Criticism is one of relationship expert, John Gottman’s 4 horsemen and is something he looks for when predicting which couples will divorce. It really is that toxic in a relationship.
Read moreWhat to Quit for a Better Relationship
I’m currently attending an on-line relationship conference and in a presentation by one of my favourite relationship experts, Harville Hendrix and his wife Helen La Kelly Hunt, Harville was saying that people often ask him if they should quit their relationship and his response is:
“Quit! There are lot’s of things you should quit but your relationship is not one of them.”
So over the next few weeks I will share my top things to quit IN your relationship that will help make your relationship feel so good you won’t want to Quit it!
Read moreWho Is Right and Who is Wrong?
When couples ask me (usually in sheer exasperation about something they have battled out at home, sometimes for many years): “who is right?” I always say: “You both are…let me help you see how.”
Read moreR U OK? Day
R U OK? Day is a national day of action which aims to reduce suicide by encouraging people to connect with each other & ask: "R U OK?". Since 2009 the second Thursday in September has been dedicated to asking people this simple question - but more importantly getting people to stop to hear the answer - getting people to take some time to really connect with one another.
Read moreEveryone Needs a Joy List
The holiday season is approaching and it can be a hard time of year for some – perhaps facing the first holiday without someone special or going through a personally hard time with something in your life. But even if all is going great right now, wherever you are at everyone needs what I call a Joy List.
Read moreMake the Time You Have Together Count
It never ceases to amaze me how busy people are these days. Catch phrases like “time poor” have become part of our language. When you add it all up in a relationship where both partner’s work, or work and care for children, grandchildren or others and then add in all the other things you have to do to take care of yourself (like shower and sleep) or anything else, there really are very few hours left unallocated.
Read moreI don't need Valentine's Day to make it all about LOVE
One of my favourite scientific advances in the last 20 years is the ability to take pictures of the brain and its circuitry in action and what this continues to teach us about how we are wired and therefore why we do what we do.
Anthropologist Helen Fisher is a leader in this area and has extensively studied what happens in the brain as it relates to love. She has differentiated 3 types of love, that each have their own areas of the brain that light up.
Read moreCoupling and "Conscious Uncoupling" in Australia
The reality is that as you enter marriage today in Australia, you will be a little older than those 20 years before you, but you will still have the same 40% chance of divorce and for 50% of you, that separation will occur before your 8th wedding anniversary.
Read moreWhat's the big deal about conflict?
Conflict in any relationship between 2 different people is inevitable. Listening to my teenage daughters this morning “negotiate” the use of the shared electric toothbrush as they both had minutes to get out the door for their ride to school, I could hear the frustration levels rise as they tried to come to an arrangement that worked for both of them. These are the little things that couples are negotiating daily.
Read moreWho comes first: Self, Partner or Children?
This morning my local radio station polled listeners on the question of who comes first: self, partner or children? A spread of men and women answered and while a couple of people said self, the majority said children and no one that I heard said partner!
So what is the answer to that question?
Read moreAshley Madison Hacking - the hidden story
Nearly a million Australian ‘Married Daters’ are set to be publicly outed as affair-facilitating website Ashley Madison was hacked by a faceless group, The Impact Team, threatening to release the personal data of Ashley Madison’s members.
Read moreThinking about Nothing
Watching the other commuters they were attached to phones, texting and catching up on social media, possibly reading or listening to music, an endless flow of information ready and available at the touch of a couple of buttons. Our trains even provide wifi!
Read moreWhat does Self Care Really Mean?
Taking the time to do something each and every day that is just for you. I don’t have time to do that I hear you say…
Read moreBoundaries in Relationships
Boundaries protect the things we value like a fence around our house protects our home. When it comes to ourselves, in our relationships, boundaries protect our individuality, needs and sense of self from being absorbed, taken advantage of or ignored by the other in the relationship.
Read moreSelf Soothing Ideas
Self soothing means soothing or calming yourself when faced with a scary or difficult or even just mildly uncomfortable situation and is a great skill to have in your tool kit. Times you need to draw on these skills is when you notice perhaps beginning to feel a little anxious; a tightening in your chest or stomach; breathing quickens; heart rate goes up/pulse races; you may feel hot or flushed; start to fidget; lose your temper – the symptoms vary but essentially your brain has received a message that you are in an unsafe situation and it is starting to react.
Read moreSelf Worth
Self esteem is an evaluation of our worthiness as individuals. If we have good self esteem we believe ourselves to good and valuable people. This belief needs to come from deep within in order to ensure resilience in times of life stress or negative events or even just to live in an ever changing world.
Read moreMindfulness
Mindfulness or meditation has been taught for thousands of years in many of the world’s religions including Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Judaism. Since the 1980’s it has been used to help hospital patients cope with pain and more recently incorporated into some forms of psychotherapy. Studies have shown it is effective at reducing the odds of having another major depressive episode, reducing symptoms of anxiety, reducing chronic pain, decreasing binge eating, increasing tolerance of distressing situations and increasing relaxation. With all these benefits it should be taught at school!
Read moreDefensiveness
We develop defences to protect ourselves from all kinds of real and imagined pain that we have experienced over our lives. How impenetrable they are will be related to just how much we have had to defend ourselves in the past. Part of the attraction in the early stages of romantic love is that “falling in love” makes us feel like we don’t need our defences anymore. We feel we have finally found someone with whom we can be totally ourselves and our defences come down. As the relationship moves on, inevitably reality creeps in and our partners reveal themselves to be human after all and with being human comes the capacity to disappoint and cause pain. And the defences go back up again.
Read moreA Family Experiment
The last few weeks in our family we have played out a little experiment that has shown us how strong the neural pathways in our brain can be in driving our habits and patterns of behaviour and just how much you have to practice to change and overcome them.
Just over 3 weeks ago we made some alterations to our kitchen. We added a few new cupboards and moved an island bench against the wall. Nothing major, but as part of it I rearranged the contents of the cupboards and drawers to make more sense with the new shape. The items that you probably use the most – drinking glasses, cutlery, cooking utensils and crockery all ended up in different spots (I didn’t have to move the cutlery but did it for fun!). And then as we went about our day we started to notice just how often we went to the wrong cupboard or drawer before correcting ourselves and heading to the right one. At dinner we would check in with each other to see how we were going.
I guess we were testing the saying 21 days to make a habit. We are now on day 25 and we are not there yet although we have progressed. Right from the start each of us could point to each cupboard and state correctly what was in them but it was putting it into practice that was the hard part – ie we knew where we wanted to go but didn’t always get there. In the beginning we would actually have to open the drawer or cupboard before we could correct ourselves and head to the right one. Now we still head to the wrong cupboard or drawer but can stop ourselves just before we open it. I thought perhaps the kids might work it out faster than the adults but they are at about the same spot – although it could be argued the adults get more practice so perhaps we are a bit slower.
Our experiment has all the things you might think makes change easier – a clear and consistent plan of where the items live (ie not random and moving); strong positive rewards for success (ie you need to open the right cupboard to find the plate so you can eat your dinner!); a small change which should be easier to manage (ie not everything changed); and daily practice. And yet we are into the 4th week and we are still not there yet.
For me this really highlighted just how hard change can be. Changing a few drawers and cupboards around is small scale, low stakes, low emotion change. Compare that to changing patterns of behaviour in a relationship – big scale, high stakes, high emotion change. Add to that emotional stress or other circumstances where your autopilot is likely to kick in and it can really feel like trying to walk up a mountain of crumbling dirt – you move a bit forward and slide back…But with the desire to persist anything is possible.
Xx Catriona
Photo credit - a Girl Guide badge for learning about happiness and doing happiness experiments on you family
20 Days of Loving
It is true that what you focus on – what you put your time, energy and attention into – grows. This is no different when we love someone and we want to grow that love. Paying attention to those that we love and spending some time each day to show that love, makes you feel more loving towards them and helps them feel more loved – a win win!
Here are 20 ideas for 20 days of loving. You can focus on 1 each day and over time feel that loving grow. This is a gift that you choose to give your partner. If you have been quite disconnected they may not feel the full importance of the gift for you and may not appreciate it in the way that you had hoped. But I urge you to continue to give – no strings attached and see where it takes you.
Day 1 – Practise loving patience. Say nothing negative to your partner and if the opportunity arises choose not to say anything at all.
Day 2 – Practise loving kindness. Do at least one unexpected gesture as an act of kindness.
Day 3 – Invest in them. Buy them something that says “I was thinking of you today”.
Day 4 – Contact them at some time during the day with no other agenda than asking how they are doing and if there is anything you can do for them.
Day 5 – Make time for them. Rearrange your schedule and give them the gift of your time today.
Day 6 – Appreciate 1 thing about your partner today and tell them.
Day 7 – Focus on your partner’s achievements. Share with your partner how glad you are about a success they have recently enjoyed.
Day 8 – Greet your partner in a way that reflects your love for them. Do it with a smile and enthusiasm. Make this a permanent change.
Day 9 – Do something out of the ordinary for your partner today – wash their car; buy their favourite dessert; take over their chores. Demonstrate love for the sheer joy of being their partner.
Day 10 – Demonstrate love by willingly choosing to give in to an area of disagreement between you and your partner. Tell them you are putting their preference first.
Day 11 – Purposefully neglect an activity you would normally do so you can spend quality time with your partner. Do something they would like to do – just be together.
Day 12 – Choose to honour, cherish and respect your spouse in a way that is above your normal routine. Choose something that shows them they are special and highly esteemed in your eyes.
Day 13 – Prepare a special dinner at home for just you and your partner. Focus this time on getting to know your partner better, perhaps in areas that you have rarely talked about. Go out of your way to make it an enjoyable evening for the two of you.
Day 14 – Find or write a love poem, letter or song that captures how you feel about your partner and share it with them.
Day 15 – remove anything that is hindering your relationship, any addiction or influence that is taking you time and affection away from your partner.
Day 16 – Plan to meet one of the greatest needs in your partner’s life right now – big or small eg rearrange the family budget to bring in a cleaner or your schedule to give them some free time to themselves or take that longed for vacation.
Day 17 – Express your love by telling your partner 3 reasons that you love them.
Day 18 – Check in with your partner and really hear their view (without defensiveness) on your relationship and how it could be better. Plan to make it better together.
Day 19 – Increase the physical affection – hugs, kisses, touch – lasting at least 6 seconds many (minimum 6) times per day.
Day 20 – celebrate how far you have come in your loving with a surprise for your partner.
Add on top of any of the days texts, phone calls, emails as ways of staying connected throughout the day.
Whilst I have written this thinking about your connection to your partner – you could modify this for any relationship with someone that you want to show more loving to.
Catriona xx
Acknowledgement: I have adapted some of these from a book called The Love Dare by Stephen and Alex Kendrick – A Christian book based on the Bible and scripture with lots of insight into love and keeping it alive.
Picture thanks to: http://thinkoutsidetheboxchallenge.blogspot.com.au/2009/10/great-gift-ideas-2010-calendars.html