“The emotion that can break your heart is sometimes the very one that heals it.” Nicholas Sparks
Michael was tall, broad-shouldered, muscular and devilishly handsome. He had a smile that lit up a room and a personality that was magnetic. He had confidence and charm. He was expressive and affectionate. He was younger than I, but the dreams he held for his life were that of a more mature man. He was what I refer to as bright and sparkly and I fell in love with him.
I was in a hurting place at the time. My marriage ...continue reading...
“Never apologize for trusting your intuition – your brain can play tricks, your heart can blind, but your gut is always right.” Rachel Wolchin
My client, Sue, had a long talk with her husband. He blamed her for not being able to commit to him. He blamed her for not saying I love you often enough. He blamed her for his feelings of loneliness and insecurity. And she believed it was true. She started to blame herself and feel like maybe she was the problem in their marriage.
Sue is listening to her husband more than she’s listening to ...continue reading...
Divorce is a loss. It is a loss of a relationship, of course, but it is also a loss of a dream you once held. It may be a loss of an identity. You may lose friendships and you’ll certainly lose money. But one of the other surprising things you lose in divorce is your sense of real clarity in your life.
It’s like a fog has rolled in and you know the bridge is there connecting the life you had with the life you’re moving towards, but you can’t see it.
That’s why the most valuable wellness tool ...continue reading...
“Questions are only offensive to those who have something to hide.” Gary Hopkins
I see it all the time with my clients, particularly those that are struggling with trying to figure out if they should stay or go in their relationship and worry that their partner has something to hide.
They suspect he’s not being truthful, but they have no real proof of that.
They go looking for proof – snooping, cell phone records, drive-bys, even GPS trackers on their cars or phones. They go looking for proof because they don’t trust their guts that have been talking ...continue reading...
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Albert Einstein
When we’re struggling in our marriages, we’re always looking for a way to improve it, to make it feel better.
But all too often, what ends up happening is using the same thinking and ways to engage with one another because it’s all we know. For instance:
Something happens between you and you argue trying to get your partner to see it from your perspective… You both give each other the silent treatment for a day or two… Eventually, ...continue reading...I was in love. It wasn’t an easy, nurturing, soulful love. It was the kind of love that rocks your foundation and leaves you feeling consumed.
He was the first thing I thought about when I woke up and the last thing I thought about before I went to sleep. He was intense and passionate, but also secretive and disarming.
Just as I became consumed by this drug, needing hit after hit, he began to pull away. He began making less time for me, making me feel very small and unimportant in his life.
He began seeing other women, ...continue reading...
When a relationship “fails,” it’s easy to look back on it with blame and shame. We want to point fingers and attribute the pain to external forces (more often than not, by blaming our exes). But the truth is, every relationship is a dynamic. So when that dynamic spirals into dysfunction, we need to recognize our part.
Let’s take an example to explore what I’m talking about further. Caren had a belief that all men leave. And she had good reason to believe this: her father left her mother and the family when she was five years old. In her ...continue reading...
A woman I’ll call Bethany got in touch with me asking for help. She was 47 years old, had two children, and had been married for 23 years to a man with significant narcissistic tendencies. Although their marriage had never been great, the last decade was brutal.
The more time we spent together, the more I learned about their dynamic. He would manipulate her to suit his own desires, withholding love and attention until she finally gave in. He lied pathologically and made no apologies for having multiple affairs or drinking and gambling too much.
She had felt so ...continue reading...
“Narcissism falls along the axis of what psychologists call personality disorders, one of a group that includes antisocial, dependent, histrionic, avoidant and borderline personalities. But by most measures, narcissism is one of the worst, if only because the narcissists themselves are so clueless.” Jeffrey Kluger
I don’t know if we have had an incredible increase in people with narcissistic tendencies or we simply have access to a lot more information about narcissism than ever before. It’s likely a little of both and that’s probably why the term gets tossed around more than is warranted.
But there’s a big ...continue reading...
“I dislike the work self-help. Self-awareness, yes, but not self-help.” Deepak Chopra
Okay…..I know…..I know……Clearly, as a Love Coach I exist and live within the self-help industry. I’ve written seven self-help books and blog every few days about how to create loving relationships that feel good to your soul (and how to change or release the ones that don’t).
But here’s where I disagree with what’s happening in the field of self-help:
You are Not Broken.
I know it benefits us as coaches, healers, therapists, etc…to convince you that you are broken and that the only way to ...continue reading...
