In fact, you have spent so much time contemplating this, that you have made yourself miserable. Not coincidentally, and possibly unknowingly, you have also contributed to your partner feeling miserable about themselves, not to mention you and your relationship.

Of course you wish to change some annoying or painful behavior about your partner that you imagine contributes to your unhappiness. This is normal. And most likely you are unsuccessful in getting them to change. Even if you are justified in your belief that your partner SHOULD change, they would probably find changing difficult. They might possibly, even secretly, wish they could change as well. They might even feel ashamed about it,  even if they tell you differently.

You must ask yourself how your negative contemplation of their “faulty behavior” is affecting you. The more you think about it, the more outraged you feel, and the more disconnected from your loved one. Your chronic outrage is like a poison to your mind and emotions. You are left with an attitude that hurts them as well as yourself.  As you can see, the chances of them changing that “faulty behavior” decreases with this approach. You also become more and more miserable, and the warmth and connection between you diminishes dramatically.

Please understand, I am not suggesting that you totally disregard another’s hurtful behavior or the feelings it creates in you. Quite the opposite. I am recommending that you partner with your loved one, becoming their biggest champion and loving them into greater consciousness, empathy and caring. This means open dialogue; being able to speak what you see, imagine, feel, and need, AND being able to listen to their world – even if you disagree or see things very differently. You must be able to discuss what’s bothering you and ask for behavior changes. But you cannot bulldoze, coerce, demand, shame, blame or judge. It just doesn’t work. Ever.

We all have a hard time opening our heart when we feel judged or criticized. When we are honestly loved, our defenses melt and we become more willing to look at and work on our shortcomings.

Love is a magical change agent. True love is the unconditional “holding” of your partner in their most positive potential. When you spend more time contemplating the goodness in your partner, your heart opens more to them. Considering what you appreciate about them, without any “Buts” or “Shoulds”, allows you to shower them with your love and appreciation. They will feel loved, even if they question your sudden change. Over time, their fears and defensive stance will decrease. You will have become a trusted lover and well-wisher laid a loving groundwork for, not only their changes, but most importantly your own happiness, joy and peace of mind.

Post from: Deepening Your Love

LOVE, The Magical Change Agent

I was wondering if you could give me any advice on dealing with jealousy in a relationship? I love my partner and for a lot of the same reasons that I love him I tend to get insanely jealous over stupid things. I’m working with myself on a lot of things in particular that seem to come completely naturally to him, but I have a hard time not getting bitter about it. I know my bitterness is misplaced, so I try to repress it and then it ends up coming out some other time, causing some completely ridiculous argument. I know that I could sit down and list all my good traits or have him point out what he admires about me, but I wish I could just get my mind to stop comparing us all together.

Hiya Dear,

Thanks for writing so honestly on a topic we can all relate to. Here are some thoughts about your situation. Feel free to ask more if needed.

Most of us partner with someone who has different skills and qualities than we do.  What they can naturally and easily do well, we may have to work really hard to accomplish, if we even want to put our energy into those endeavors. Even then we may not ever reach their skill level. Usually, we too, have areas of natural expertise that our partners may find difficult for themselves. Hopefully we don’t downplay those too much!

Sometimes, in a couple, one person is more of a “glass half empty” type (like me) and looks more at what’s missing. The other is often more a “glass half full” person, and seems to pay more attention to their wholeness. When our focus is more on “where we’re not” it’s easier to feel bad in comparison to another. “Glass half fullers” (like Kate) don’t tend to go there, at least not in the light of day.

The glass half empty and the glass half full attitudes are compensations for the invisible fear of not being enough. Believe me, there’s an awful lot partners have in common when they are able to dive beneath the surface through tender sharing and honest dialogue.

When we compare ourselves to others, we are often afraid that we don’t measure up to them. Having another person so close to us makes it very convenient to place some of the blame on them. We want them to be in touch with or manifest their fears in the same way we do. We hope that if they do this we would then feel so much better about ourselves. Unfortunately, there’s a really good chance that without some excellent communication skills, that will lead us down a tunnel where no cheese exists.

Our partners are big mirrors for us to see ourselves. At times they will, without even trying, reflect back to us our negative view of ourselves thus bringing up difficult feelings. When I’m in this place, I have a couple of options. I can go down my usual and well worn path called “The- Less -Than -You – Highway” (and blame my partner) or make a right turn onto a less known, less comfortable road named “Plenty – Good – Enough – Street”.  I believe we always partner up with someone different, so that we can borrow from them characteristics that are beneficial to us. As you make that turn, either gradually or quickly, the mirror will begin to reflect your courageous choice, and feel like a friendlier place to hang out.

We all need a safe place to work through our feelings, especially when we are in the process of changing. Ask your partner if he would play back to you what he hears you saying and try to understand your world. Over time, you will be able to see and appreciate both your natural skills and the areas you’d like to change. When your partner is willing to do the same, a great bonding and learning process should result for both of you. Please remember that this is a journey we all face but aren’t necessarily as honest with ourselves about it as you are. That’s just one of your strengths!

Post from: Deepening Your Love

Letters, We Get Letters(about Relationships…)

Here is a little snippet to whet your appetite:

“It’s no secret that relationships require work, but, as in yoga, you can find a happy balance between effort and ease when you apply your awareness. “A lot of people feel like, ‘If you loved me, we wouldn’t have to work at this,’” Feldman says, but he thinks that’s an unrealistic attitude. The trick,when it feels like too much effort, is to find more ease. To help couples with this, Feldman and his wife help their clients discover “love rituals”—small gestures practiced up to three times a day for two to three minutes at a time—so they can reconnect with the partner as a source of pleasure rather than pain.”

Hope you enjoy!

Post from: Deepening Your Love

Grow Your Love

Hardwired into our brain throughout our evolution is the need for warmth, affection, and emotional responsiveness. In a word: LOVE.  This loving between humans is an enormous key to our survival. We respond to abandonment and isolation as danger. In practical terms this translates into some very basic questions that we, in the western world especially, carry deep inside: “Are you there for me”, “Do I matter to you?” “Do you know how much I love and need you?” “Will you be able to respond to me?”

When the answers to these questions are mostly “I am here; I love you”  or “We are in this together” or  “I want to hear your needs, and will be here with you”, we respond with a sense of emotional safety. We feel as if we “belong”, we are connected.  Our flight and fight response relaxes, and we open our hearts.  When we consistently receive a negative or threatening response to our vulnerable questions, we shut down and feel endangered.

Danger and safety are primitive mammalian responses. They are not logical and they are not optional.  We can, however, understand them logically and learn to behave in ways that engender more safety and connection in our relationships.

The research on attachment between mothers and infants has a correlation with how lovers behave. When we love someone, and are loved in return, we emotionally tune into one another. When this attunement is satisfying, we help regulate each others’ emotional and physiological lives. We help each other balance, and this supports each of us to function happily and confidently in the world.

When we are insecurely bonded, and cannot get a loved one to respond to us, we are hard wired to automatically complain. We begin by hopefully (but probably not skillfully) airing our frustrations. If we don’t receive an emotionally connecting response we become angry, then desperate and eventually coercive. If that doesn’t work, we shut down, get depressed and despairing. Our evolutionary need for love evokes an auto response to disconnection:  We withdraw or attack. This is how powerful and survival-based, the need for secure attachment is.

Sadly, our innate abilities to reach out, comfort, care, and nurture are always there, hard wired as well. But so often these are denied or subsumed, in the face of the sheer panic (and it IS panic) that arises if we feel abandoned, un-met, or mis-attuned to.

In our work with couples, we understand that the deepest need is to feel safe. Safety evokes the experience of open-heartedness. When our hearts are open we trust one another, and can more easily share our core fears and needs, instead of arguing about the kids, the money, the vacation, and the household jobs. Once our conversation goes to this deep level, we begin to feel the energy of love, the warmth of wanting to be there for each other.  This evokes the desire to meet one another’s needs… not because someone is demanding, but because our hearts are moved with empathy and compassion. Then our loving is translated into specific action.

As partners begin to connect and experience that they are there for one another an interesting phenomenon occurs: Lovers are flooded with the cuddle hormone, Oxytocin. Oxytocin is released during orgasm, breast-feeding, hugging, or a mere loving gaze. It is also linked to the release of dopamine, the natural brain chemical linked to pleasure and de-stressing.

This is the neurochemical basis of love, bonding, and secure connection. Our need for the calm, blissful feeling of love is even more important than food. It is imperative to our very survival and success as human beings.

The time and attention you give your love relationships could literally, save your life.

Gratitude to Sue Johnson, founder of Emotionally Focused Therapy, as well as all the great thinkers, therapists, psychiatrists and researchers who went before: Bowlby, Ainsworth, Main, Fonagy, Schore…

Post from: Deepening Your Love

YOUR LOVING RELATIONSHIP IS GIVING YOU LIFE! or The Neurobiology of Secure Love

One day my mentor Mr. Shoaff said, “Jim, if you want to be wealthy and happy, learn this lesson well: Learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job.” Since that time I’ve been working on my own personal development. And I must admit that this has been the most challenging assignment of all. This business of personal development lasts a lifetime.

You see, what you become is far more important than what you get. The important question to ask on the job is not, “What am I getting?” Instead, you should ask, “What am I becoming?” Getting and becoming are like Siamese twins: What you become directly influences what you get. Think of it this way: Most of what you have today you have attracted by becoming the person you are today.

I’ve also found that income rarely exceeds personal development. Sometimes income takes a lucky jump, but unless you learn to handle the responsibilities that come with it, it will usually shrink back to the amount you can handle. If someone hands you a million dollars, you’d better hurry up and become a millionaire. A very rich man once said, “If you took all the money in the world and divided it equally among everybody, it would soon be back in the same pockets it was before.”

It is hard to keep that which has not been obtained through personal development.

So here’s the great axiom of life:  To have more than you’ve got, become more than you are. This is where you should focus most of your attention. Otherwise, you just might have to contend with the axiom of not changing, which is:  Unless you change how you are, you’ll always have what you’ve got.

Post from: Deepening Your Love

The Miracle of Personal Development by Jim Rohn

I was feeling poetic and penned this little self reminder this morning. Hope it’s helpful.

You’re upset…I can breathe and relax…

And let you be upset…And breathe some more….

And try to feel your pain, even if it’s me you’re upset with…

I can relax….And hear about what’s upsetting you…

I don’t need to defend myself…I don’t need to justify my behavior…

I can breathe and just be with you…In your upset….

I may have defensive thoughts from time to time…But you still are not wrong…

You have your own reasons…If only I can help make it safe…

To  tell me what they are…To breathe and enter quietly into your world…

Along with you….And feel your fear…

And not need to fix anything:

Because I can’t…and because there isn’t anything wrong…

…That a little love and compassion can’t soothe…

I breathe…and sometimes I bite my tongue…In case it gets any funny ideas…

And wants to explain….How it was for me (before its wise to talk)…..

Breathe or Bite or Both…Listen to the one I love..

With a receptive heart….And a quieting mind…

Everything’s OK

Post from: Deepening Your Love

What to Do When You’re Upset With Me ?

Q. “Is it common for a man to desire more space and freedom than a woman does? I am constantly trying to find the balance of acting from my heart (meaning, if I genuinely want to talk to him then I’ll call him!) and giving him space and not smothering him by waiting for him to reach out to me. It’s hard. My partner has this great need for space, to feel free. I on the other hand, want to feel needed, loved, and shown it a lot! What happens is that I show him what I want -which comes off clingy, and he feels like running away (creating more space). When I feel this ’space’, I feel like running towards him… and thus the cycle.”

A. It’s good to hear from you. Your feelings make quite a bit of sense. All intimate relationships are made up of two people doing the closeness-distance dance. Gender plays a big role because of the ways we are socialized, but it’s not always the man who wants “space” – what we call the natural need for autonomy (as opposed to the natural need for togetherness). Our adult fears of not getting enough of either autonomy or togetherness are a product of several factors: our temperaments, our upbringing, the environment in which we grew up, and some people might even say, karma. In an intimate partnership, each person’s needs tend to trigger the others’ fears, so there is a lot of potential for each person being triggered on a regular basis. This is to be expected!

Our aversion to too much closeness or distance is a fear based on the past. While we will definitely keep acting it out, we always have the choice to work on understanding each person’s different world, and beginning to make space for what we have pushed away in the past.

As always, my main criteria for a successful relationship is the desire of both partners to grow themselves. The biggest opportunity for that growth is in relation to how our partner may frighten us. It is no accident that we are attracted to a person with different (often opposite!) needs and fears, but choosing to dig deeply and change ourselves is what is often missing. Most couples stay stuck in the blame game: “if you loved me, you would behave and love me my way”. This only leads to more of the same which is your case is: the more you pursue, the more he distances, and the more he distances the more you pursue. A vicious cycle, as you know.

Attempting to give your partner the “space” he needs is bound to scare you! Both of you will have to learn the art of self-soothing, and relaxing into your feelings without needing  to change right away. Both of you would do well to understand where you are coming from – why and how your need for more togetherness or more autonomy developed. Then talk with each other. Help each other understand the origin of the need so you can build compassion and empathy toward one another. This will prevent you from freaking out and blaming each other when either of you feel your needs are not being met. You’ll have to relax and calm yourself down as you listen, realizing that your needs are different, your styles are different. But differing styles and needs don’t have to prevent you from loving each other.

Take time to learn the art of good dialogue. practice the skills of listening, mirroring, opening the heart, self-soothing. As you relax together, you’ll find your connection deepening.  The bottom line is that it takes two willing dancers for any good movement to happen.  This isn’t a dance that most of us ever perfect. Our fears and needs are usually pretty strong. Progress and growth will occur over time and lots can be learned. You are so fortunate to know enough about yourself to even be asking the right questions. Just know that this is a normal and inevitable part of relationship and my guess is that wherever your love takes you this dance will soon enough appear for your development.

Post from: Deepening Your Love

The “Closeness-Distance Dance” of Intimate Relationships

I was left with a desire to live my life in an even more “Tantric” way. Tantra is a form of Yoga that emphasizes the transcendent possibilities of an increase in sensual awareness. Somehow, along the years, Tantra got placed in a box labeled Esoteric Sex and wound up with somewhat of a tarnished reputation. I believe that Tantra practice in our daily lives can be a great help in awakening our consciousness.

Here’s my simplistic take on the matter. Tantra is all about drawing the most satisfaction possible out of every moment. For most of us these days, that requires a great slowing down in order to become available to experience the fullness of the moment. A terrific support in slowing down is breath awareness. Sensitizing ourselves to the naturally calming flow of breath usually helps us relax, slow down and increase our ability to focus on anything.

Once we are more or less present, the next place to put our attention is on any 1, 2 or 3 of our 5 senses. Being fully present to experience the sense of touch, smell or taste can quickly become an ecstatically blissful moment, especially when we are very relaxed and not trying to control how the next ecstatic moment plays out. We simply follow the pleasant sensations with our senses wide open and relax into each delightful moment.

I hope you can see from my little Tantra Primer how this ancient Yoga discipline can help us all rediscover the simple joys of our sensual potential, not just in the bedroom, but in every moment of our lives. Test it out, on a sunrise, sunset, crunching fallen leaves, in the bathtub, eating a favorite snack or hugging your beloved. Let the pleasure of the moment melt away your stress and re-awaken your innate capacity for deep joy and the sublime stillness of the moment. My new mantra is “Stop Thinking, Take a Tantra Break”.

Post from: Deepening Your Love

Tantra: The Spice of Life and Relationships

No Agreement

JOEL: Imagine for a moment that, as a couple, navigating the daily tasks of your life together was a new kind of business model. In this, you wouldn’t have any hated meetings, no strategic planning retreats, no 360 degree feedback sessions, no consultants or bosses……sounding pretty sweet, eh?

Well, yes….but, the ensuing chaos could become unsettling for some. Welcome to your life as a couple or family, where the stress of managing (there, I said it) your shared life could be the perfect laboratory for stress researchers, who seem to have multiplied lately.  (What were they doing before the recession?) The daily, weekly and seasonal tasks of managing (there it is again) a household, boggle the mind. Who will do what, when, and how, test even the most advanced couples’ communication skills. And landing on “who makes the decision” about any one thing, can create the power struggle from hell.

So what about those “honey-do” lists? If one person is the designated “List Maker” and the other, a grateful and non-complaining “List Taker”, life could start looking pretty grand. Our List Taker dutifully attacks the list, in its proper stacking order and accomplishes said tasks in the declared time allotted. They clearly know their role and accept the List Makers supreme wisdom of “all things listy”. No feedback, no 360’s, no challenge to the LM’s authority. Life is good, right?

Wrong.

KATE: Here’s a story about us that might help.  We have learned that we don’t have a right to an expectation of each other unless we have an agreement. That’s right. No agreement, no expectation, no right to get mad, sad or give feedback. We have cats; adorable, loveable, furry, independent pets. They go in and out of the house, they play with each other, they cuddle with us; they are even friendly with our Labrador Retriever, Maggie Mae.  They also poop.  Who, in our family, is in charge of scooping the kitty litter (or taking out the trash, or emptying the dishwasher, or making/cleaning up dinner, or paying the bills… you can add your own here)?

Every day I go downstairs and see the kitty litter box full of lumps. It always needs to be scooped. Every day I’d feel resentful and angry that Joel, who’s office is right there, didn’t pay attention and scoop the litter. Never mind that I was looking right at it and not scooping it myself, since I just happen to have my office next to Joel’s (we work out of our home) AND the kitty litter is right near the laundry.
Finally I got mad. “How come you never scoop the litter?”(In an entitled, critical voice). “I do it every day. Why aren’t you helping even just a little?”

“Since when is it my job”? he retorts.

“Well they are OUR cats! Couldn’t you just be a little more aware (you stupid space cadet – this part only spoken in my mind)?”

Post Agreement

“I never agreed to be the pooper scooper”.
I tried not to laugh so I could stay mad. And realized we have no agreement. I do not have a right to complain unless we have agreed upon something and the agreement is broken. Thus, the next evening, with the intention to clear away the headache of wondering what “job” was going to be done by which of us, we sat down, made a list of all the to dos of our daily lives and decided who does what. It was a meeting of sorts. But since that day, we rarely argue about any of it. If one of us doesn’t follow through, the other gets to make a reminder once. If one of us feels annoyed by the way the other is doing a job, we can bring it up for discussion but we have agreed to respect each other’s style of handling the “stuff”.

The result: Better sex.

Less daily hassles result in more relaxation leading to more deep discussions, connection, laughter and, yes… much better sex.

Try making agreements. See what happens.

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The Business of Relationships (Make Love, Not War!)

For better or for worse, the “little things” in relationships, both good and bad, matter more than we’d like to believe. We’ve spoken before on this blog about our belief that daily life IS foreplay for couples. We know that large, regular doses of kindness offered to our partner make for great connection and intimacy. Continuing to water and feed the garden of our relationship is critical.

But there is another grouping of “Little Things” that we all must pay attention to… the Weeds! In honor of Summer, it seems appropriate to look at what our love interests have in common with our gardens. Weeding our relationship garden is critical. Weeds not dealt with can wreak havoc on those wonderful plants we’ve been cultivating for a while. We have one in particular that attaches itself to other plants and gradually chokes the life out of them. Can you see where I’m going with this?  I see it every day in my office; “small” problems or conflicts left unattended gradually suck the juice out of the relationship.

Believe me, I pull a lot of weeds out of our flower gardens. The problem is, many times I don’t get the whole root and they just grow back again. In our relationships, the weeds or frustrations we experience also have deeper roots. Without getting at these our conflicts simply return again and again in one form or another. They’ve been doing that our entire lives. There are no magic carpets we can sweep them under or weed killers that take care of the problem long term. “If we don’t deal, we can’t heal”. It’s an ongoing project.

So be aware of what you say to yourself when tempted to toss yet another unresolved irritation under the rug(which can get downright bumpy at times). I’ll give you my top excuses for not addressing something that needs addressing:
“Why bother, it’ll just get her pissed”
“It’s no big deal, why take the time”
“It’s not a problem, why am I being so sensitive”
“I do a lot worse than that, why open a can of worms”

I have learned over time that my denials really don’t really give me what I want. A meticulous gardener knows this. Connected couples do too. Whenever we address the so-called “little things” well, we invariably come to see the deeper roots of our needs and fears. Whenever we make time to talk about these, with larger doses of owning and smaller portions of blame, I gain a greater understanding into both Kate’s world and my own. Whenever we put it off or ignore them, they inevitably become invisible walls that separate us from one another.

It’s summer…take some time to do a little “weed management” and watch your relationship garden blossom with aliveness, intimacy and deep satisfaction!

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There Are No “Little Things” in Relationship!