Grace Chatting

Many of the couples whom I see for Relationship Coaching assume that since they are now committed or married couples, that they have the right to mind each other’s business and dictate how their partner should be living their lives. This leads to a lot of power struggles, unhappiness and resentment, and often the breakdown of the relationship.

This can usually be avoided, but the best thing is to be aware of your personal boundaries when you first get into a relationship with someone. Most people are not aware of the concept of Boundaries and how  it’s critical that you set boundaries so that both you, and your new partner, are aware of where the lines are drawn.

Failure to set boundaries can’t help but lead to a failed relationship – or at least a relationship that’s built on a shaky foundation of insecurity.

Boundaries are usually thought of as being there to restrict us from doing things. They have a negative reputation. However, this isn’t always the case. Yes, they do restrict us from going somewhere we shouldn’t, but they also allow us to see how far we are allowed to go! If we don’t know how far off the boundary is, we tend to play safe by not venturing too far from home and so miss out on adventures!

When you start your relationship, think about the kind of boundaries you need. How close do you want this person to get physically with you? Do you want to limit them or are you comfortable with them being intimately close? How about emotionally? Do you want them to know how you really feel about things, or do you prefer to keep an air of mystery around yourself? What about your personal things? Do you like to share, or do you prefer it if other people leave your stuff alone? Do you want your new partner to be involved in your life outside the relationship – perhaps in respect of family activities or socializing with your friends?

When you are considering this, also consider how you want to be in your partner’s life. If you don’t want your partner touching your personal stuff for example, does that mean you have no interest in touching theirs? Do you hope to be included in your partner’s family events, but want to keep them away from yours? Be careful not to set up a double standard!

Once you know where you want your boundaries to be, you need to have a serious talk with your partner. Explain to them what it is you expect from the relationship, and what limitations you have. You may need to reassure them that it’s not because of them that you don’t want them to interact with your family, but rather that your family will be hearing wedding bells rather than your partner’s name if you take them home! You should then discuss what boundaries your partner has – you may not be the only one who isn’t in a hurry to introduce a partner to their family.

Don’t think about boundaries as being there to restrict your relationship. Think of them as being there to ensure that you make the most of the relationship without having to hold back in case your partner mightn’t like you doing/saying something. Boundaries are rules in a game and the game is relationships. Learn your personal relationship rules, explain them to your partner, and your relationship will be built on a secure foundation where each of you knows where the other draws the line.

Should your relationship develop into a fully committed life partnership or marriage remember, this does not confer the right to breach your partners boundaries, or indeed have your boundaries breached.

In order for intimacy to deepen you both need to increasingly share  aspects of your hitherto private world. To do this you each need to feel safe, that this sharing will be treated respectfully and not become the topic of an after dinner conversation with friends or acquaintances.

Anytime you feel uncomfortable or uneasy, stop to consider if your boundaries have been breached in any way, and if so then address the issue. If you sweep it under the carpet, you are setting yourself up to be a Victim. Your partner is not a mind reader and may not be aware that s/he breached your boundaries. You need to flag it up with a clear request that this is not repeated in future. This is much more grown up and constructive than becoming hurt and resentful.

Often people are completely unaware of how they breach boundaries or allow theirs to be breached. This is invariably because they grew up in an environment where this happened routinely. Relationship Coaching can help to clarify these issues.

If you wish to book a Coaching session email gracechatting@hotmail.com

written by Grace \\ tags: boundaries, relationship, relationship coaching, Relationships

Almost without exception, couples whom I see for Relationship Coaching are stuck in this repetitious dynamic and they are totally unaware of how corrosive it is to their love and their relationship.

Stephen Karpman, a student of Eric Berne’s developed the model of the Drama Triangle to explain how people in relationships interact with each other. They tend to take up one of three positions :-

Victim or Long Suffering Martyr

Victims, also known as long suffering martyrs, are usually feeling helpless, hopeless and powerless, and in need of help. Their position is that someone else is to blame for their unhappy situation, and they are blameless.

One of the easiest ways to spot when someone is in this position is from their tone of voice. It will tend to have a whiny edge to it, and the underlying message is either “Poor me” or “After all I did for ….” Or “I did nothing to create this situation and I am helpless to change it.

People who take up the Victim position need to have a Persecutor or Villain and a Rescuer to help them.

Persecutor or Villain

Persecutors are always putting other people down, it’s all their fault for being so inadequate, stupid, or otherwise not up to scratch.

The Persecutor blames, discounts, criticises and accuses the Victim and believes all their problems are due to the personality flaws of the Victim.

The Persecutor also sees him/herself as blameless.

Persecutor/Villains often have control issues and believe that things wouldn’t get done properly if they didn’t do it themselves.

Rescuer/Helper

People who take up this position tend to see themselves in a one up position, seeing others as helpless and hopeless, and in need of their help.

The Rescuer discounts both the Persecutor and the Victim as not OK.

Rescuers always become Victims. Victims become Persecutors, and Persecutors become Victims. The roles keep changing until someone decides to opt out of the Game

How do we get into this?

Mostly we will have learned these roles from our parents, and they are reinforced by the soap operas and films we watch.

In years gone by we lived in a hierarchical, patriarchal society, (some would say we still do!), which was based on men/women, white/black etc being considered superior/inferior. Men tended to dominate women, and women took up the role of long suffering martyrs.

Fortunately we live in more enlightened times and relationships are now based on equality. Unfortunately, at an unconscious level we continue to operate on the constructs we took on from our parents when we were children.

It is vitally important for the health of your relationship to make this conscious. You are role models for your children.

How do you get out of the Triangle?

To get out of the Triangle you need to be ready to grow up, become more self –aware, and take responsibility for your life.

Anytime you are feeling uncomfortable in a relationship consider if you may be playing one of the three roles. Reflect on how your situation may be playing out what you learned from your same sex parent. This may have been overt or covert, so think carefully.

Once you gain this awareness and rectify your behaviour towards the other players, the Game is over. However, because there is an unspoken agreement to play out these roles, the other players will attempt to draw you back into the Game, mainly because of their conditioning.

In couple relationships, both parties need to make how they both play out the roles of the Triangle a matter for serious discussion; not to place fault or blame, but rather to accept responsibility for their own contribution to the relationship difficulties.

Both parties need to understand that they have a choice. A Persecutor can’t force you to be a Victim, (even though it can seem that way)

Instead of blaming and complaining, people need to get clear about what they want and practice making grown up Adult to Adult requests, and where there is a conflict, learn to negotiate and reach win-win solutions.

Opting out of the Drama Triangle at work and in your relationships generally can literally transform your life!

Hope this leads to some useful discussion,

Best wishes,

Grace

written by Grace \\ tags: couples, karpman triangle, relationship coaching, Relationships

                                                        The Five Secrets of Growing A Vital Conscious Relationship

I want to introduce you to Gay and Katie Hendricks, authors of many books about relationships, in particular, Conscious Loving and Lasting Love. I have been a great fan of their work for many years and had the great pleasure of doing some intensive Relationship Coaching Training with Katie in Germany a few years ago.

I shall have the even greater pleasure of sponsoring her visit to the UK in September 2009, but more about that later.

Lasting Love grew out of their 10 year study of over 2,000 committed couples. They found that most of the conflicts in relationships can be traced to 5 root causes.

1. An imbalance between the creative energy each couple contributes to the relationship
2. A lack of emotional honesty
3. An unwillingness to accept responsibility for everyday issues
4. Deep seated commitment problems
5. A deficiency of daily appreciations

The insights which they gathered in relation to these problems led them to devise the following antidotes;

1. A new commitment. Committing seriously to appreciating yourself, your partner and your relationship
2. A new way of being with emotions which means you tell the truth, even if it is uncomfortable.
3. The No-Blame relationship. Shifting out of a cycle of criticism to a cycle of sincere appreciation on a daily basis. They boast no criticisms for 20+ years!
4. A new kind of creativity. Each partner supports the other in reaching their full creative expression.
5. Tandem Acts of Kindness. Appreciation is the fastest way of opening a flow of connection.

Over the next few months I shall say more about these concepts which I use to facilitate couples becoming more conscious of themselves, their relationship and their life, and how they can be allies for each other.

Warmest

Grace

gracechatting@hotmail.com

written by Grace \\ tags: Conscious Lovng, Gay Hendricks, Kathlyn hendricks, lasting love, relationship, Relationships

A relationship usually starts out with enough sparks to start an inferno, but after a while, the flames settle down until you one day realize that there’s not much left – just a few dying embers. This is how it is for many couples, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Here are 5 tips to stop the spark from going out in your relationship.

1. Dress up for your partner. When first dating, you put a lot of care into your appearance. You make sure that you look “just right”. You shower, you launder, you fix and the overall outward package is one that shows how much you want to impress your date. As the relationship progresses, the immaculate outward package often deteriorates – they’ve seen you first thing in the morning when you look your worst, what’s the point of dressing up? Well the point is that it shows you care what they think of you. It shows them that you want to look nice for them, and for yourself. It also works for both parts of the relationship – you should both want to look good for each other. You can dress up to go out, or dress up to stay home, you can even dress up for the bedroom but be warned, that’s probably going to put more than a spark into your relationship!

2. Keep a daily snuggle time on your schedule. Life is busy, things get in the way of getting together with your partner, stuff to do, deadlines to meet and you fall exhausted into bed each night without even a passing thought about whether or not you hugged your partner that day. Commit to at least a 15 minute snuggle period each day – the time of day is up to you, but make sure that you keep this time sacred and nothing gets in the way of it. You may occasionally have to move the time forwards or back in the day, but don’t allow anything to stop it entirely. This shows your partner that your relationship and they,  are an important part of your life.

3. Do something different together on a regular basis. Get out, try new things. Go to a new restaurant, see a different kind of movie to what you usually watch, take a short class, take up a new sport, visit a place you’ve never been before, learn Salsa dancing or sailing. The newness and sense of adventure that you share will help bring back some of the initial closeness you had when your relationship was new.

4. Put the laughter back into your relationship, it is medicine for the soul. Once the honeymoon period is over and life settles down, a relationship lives on in the day-to-day lives of both parties. The stresses and strains tend to take over and one will worry about the other, and vice versa. Instead of concentrating on the stress making issues, find something that you can laugh about. There’s something funny about most situations, you’ve just got to find it. See which of you can see the funny side first! If all else fails watch a funny DVD

.

5. Initiate surprises. Don’t allow the relationship to fall into a dependable pattern. Plan a picnic without telling your partner (just make sure it doesn’t conflict with anything else first!), wear something sexy, put love notes in his pocket, send a sizzling email full of promises you’ve every intention of fulfilling, etc. Surprises don’t have to cost anything, sometimes the best ones don’t cost anything more than a little thought and a lot of imagination!

Relationships need to settle a little to allow them to grow, but that doesn’t mean they have to go from sizzling to stale!

Good Luck

Grace

gracechatting@hotmail.com

written by Grace \\ tags: relationship

    Do you know a couple who are completely relaxed together? They don’t have to be wearing matching sweaters to show that they’re together, it’s just obvious – even when their standing at opposite sides of the room. Do they mingle separately and yet occasionally share a smile that cuts out the rest of the crowd? This is a healthy relationship.

A healthy relationship isn’t necessarily one where the couple is joined at the hip. Not everyone is tactile and enjoys that kind of closeness. Nor does everyone have a wish to be publicly affectionate. Nor is every couple who are physically affectionate in a healthy relationship because there’s a lot more to it than that.

So, are you and your partner in a healthy relationship? Well there are a number of things to look at:

1. Are you and your partner happy and relaxed in each other’s company?

2. Are you mutually supportive?

3. Do both of you make an effort to keep your relationship sparking?

4. Are you both secure in the relationship?

5. Is it an equal partnership with no fight over control?

6. Is there a 100% trust between you?

A healthy relationship isn’t one where a couple sits together and ignores everyone else. Often this is the start of a relationship but once the initial newness wears off, the relationship should mature into one where a couple can socialize separately at a party, without worrying if their partner is chatting someone else up, or if they are talking negatively about them.

A healthy relationship is also about being secure in the knowledge that your partner will always have your best interests at heart. They will respect your right to a different opinion from them, and even though they may disagree with you about something in private, they won’t make you look bad by raising the issue in public.

Think about your relationship with your partner. Do you make decisions together, or does one of you tend to do the decision making? If it’s left to one of you, is this by mutual consent or it one of you more controlling than the other? Do you trust your partner implicitly? Does your partner support your dreams? Do they keep your secrets? Do you feel safe with them knowing intimate details about your life? Do they fill you with confidence? Do you respect your partner?

Think about the responses your partner would have to these questions. In a healthy relationship the answer to each would be “yes” – because all of these add up to the fact that you love each other on a deeper emotional level rather than just a physical one.

Wishing you

Happy healthy loving

Grace

www.anamcaracentre.com

gracechatting@hotmail.com

written by Grace \\ tags: Happiness, intimacy, love, partnership, relationship