“Pain in this life is not avoidable, but the pain we create avoiding pain is avoidable.” RD Laing, MD
Yesterday I had a VIP Day with a brave and openhearted woman struggling to understand whether or not she should release her 39-year marriage and to make peace with her decision.
Having been a therapist, she picked up many of the coaching tools I shared with her and concepts quickly. But she also taught me something yesterday as well: There is an important distinction between loving someone and using someone:
When we use our partners to avoid pain,
...continue reading...“Expectations will steal the gifts that are sitting right there in front of you.” Jada Pinkett Smith
This deeply personal story could help every relationship you have…
I am witnessing my mother as she moves through the disease of Alzheimer’s. She struggles to complete sentences and yet she’s still able to get her point across. She can’t follow a storyline on a TV show or in a book, but she’s very much present in the moment and enjoying herself being entertained. She often repeats herself, but nothing ever goes unsaid.
My mother is at a place now where ...continue reading...
“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” Haruki Murakami
Even though divorce rates for younger couples is on the decline, the rate of divorces in mature marriages is increasing. As a matter of fact, the divorce rate has nearly doubled for couples age 50 and over throughout the past ...continue reading...
“Never look back unless you’re planning to go that way.” Henry David Thoreau
When people are struggling in their marriages, they often feel confused about what to do and scared of making the wrong decision, so understandably they begin seeking answers.
They might be up late at night – sometimes after too many glasses of wine – scrolling through Facebook and Googling things like:
My marriage is in trouble My marriage is over How do I fix my marriage? Will my spouse ever change? Should I stay or should I go?In all that searching, they don’t have ...continue reading...
“It can’t be a great marriage without being a great partnership.” Helen Mirren
In coaching, recognizing yourself in others is something called, ‘You spot it, you got it.’ The idea is that you wouldn’t truly be able to see and understand a client’s experience as deeply as you do unless you have an element of that in yourself as well.
And boy do I understand this one…
The Type A personality is defined as someone who is highly organized, ambitious, impatient, and may be competitive and/or aggressive in their approach to getting things done.
Sometimes, as women we ...continue reading...
“The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust.” Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
My client’s husband values freedom more than anything; freedom to express himself, freedom to live his life on his terms, even the freedom to be able to leave at any moment. Feeling the weight of shackles of any kind is like his own ...continue reading...
“You don’t protect your heart by acting like you don’t have one.” Unknown Author
Casey has been married for 15 years and over those years there had been plenty of hurtful words, disappointments and unmet expectations between them. So much so that she built a metaphorical wall around her heart to protect herself from being hurt again and again and again by the man that she truly did love.
She stopped making herself vulnerable to him, keeping him at an emotionally safe distance.
She stopped telling him about how she was feeling, about her dreams and desires…existing on ...continue reading...
“Truth is about perception and what we believe shapes what we perceive.” Alan B Jones
Imagine for a second you’re sitting in your living room and just on the other side of a sliding glass door is the ocean. You can see the different shades of blue in the water, you can see the movement of the ocean and the white peaks that form at the tops of the rolling waves. It’s beautiful and calming…and powerful. You could sit there all day admiring the view.
Now imagine that we replace that sliding glass door with a few panes of ...continue reading...
“You don’t develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.” Epicurus
The average American spends 2160 days in school, and based upon the average life span, that’s 12% of all the days of our lives spent in school. During that time, we learn about things such as math, science, reading, writing, languages, etc. These are all important topics to help us function in the world and become productive adults.
But at the end of our lives, when we’re lying there close to taking our last breath and reflecting ...continue reading...
