It’s easy to be good to your partner when things are going well. When we’re happy, isn’t it easy to treat everyone around you well? Our partner is (hopefully) the closest person to us in the world. So he or she knows when something is wrong even before we tell them. They know our patterns, […]
The “Love, Honor, and…Obey?” article seems to have created a considerable amount of concern among readers. I’ve been quite surprised by this, despite the worldwide publishing phenomenon from a few years ago (aka “The Decline and Fall of Western Literature”) known as the Fifty Shades trilogy. First a statement about those ridiculous books. I’m truly […]
People tend to get good at what we do frequently. Sounds obvious, right? Well in addition to studying a field, remaining current with new innovations, the really great practitioners tend to just love that field. We are continually looking at how a new contribution to the fields of interpersonal dynamics, the study of relationships, hoping […]
Appreciation can be such an elusive thing. On one hand, we all know what the word means. In the context of a relationship, it refers to experiencing and showing gratitude for someone else, perhaps for something specific they do. Perhaps for something as global as being wonderful. The most insidious road to losing that sense of appreciation […]
The title for this article comes of course from a traditional line in a Western wedding vow. Yet how often do we consider each line of that vow prior to making it? A few years ago, I got an opportunity to experience this in my own life. I had been involved in a serious car […]
Many of us have experienced an emotional affair. We may have even been guilty of indulging in one. Consider that coworker with whom you often flirt, the barista at the coffee bar with whom you have “a regular thing” when you show up, always at about the same time, to ensure he/she is there, or […]
In a prior discussion, we talked about Maps of the World, and you may recall that they are unique to the individual. You have your own such map, as do I, and so does your partner, your kids, and your boss. So to recap for our present discussion, what is a Map of the World in […]
Laughter is the best medicine. That’s absolutely true. And laughter is medicinal in ways other than that which you can presently imagine. Far more. Laughter signals our brains to release chemicals into our bodies that are in themselves medicinal. Flooding our systems with the chemical equivalent of positive, healing energy. The effect of these chemicals on […]
Gestalt Psychology provides us with a means of organizing our experiences into a spatial location. Because NLP likewise takes an interest in where we locate a problem, this post may seem to indicate an overlap between those fields – you’re right, it does. Notice that successful couples manage to filter their partner through a lens […]
I recently was told that since humans aren’t by nature monogamous, any time we try to live that way, we encounter struggle. Humans are a good many things by nature, and a good many more not so. For example, most of us would agree that “survival of the fittest” seems to hold true. Even those among us […]