Reflecting Back on Your Relationship

Reflecting Back on Your Relationship

You will note stages, but I am not talking about 1. we got married, 2. bought a house, 3. had kids…that is all sequential and doesn’t require memory, recall, or feelings.

I mean something much more meaningful:
1. The first time you felt hurt deeply by your partner and felt extremely alone.
2. In your hurt, you had the courage to start speaking to your partner, friends, or family about it.
3. The ‘questioning’ of your relationship has become a frequent thought in your mind.
4. The energy in this thought has become bigger and stronger in you, while the energy you feel for your relationship drops extremely low. 5. Despite constant discussions, the problems become perpetual and you stop investing in the relationship.
6. You begin to live your own life but your energy for life drops to an all-time low.
7. You realize you cannot live like this anymore (mediocre/routine/sad/disappointed/alone) and seek couple counselling.
8. It helps short-term and then dissipates.
9. Now feeling even more helpless and disempowered you invest in private coaching for yourself.
10. Through self-actualization, you are now able to feel your feelings again and feel more empowered to change, and you realize it starts with you…

What happens after that? The story does not yet have an ending, and that is okay.

You will continue to write your story until the ending becomes extremely clear and your decision of ‘should I stay or should I go’ is determined and you are at peace with your question.

I help women at all stages of their relationships, even if this story tale does not have a happy ending, and it is determined that space apart is what is necessary, then THAT ends happily ever after. Happiness is indeed possible. If the separation turns into permanency and you find yourself going through a divorce, you need not be afraid.

Fear of disappointment and sadness is what keeps so many of us stuck in our relationships. Fear of disappointing their partners, their children, and their parents. But how about you? Don’t you mean anything? Are you not worthy of happiness? Do you think that God, the Universe, or Nature skipped you when It was dishing out self-worth at the time of your making?

Until you realize that YOU are the one that matters, the ONE that requires ‘big’ energy in order to attract all things good into your world, nothing will change.

You will get to the end of life, look back, and have little memories of anything; because you were not present for it. You were hiding in a mediocre life, staying safe, and telling yourself you are happy when you are not, telling yourself you are doing the right thing when really you are just scared of making a decision that you are worthy of more.

Make today the day to decide I am showing up. Let me know your thoughts here.

Drawing a Line in the Sand

Drawing a Line in the Sand

I prefer this phrase when referring to setting limits in personal relationships over the term boundary. I am not sure why exactly; I think it is because boundary sounds so divisive. There is too much division in the world already, we don’t need more. To me, boundary feels like a steel door slamming someone in the face, and it doesn’t need to be like this.

Have you ever wondered why women have so much difficulty setting limits on what we endure and what we will not? The concept is so simple. It is a matter of ‘this is okay with me and this is not okay with me’. Why is this so difficult to do?

Because when we set limits, we anticipate disappointment from others. Especially if it is declared towards someone we care about. We perceive hurting their feelings. And as young girls, we are told that hurting someone’s feelings is not nice.

However, being the vixens we are…we found a way around it (perhaps unconsciously).

We figured out that if we make our limits very vague and unclear towards someone, and then if they get it wrong (cross the line in the sand)we are not overly disappointed in them because, after all, we were not precise and clear with the limit. It is like we have already created the perception that this individual is not capable of honouring our needs.

As women, we will do anything to avoid disappointment. It is a deep feminine wound. It rips our hearts open and we feel it in our guts.

So the cycle of disappointment begins…

Unclear, vague, and nonspecific requests are sent out to avoid any potential risk that if our needs are not met, we won’t be overly disappointed because after all, we were not that clear in our request and we hope for a better outcome next time.

As women, we continue to play the boy who cried wolf. We have moments of courage, state our needs, draw the line in the sand, then second guess our needs, dishonour our worth, and so it goes…

The crazy thing about it is that now you are BOTH disappointed AND they crossed the line again!

Instead, let’s choose to be disappointed and have your needs honoured. This is the only way to break the cycle of disappointment. The disappointment of staying true to your worth will not have the same half-life as consequently playing weak and small.

You are highly intelligent and know what you need to thrive in this world. Stop playing small and choose to live in alignment with your needs and desires. No one knows what your needs are as best as you do – therefore you are doing a disservice to yourself by not being clear, precise, and specific.

It would be disrespectful to those you love to communicate anything but a very clear message of where you draw the line.

Thinking Less and Feeling More

Thinking Less and Feeling More

Have you ever heard of the term ‘ what resists persists’?

If someone tells you that you cannot have something, that is all you want. If you are trying to think of a word, it will not enter your mind.

You cannot ‘will’ it away.

When one focuses too much on thought, and not enough on feelings, an imbalance of energy occurs. This is true for so many situations, but let’s focus on anxiety.

To live life from intellect only is something that men especially struggle with.

I had a call with a man today. He was a bit confused because he thought it was good to call his wife when he gets anxious so that she could listen and talk it through with him. I asked him why he felt the need to call her and speak about his anxiety with her. He said it was because he felt better after talking to her and he thought he was supposed to talk about his feelings. However, he also mentioned that she was beginning to resent this… and therefore called me.

There are a few problems with this.

  1. He is acting too much from feminine energy and
  2. This then causes her to ‘mother’ him which is masculine energy,
  3. He is relying on her to rid his anxiety.

My client has forgotten that he has a choice. He can choose what to focus his energy on and what he wants to feel in the moment. If his energy is anxious/low energy, it doesn’t help to distract from the feeling/energy and call his wife in order for her to ‘fix’ it. It is much better to not ‘resist’ the feeling. He needs to embody the feeling and perhaps breathe through the feeling. Pay attention to the feeling – do not ‘think’ it away. If the feeling is there, it is for a reason.

By processing the feeling, he will notice it move through him easier. Once processed, he will feel more empowered and able to focus his energy elsewhere. In other words, feel disappointment and sadness, and realize he has the option to feel and think different thoughts that will allow him to feel differently.

He is now empowered to take control of his life; to move energy through his body with focused attention to thought, processing feelings (feeling the energy move through him), which allows different thoughts to infiltrate and regain his focus and awareness towards what he wants the rest of his day to look like. This in turn balances each other’s masculine and feminine energy and subsequently, supports their relationship.

I Start to Spiral

I Start to Spiral

I hear the following often: ‘ and then I start to spiral’.

In summary, women are telling me that they find themselves in a helpless and uncontrollable position. They tell me their mind takes over and thus so do their behaviours. The behaviours that follow are not favoured. Examples may be texting a person you do not want to text, yelling at your children, or emotional eating – just to name a few.

The cause of this ‘lack of control’ is simple. They have created a thought loop that stems from the subconscious.

I am not going to go deep into the psychology of the minds (conscious, subconscious, and superconscious) but just know that there are many stored memories in the subconscious, likely from childhood.

In step 1 of my transformational program, we look at these stored thoughts that continually cycle through the mind, which then become beliefs. We must realize that the more awareness we place on the thought, the more we believe it is true and the more it manifests into our reality.

In step 2 of the program, we train our mind to focus our awareness on other areas of the mind that contain a higher frequency of happiness, peace, and joy. By focusing on these energies more often, we begin to rewire the mind and our behaviour changes.

I can think of a few women in my program who, while in a new relationship, spoke of how they ‘spiralled down’ quickly because of their partner’s behaviour and their patterned thoughts related to low self-worth. We used the power of awareness (being conscious of the thoughts and beliefs about themselves in the moment of hurt) and thus quickly shifted their awareness to the higher energies in their minds. After weeks and months of practising this, they realized that it is indeed possible to re-engineer their thought patterns. Soon they did not allow their energy to drop suddenly based on a simple comment or behaviour from someone near to them. They realize they can preserve and covet their happiness at any given moment IF they became aware in the moment.

Step 3 of the program is focused on repetition. When we notice that our awareness is shifting to old patterns of thoughts and emotions that carry low energies (frustration, guilt, shame, jealousy, or self-judgement) we shift our awareness to thoughts of higher frequency energy (joy, love, harmony, peace, divinity) and our energy and behaviours consequently shift. We essentially are rebirthed and transformed. This transformational process becomes life-changing for these women.

The next time you find yourself ‘spiralling’ please refer to this post. If I can help you to free yourself from unwanted behaviours or break free from an unhappy relationship into a relationship that celebrates you and your authenticity, feel free to contact me.

 

You Can’t Talk Your Spouse out of an Addiction

You Can’t Talk Your Spouse out of an Addiction

If your partner is struggling with drug abuse, normally just talking to him or her isn’t enough. I see it over and over that partners seem to live on ‘hope’ for so long before finally being able to draw a line in the sand. Normally separation unfolds. Whether or not divorce follows afterwards is your partner’s ability to ‘do the work’.

I had a man who came to me with incredible anxiety and a history of 45 years of alcoholism. He was divorced for many years but still had a good relationship with his ex.

Over the first couple of sessions, he weaned himself off of medication including cannabis. After about 6 sessions and building a deeper rapport with him, I told him that there was very little I could do regarding his anxiety, shame or guilt UNTIL he stopped drinking for good. I asked him to please go to rehab as most cannot do it on their own…he said he could not… and replied ‘I got to do it on my own if I am going to do this’ to which I replied ‘ okay you have a week to get sober and if you can’t say no to alcohol, then there is no point continuing on with me’.

It felt cold for me to say it…but necessary.

He did it. He came back one week later and told me he quit that day.

We have had a few sessions since but yesterday was so incredibly moving for both him and I. He was 35 days sober and I just had to ask him: ‘What was the exact catalyst for you to move past that fear of what was on the other side of your addiction?’

His answer: “When you told me I couldn’t come back.”

{Mic drop}

Well, we were both bawling.

Let me be clear. This is not about me (as a therapist/coach). This is all about the drive for connection. And the connection starts with you. Am I worthy of having that connection with another person?

If you are struggling with an addiction and you still have some sense or desire of what it feels like to connect deeply with another human, then you have hope. For those whose addictions do not allow their minds to have enough moments of clarity and contemplative thought within that cycle of addiction, then there may not be hope. And – there is no one to blame in this cycle – it just is.

I spoke to him at the exact right time when his desire, his hunger, and his need for connection for himself as well as for me, was enough to overcome his addiction. His inner work now continues.

He is not loving by what he sees in deep reflection as he struggles with guilt and shame in the process, but his yearning for connection now manifests from his new frame of reference – when his mind is clear.

As author MaryAnn DiMarco described it beautifully, “We learn to separate genuine humility, a divine value, from the search for approval, and ego-based addiction.”

Join me in my upcoming Masterclass: Finding Peace and Hope in Your Current and Past Relationships. For more info on my Masterclass click here.