Empathy in Relationships: Learning How To Help Our Mate

Empathy in Relationships: Learning How To Help Our Mate

When we are in a relationship, all of us have one thing in common: we want to be happy. That is why we enter into a relationship with our special person, and it is likely you felt something amazing when you first got involved.

Your feelings accompanying your love probably felt like nothing else you ever experienced, and you wanted them to last and last and last. Unfortunately, when we couple, all of us are in this kind of woozy state that tells us our person knows us and gets us and will always make us feel this way. This is the woozy state of first love.

But after a while we all go through the part where we realize that they just didn’t know us as well as we thought and we certainly didn’t know certain things about them either. Then the misunderstandings begin and often we just push them aside and tell ourselves that it isn’t that bad.

Read More

How Difficult Conversations Can Make or Break Your Relationship

How Difficult Conversations Can Make or Break Your Relationship

Sometimes, couples come in for counseling and on the surface, everything seems so great on the surface that you’d wonder whether anything’s even wrong. They laugh at each other’s jokes and seem to get along well. They both appear to be on good behavior, and this comes across as the opposite to feeling and being unhappy. But even though it looks great on the outside, underneath this practiced way of presenting, I know everything is not alright.

Many couples fall into this pattern. They hold everything together when they are with other people, but behind closed doors they are different. That’s when they can’t pretend anymore. That’s when they are unable to hold up the nice view of themselves with their mate, and things just start to go haywire.

Read More

Change Your Habits, Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life

Change Your Habits, Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life

Many of us try to get rid of some thoughts and focus on others—perhaps more positive ones. And if you have tried this then you know how very hard this can be. All of us have wished our minds would just let go of some of the things it thinks about.

But how many of us are truly successful at it? We can’t do it by force. But lately I have noticed something quite remarkable. Here is how it happened. My husband has been cutting carbs to reduce weight. He has become very devoted to this new way of eating.

I have seen him withhold foods before, but there is something different about this time. He is very focused and dedicated. So when my workout trainer who also knows my husband said to me, “Your husband is really talking more.” The following memory arrived.

Read More

When Self-Criticism Hurts Instead of Helping

Self-Criticism Hurts Instead of Helping

All of us grow up with some sort of inner guidance. When things don’t work out well we often tell ourselves something so we remember to do whatever it was better in the future. This is essential to growing up.

But some of us don’t just do this with encouragement, we do it with hard punches. Think about how you talk to yourself when you make a mistake. What do you say? Before I became aware of how I treated myself I probably said things like, “Oh how stupid!” or “How could you have done that.” And even “I hate you.”

Some of us don’t even bother with saying stuff, we just go right to a really awful feeling about ourselves. This feeling can just inhabit our body and mind and stay with us for a long time.

Read More