Grace Chatting

 

Many of you may be in relationships in which you experience a chronic sense of helplessness and powerlessness, and this can affect your ability to make sound decisions and choices, and so can affect not just your quality of life, but also the very course of your life.

 

Living life as a dis-empowered person, you often feel like most of your life experiences are out of your control, like you are not living your own life. You allow other people or events to determine what you think, say and do; how you spend your time, and even the general direction your life takes.

 

But did you know that making the shift from dis-empowerment to empowerment is a simple matter of realizing that few things are truly out of your control when you exercise your right to choose?

 

Here are three steps for regaining and building your personal power through conscious choice:

 

 

1) Realize that you always have choices.

 

Although you may feel like you’re powerless in certain circumstances, this is most often a perception, not a fact. Even if you’re incapable of physically altering a situation, you at least have the power to choose your outlook, attitude and reaction to the things that happen to you.

 

More often when you believe you have no choices, you’re really saying that you don’t like the choices you do have. But that’s very different than not having choices at all! When you affirm that you have no options, you contribute to a sense of powerlessness that can cause you to act in destructive ways rather than seeking a more balanced solution.

 

 

2) You are not responsible for anyone else’s happiness.

 

 True empowerment is having the strength to make the decisions that are right for you, even if others don’t always agree with them. There is a difference between working co-operatively with someone and allowing others to influence you unduly.

 

Most often this is done in an attempt to avoid conflict or disagreement, but it doesn’t serve you in the long run. When it comes right down to it, you are not responsible for keeping anyone happy other than yourself, and you can empower yourself to make the choices that are right for you – regardless of what others may say or think about them.

 

 

3) You are in charge of your own happiness.

 

Just as you are not responsible for others’ happiness, neither are they responsible for yours! Dis-empowerment can often make you believe that you are reliant on the words or actions of others for your sense of happiness and contentment, but this kind of thinking only keeps you stuck in feelings of helplessness.

Instead, use your power of choice to do what will make you happy. These decisions might relate to your work, home, relationships and more – and they may not be easy decisions to follow through on.

However, just knowing that you have to make the choices that are right for you or live forever dissatisfied is usually enough to provide the courage to affect positive change.

 

Best wishes

Grace

gracechatting@hotmail.com

written by Grace \\ tags: marriage, personal power, relationship, Relationships

 

 

Personal power often plays a significant role in the quality of your relationships because of the beliefs and behaviours you express in your interactions with others.

 

If you’ve ever assumed that a relationship would somehow “complete” you or make you feel strong or whole, you probably experienced disappointment and frustration when in fact it seemed to cause bigger problems in your life.

 

 

There are several reasons why personal power is important in relationships:

 

1) Other people sense the way you feel about yourself and treat you accordingly.

 

Have you ever noticed that other people seem to pick up on subtle cues and reflect your own beliefs back to you? For example, if you lack confidence, you’ll often find yourself encountering aggressive or intimidating people who seem to exacerbate those feelings. If you don’t have a healthy level of respect for yourself, you’ll probably encounter plenty of people who don’t respect you either.This is no accident!

 

People tend to sense your inner beliefs based on your demeanour and body language, and gear their behaviour to match.

When you’re empowered and strong, you communicate that essence to others, and others will treat you as such, resulting in healthier relationships.

 

 

2) You’ll notice in others the things you dislike about yourself.

 

Have you ever heard of “projecting” your own perceptions and beliefs onto others? A lack of self-esteem will often cause you to believe that others don’t love you either. A lack of confidence in yourself will attract people that you struggle to place your confidence in also!

 

When you are empowered and confident, you’ll end up attracting others who both see you that way and embody the same qualities themselves.

 

 

3) You’ll constantly look to others for reassurance and validation.

 

When you don’t feel empowered or confident, you’ll constantly seek reassurance and validation from the people around you. Rather than feeling self-assured, you’ll appear to be needy and insecure, which will place a drain on your relationship and push others away from you.

Remember that empowerment is an inside job! You need to give yourself love, respect and confidence first if you want to also receive it from others.

 

Fulfilling and satisfying relationships require that both partners are empowered and balanced before entering into them. When you empower yourself from within, you bring a stronger element of genuine love, respect and intimacy to your relationships and stop seeking validation from outside sources. Ultimately, this ensures that your connections with others will be deeper, richer and more meaningful.

 

Very best wishes

Grace

gracechatting@hotmail.com

written by Grace \\ tags: empowerment, marriage, personal power, relationship, Relationships

For most couples the first few months of a relationship is exciting. There’s a heady feeling of positive anticipation before each meeting and feeling of regret when you have to part.

 

As the emotional ties grow stronger and trust builds, there’s a sharing of dreams and fantasies. Each date is eagerly awaited, planned for and remembered afterwards.

 

Then the newness starts to wear off and the “honeymoon” is over. Now it’s time to assess what’s left.

 

This happens with many couples a couple of months after they first move in together. The mystery surrounding your partner’s life and habits when they aren’t with you are suddenly dispelled and you’re left with the reality of how this person is.

 

You see them without their designer suit and slicked back hair. You see the person without make-up and animated chatter. You see the real person, and you have to figure out if this is the person you thought it was

 

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Things to look out for in a relationship are:

 

1. Do you and your partner want to spend time on your own as a couple, and not just when you are having sex?

Do you have things to talk about, passions to share that occur outside the bedroom? Do you communicate well with each other? If the answer to all, or even any, of these is ‘no’, then you need to consider where the relationship is going.

 

2. Does your partner spend increasing amounts of time away from you – working late for example? If so, then it could be that they are not happy in the relationship and have found a convenient way of not being home.

 

3. Do you look for ways of going out where you don’t need to take your partner so that you can have a break – even if you’ve both been away from each other all day?

 

4. Does the spark seem to have gone out of your physical relationship? Is this one-sided, or do you both feel that it’s better this way?

 

5. Do you make an effort for each other? Do you dress up to go out together if there are no other people joining you, or do you just throw some clothes on because it’s ‘just your partner’?

 

6. Do you constantly bicker and disagree on everything, even in public?

 

 

All of these are warning signs that your relationship is on the verge of a downward spiral. This is the point where you need to make a decision. You have 3 choices:

 

1. You can try to fix what’s wrong between you without involving anyone else.

 

2. You can just call it a day because the relationship doesn’t seem to be worth the effort to fix.

 

3. You can seek professional help in the hope that an outsider person can help you both see where the problems really lie in your relationship and suggest ways to fix them.

 

If you have a partner that you believe in, then don’t give up without an effort to redeem the relationship. It’s not a sign of weakness or failure to seek professional help. It’s a sign that you really care about this person, and you want to explore every opportunity to make the relationship work before you accept that it’s not going to work.

 

 

 

 

If you wish to have a telephone consultation call me on 00447816491165

 

Email grace@plymouth-counselling.co.uk

written by Grace \\ tags: marriage, relationship, relationship help