RELATIONSHIP ARTICLES

TOPICS

• Your Relationship with YOU!
• How To Create Emotional Resilience
• Relationship Break-Up Help
• Relationship Commitment
• Inner Peace-Finding It and Keeping It!
• Symptoms of Inner Peace
• How To Change Your Life

 

ARTICLE: Your Relationship With You!

If you’re serious about relationship self-help, think about improving your relationship with yourself.

One of the best self-development techniques I know of is this – when something bugs you about someone else,see how that applies to you.

Why? Because what bugs us in other people is usually what we need to pay attention to in ourselves. Otherwise, why would we be noticing?

Here is an example from my own life.

I am often bugged by people who are late. I pride myself in being on time and used get pretty preachy when other’s weren’t. Then I started to wonder why I was attracting people who have a different relationship to time and why did it bug me so much? Then I got the lesson. I am TOO cognizant of time. I stress myself (and sometimes my companions) totally out of shape to be exactly on time-all of which is usually unnecessary.

I’m not advocating that I chuck being on time, because basically I think it’s respectful to fulfill time agreements, but I could certainly loosen up about it. So, I did. And you know what? I am far less stressed about time. And others not being on time stresses me less too!

So, instead of just pointing the finger at others, I’m turning that finger around and pointing it at me, so I can learn and grow….

How about you? If it bugs you that someone isn’t being more considerate of you, is that because you need to be more considerate of you? If it bugs you that someone isn’t giving you enough attention, could that mean that perhaps you need to be paying more attention to yourself? If someone isn’t taking care of their health, could that mean that you need to be more health conscious?

Take a look. Let your attention teach you what you need to learn. If you want help, give me a call for a free 30-minute, over the phone, Idea session. There is no obligation to go further and you’ll get lots of ideas and strategies! Besides, the long distance is on me!

ARTICLE: How To Create Emotional Resilience

Here is some free relationship help for you. If you are in a troubled relationship, or are attempting some relationship self help, you need emotional resilience. Why?

Because when we are in a troubled relationship, we don’t feel our needs are getting met. We can either stew about this and start case-building against our partner, or, we can empower ourselves and learn to take care of our own needs rather than pressuring our partner to meet those needs. When we do this, we free up the other person from any obligation they feel to take care of us. We ourselves feel freed up because we are taking charge! How attractive is that!

The truth is that whatever we want from a partner, whether that’s feelings of happiness, trust, joy, safety – those feelings already exist inside us. It’s a powerful thing to learn how to create those feelings from the inside instead of trying to manipulate the world and the people in it to provide them. Now, how to access those feelings–

Start by quietening yourself. If this is difficult, use music or go to You Tube and click one of the hundreds of self guided meditations. They are guaranteed to put you in a relaxed and positive place.

Once you feel peaceful, re-call other times when you felt the feelings you are desiring. Scan you life in the past and present looking for all the times you felt this way. Remember all the details, the smells, the tastes, sounds, sights and feelings. Let the sense details be really vivid.
Re-experience the memory as if it were happening right now and feed yourself with it.

Then let yourself picture having those feelings in the present tense and future. Again, let your imagination provide all the specific details until you feel yourself really relishing what you are imagining.

By now, you should be feeling really great. And powerful for being able to make this happen yourself.

By vibrating in the way you want to feel, you are more likely to attract the things in the outside world that will resonate with this feeling and bring more of this to you.

In truth, you ARE the one you’ve been waiting for.
Show up for yourself and see.

ARTICLE: Relationship Break-Up Help

One of the hardest parts of a relationship break-up is often that our belief in ever having the love we want gets broken.

So, when I coach people through a troubled relationship or an actual relationship break up, as well as helping them soothe the hurt and move forward, I also help them repair the “Broken Beliefs” such a break up often entails. For those of you looking for some relationship self help, or free relationship help, here are some ways you can repair your ‘broken beliefs’ yourself.

1. Look around for people who actually have happy relationships. This will show you that this IS possible.

2. Talk to those who have successful relationships about how they got there. Often these tales show years of difficult times and failed attempts. They will help you accept that everyone has had unsuccessful relationships before they have had successful ones.

3. Recall another area in your life where you made something happen you didn’t think was possible. That may be the fact that you lost the weight you wanted to lose, or quit smoking, or got a great job. We all have times when ‘the impossible’ happened. Remind yourself of these.

4. Read the stories of others who have been successful. It’s important to have your body deeply KNOW what’s possible and to start to vibrate with that possibility. If you totally believe you can’t have something, guess what-you won’t. So immerse yourself in stories of those who HAVE what you want. I know, it may create yearning, but that’s a good thing.

5. Act as if. Keep looking at wedding dresses or looking for that awesome honeymoon retreat. Just because you don’t have that relationship now doesn’t mean you won’t soon. The more actions you take that contradict your broken beliefs, the better. This will help your body trust that even though the present moment isn’t fabulous, the future will be. This will help you lighten up and feel more optimistic.

6. When you hear negative voices (notice I said ‘when’ not ‘if’), write them out, then rip the paper up and discard it. This is a great technique for dealing with negative voices. Or, if you are more the audio type, imagine ejecting these words like you would eject a CD from your sound machine.

7. Let yourself have the imaginings you want about your dream happening with someone else. Absolutely every great invention was once someone’s mental fantasy. Everything starts in our imagination. So, scatter some dream seeds and water them with your imagination.

8. Try EFT. EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Technique, which I call “emotional acupressure because it involves tapping certain energy spots on the body as you feel things. It can be very powerful in helping you deal with your stress and sadness, but also to help you get more resourceful about creating what you want. Enter EFT in any browser and you’ll get a ton or resources.

9. Talk to a coach. Coaches, especially relationship coaches like me, help people move beyond the past into the possibilities of the future. Hiring a coach can be THE best way not only to heal the hurt of a broken relationship but to break any patterns that are keeping you stuck in relationships that don’t work.

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If you’re finding these articles helpful and would like more help to make a relationship more satisfying, click here for a free 30-minute, over-the-phone ‘Idea’ session. Fill in the details of the contact form and make sure you mention your time zone. We’ll set up a time to talk. Remember, there is no obligation to go further and you’ll get a lot of ideas and strategies. Besides, I’ll pick up the long distance charges!

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ARTICLE: Relationship Commitment

It was close. I almost gave it up. I had a lot to do, so even though I’d made this commitment to myself to go swimming every Wednesday morning, I was about to duck out of it. “I’ll go next week,” I told myself. My work should come first. Right? Wrong!

What if I’d made a commitment to go swimming with some one else? Would I break it as easily? I don’t think so. Why is a relationship commitment to another person harder to break than a relationship commitment to oneself?

It shouldn’t be! So, I grabbed my swimming stuff and headed out the door. Two hours and fifty laps later (these are I getting easier and easier), I drove home with a grin on my face. I felt great.

So, I know from personal experience how difficult it is to keep commitments to ourselves. However, if we going to be able to avoid relationship commitment issues with others, we need to start by keeping the ones we make with ourselves.

Here are some ways to help you do that.

1. Make the commitment small. (EG: even though I make the commitment to swim, I never commit to the number of lengths—just showing up at the pool is my win!)

2. Get the commitment in your calendar. It just feels more like a real appointment that way.

3. Make it non-negotiable. Sometimes I even book in an alternative date just in case the first one can’t happen. That way you can change it, but not miss it.

4. Imagine the commitment is with someone that’s of huge importance. It is-YOU!

5. Remind yourself frequently how GREAT it feels to be doing the activity you have made a commitment to doing. Working from inspiration is a lot easier than working from self-discipline.

ARTICLE: Inner Peace–Finding It and Keeping It

There is such a pervasive sense of uncertainty and unknowing. Once upon a time, you could find out the “answer” to almost anything by going to an ‘expert’. These days, however, even the experts
don’t seem to know what to do. Whether the issue is our financial situation, our health or relationships, there is a great deal of differing advice about what we should do.

The good thing about not being able to get an definitive answer about what to do is that we are being forced to tune into our own inner sense of things. When we truly know what is right for us, it does not matter what others say.

But how do we find out what our own sense is? The first step to inner listening is to become calm. We can’t look into the depths of our inner pool if the surface is chopped up with waves. We need to calm the waters and then look.

Here are some ways to settle yourself down and become calm.

Come back to your senses. Notice what you’re touching, tasting, hearing, seeing and smelling right now. Most of our fears and anxieties are based on what we’re worried about happening in the future. When we tune into the present moment through our physical senses, we get a strong and immediate confirmation of how supported we actually are. Take one minute to do this now–notice what your senses are sensing. Feel your lungs breathing and notice that all the air you need is there for you every minute of every day. Now notice the way the chair you’re sitting on supports you, holds you up. Allow yourself to experience how your basic survival needs are all being taken care of. Recognizing this will help you relax. Inner peace lives in this relaxed state.

Belly breathe for a few minutes. This will bring you into your body and help you access the peacefulness that is already within you. We often forget that Inner Peace is something that’s already inside us. Sometimes we get so caught up in paddling through the big waves on life’s surface, that we forget about the ocean on peace that dwells under the surface.

Do things more slowly. Again, this is a small intervention, but remarkably powerful. I think it works because inner peace is inherently a slow thing and when we move more slowly, we come closer to it energetically.

Ask yourself, “Does this really matter?” See if you can do this once a day. You’ll be surprised and refreshed how often the answer is “No, it doesn’t really matter.”

Remember times you felt peaceful. Go back to them. There is a beach in Greece and a few islands out on Georgian Bay where I’ve experienced deep peacefulness. When I return to them in my mind, I make my imaginings them as real in my imagination as I can. I remember the sound of the wind, imagine the smell of summer sun on rocks, feel my kayak bobbing in the waves. Just writing about this makes my shoulders relax. Remember, the unconscious doesn’t know the difference between an imagining and reality, so your body will respond to these remembrances. And the the more you do this, the more you will be laying down pathways in your brain, which means the easier it will get.
Turn Off the News. Studies have shown that people who watch the news before they go to bed don’t sleep as well. Not surprising, given the doom and gloom in the news. Remember, doom and gloom sells, but you don’t have to buy it. Limit the number of times you listen to the news or read it and choose wisely the time of day you let it in.
Play soothing music or nature sounds. This can have a strong subliminal effect.
Take breaks in your day. Our energy tends to balance itself naturally if we let it. Get out at lucnh or take your computer to a park (that’s where I’m writing this from) and let your energy recoup.

Practice these ideas and you may find yourself feeling showing some of the following ‘symptoms’ of inner peace.

ARTICLE: Symptoms Of Inner Peace

1. Tendency to think & act spontaneously rather than from fears based on past experience.

2. An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.

3. Loss of interest in judging yourself or anyone else.

4. Loss of interest in conflict.

5. Disinclination to worry (this is a very serious symptom).

6. Frequent overwhelming episodes of appreciation.

7. Connected feelings of connectedness with others & nature.

8. Frequent attacks of smiling through the eyes of the heart

9. Increasing susceptibility to extend love to others.

10. Increasing tendency to let things happen rather than make them happen.

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If you’re finding these articles helpful and would like more help to make a relationship more satisfying, click here for a free 30-minute, over-the-phone ‘Idea’ session. Fill in the details of the contact form and make sure you mention your time zone. We’ll set up a time to talk. Remember, there is no obligation to go further and you’ll get a lot of ideas and strategies. Besides, I’ll pick up the long distance charges!

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ARTICLE: How to Change Your Life.

Pondering on how to change your life? If you’ve ever been to the botanical gardens, you can see trees and plants there that have reached their full grandeur. WHY? Because they were given everything they needed for optimum growth. They were supported to be their best. People need that same support to be their best as well.

Becoming our BEST is such an awesome gift-not only to ourselves, but to our families and to all around us.

In my experience, most of us KNOW what it feels like to live from our BEST place. We just need help making that happen more of the time. Sometimes that involves learning how to show up for yourself more, sometimes it’s showing up for a conversation that needs to happen with a certain family member or boss, and sometimes it’s setting a boundary so others don’t drain you.

Most of us consider these things hard to do. And they are if we try to do them in the old way, but if we get ourselves lots of support, they can become surprisingly easy.

When that support is there, growth just happens. And why shouldn’t it? Growth is inherent to life on this planet. We don’t’ have to ‘make’ a flower grow. It just does–as long as the support is there. You will do the same when the conditions are right.

It’s important to give yourself the best for many reasons, but one crucial reason is that when you give yourself the best, others give you the best too.

The world around us is really a giant mirror of how we’re doing on the inside. That’s GREAT news because it means that by changing ourselves inside, we can radically alter the outside.

Also, don’t think you have to get things all figured out before you start. In fact, that’s a good way to stop yourself. What’s important is to make a start. This puts you in a deeper conversation with the forces around you and allows you to adjust as you go along.