself – with controlling behavior toward others. Marilee told me in one of our early phone sessions: "I set a boundary. I told him that he couldn't speak to me that way any more."
________________________________________ Discover the major cause of relationship failure and what to do about it. ________________________________________ Most people, when asked if they want a loving relationship, will say that having a loving relationship is one of the two most important things to them – along with having work they love. Why, then, do so many relationships fail? If we want to go deeply into why relationships fail, we need to go all the way back to the parental relationship.
________________________________________ Dealing with critical people, especially a parent, is a challenge for all of us. Here are some options for dealing with a critical mother. ________________________________________ Having a critical mother is a big challenge. I know, because I grew up with an extremely critical mother. I can certainly relate to Lori, who asked the follow question:
________________________________________ Do you sometimes have confusion regarding the value of a relationship? ________________________________________ Jeanine asked me the following question at one of my free webinars:
________________________________________ Do you often feel unappreciated? ________________________________________ "I'm a very nice person. I'm a good guy and I do nice things for people, but they never seem to appreciate me, and I feel angry about that," said Martin in one of our first phone sessions. For me, this statement holds much information regarding how Martin was trying to control others and make them responsible for him, and how much he was abandoning himself. Let's analyze this statement.
________________________________________ Do you have the courage to hang in through the hard times and do the learning and healing we all need to do to create a loving relationship? ________________________________________ Are you committed to working through the difficult and painful issues that inevitably arise in relationships, or do you run when things get hard? If you want to have a long-term loving relationship, then you need to learn to hang in through the hard stuff.
Are you afraid to open your heart to love, for fear of getting hurt? Learn how to lovingly manage the hurt. Is it possible to fully love without getting hurt? The answer is unequivocally NO!
________________________________________ There is no time like right now to get clear on what you want to manifest in the coming year. ________________________________________ What do you want in the coming year? One of the things I've done for many years is to write down what I want for the next year. Of course, I don't always get what I want, but often I do. I think it's because knowing what I want helps me to focus on taking the loving actions that will take me there.
For many people, inner emptiness is a big problem. They believe that they can fill their emptiness from the outside, which is a false belief. The cause of inner emptiness is a lack of a loving connection with your inner child - your essence, your true Self, your Being, which then results in an inability to share love with others. Loving yourself and sharing your love with others is what creates fullness.
Celine, an only child, was 7 years old, her mother died tragically in a car accident. She and her father were devastated. However, unlike so many of my clients who lost parents and no one was there for them, Celine's father was completely there for her, even while dealing with his own grief and heartbreak. Celine could call him anytime at work and he would talk to her or come home to lovingly hold her. Because he was so completely there for her, her feelings of grief, heartbreak, sadness and sorrow did not get stuck in her body.
________________________________________ Do you get addictively stuck on the Internet and can't seem to find your way out? ________________________________________ Our society provides many ways we can avoid our feelings addictively. Many people today are addicted to being on the Internet as one way of avoiding feeling an underlying pain that they believe they cannot manage feeling. Cheryl asked:
________________________________________ Do you believe that you want a relationship but never seem to find the 'right one?' ________________________________________ Most people say they want to be in a relationship, yet they consistently do things that keep them from achieving this. If you answer yes to some of the questions on the following list, you might be relationship avoidant – which means that you likely have a fear of engulfment. • Do you consistently choose unavailable or inappropriate people?
________________________________________ Are you focusing on getting your partner to change to avoid a painful choice that you might need to make? ________________________________________
________________________________________ Many of us know that we need to be loving to ourselves, but what does this actually mean? ________________________________________ Since most of us had little or no role modeling regarding loving ourselves when we were growing up, it's often challenging to know what loving ourselves looks like. It's through my work with my inner child and my spiritual Guidance that I've discovered what loving myself really means for me. Sarah asks:
________________________________________ Are you aware of the vast difference between expressing gratitude from your ego wounded self or from your loving adult self? ________________________________________ "Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance."~Eckhart Tolle, Author of The Power of Now How often do you feel genuinely grateful for what you have in your life? There is a big difference between acting grateful and feeling genuine gratitude in your heart.
________________________________________ Are you seeking the formula for attracting the partner of your dreams? Here it is! ________________________________________ Rochelle asks:
________________________________________ Are you tired of being overweight and food addicted? There is a way to heal. ________________________________________ Pamela writes this question for my webinar on food addiction:
"Why would my boyfriend cheat on me?" "I'm pretty sure my wife is cheating on me. I want to know why." "I know that my husband has been cheating on me for years. I don't get why he does this." Why do people cheat on their partners? Why do others have affairs that their partners know about? Here are some of the reasons for cheating that I have encountered in my many years of counseling.
Some people believe that it is caring to point out their partner's flaws - that it will help to make that person a better person. But the intent behind pointing out flaws is not loving - it is controlling. Pointing Out Flaws By pointing out flaws, you hope that your partner will let go of the things that you don't like and become more the person you want him or her to be. Now, be honest with yourself - is it working? Your partner might have one of two major responses to your judgments.
________________________________________ Do you often crave solitude, or is being alone too lonely for you? There is an inherent reason for these differences. ________________________________________ "Language has created the word 'loneliness' to express the pain of being alone, and the word 'solitude' to express the glory of being alone." –Benjamin Tillett I find this quote very interesting in the light of recent research on introversion and extroversion.
"When it is helpful to apologize?" asked Patricia, a client of mine, in one of our phone sessions. Her husband, Brent, often expected her to apologize and she was confused about when it was appropriate. The answer to this question is a little complex, because there are two different reasons that people apologize:
________________________________________ Betrayal is one of the hardest things to go through, and it is vitally important that you deal with it in a way that doesn’t cause you even more pain. ________________________________________ It is devastating when someone whom we believe cares about us betrays us – lies, cheats, breaks a sacred promise, hurts us behind our back, steals from us, turns others against us and so on. The Steps to Healing From Betrayal 1. Releasing the feelings rather than staying stuck with them
________________________________________ Loneliness is a huge problem in our society. It doesn't have to be this way. ________________________________________
"I can have a really great day, but when I wake up the next morning I feel anxious. Sometimes the better day I've had, the more anxious I am the next morning. I can't figure it out." I hear this over and over from my clients. What is happening here? The Tyranny of the Ego Wounded Self
Many years ago, when I became a psychotherapist, all I knew was the traditional psychotherapy that I had learned in school, and that I had personally experienced with many different therapists and many different forms of therapy. For 18 years I practiced what I had learned, and I was never happy with the results.
________________________________________ Learn what you can do when you don't feel appreciated by your partner. ________________________________________ Chris wrote this question for one of my relationship webinars: "What do you do when you feel you are not loved for who you are? How do you accept your relationship when you don't feel appreciated, or you think it's your fault for what happens in your life? How can you change your relationship? How can you make it better?" There are two ways of dealing with this issue. Explore Within
________________________________________ Do you sometimes feel like you try to give your partner the connection he or she wants and can't figure out how? ________________________________________
________________________________________ Do you continue to believe, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that life should be fair? Discover a new way of looking at fai ess. ________________________________________ "Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian." - Dennis Wholey "It's not fair!" yells eight-year old Calvin when his six-year old sister gets a bigger piece of pie.