Couplespeak™ Blog
Every day in my private psychotherapy practice I work with people who feel miserable in their relationships with family, friends, co-workers or partners. Often, they don’t have any idea why the relationships are going so wrong, or what they are doing to contribute to the problem.
One thing I encourage people to do to avoid some unnecessary dilemmas on the front end is to get clearer about their expectations, wants and needs in their different relationships. Developing this self awareness is critical to doing better! Knowing what makes you tick and also, where you have vulnerabilities which are likely to play out, is a big part in creating more positive outcomes.
Here are three questions you can ask yourself to raise your self-awareness in relationships:
1. What circumstances are emotionally triggering to me?
2. Do I tend to blame others? If so, whom, and about what?
3. Do I apologize when I’ve been out of line?
For 17 more soul-searching questions to ask yourself in the spirit of raising your “relationship IQ,” get a copy of my second book, “Become Relationship Smart Without a Lifetime of Therapy.” It’s available on Amazon as a paperback as well as an ebook. It will help!
Here’s the link: http://amzn.to/WBK83q
At this writing, I’m on a C & J express bus to my old stomping ground, New York City, for a weekend with my little sister. I’m a strong believer in short getaways as a way of refueling, particularly if the getaway gets you away from your spouse for awhile. That may sound cold, but sometimes a little space has a big positive impact on a marriage. How, you ask?
1. You reconnect with separate friends and relatives on your own without worrying about the mix with a spouse who may not share your enthusiasm for jewelry shopping, lattes, and schmoozing.
2. You re-experience your individual selves which brought you two together. My husband will probably be doing yard work till midnight, watching the news for hours each morning, eating no vegetables except for vodka (made from potatoes), puttering around his workshop, answering no calls, and fondling his new camera he’s afraid of using. He’ll be in Introvert Heaven. I’ll be tooling around the city with my baby sister, bossing her around, buying makeup and doodads, going to museums if it rains, people watching, yakking with strangers, and eating every ethnic thing in sight. I’ll be in Extrovert Heaven.
3. You break up the sometimes oppressive routine of your life with more consciousness. In my case, I was amazed to see how many vitamins and creams and solutions and meds I take on any given day just to go on living! I could barely fit it all in my suitcase! I like to think of myself as robust and traveling lightly on this Earth. Apparently, not so….
4. You appreciate all the comforts of home in a renewed way. I don’t usually get excited about having a level, stable surface to type on, but today, with the bus jiggling and swaying, I’m realizing how special it is to have tables and desks to put my laptop on, and not worry it will go flying off into the yonder. Small things…..
5. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Because I’m a bit morbid and fatalistic, I don’t presume I’ll make a safe return from ANYWHERE, so I kissed my husband goodbye four times, and hugged him as though I was leaving for a tour of duty in Afghanistan. And now that the bus is approaching the slums of the city limits, I miss him already….. 😐
Happy weekend,
Susan Lager
PS. Get a still early copy of my new book, now newly anointed with the Couplespeak™ trademark! If you live long enough, it may be considered an important 21st century artifact! On Amazon:
http://amzn.to/WBK83q
“Become Relationship Smart Without A Lifetime Of Therapy”
I have recently come out of my annual tax trance – the time of year when I’m so immersed in columns of figures and tabulations that a meteor could hit the house and I’d barely notice it. Luckily, my impression is that this oblivious state seems to abate in mid March when I return to my usual therapist’s occupational hazard of incessantly questioning and noticing things.
I like to think that I’m generally pretty committed to a process of self-examination, particularly in my relationships. It’s a daily practice, though, to do this, kind of like working out or maintaining good sleep habits. Like sobriety, it’s easy to fall off the wagon and go back into a behavioral and attitudinal trance at any point, so I’ll share a few of the 20 key questions I’ve devised that you can reflect upon in order to be more awake in your relationships:
- What am I most insecure about?
- What defenses do I use to protect myself emotionally?
- How might these defenses be hurtful to others?
- Are there other, more benign defenses I could use?
- Do I apologize when I’ve been out of line? If so, how?
- Do I self-medicate with substances? If so, how, when, and with whom?
- What would happen if I were more open?
If you start with these questions, and are honest with yourself about what you see, I think you’ll open up a process of taking more responsibility for yourself, and move toward being more awake in your relationships. For more details about the other 13 key “consciousness questions,” as well as a wealth of information about how to thrive in all your partnerships, grab a copy of my new workbook, “Become Relationship Smart Without A Lifetime Of Therapy” available in paperback, and now also as an eBook on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/12ALenB
I know you’ll enjoy it!
Susan Lager
Have you ever spent a weekend in solitude, tucked in doing various kinds of self care? If not, I’d recommend that you try it sometime, especially if your daily life / work involves intense contact with lots of people, (like my work as a psychotherapist).
I seem to spend one weekend in an extroverted mode, going places and doing things which involve a lot of social contact, then the next weekend living like a hermit, attending to the long personal “to do” list. This weekend I barely went outdoors, except for a few hot tubs, and an excursion to bring out the garbage! Instead, I tucked in yesterday during the snow, reading and writing in front of a roaring fire, cooking, doing book work, having a lovely workout in my gym, and visiting briefly with family when they were here. I thought about going for a snowshoe hike, but that seemed like too much work in the wind and the cold.
Today was equally lovely – up late, a long, Pilates workout, writing letters, answering emails, doing laundry, petting the cat, and just hanging out!
If you can overcome some negative self-talk about behaving like a sloth, the whole idea of slowing down and “going internal” can be absolutely delicious. Everything in our world is geared to rushing around and packing multiple things into a “productive” day. I find it oppressive at times. I’d definitely recommend reconnecting with yourself in a quiet, caring way, with some regularity. Just remember to brush your teeth and get some exercise, and you’ll be fine……. 😉
On January 2, 2013 I did my last BlogTalk Radio Show, “2012 Year In Review. Options For Looking Back, Then Forward.” It was a very successful episode with quite a few live callers, and nearly 500 “listens” to the recorded show in the five days since then! As per your many requests, I’m posting the two types of reviews here, each creating a very different sense of things, and a different spin on your life, looking back, then forward.
To hear the recorded show in its entirety, go to: www.BlogTalkRadio.com/SusanLager
If you’re doing your own 2012 Year In Review you could reflect back in the most common way on these things:
- how much money you made or didn’t
- how often your body broke down with illness
- how many vacations you went on, and if they were worth the cost, and the time you took off
- how much weight you gained or lost
- if you finally stopped smoking or not
- how your spouse drove you crazy
- which friends let you down, and how
- if you got your house de-cluttered or not
- who had a messy affair; who got divorced
- how much you wasted your gym membership
- your guilt about not reading more books
- your disappointments as a parent
- tragedies which occurred, making you paranoid
- the huge amount of taxes you paid or now owe
(Blah, blah, blah….) Any others I’ve missed?
Or you could do this kind of Year In Review:
- what were my major accomplishments at work?
- what positive steps did I take in my marriage?
- how was I more thoughtful and loving to my family?
- did I do any better at setting appropriate limits around time asked of me
- how well did I take care of myself physically?
- did I expand myself intellectually and spiritually?
- what major lessons did I learn in 2012?
- did I have enough fun this past year?
- did I stand up for what’s important to me?
- what did I model for my children?
- was I a generous enough friend to the people I care about?
- whose accomplishments brought me joy?
Get the difference? After you have (hopefully) chosen the latter set of reflections, you have a beginning template for an even better 2013! For help regarding negative self talk, feel free to contact me at my office at 603-431-7131 to set up an appointment for some brief psychotherapy work.
Tune into my next show on Wednesday, Jan. 30th. And have a happy, productive and meaningful New Year!
