A Simple Test to Know If Your Relationship Is Working

Is it giving you energy - or taking your energy?

Sometimes we like to stay in denial about our relationships. We can't really tell if it's working or not. Sometimes it's as if we just don't want to know - or at least our ego doesn't want to know because then it will mean change and our egos HATE change.

So here's the simple test: Stop. Think of your relationship. Pay attention to your body. Does thinking of it make you happy to think about it or leave you feeling dull, hurting, confused, wishful, pained, __fill in the blank__________. If it leaves you feeling anything like that, you've got problems.

I've had three varieties. The first one was started when neither of us had a clue about how to do have a relationship. I felt hurt, fearful, unhappy and want to leave almost every day for 15 years. I'm pretty sure he did too. We were young and did not know how to treat each other well.

The second one would have been the kind to fool most anyone. He was a really nice person. He tried to be a partner but there were the sneaky ways he didn't tell the truth about himself and what he was up to; the ways I felt wistful that maybe I made a mistake; the discomfort of the imbalance in contributions to our financial well-being with no real desire on his part to improve himself. It might have confused me if I hadn't had my long and hard disaster before it. I knew I couldn't hold onto something that wasn't working well EVER AGAIN.

I think making that decision was what led to the over 25 year never a question, always good and working partnership I have allowed in my life. No confusion. Hurts dealt with right away. Very clearly a well working success story.

What will it take for you to decide to have a good relationship?

Radical Self-Acceptance/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

The Importance of Emotional Health

My family knows what my life is about. They know that I am a big proponent of authentic expression of feelings in pursuit of mental, spiritual and emotional health. With that in mind, my daughter sent me to this site: We Feel Fine . Their mission is as follows:

Mission

We Feel Fine is an exploration of human emotion on a global scale.

Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world's newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the "feeling" expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.). Because blogs are structured in largely standard ways, the age, gender, and geographical location of the author can often be extracted and saved along with the sentence, as can the local weather conditions at the time the sentence was written. All of this information is saved.

The result is a database of several million human feelings, increasing by 15,000 - 20,000 new feelings per day. Using a series of playful interfaces, the feelings can be searched and sorted across a number of demographic slices, offering responses to specific questions like: do Europeans feel sad more often than Americans? Do women feel fat more often than men? Does rainy weather affect how we feel? What are the most representative feelings of female New Yorkers in their 20s? What do people feel right now in Baghdad? What were people feeling on Valentine's Day? Which are the happiest cities in the world? The saddest? And so on.

The interface to this data is a self-organizing particle system, where each particle represents a single feeling posted by a single individual. The particles' properties – color, size, shape, opacity – indicate the nature of the feeling inside, and any particle can be clicked to reveal the full sentence or photograph it contains. The particles careen wildly around the screen until asked to self-organize along any number of axes, expressing various pictures of human emotion. We Feel Fine paints these pictures in six formal movements titled: Madness, Murmurs, Montage, Mobs, Metrics, and Mounds.

At its core, We Feel Fine is an artwork authored by everyone. It will grow and change as we grow and change, reflecting what's on our blogs, what's in our hearts, what's in our minds. We hope it makes the world seem a little smaller, and we hope it helps people see beauty in the everyday ups and downs of life.

It is my experience that feelings and thought walk hand in hand to create our vibration.  The emotional health of our vibrations is how the Universe decides what to send our way. Do you attract fabulous stuff? Do you attract not so fabulous stuff? Your creation is dependent upon your emotional health.

http://www.radicalselfacceptance.guru/ 

Resolution without Shame

If you read my earlier post called “To Coach a Friend or Not to Coach a Friend”, here’s the update. Friend and I had an appt. yesterday at 10a.m. I had offered to place the call because I have flat rate long distance service and I offer that to all of my clients if they want it. So I called at 10 and the line was busy. I called at 10:03, 10:05 and 10:08. Same result. Then I wrote the following email:

Hi,
I’ve tried your number now about 4 or 5 times for our 10a.m. call this morning.  It’s busy. It’s looking like you have a lot of resistance going on to this coaching relationship. You’ve forgotten an appt, had a repair man appear at the time of the call and now the phone’s busy. No blame. Just something for you to investigate. However, I don’t want this to affect our relationship so I leave it to you to contact me and you will probably have to kind of talk me into the efficacy of this part of our relationship. Hope all is well. I’m off to do errands.

She called later. She wrote about what is happening with her and took responsibility. But for now I want to deal with how the coach handles the situation. This is tricky business. Even though you are hired to help a client overcome their resistance or uncover and meet their goals and speak the truth as you see it, there is a fine line you walk as a coach.

Will it be too much for them to handle? Will they retreat, blame you (even just in their mind) and quit coaching? Or will they be glad you are helping them move forward through the tough stuff? There are no right answers here. It takes experience, awareness, self-confidence, a strong bond with your client and probably many things I’m not thinking of right now.

The main  focus   is to  point  out the truth  without  shame. We are not trying to shame  our clients. We  want them to grow and find  resolution.  Being able to break  down resistance without  guilt  can  sometimes  be difficult if we are  unwilling to forgive ourselves.  This can  be hard  for clients  to overcome,  or  anyone for that matter.

Results in this case? Our friendship is unimpaired. I may provide some support but she won’t feel guilty or unsupported and I won’t feel drained or overly responsible for her. I consider this a success.

Radical Self Acceptance/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Positive Thinking and the Economy Go Together

If I hear "this economy" one more time..!

I know that we all can individually have an impact on this world, whether it is through our negative or positive thinking. So if we focus on our positive thinking and this economy, could we change this negative light that surrounds the world right now? I remember hearing Carolyn Myss talk about the fact that we all like to bond with each other by talking about our wounds. Well, she's right. Almost everyone I talk to these days wants to say those two words in the title to me with a certain negative emotional oomph. Because I know how Law of Attraction works and because I am experiencing a tremendous amount of prosperity in my life, I'm not buying into this attempt to pull the planet in a negative direction. We have enough of that.

Abraham Hicks says we get more of what we focus on which is another way of talking about Law of Attraction.

Question: So what if you are in a job you're not crazy about and you also think this isn't the right time (see title) to try to change jobs? How can you still vibrate at a rate that will attract your desired outcomes and will feel good in your body?

Answer : Use your job experience as a way to grow yourself. Learn how to change your attitude about it and watch yourself go through that process. Find the good/lesson in this change and focus on your positive thinking.

Example from my life: In 2001 my husband and I lost all our money. We were 58 and 66 respectively. In 2003 my then 70-year-old husband got himself hired by Los Angeles Unified School District as a high school Physics teacher. Imagine starting a new career with 100+ inner city teenagers in your classes daily and of completely different background than he ever interacted with much and that's what his daily work life is like. Imagine also being required to fulfill a 3-year Master's equivalent program at the same time. Here's how he's handled it:

• He uses it to grow his organization abilities which he's ignored throughout his life.


• He uses it to watch himself become an amazing teacher.


• He uses it to see if how he could offer these kids a faster track into a successful life than their background, education and financial situation would normally allow.


• He uses as a way to keep him taking care of his body so he can do it. You should see him doing pull ups, push ups and using Wii Fit.

I could go on and on about him but I think you can see he's taken full responsibility for his life and his attitude and treats this situation as a way to grow. He's gained so much by feeling in charge of his life.  Rather than moaning about the state of our finances and how unlucky we were, he focused on his positive thinking and it has made all the difference.

How can you make use of your job or career to grow as a human and make a positive thinking contribution to the planet?

http://www.radicalselfacceptance.guru/ 

Who better to write about a husband wife relationship than me?

The reason I can say that is that I’ve had three – and they couldn’t be more different:

Husband Wife Relationship #1

We were 18 when we met, 22 when we married and we didn’t have a clue who we were or how to have a functional relationship – with ourselves or each other. I came from what is politely called a dysfunctional family and I wore all the hallmarks – low self esteem, poor self image on a physical and personality level. I thought I was defective and not good at anything and so would never find another partner. That’s why I married who I did. By the time we were dating for 6 months I already experienced his mean and controlling ways. He experienced my victimy and wimpy emotional untruth. I never stood up for what I thought or felt. I was too damaged and immature. This mess that we created together lasted for a total of 19 years. We split a month before our 15^th anniversary.

Husband Wife Relationship #2

By this time, a short 2 ½ years a nice man who I had been dating asked me to marry him. He was nice; not scary in any way and had built in grandparents and family for my four children. I can’t say I particularly cared about being married but he was nice…..

I had had a couple of years of 12-Step programs and had figured out that I could at least support me and my family and there was no longer abuse in my life so why not?

Six months later I ended it. I had become  bitten by the personal growth bug and was choosing to live a very different way then I had ever before – one with me telling myself the emotional truth – stepping out of denial and finding that I couldn’t give another chunk of my life to another albeit milder form of dysfunction in a husband wife relationship.

Husband Wife Relationship #3

We met in a personal growth workshop where we learned and practiced emotional healing and telling the emotional truth. We were friends for two and half years and knew each other very well before we began our relationship. We had relationship tools that I never knew existed and that worked to keep us from ever harboring resentments and being inauthentic or dragging our past into our present relationship. For 27 years and counting we have a wildly successful and happy husband wife relationship.

Now that you're done, I have one thing left I'd like you to do.

I'd love to hear your thoughts so comment below and (uh oh this is 2) please follow this blog over there on the right. I'd love to get to know you.

Radical Self Acceptance/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Starting Your Path to Emotional Healing

Emotional Healing

If something keeps happening in your life it is time to learn from it. If a pattern of bad habits or unrealistic expectations keep coming into your life, ask yourself what kind of emotional healing do I need to exercise?

As I have been life coaching it has become a clear pattern: some people will not face old feelings. Some of those say they will go work it out with a therapist but they don't seem to do that. They go find a therapist who doesn't actually have them express the feelings but rather talk about them.

Talking is good. Talking is fine but unless the old, scary, yucky feelings are EXPRESSED through emotional healing (like written down or verbalized or gotten out some constructive way) they may still be in charge of your life.

Recently, I may have lost another client. It's a shame. It saddens me that she is gone but her loss is so much greater. She has once again walked away from an opportunity to relieve herself of some of the emotional burden she has carried around for over 50 years.

What am I learning? that the work I do with people which includes teaching them how to let go of feelings really scares some of them and they may run. That's why I consider courage an important attitude to cultivate if you really want to transform your life.

I have been given gifts and knowledge to help others and myself with emotional healing.   I know the benefits of relieving myself of the emotional burden from my past and I'd lose my integrity if I just tried to come up with some surface kind of program that would not scare anybody and sell well.

Don't worry. That won't happen. It would be way too boring for me.

I love my (former?) client. I love me and I love you too much to cheat anyone.

Maia

What I'm Learning (& Why I Hate It)

For many years I've had weird symptoms which I finally learned in November is radiculopathy from spinal stenosis (Spinal stenosis is narrowing of the spinal column that causes pressure on the spinal cord, or narrowing of the openings (called neural foramina) where spinal nerves leave the spinal column.) I hurt a lot and often and big time at night.

I also teach that every situation has one or more gifts or blessings and so I pretty much have to look for those gifts and/or blessings myself.

BUT FIRST I HAVE TO COMPLAIN.

That is one of the things I am clearly seeing. I do need to be heard about how hard this is but, taking the advice from my Wise Fairy God Mother, I really try to keep it to no more than 15 minutes a day. If I go on about any longer, I chance being stuck in a negative, feeling sorry for myself place all day - and that just adds to the burden.

ANOTHER THING I'M LEARNING IS ONE PERSON, NO MATTER HOW MUCH THEY LOVE ME, CANNOT KEEP HEARING MY COMPLAINTS AND NOT BE EFFECTED.

My husband is a lovely and loving man. No one has ever cared about me the way he does. And he has been called to act on "for better or worse" a whole lot since October or November. I had reached the place where I could hardly walk and needed much care and errand running - even in our small apartment. But he is not impervious to the emotional space that I am in and he needs love and attention too. So I am going to start journaling my "stuff" first thing in the painful morning and relieve him of some of my complaining verbalizations.

I THINK I'VE ALWAYS BEEN COMPASSIONATE ABOUT OTHERS PAIN BUT NOW I REALLY UNDERSTAND THE MINUTE-BY-MINUTENESS OF IT.

Physical pain is hard to ignore. Nerve pain is hard to ignore. It has often made sitting and sleeping hard or near impossible.

My husband was telling me the this morning that because I'm a born teacher (look around the site), I will be helping people with this and that teachers who teach by example (which I am), must experience things in order to not just be spouting information but really getting to someone else's heart.

I'm sure there is more and I'm sure I'll be writing more as I journey through this new adventure in my life. And to end on a positive note, I have found treatment that I believe will work and has already shown some positive results.

Law of Attraction - My Unique Relationship to It

Does Law of Attraction Work Differently for Each of Us?

Several years after the movie "The Secret", information and writing about the Law of Attraction still abounds everywhere on the internet.The reasons for that are many and here are the ones I can think of:

• It's true. My husband, a scientist, assures me that Law of Attraction is. I've also seen What the Bleep (5 times) and read some books on quantum physics. When I'm feeling smart I understand that it is true, too.

• Everyone wants more in their life that they like. How do we know we don't like this thing or that person or a certain situation? Inside is some image we have of what we want and like. So we know if we aren't getting it.


• Everyone wants to know how to get that life and do it on purpose. Sometimes we even have bad feelings and judgments about someone just because it all looks so easy for them.


• We all want to feel like the architects of our own lives.

I've written about it before. However, I was giving myself a little talk before because I had thoughts like, "You should be on twitter. You should do a better job of SEO on your blog, blah, blah, blah." Anyway, as my clients know, I practice what I preach so I was busy reminding myself what is true for me and what has worked so well in my life:

1. I know I attract what I put my attention on. Everyone attracts what they put their attention on - Law of Attraction in a nutshell. However, we are each different. We look different, we have different genetics, etc. Obvious. But it is my opinion and observation that we each attract differently too. Some people attract what they want by going very directly after it - hence the highly successful salesperson you just love and can't really resist either. That is not me. If I tried to sell you anything, you'd probably want to run the other way. Literally, after much experience (some of it grueling) I have learned I need to wait to be asked.


2. I know if I don't get my fear and lack thoughts pretty much out of my head, I will not be attracting what I want. I will be attracting what I'm focusing on.


3. Since feelings follow thought and I sometimes just quickly feel things, I need to know how to process through those feelings and back to center (positive) as quickly as I can. But denying my feelings doesn't work. It is just me trying to trick myself. So, in other words, just positive thinking doesn't work.

Maybe he really is from another planet

Men Are from Mars.....

I know my husband since Oct. of 1982. I've been in an intimate relationship with him for 29 years and married to him for 27 and sometimes I haven't the foggiest idea who he is. He's like a beautiful being from another planet that has come into my life to give me more than I could ever have imagined. He loves me amazingly. He believes in me and my abilities - often some steps ahead of how much I can believe in myself. He is so known to me and yet - sometimes I'm almost breathless with the knowledge that how this happened - how we finally found each other is like some kind of play Directed by Someone beyond thought.

Now how does that sound coming from am a total proponent in the belief that we create our own lives? But I can't quite wrap myself around having created so amazingly while being unaware that I was doing it. How did it happen? Am I really this powerful? Is he?Does anyone else feel this way? Do I feel this way because the contrast with my former life and relationship is so great?

Signs of a Bad Relationship

You’re searching all over the internet to find out signs of a bad relationship. So that means you have the question and somewhere inside you the knowledge that your relationship sucks. Otherwise, why would you be searching. I mean we all know what a bad relationship can look like:

• You don’t agree on much.
• You each blame each other for lots of things
• You argue or you shut down. And he does the same.
• Your eye is wandering to other relationships and you are seeing theirs as way better – or at least it looks better than yours.
• You feel pretty badly about yourself.
• You’ve started to believe that NO relationship works.
• You feel abused.
• You are abused.
• You feel sad, angry - just plain unhappy.
• You want to leave.
• You’re afraid to leave.
• You think maybe you haven’t tried hard enough.
• You think maybe you’re totally codependent and can’t live on your own.
• You don’t really trust your partner anymore.
• You don’t really trust yourself anymore.
• Your friends say you should leave.
• You friends say you should stay.

These and many others are signs of a bad relationship. When a relationship is good, you feel happy, fulfilled, excited, absorbed, loved, connected. You are happy to see each other. You can’t wait. You think mostly loving and good thoughts about your partner. You feel good about yourself.

It’s not signs of a bad relationship you need to know about. It’s:

• “How can I notice the signs more quickly?”
• “How can I feel good enough about myself to brave leaving if necessary?”
• “How can I feel good enough about myself to open my mouth and say what isn’t working for me?”
• “How can I say what I feel and not get into an argument about it?”
• “How can I be heard?”
• “How can I be brave enough to know I can make it on my own, if necessary?”
• “How can I accept the inevitabilities of life without a not-working relationship as a crutch?

I can answer these questions for you by telling you some things.

• Everyone on the planet has a past.
• Everyone on the planet has parents.
• No parents, no people are perfect.
• And in our imperfection, we affect each other.

Most of us growing up somehow lost touch with the idea that we are OK, that we are deserving of happiness.  I personally believe that we come to planet earth expressly for that purpose – to learn how to love ourselves so that the inner promptings we all have – the actual biological chemistry that humans have that allow/make us feel our feelings is a kind of internal guidance system. That’s why you are reading this article. That’s why you searched on the internet for “signs of a bad relationship”. You feel lousy and you are not happy.

That’s because bad relationships feel bad. So the answer to how you can notice the signs early, have enough self-esteem to say how you feel and have a good strong bottom line of expected behavior is to heal your emotional past so that it is no longer in charge of your choice of partners and learn how to appropriately communicate with your partner – current or future – in a way that allows you to feel heard and feel good and grows the relationship rather then tearing it down.

I learned how to do just that. It took work but, boy, have the rewards been fabulous. After two failed marriages, I have been very happily remarried for 27 years – my third marriage. We communicate. It’s not always easy but no feelings are under our rug waiting to explode. Our past is largely where it should be – in the past – not in charge of our lives and our relationship. I wish “10 Tricks to a Happy Relationship” worked but I’ve never found it to be true for anybody.

Now that you're done, I have one thing left I'd like you to do.

I'd love to hear your thoughts so comment below and (uh oh this is 2) please follow this blog over there on the right. I'd love to get to know you.