An observation on relationships.
Recently a lot of what is arising with clients, friends and acquaintances has been to do with the difficulties people are facing in their relationships.
It could be a recent break up which is making you feel down, partners who cheat, couples going through separation or divorce, or simply seeking to mend a relationship from the past with a family member or friend that just never seems to heal or mend properly.
A lot of what has been coming up have been issues related to "How things have changed" in the relationship, or "Why won't they change"-type aspects.
In this area, one of the most important aspects to remember is that is it rarely the other person's "fault" in the reason why a particular issue has occurred. And critical to breaking through here is an understanding that there are different ways of looking at the problems, issues, or concerns that have arisen, from all the parties' different perspectives.
The major issue that can arise is that love, being as it is one of the most profound emotions known to man, can easily engage the certain parts of the brain responsible for emotion rather than logic - and so even though one person is communicating one thing to the other, the other is hearing a completely different series of meanings behind the words being used. Which leads to one person feeling as though they are not being heard, their needs are not being met, or in the worst case that they simply do not exist in the eyes of the other person.
This becomes a difficulty when the pattern repeats. Over and over. And eventually it's like you are on a completely new different radio station from the person that you used to enjoy great conversations with, you used to 'vibe' incredibly with, and in whose company you both used to enjoy so much, so often.
Failed relationships happen for many reasons, and the failure of a relationship is often a source of great psychological anguish.
We all have to work consciously to master the skills necessary to make them flourish.
In many of my sessions with clients, I teach ways to help smooth out the issues and the problems that occur in relationships to give them breathing space to flourish, grow again or, in some cases, end. It is all about creating what is healthy within the relationship, realising the different perspectives that people always have, and then looking to the deeper, underlying, reasons why a certain person is behaving in a certain way.
We are learning that the ability to have healthy, loving relationships is not innate. A massive amount of evidence suggests that the ability to form stable relationships begins in early childhood, in some of the child's earliest experiences with a parent, guardian, or other caregiver who effectively and consistently meets the child's needs for food, care, protection, social contact, and natural healthy stimulation.
Those relationships are not destiny, but they appear to establish patterns of relating to others.
So if an issue is arising, a great place to start in seeking to uncover the deep signals, the underlying reasons behind why it is happening, is by looking at the patterns, things that happened, words that were spoken, and major events that occurred in this person's childhood, and working back from there in seeking a resolution.
It may sound simple, but there are many techniques we can use to facilitate healing in this area, which also impact many other areas in life, such as:
- ability to lose weight
- ability to keep weight off
- ability to form deep and meaningful friendships and relationships
- healing issues that have arisen in current relationships
- bringing a person out of depression and anxiety related issues.
Finally, one thing to always keep in mind: You may not know the full story behind the reason why the person, your spouse, a family member, friend or other person you are in relationship with is acting the way that they are, and that by uncovering the truth behind why these things are occurring, you can both heal any difficulties that are arising.