I want to take this opportunity to wish all my readers a very Happy New Year!

I am playing hooky today.

I have spent most of the last few weeks writing about relationships, dating, love and marriage, for my new Diploma in Relationship Coaching Course,  and creating online webinars for the launching of Relationship Academy.

I have also been figuring out how to use my new Mac and video editing software, so I have been grappling with lots of technical challenges that a little ageist voice in my head tells me I shouldn’t be dealing with. I have engaged a nice young man who knows about these things, to come and teach me.

Pyjama Days

I still have lots to do, but as the wind is howling and the rain is lashing down, and it’s a grey day, I decided I would have a pyjama day. Because I can.

When I have a pyjama day I spend time only with me and I only do things I want to do and don’t do anything I don’t want to do. Actually I have regular pyjama days, (there, my guilty secret is out!) but then that is when I do things like write my blog, because I enjoy doing that. In fact, I have arranged my life to do mostly only what I enjoy doing and hardly anything I don’t enjoy.Sssshh,  I think it is called being.

Pyjama days are really one of the best ways of managing stress thereby preventing illness or need for medication. Why wait until you are ill to have a pyjama day? It is much better when you feel well.

Pyjama days are what being self employed is all about. It makes up for the times when you are working on a project until the wee small hours of the morning.

Pyjama days are especially good on rainy workdays when everyone else is at work. I do feel a little bit guilty sometimes, but not for too long. This makes me think of a little poem by Nadine Stair which I will share with you as we edge further into the New Year;

I’d Pick More Daisies

By

Nadine Stair, age 85

If I had my life to live over,
       	I'd try to make more mistakes next time.
            	I would relax. I would limber up.
      I would be sillier than I have on this trip.
      I would be crazier. I would be less hygienic.
   I would take more chances, I would take more trips.
  I would climb more mountains, swim more rivers,
		and watch more sunsets.
I would burn more gasoline. I would eat more ice cream and less beans.
  I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones.
         You see, I am one of those people who lives
    prophylactically and sensibly and sanely,
	hour after hour, day after day.

               Oh, I have had my moments
  And if I had it to do over again, I'd have more of them.
        In fact, I'd try to have nothing else.
	   Just moments,one after another.
      Instead of living so many years ahead each day.
     I have been one of those people who never go anywhere
    without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a gargle, a
		raincoat, and a parachute.

    If I had to do it over again, I would go places and do things.
                       I'd travel lighter than I have.
      If I had my life to live over, I would start barefooted
         earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall.
           I would play hooky more. I wouldn't make such good grades
		      except by accident.
                   I would ride on merry-go-rounds.

                        I'd pick more daisies!

   Live, love, laugh and be happy in 2012!

             Grace

written by Grace \\ tags: relationships; love and marriage; dating; ralationship academy; Grace Chatting

Of the many clients I see each year about their love, marriage and relationship issues, I notice that some are suspicious and jealous, suspecting their partners of seeing someone behind their back.or being unfaithful, without any grounds other than their own feelings of insecurity.

Others are heartbroken because they found out that their partner had cheated on them, and they had thought it could never happen to them, therefore didn’t see it coming. I saw one lady in her 70s ( who quite reasonable considered herself safe and settled)  whose same aged partner had left her for a woman in her 50s. I have also seen a number of couples who had affairs after they had celebrated their silver wedding anniversary.

Talk to each other

There is a middle road. You don’t have to be suspecting your partner of any misdemeanour to simply talk about the subject of infidelity as a preventive measure. There can be an agreement made that should temptation to stray ever come about that you would talk to each other about it. Many relationships are ruined by opportunistic flings that go wrong. Of course there are no guarantees here, but being open to discussion may just prompt a foolish impulse,

Vulnerabilities

Most couple relationships begin because of their proximity to each other, either in a work setting or in a group or any kind of regular meeting. For example in emergency services, such as police and ambulance, staff often spend a lot of time together in a twosome in their vehicles.

Because they often have more one to one time together than they do with their spouse of partner, they often find themselves exchanging intimate details about themselves, and without realising it or even intending it, they stray into emotional infidelity.

Similarly, when one of a couple needs to work away from home regularly, they will quite naturally and reasonably get to know a network of people unknown to their spouse. They may build up a whole social life and in effect have two separate lives. This an certainly present challenges to the couple relationship and safeguards need to be agreed.

Warning signs

Tell tale signs that thoughts of infidelity may be in the air are when your partner takes a sudden interest in their appearance, wearing different style clothes, and particularly spending extra money on new underwear or aftershave

New activities and different time keeping also can be a sign, as well as needing to pop out at odd times in spite of weather condition. Of course these things in themselves don’t mean an affair, but often you would have a gut feeling about it too. The best way of dealing with it is just to be honest about your observations without making any accusations.

Reasons For Affairs

Like I said, affairs are usually opportunistic, arising from regular proximity, but that in itself doesn’t lead to infidelity. In my experience, the majority of people who have affairs  are generally faithful but perhaps have been feeling not valued of taken for granted by their spouse. When someone else is around whose relationship with them is building up, and that person clearly values them, this can tip the scales in favour of an affair starting. This is why it is a good idea to have regular connecting conversations with your spouse or partner. What is a connecting conversation? Watch out for my next Blog Post.

Have a great week,

Grace

written by Grace \\ tags: lov; marriage; relationships; affair; infidelity; Grace Chatting

Christmas is a time for love, romance, mistletoe and happy families, right? Wrong!

For many couples and  families out there, it will be the last year they will all be together for Christmas and many of them don’t know it yet.

Solicitors know they will have their usual rush of divorce applications  in January, their  busiest time of the year.

The sad thing is that many of these marriages and relationships could have been saved if only people knew and understood about how relationships grow and develop. It is this lack of knowledge that leads to many divorces and family breakdown, not as many believe that marriage is a bad thing.

Pot-bound Relationships

You can see from the plant here that its growth is stunted as  clearly it has outgrown its current pot  and needs to be re-potted into a bigger one. Just because it is pot-bound doesn’t mean it needs to be chucked away!

Relationships are like that!

When couples start to bicker and the relationship becomes strained, it is often a sign that the relationship is ready to move into another stage rather than that it is over. Unfortunately most couples don’t know this and they misread the signs, often with disastrous results for the family.

Here is a great little video which shows how opportunities and growth points can be missed.

I shall be launching The Relationship Academy in the new year to teach lessons which weren’t taught at school.

Please Like my new page on Facebook to help me get started with spreading the word  http://on.fb.me/uZwgvz

Many thanks,

Grace

written by Grace \\ tags: relationships; love; marriage; divorce;family breakdown

By Grace Chatting

When I engage in Relationship Coaching with couples, who are experiencing marital breakdown, or who are heading for divorce, the main focus of the coaching is on the future and how they wish the relationship to be, as opposed to delving too much into the history and placing blame and fault. The couple will usually have done plenty of that already, and there is no benefit in coming to pay me to listen to it all over again.

Nevertheless I need some idea of what their difficulties are, so during the initial assessment session, I invite them to tell me what it is that they want in the relationship. Then I observe how they speak about and to (sometimes at) each other. This lets me know “What” the issues are, and also “How” they go about addressing them. Often the “How” has become the biggest problem.

STOP Signs

In particular there are four fairly common but deadly patterns of communication which I look out for; these are called the STOP Signs, made known by Harry Benson.

S = Scoring points

T = Thinking the worst

O = Opting out

P = Putting down

Sally and Harry

I saw Sally and Harry recently. They have been married for seven years and have three young children, and both have full time jobs. They separated three months ago because they were each becoming increasingly unhappy and were unable to resolve their differences.

Scoring Points

As I watched and listened to them, Sally complained about Harry’s need to drink so much on Friday evenings which meant that he wasn’t quite with it on Saturdays when Sally wanted them to go out together as a family. Harry began to score points, saying “ well, you drink too” and then they both got into a wrangle of point scoring about the amount and frequency of each others drinking and the degree of impact this had or didn’t have.

This kind of point scoring is a waste of time and does nothing to move matters forward as it is based on arguing to prove each other wrong. It needs to be recognised as an unhelpful habit which blocks them being able to arrive at an understanding of each other’s feelings and position.

Thinking The Worst

As the argument gradually became heated, Harry almost imperceptibly  turned away from Sally, crossing his arms over his chest and crossing one leg over the other away from Sally. This unconscious non verbal communication indicated that he had become defensive (and perhaps felt he, or his position, was threatened in some way).

Sally, also unconsciously picked up on the shift in his body posture, but thinking the worst, she interpreted it as, “I can see you’ve just given up now”, to which he responded, “No I haven’t”, and they were off again with Sally saying, “I know you”, chucking in a bit of mind reading for good measure.

The tendency to mind read, make assumptions and think the worst only exacerbates defensiveness and escalates conflict. Honing the skill of resolving conflict and differences is greatly enhanced by eliminating the tendency to think the worst of your partner and to always know better. It is more helpful to take a benevolent view and to also allow for the fact that you can’t absolutely know what is going on for someone else.

Opting Out

One of Sally’s complaints was that when she needed to talk to Harry about what was troubling her, he would opt out by refusing to engage in the discussion, and would even go out of the room and close himself away in another room. Indeed what Sally had interpreted from his body language as him giving up, was in fact a bad habit he had of opting out of processes or situations in which he felt uncomfortable or sometimes overwhelmed, which is not the same thing.

It became apparent by what they carried on to say, that Sally too had her own version of opting out. When she became very frustrated by Harry’s behaviour, she upped the ante, and would routinely ask Harry to leave, something which left him in a constant state of uncertainty. At times then he would actually leave in anticipation of her asking him to go, and then she would feel abandoned by him. (See Karpman Triangle)

Put Downs

Harry and Sally are not so bad as some couples in terms of overtly putting each other down. Many couples will actually say things like, “you are just talking rubbish” or “what would you know about that?” or “you haven’t a clue”, even, “you are so stupid”.

One of the best known relationship researchers, John Gottman, has found from longitudinal studies which he and his wife carried out with thousands of couples, is that a spouse  treating their partner with contempt, is a primary indicator that the marriage will end in divorce.

Sally and Harry did not have these overt behaviours but covertly they were contemptuous of each other, which of course made them feel not valued and insignificant to the other.

Communication

You can see how these habits really contaminated and sabotaged all Harry and Sally’s efforts to resolve their differences and kept them stuck in their separate corners, feeling hopeless and impotent..

The way forward for them is set out in a ten step process in my my book Breakthrough to Love.

Watch out for my next blog post which will describe the process of Intentional Dialogue, as espoused by Harville Hendrix, sometimes also known as the Listen and Check exercise. This framework for communication provides couples like Sally and Harry with a framework to begin to develop heartfelt understanding of each other.and also a much deeper level of intimacy.

Grace Chatting, located in Plymouth, UK, is a Transformation and Relationship coach, writer, and workshop facilitator. She is also a Family Mediator and Psychotherapist. Her passion is empowerment arising from personal growth, integrity and authenticity.

Grace can be found on her blog www.gracechatting.com; http://twitter.com@GraceChatting/ http://www.linkedin.com/in/GraceChatting http://facebook.com/GraceChatting

Email grace@gracechatting.com

Grace can be reached on (44) 07816491165 if you wish to arrange a consultation

written by Grace \\ tags: Relationship; Coaching; Divorce; Marriage; John Gottman; Harville Hendrix; Grace Chatting; Breakthrough to Love;

Many people think that good communication is THE most important relationship skill, and of course it IS very important, but without Connection, a couple whose marriage is in difficulty, will fail to communicate, irrespective of how sincere, or articulate they may be.

Loss of connection

It is the loss of connection with each other which often leads to the difficulties in the first place and then results in people feeling lonely and isolated, and this can trigger unconscious memories of earlier times when they felt that way. This compounds the current difficulties. If you are disconnected, everything seems worse and your solutions will probably fail.

The power of connection

When you are connected you can communicate regardless of the words or language you use; it is like you have an invisible lifeline of affection and value for each other. It is essential that this is in place and that you commit to keeping this in place at all times, even when you feel angry with each other.

Park the problems and reconnect

So, anytime you experience problems in your marriage, make a conscious agreement to set the problems aside; reconnect by engaging in some mutual expressions of appreciation and spending downtime as a couple, away from house, home, children and family. Make a conscious decision to put your marriage first and to be emotionally honest with each other. Not only will this help you to reconnect, it will stabilise the situation too.

Core Values

During this fragile period, it is helpful to have conversations about what is important to each of you. This is not about trying to manipulate your partner to do what you want, but for you to understand each other more fully. For example you may value Freedom and your partner may value Family and this may mean a clash of values sometimes. It doesn’t mean either of you are right or wrong, it just means you have to learn to accommodate each others core values.

One of the reasons my marriage to Alan works so well is that he accommodates my core values of learning and personal development and I accommodate his core value of what it means to him to be a man. We both share the value of adventure.

Part of what helps couples remain connected is to at least annually review and share their core values and needs with each other, and how well the relationship accommodates and meets them. Most people have their car serviced or MOTd every year.

It is a wise couple who sets a date for a Relationship Review.

Grace Chatting, located in Plymouth, UK, is a Transformation and Relationship coach, writer, and workshop facilitator.  She is also a Family Mediator and Psychotherapist.  Her passion is empowerment arising from personal growth, integrity and authenticity.

Grace can be found on her blog www.gracechatting.com; http://twitter.com@GraceChatting/ http://www.linkedin.com/in/GraceChatting http://facebook.com/GraceChatting

Email grace@gracechatting.com

Grace can be reached on (44) 07816491165 if you wish to arrange a consultation

written by Grace \\ tags: communication; marriage; core values;connection