Probably the most important couple counseling technique any counselor can use is empathy, the ability to sense and understand what each person is experiencing and feeling throughout the relationship. Without empathy a coach will be distant, the opposite of what is required to gain a person’s, or a couple’s, trust. With trust a couple will find themselves sharing both their …
How to Listen Effectively
Understanding Others Through Healthy Communication People tend to respond to what others say with their own thoughts. This is a natural part of the ebb and flow of conversation. However, it often means they aren’t listening. Even though we all “know” how to listen we often do a poor job of it. True listening takes effort and practice. How will you …
What Does Chemistry in a Relationship Mean
Chemistry in a relationship is like a performance; one is electrifying and another is boring. But no matter what, for love’s sake, you have to keep working at it to make it better. Chances are you’re reading this because you’re in a relationship lacking in chemistry and wondering whether to stay or go. Maybe the chemistry was once there, but you no …
What Makes a Good Relationship Work?
There are those who give little of the much which they have – and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome. ~ Kahlil Gibran What do you think is the most important ingredient for a successful relationship? Would you say love? How about respect? Maybe you think it’s sex? Is it communication or commitment? Yes, all …
Effective Communication Tips – Speak Respectfully & Directly
Let your speech be always full of grace, seasoned with salt. ~ Colossians 4:6 Have you ever started an innocent conversation with someone only to have it disintegrate into anger or frustration? We sometimes try to pinpoint where it all went wrong; but a more useful starting point may be, “What can I do to prevent it?” Other than those lopsided encounters …
Power of Acceptance and Gratitude – Feel Freedom in Relationships
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it. ~ Abraham Lincoln: Letter to H.L. Pierce, April 6, 1859 Relationships are sometimes a quagmire of emotion, misunderstandings, and unmet expectations. Rather than feeling free and joyful, we often find ourselves feeling trapped and frustrated. I sometimes hear people lament, “I was …
Key Elements to Active Listening: Effective Communication
For when you come to think of it, the only way to love a person is not … to coddle them and bring them soup when they’re sick, but by listening to them and seeing and believing in the god, in the poet in them. ~ Brenda Ueland The first element of communication, speaking, is impossible without the second, listening; to be a …
Personal Integrity, By Definition
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? ~ Albert Camus Integrity is often defined in moral terms but we can also think of it as wholeness or oneness. In this sense, a person of integrity is one in his entire being: his thoughts, emotions, speech, actions and spirit are all in alignment. Many …
How to Create a Good Relationship
To create love: be true to yourself; know yourself and listen to what your partner is really saying; choose someone you’re attracted to, someone who fits you; know your role in the relationship; make a firm commitment and love actively. Chemistry It helps to be “into each other.” Ask yourself: is this person someone you really want to spend your time …
What is Marriage All About – Dangerous Ambivalence or Joyful Commitment?
Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up. ~ Joseph Barth Marriage brings great rewards of loving intimacy and heart-wrenching emotional turbulence. We frequently cope with this apparent conflict with ambivalence, which makes true joy in marriage impossible. Concerning love, you cannot be of two minds and yet hope to experience her riches. Time and again we discard commitment in …