Blog Archives

For Couples; Five Guidelines to Developing Intimacy.

2/21/2016

1. Take time to listen to each other daily.
One study indicates that the average person spends only nine minutes a day face to face, eye to eye in conversation. It is necessary to relate directly and not over the noise of a tv, radio or from room to room.

2. Stick with one issue until resolved, and then be done with it.
Rehashing the same issues lessens trust and creates new problems. Each time the same issue is brought up, it adds to the feelings around the non-resolution. Its often old issues and not new problems that destroy trust and love.

3. Get to the feelings behind the issues.
Issues are power struggles. Discussing in-laws, money, sex, and children there are most often two sides, and the arguments become revolving about debates. Feelings are real and tend to aid understanding. With understanding there can be behaviors change and forgiveness. Ultimately with behavior change healing begins.

4. Break the no talk rule.
If something is bothersome, talk about it.
It is dishonest to give hints, play games or expect the other to be a mind reader.

5. Set boundaries with children, relatives and friends.
Be very clear about how much of your partnership and business you choose to share with them and ow much is none of their business.

The largest part of "couple-ship" business is private
and NO ONE else's business.

This is a serious yet frequent barrier to intimacy.
Often dysfunctional or chemically dependent families have little or no experience with healthy boundaries. Too much inappropriate sharing waters down the relationship between any two people. This lessens trust in many situations.

Sharon Cruse - Learning to Love Yourself.

0 Comments

Meaning Friendships are Needed to Fulfill Attachment Needs.

2/17/2016

0 Comments

Each of us as separate beings seeks to resolve separateness by attachment with others.

In the beginning the "love" was with parents.
Later we find relationships all the way through life to meet these attachment needs. Failure to attach results in all kinds of complications.

The absence of love has many harmful consequences, ranging from failure to thrive to shortened lifespan, as well as a warped and stunted emotional and psychological existence.

Loneliness kills.

There are many ways to get these attachment needs met. There are levels of attachment in addition to the personal attachment of friendship and partnering. Some attachment needs are met through group and through rituals.

In rituals, people find a sense of comfort by belonging to a church community, a sports team or a certain class. Each of these groups offer places where you can share goals, ideas, and common efforts.
There can be a feeling of belonging and importance.

On a more interpersonal level, we find a variety of friendships.
Fulfilling attachment and love requires the giving and the receiving of care and affection. In giving and receiving energy is released, and both people feel alive and connected.

It does not have to do with sharing objects,
it has to do with sharing essence.

Who you are is sharing with who someone else is. Both people are enriched and in this enrichment something new is created. It is called 'friendship.'

Several meaningful friendships are necessary
for each person, in order to fulfill attachment needs.

Sharon Cruse - Learning to Love Yourself.

0 Comments

In a world of the "Never Enough" problem.

2/16/2016

0 Comments

Called "scarcity" is the "never enough problem."

We get scarcity because we live it.

A great author and global activist called Lynne Twist writes in her book, The Soul of Money, that scarcity is just one big lie. She writes:

"For me, and for many of us, out first waking thought of the day is "I didn't get enough sleep." The next one is "I don't have enough time." Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it. We spend most of the hours and the days of our lives hearing, explaining, or worrying about what we don't have enough of...Before we sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we're already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something. And by the time we go to bed at night, our minds are racing with a litany of what we didn't get, or didn't get done, that day. We go to sleep burdened by those thoughts and wake up to that reverie of lack... This internal condition of scarcity, this mind-set of scarcity, lives at the very heart of our jealousies, our greed, our prejudice, and our agreements with life."

Scarcity is the "never enough" problem.

Scarcity thrives in a culture where everything is hyper-aware of lack. Everything from safety and love to money and resources feels restricted or lacking.

We spend inordinate amounts of time calculating how much we have, want, and don't have, and how much everyone else has, needs, and wants.

What make this constant assessing and comparing to self-defeating is that we are often comparing our lives, our marriages, our families, and our communities to unattainable, media-driven version of perfection, or we're holding up our reality against our own fictional account of how great someone else has it.

Nostalgia is also a dangerous form of comparison. Think about how often we compare ourselves and our lives to a memory that nostalgia has so completely edited that it never really existed: "Remember when......" "Those were the days..."

Worrying about scarcity is our culture's way of post traumatic stress.
It happens when we've been through too much, and rather than coming together to heal (which requires vulnerability) we're angry and scared and at each others throats. In not just the larger culture that suffering, it is often the same in many families cultures, work cultures, school cultures.

The counter approach to scarcity is not about abundance. The opposite of 'never enough' is not abundance or more than you could ever imagine, it's called wholeheartedness.

Acceptance of the what you have, who you are,
and that happiness is an inside job.

The acceptance of worthiness, and the ability to face uncertainty. To face exposure, and take emotional risks and the bottom line, know that I am enough.

From the book by Brene Brown, Daring Greatly.

0 Comments

Self Validated Intimacy

2/14/2016

0 Comments

Intimacy challenges your sense of self.
Profound adult intimacy isn't like "mother's milk."
It is the last thing we want when we feel insecure and, ironically the first thing we seek.
Intimacy is no refuge when couples are emotionally worn out and hungry.

It is necessary and inevitable that intimacy occur without trust and affirmation from your partner. Other-validated intimacy is nice when you can get it.

But when you do not, you can attempt to rise to the occasion and validate yourself.

Trying---and succeeding---to validate yourself when your partner doesn't validate you isn't as improbable as it might seem. This forces you to draw upon what is solid within yourself.

Intimacy involves your "relationship with yourself" as well as your relationship with your partner.

If you are strong enough to master your own anxieties and maintain your position, you will feel better about yourself. This is self-validated intimacy.

Self-validated intimacy is the means to two ends: becoming more of a person and developing a more resilient intimate relationship.

Passionate Marriage - Schnarch

0 Comments

I choose love.

2/12/2016

1 Comment

I love from my inner strength.
I love from my personal power.

My power
creates healthy love,
which manifests itself through
caring, knowledge,
responsibility, and respect.

My love is a reflection of my free choice
and my ability to respond powerfully.

Love is romanticized as a mystifying random
whirl of passion
that happens to us.

Falling in love is thought to be the culmination of love.

Yet, love is only meaningful and lasting
when a person chooses to love responsibility
and welcomes the opportunity to allow love to grow and deepen with time.

I will love myself by genuinely
caring for my own well being.

I will choose to love those people who deserve my love
and respect its strength and power.

1 Comment

Choose Peace.

2/10/2016

0 Comments

Peace is inevitable
to those who offer peace.

When confronted with conflict,
we can choose to feel peace.
When attacked in any way,
we can make the decision not to fight.

We can come from a place of restraint
and not act out in any hostile way,
even if we want to.
We do not have to act our our thoughts or emotions.
We can pause
and wait
until we can come from our volition,
from our choice.
We can choose peace.

0 Comments

Partnerships Require High Self-Worth

2/1/2016

0 Comments

These partnerships are not easy to come by. Two people who follow the same path as individuals and then further commit to each other in "coupleship" experience another level of excitement and energy.

True intimacy is costly, as are most items of value. The development of a relationship will cost one's innocence, one's games, one's illusions, and one's certainty.

Intimacy is a by-product of close connections. It is to share pleasure and pain in the safety of trust and commitment, and then to choose experiences, surrounding, friendships and behavior that will enhance the connection to one's self, a partner, and a higher power or spirituality.

Characteristics of Intimates
1. Intimates fight, laugh, share ideas, plan and fill the relationship with high energy.

2. Intimates share authority in relationships.

They take turns and know times when to be the leader.

3. Intimates accept and appreciate change.
They know that change and reality are closely linked and little remain the same.
4. Intimates can be counted on for consistent behavior.

5. Intimates have enough self worth to know they deserve closeness, care and attention and they do not have to play games for attention.

6. Intimates develop their sense of humor.

7. Intimates learn to ask for what they want and what they need.

8. Intimates become "like children" with each other without embarrassment.
They remember not to waste a day or a night without some appreciation for the other.

Intimacy is a peak experience.

Sharon Cruse - Learning to Love Yourself

0 Comments

For Couples; Five Guidelines to Developing Intimacy.

Meaning Friendships are Needed to Fulfill Attachment Needs.

In a world of the "Never Enough" problem.

Self Validated Intimacy

I choose love.

Choose Peace.

Partnerships Require High Self-Worth

Author: Jo Ellen Fletcher, M.A.Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist

Archives

Author:
Jo Ellen Fletcher, M.A.
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist