Reading Corner

Links related to the weekly posts.

 

By Posted on Posted in Presence, Reading, Relationships, Successful Relating Tagged with

In this week’s blog, we wrote about why knowing yourself is important for your relationship. Here are some articles on different aspects of this topic.

The Influence of Self-Disclosure on Relationships “Building a successful relationship involves a mutual give-and-take between partners. Self-disclosure may be more limited in the early stages of a new relationship, but part of the reason people grow closer and more deeply involved is that they become progressively more open to sharing with their partner. In order to build a deep and trusting relationship, some level of self-disclosure is necessary and the more intimate the relationship, the deeper this disclosure tends to be.”

Know Thyself! “Coming to understand how we appear to others is a key aspect of reflection. Self-knowledge can be divided into four areas: what is known to us as well as to others, what is known to others but not to us, what we know and others don’t, and what we don’t know and others don’t either. Discovering what no one knows takes time and intensive tactics. However, our biggest gain in self-improvement can be had by simply finding out what others know about us that we don’t.”

How to Develop Self-Love and Why This Will Strengthen Your Relationship “Of course it helps to be entering a relationship with a strong feeling of self-love. But I also think that if you are in a partnership where self-love is lacking, and the space between you is needy, irritating, and harmful, things can be turned around. Learning self-love is an ongoing process. It’s not a switch you can just flick on. Even couples who have a healthy amount of self-love could have more.”

Tagged with:

By Posted on Posted in Presence, Reading, Relationships, Successful Relating Tagged with , ,

This week we blogged about why intimacy is important in all your relationships. These articles explore various aspects of this important subject.

Intimacy: The Art of Relationships “Our culture provides for meeting all other needs, especially the need for autonomy, but not for intimacy. Within this framework, couples today must provide for each other more of the emotional needs that a larger community used to furnish. Compounding the wide-scale deprivation of intimacy we actually experience, our cultural talent for commercialization has separated out sex from intimacy.”

The What and How of True Intimacy “Intimacy is what most people long for but not everyone finds, or rather, makes. Why? Because intimacy, true closeness with another human being, can also be scary. Getting to the intimate core of a relationship requires that both people work through their fear….A truly intimate relationship lets both people know on the deepest level who they each truly are.”

Building Intimacy in Relationships “When you hear the word intimacy as it refers to relationships, the likelihood is that you think of sex. In reality, though, intimacy is so much more than a sexual connection. You can have an intimate relationship with someone who’s never even seen you naked. Intimacy is about vulnerability, that connection you make with someone. Experts distinguish between four different types of intimacy: physical, emotional, cognitive, and experiential.”

Tagged with: , ,

By Posted on Posted in Presence, Reading, Relationships, Successful Relating

This week we blogged about the importance of being present in life and in your relationship. Here are some great articles about this crucial aspect of living successfully.

The Mindful Couple “As a couples relationship therapist, the question I have always pondered is, can you be mindful or fully present in your relationship? (For the purposes of this post, mindfulness and being fully present will be used synonymously.) I have found the answer to be yes. Not only can you be mindful and present in your relationship, when you add mindfulness to your relationship, it has the potential to be a transformative journey towards healing and wholeness.”

How to Foster Better Relationships Just by Being Present “I love to pose a question in my journal and watch carefully for the myriad responses from The Universe. I always know how much attention something needs based on the quantity and clarity of the answers I receive. Lately I’ve been pondering the question: How can I be a better sister, daughter, and friend? The Universe has been responding with a metric truckload of answers. The common theme? Get present.”

How To Be More Present In Your Relationship “There’s definitely an art to living in the present, and it’s not as easy as it seems. There’s always something else to think and worry about, and that can seriously take us out of the moment. Being present is important in every aspect of life, but it can be particularly important when it comes to our romantic relationships. Here’s how to get better at it:”

By Posted on Posted in Peace, Reading, Relationships, Successful Relating

This week we blogged about making time for peace in your relationship. Here are some really interesting articles that cover the topics in this blog.

What Is Your Sense Of Peace? “When you’re at peace – when you are engaged with life while also feeling relatively relaxed, calm, and safe – you are protected from stress, your immune system grows stronger, and you become more resilient. Your outlook brightens and you see more opportunities. In relationships, feeling at peace prevents overreactions, increases the odds of being treated well by others, and supports you in being clear and direct when you need to be.”

How Walking in Nature Changes the Brain “A walk in the park may soothe the mind and, in the process, change the workings of our brains in ways that improve our mental health, according to an interesting new study of the physical effects on the brain of visiting nature. Most of us today live in cities and spend far less time outside in green, natural spaces than people did several generations ago. City dwellers also have a higher risk for anxiety, depression and other mental illnesses than people living outside urban centers, studies show.”

Try Something New Together – Research Shows Engaging In “Self-Expanding Activities” Rekindles The Sexual Desire Of Long-Term Couples “People have a basic drive to learn and develop and to see themselves and the world in new ways. That’s according to the psychologists Arthur Aron and Elaine Aron, who refer to this as our need for “self-expansion”. It follows from their theory that any chance to self-expand should be rewarding, and that if you can self-expand while doing things with your romantic partner then your relationship will benefit. Previous research has hinted that this is the case, finding that when couples engaged in self-expanding activities together – anything that felt new, exciting, interesting and/or challenging – their satisfaction with their relationship increased.”

By Posted on Posted in Core Values, Reading, Relationships, Successful Relating

This week we blogged about core values and how they affect your relationship. Here are some helpful articles that also discuss this topic.

The key for a successful relationship: Aligned values “Aligned values are one the most important things in any relationship. Whether it is with your life partner or business partner, aligned or misaligned values will define the success or failure of a relationship from day one. I like to visualise this as a pyramid, where at the very top you have your values, and below that, you have your life vision, then your objectives, and then at the bottom, your interests.”

7 Ways to Tell If You’ll Work as a Couple Long-Term “Seven core value types have been identified as universal—acknowledged and ascribed to around the globe. So no matter where you live, chances are strong that you have already formed your own personal values, to some degree, in the seven areas listed below. Research also indicates that relationships that are built on shared values are much more likely to endure—sure, a fantastic lover offers thrills and chills, but someone who shares your core values will be by your side once the early excitement subsides and the goosebumps disappear.”

Understanding Your Core Values in Relationships (No They’re Not Your Common Interests) “One of the things that people are most confused about and that I get asked a lot of questions about, is the issue of ‘common interests’ and letting superficial things inadvertently get mixed in with your ‘core’ values. Over the past few days I’ve been talking about value and values in relationships, and in this post, I put a clear division between the nice to have stuff that doesn’t actually cause your relationship to endure unless you have the ‘core’ values covered off.”