Reading Corner

Links related to the weekly posts.

 

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In this week’s blog, we discussed the struggle to get to the place of no struggle in your relationship. Here are a variety of articles discussing the road to transformation.

How One Simple Mindset Shift Can Totally Transform Your Relationships “Whatever the impetus for your resolutions, most of us fail in our attempts to create sustainable change. Change is hard. It’s uncomfortable and it takes incredible persistence, perseverance, and patience — qualities many of us struggle to cultivate. As a relationship therapist, I’m always thinking about the changes I want to make in my relationships and trying to encourage and support changes my clients want to make in their relationships.”

Real Transformation Is An Evolution “Real transformation sneaks up on you. Maybe you have experienced that moment – that face-palm, slap to the forehead instant – when you realize you are in the middle of unplanned, unexpected, unpredicted life change. It can feel like all the air just got sucked out of the room when you figure it out because real transformation changes everything. What was can no longer be, not because you don’t want it but because it just won’t work in your life anymore. Who you were then is not who you are now… and the ‘now’ you cannot be put back into the smaller container of who you were ‘then’. We like to think that we can see what’s coming and adapt proactively.”

Change Doesn’t Happen Overnight: It Happens In These Five Stages “Although circumstances often change in the blink of an eye, people tend to change at a slower pace. Even the most motivated people who welcome change often encounter stumbling blocks that make transformation more complicated than they’d originally anticipated. Whether you’re hoping to lose weight, or you’re trying to convince your employees to embrace a new procedure, don’t expect immediate results. Instead, recognize that real change happens slow and steady.”

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This week, we wrote about what the difference is between disagreement and conflict. In researching the subject, we’ve found that different writers assign different meanings to the terms disagreement, conflict, argument and fighting. Nevertheless, they are making very similar points.

Disagreements Are Not Conflicts “While lots of couples, and the people who advise them, use disagreement and conflict interchangeably; I believe doing so ignores important differences between these two types of interactions. The defining thing about a disagreement is that you and your partner are talking to each other. … In a conflict, you are not talking; rather, you are yelling, avoiding, accusing, talking over each other, etc.”

7 Ways Happy Couples Deal with Disagreements Differently “Every couple disagrees from time to time. Perfect compatibility is not possible, but sensibly working through incompatibility is. The difference between a happy couple and an unhappy couple is the way in which they handle their disagreements. Thus, in order to grow and be successful in our intimate relationships, we must adopt healthy coping strategies for dealing with our differences.”

The Very Important Difference Between Conflict and Fighting “I’ve shared with you in past blog posts that my husband, Mike, and I are very, very different. Early in our marriage, these differences created a lot of tensions. There were days when I wondered if we could make it with such divergent views on everything from money to movies. Mike and I are still very different. While that continues to create disagreement, we rarely fight anymore. We discovered a secret that has made our marriage immeasurably more enjoyable. Are you ready?”

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By Posted on Posted in Love, Peace, Reading, Relationships, Successful Relating No Comments

This week we wrote from our direct experience about practicing peace and love in a relationship. Here are some articles from professionals (and a wonderful survey) that offer a variety of advice about improving your relationship.

1,500 People Give All The Relationship Advice You’ll Ever Need “This is what I asked: anyone who has been married for 10+ years, and is still happy in their relationship . . . what lessons would you pass down to others if you could? What is working for you and your partner? Also, to people who are divorced, what didn’t work previously?”

What Makes a Relationship Work? 6 No-Fail Signs of a Strong Bond, According to a Psychotherapist “Falling in love is great, but what about your happily ever after? In order to go the distance with your significant other, it’s crucial to ask the question: What makes a relationship work? Because to be perfectly honest, the things that may be catalysts at the beginning of your journey (physical attraction, small talk, similar interests) nine times out of 10 are not the things that keep you together long-term.”

8 Ways to Make Your Relationship Work Better “Relationships that work are the ones that are worked on. If you are wondering where to begin, here are some areas that can always use a little TLC…. Every successful relationship needs the care and nurturing of two committed adults giving to each other in a way that creates a mutually beneficial connection. Giving your relationship what it needs to thrive is a truly loving gesture.”

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In our blog this week, we wrote about two important ways you can strengthen your relationship — breathing and presence. We’ve found some great articles on these topics.

Conscious Breathing: A Simple Way to Work Through Emotional Pain and Be Present in Your Life “I never gave much thought to my breath unless I was submerged under water for long periods without any. Today I rely on it for more than the obvious function of keeping me alive. Breathing has become my biggest tool and best friend. It has become a foundation for living with conscious presence and awareness.”

Being present in relationship – Why does it matter so much? “What does presence mean in a relationship, and why does it matter so much? I will sometimes hear a client lament that their partner does not feel “present” in the relationship. This feeling of lack, so acutely felt by one person, can be a complete mystery to their partner. I’ll have someone tell me in session, ‘My partner says I’m not present in our relationship… I have no idea what they mean.’ Here’s the short answer…”

9 Practical Ways To Be More Present In Your Life “I once worked with a man (who I will call Tom) who lived in San Francisco. Tom would wake up in the morning to his ringing iPhone alarm, roll over, and immediately check his text messages, his Instagram, and then his two email accounts (in that order)…. Tom hired me to help him get to the bottom of his increasingly painful and challenging situation. For some unknown reason, he had a perpetually twitching left eye, chronic tension headaches, and had a panic attack anywhere from 1-5 times on an average week. It didn’t take long to decipher that Tom was suffering from a total lack of engaging in being a human.”

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Happy New Year and Happy New Decade! This week we wrote about how to plan for the future and be in the present. Here is some advice from others on that subject.

How to Juggle Planning for the Future vs. Enjoying the Present “For those of us living “typical” modern lives, planning for the future and enjoying the present seem to be eternally in conflict with one another. How do we juggle our various responsibilities, and everything that comes with planning for the future, and still prioritize enjoying our life in the present?”

5 Reasons to Live in the Moment and Stop Planning Too Much “I believe we tend to spend so much time replaying past moments or planning too much for the future, that we miss out on the great moments that are unveiling right before use. So often we fail to stop and smell the roses. We don’t take the time to enjoy the present moment. This is sad because we have no idea how many more moments we will be fortunate to experience.”

The Art of Now: Six Steps to Living in the Moment “Life unfolds in the present. But so often, we let the present slip away, allowing time to rush past unobserved and unseized, and squandering the precious seconds of our lives as we worry about the future and ruminate about what’s past. “We’re living in a world that contributes in a major way to mental fragmentation, disintegration, distraction, decoherence,” says Buddhist scholar B. Alan Wallace. We’re always doing something, and we allow little time to practice stillness and calm.”