There is plenty of love to go around this Valentine's Day!
One of the biggest misconceptions about love is that love is shaped like a pie. We are raised from the time we were little tiny babies to believe that there is one "Mr. Right", one "Prince Charming", and one "soul-mate." And while this may be a true assessment, this absolutist thinking sets us up for failure. With so many rules and expectations about love, if we aren't set up for failure then we are most definitely, at the very least, set up for these disturbing and unwanted feelings of jealousy, insecurity, possessiveness and a slew of other mal-adaptive feelings which don't allow for love to grow, but in fact squelch and suppress love.
Learn how to be aware of your relationships with others.
Relating to other people can feel like constantly walking across a minefield. Sometimes, we’ll notice that other people just don’t seem to want to be around us, or we’ll notice that we can’t get rid of the negative people in our lives. You may also notice that you feel uncomfortable around someone and you can’t quite put your finger on why. This article will help you to figure out the things that you or others might be doing that cross boundaries and get in the way of closeness in relationships.
Are you wondering if you are in a healthy relationship or what constitutes a healthy relationship?
Frequently, my clients and members of our website ask me, "Is my relationship healthy? How do I know if it is healthy?"
Just as physical health is on a continuum, emotional health and relationship health are also on a continuum. And, like physical health, each person may have different criteria regarding what constitutes health.
Marriage education is about being proactive so you stay together, grow closer, & sex gets better.
S__ & M___ sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G, first come love..., then comes marriage. Any couple in a successful marriage will tell you that you will reap the benefits for how much effort, time, and investment you put into learning new skills to connect, communicate, and be intimate with one another. If you invest in your couplehood, then you keep the sexual energy, attraction, and devotion within your relationship. You not only fireproof what you have together, it gets better each year. It's also fool proof.
Take this test to determine whether you are passive, aggressive, passive-aggressive or assertive.
Have you ever wondered what your communication style is when you interact with others? There are four types: passive, aggressive, passive-aggressive, and assertive. Which one are you? Take the following quiz to find out. As you read down each item mark or circle each statement that best describes you. Then we’ll talk.
Cultivating erotic safety starts with learning your own sexual response.
Relationship Bootcamp Week Four
“There is no other physical act at our disposal that carries the physical, emotional and spiritual benefits of making love, especially with someone you love.” -Unknown
No one really understands sex, but if you are lucky, you get to spend years coming to grips with your erotic self and learning how to share and enhance the pleasure it brings. A good way to approach the topic is to think of our sexuality as an emergent rather than objective reality.
Cracking the code of relationships as it pertains to you & yours by focusing on your needs and wants
Most of the relationship articles out there tend to be for heterosexual couples. I use part intuition and part knowledge on relationship dynamics to translate, adapt, and figure out what works best for you if you don't identify with or find yourself in traditional relationships. How and where you define yourself on the Kinsey spectrum scale of heterosexual to homosexual only matters when it masquerades the real you--and the complexity of human relationships. What really matters is understanding how and what to do to have long-lasting quality relationships.
12 things that keep you from hearing what's really being said.
We often think we are listening to someone, only to realize that we missed what they said. Either we were busy listening instead to the voices in our heads, or we were distracted by whatever was happening around us. When people ask how they can have better relationships with others, the first thing suggest is active listening.
“The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t being said."
“The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t being said.” -Anonymous
The strength and endurance training in any and all relationships starts and ends with the capacity for communication. I have often called our communication skills the currency of a relationship, because it is literally the air that lives between people that makes their relationship vital or suffocating.
Finding flexibility translates into making your relationship healthy for you both.
“Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.” -Anonymous
Relationships require stretching. In fact there may be no more important place in life to practice and improve our flexibility than in our hearts. Getting over the belief that our own desires are the most important consideration at any given moment is a lifelong practice in flexibility. Realizing that our relationship is our most gentle and perfect teacher to get beyond our own individual desires is at once its purpose and its gift.
“Love and work are the cornerstones of our human-ness…” -Sigmund Freud
Learning how to stay and grow inside your relationship is an art form, a meditation practice and a work ethic all rolled into one. The nice thing about the work is that it is constructed of basic skill sets you can develop and strengthen just by attending to them and practicing. No one is born a great communicator or even a skilled listener.
![Quiz: What's Your Communication Style? [EXPERT]](http://images.tangomag.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/node-full/image_blog/iphone.jpg "Quiz: What's Your Communication Style? [EXPERT]")
