Today I was thinking about the amount of time most of us invest in improving ourselves professionally, yet, how little time many of us invests in improving ourselves as relationship partners. It’s as if somehow we think this should just come naturally, but building healthy relationships can be quite a journey. Sometimes it’s hard to […]
One of the biggest communication myths that leads to a lot of unnecessary pain is the belief that if somebody really cares about you or values you then you shouldn’t have to tell them what you want or need. This can apply in personal relationships as well as in our professional ones. For example: If […]
You know that feeling when you are talking to somebody who seems genuinely interested in you and what you have to say? Think about the last time you had an experience like this. It generally feels pretty good when others feel curious about us. It can be a real luxury to have space to explore […]
When asked most people say they don’t want to be lied to by their partner, yet consciously or unconsciously there are a lot of cues we can give to our partner that lets them know we are not prepared to hear the truth about what he/she is thinking or feeling. Here is a quiz developed […]
As I mentioned in a previous post, the most common reason people give for seeking couples counselling is problems with communication. Communication is a pretty broad area and making change generally requires being able to address small pieces at a time. John Gottman, psychologist and relationship researcher, has done a great job of breaking down […]
Once your nervous system gets escalated and moves into fight/flight/freeze response, it’s next to impossible to have a useful discussion. And for many of us, we don’t even know when that response has been triggered in ourselves let alone in our partner. So we continue trying to communicate with little success. This state of nervous […]
If you would be loved, love and be loveable…
You don’t develop courage by being happy in your relationship everyday. You survive it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.
I care about who you are, who you have been, who you want to be. I open myself to you to listen and learn about you. I cherish you, not just my fantasy of who you are, not just who I need you to be, but who you really are…
relationship communication cartoon from poorlydrawnlines.com