Have you ever heard the saying, “Couples who play together, stay together”?

In our experience working with couples and singles for many years, there is definitely truth to this saying.

We’ve found that people who play are healthier and more fulfilled in life in general. Couples that play and laugh together have fewer fights. Couples who play and have fun are often more relaxed and creative in bed! Singles that play are happier, more fulfilled and more likely to create connections with others.

Play is a way to connect beyond words. Play, fun and laughter is a common language we all share.

On the flipside, play and “chill time” is the first thing to go out the window when we get stressed.

Can you relate to that? When you're stressed and maxed out, do you turn to play or is that the last thing on your mind?

We talk to a lot of couples and individuals who during the elevated stress and challenges of Covid times simply forget about playing and relaxing. And it takes a toll.

As an example, I’ve been coaching two different couples recently. Both couples have similar circumstances. Both couples consist of two full-time working-from-home adults, and both couples have two young children who needs full-time care and both families are stuck inside their houses due to Covid and West Coast wild fires. It’s a challenging time for all of them, to say the least.

One of these couples is doing pretty great. Despite the elevated stress and huge demands on their time, they work together as a team and make sure to stay in communication and stay in love.

The other couple is spiraling downwards in anger, stress, arguing and lack of alignment. They’re barely keeping it together.

There are of course a lot of factors impacting this situation, too many to cover here. But one of the crucial elements of the first couple’s success is that they still find time to play and relax, while the other couple doesn’t manage to find the time or space to play. Which means they never get a break from the stress and disconnection, which in turn wears them down.

For that reason alone, it’s even more essential to find times and ways to play when you’re stressed.

Check our blog post for a long list of practical simple ideas for having fun and relaxing: https://loveworkssolution.com/blog/having-fun-in-relationship

About LoveWorks: The LoveWorks Solution is a practical and positive approach to marriage, relationship, intimacy, communication, and dating.

LoveWorks offers private coaching and relationship counseling to couples and singles, from anywhere in the world; as well as online and live workshops for couples and singles.

The LoveWorks Solution has saved marriages and helped singles find love, plus helped thousands of couples and singles deal with complex problems that arise in relationships, such as communication breakdowns, trust in relationships, insecurities in relationship, toxic relationship, emotionally unavailable men or women, deepening intimacy, finding the right partner, dating, and many, many more.

LoveWorks is founded by Sonika Tinker, MSW & Christian Pedersen, CLC, who have 35+ years of experience coaching and educating about relationships. They designed The LoveWorks Solution to be practical, applicable, fun and light-hearted, demonstrating that deep relationship work can be done in a positive way while having a good time.

Connect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Loveworkssolution
Get free relationship tips and advice on on topics such as toxic relationships, building trust in a relationship, creating intimacy in a relationship, how to deal with an emotionally unavailable partner, and many more on https://loveworkssolution.com/

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What do you do if you’re getting married but at the same time scared to get married?

I remember we once coached a young couple who came to us 4-5 months prior to their already scheduled wedding. They came to us because she in particular was getting very cold feet about getting married. They both still had questions they felt weren’t answered and issues they were worried about getting worse if they did go through with the marriage.

If that’s you, here’s the first thing we’d tell you: Don’t feel bad if you’re feeling scared or having concerns. Getting married is a big deal, so don’t make up that there’s something wrong with you, your spouse-to-be or your relationship.

In fact, having “second thoughts”, i.e. some form of fear or concerns can lead to important discoveries that can end up improving your upcoming marriage (or in some cases, stopping you from getting married to a partner who’s not the best match for you).

So for starters, examine what exactly you’re scared of or concerned about. Is it about …

Marriage itself (the whole idea of marriage)?
Hesitation about your partner or your partner’s personality?
Unspoken concerns about your partner’s behaviors
Concerns about breakdown’s you’ve had in the past, or unresolved issues?
Or something else?

Whatever your specific concerns are, you want to take a look at those.

Commitment is great and admirable, but it’s also worth listening to your fears and hesitations before you commit. To this day, Sonika & I have an operating agreement that we don’t move forward with any significant changes in our lives before we’re both on the same page about it. Getting married definitely falls into the category of “significant changes”, so take the time to examine this.

Another perspective on commitment is that you’re not just committing to your future spouse, but to yourself and your own ability to deal with what comes up. You’re in effect saying to yourself, “I trust that I and we will be able to handle any conflict and difficulty that shows up on in our relationship and our life”.

If for some reason, you’re not ready to make that commitment, you want to know why.

To get more specific, ask yourself this question:

“What would I need to see change - with my partner, myself and/or our relationship - for me to enthusiastically say YES to marriage?”

For example, some of the couples we’ve coached answered this question like this …

I need us to work out our financial agreements and how we deal with money
We need to figure out how to deal with conflicts
I need to speak up about my partner’s withdrawal
We love each other, but our sex life isn’t working well … we need to talk about that

Each of your answers to this question will be an item on your to-look-at-list. Once you have that list, reach out to us for coaching, or use a friend or trusted mentor if you need more help. Whatever you do, don’t just ignore your concerns and blow right past them.

Having fears and concerns about getting married is just like any other fear or concern that will show up in your marriage? As a couple, how would you like to see you deal with conflicts, fears, and concerns? Do you want you to ignore them and not say anything? Or do you want to have a relationship where you can safely share your concerns and help each other find solutions and peace of mind?

I’m guessing the latter. And that process starts right now, not after your tie the knot.

PS. If what you need to work includes making apologies for past breakdowns, check out our mini-workshop for couples, How To Make An Apology That Works: https://loveworkssolution.com/how-to-make-an-apology-that-works

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What do you do when your wife or husband tells you they want a divorce?

Given that divorce rates in the US are still between 40-50 % for first marriages, and higher still for second and third ones, If we get married at any point in our lives, there’s pretty much a 50-50 chance we’ll hear those words from our spouse.

Perhaps you’ve seen it coming.

Perhaps you’ve seen and experienced the telltale signs of a marriage breaking down for years, such as arguing, criticism, contempt, silent treatment, lack of intimacy, declining frequency of sex, or the feeling of being room mates who go about your day-to-day business efficiently but without the depth and romance of lovers.

On the other hand, you might not have seen it coming at all, and when your wife or husband told you they want a divorce, it hit you like a knife in the heart and you could scarcely believe your own ears.

Either way, it’s a painful place to be and what you and your partner choose to do with that situation will have long-lasting consequences that will impact both of you and any children you have.

In this episode, we’re not trying to cover every aspect of impending divorce. It’s a process that requires careful attention and competent guidance. We do want to share some useful insight and tips that will hopefully help you as you move forward.

When your spouse says the D-word, you can’t yet know where the process is going to end. It’s natural that you’ll be very eager, even desperate, to answer all the associated questions such as, are we going to divorce or make it; how are we going to tell the kids; where are the kids going to live and go to school; who gets the house; how am I going to deal with finances; what about the retirement accounts, and many more.

If you were surprised by your wife or husband declaring they want a divorce, remember that they have a long time to think and process before saying something to you. It’s as if they have a month or year-long head start over you in the process. So it’s natural and totally understandable if you too are going to need some time to process the news.

Listen to she 7-minute episode for the rest of the tips (or watch the video version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZO4VuhREvc

One of the central tips in this video is to offer/share apologies with your wife or partner. Saying "I'm sorry" is never sufficient, sometimes even worse than nothing.

To learn a complete 6-step apology, visit our virtual mini-workshop for couples, How To Make An Apology That Works, here: https://loveworkssolution.com/how-to-make-an-apology-that-works

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One of the questions we often hear from singles is “How do I say no to a second date?”

You might have been there. You’ve been on a first date with someone. Maybe it was nice enough, maybe not. The person you were dating really wants a second date, but you’re not so sure about that. Or maybe you’re absolutely sure you DON’T want a second date, you’re just sure how to say it.

What’s nice about you asking How to say no to a second date, is that it demonstrates that you care. You probably know that lots of people don’t care about that at all and just move right along or ghost their partner. Perhaps you’ve been on the receiving end of that? So good for you for caring enough to ask this question.

We always figure it’s worth acting towards your dates as you would like your dates to act towards you, and that goes whether or not you want to see that person again.

In our work, we consider even a coffee date a relationship, albeit a very short one. Even a short relationship is an opportunity for you to show up as the kind of person you would like to be in relationship. Every date, every relationship, brief or long lasting, is practice for your next relationship.

I still remember the first time I used what we’re about to suggest to you. I’d been on a date with a nice woman, but afterwards I did not want to go on a second date. The truth was I was interested in someone else, and I didn’t want to be dating two people at the same time.

So I called her up (this was before messaging and dating apps, we actually met in a bar).

I was nervous and expecting a triggered reaction, but she surprised me by thanking me for calling her and telling her this. She said no one had ever done that before. I, in turn, was grateful for her kind response to my phone call.

We had a nice chat and that was that. We both left feeling good. Best of all, I felt free and clear to pursue the date I was interested in.

So here’s what we recommend you say when you want to say no to a second date. You can of course modify as you please but try it out.

You start with an appreciation, then you say that you’re not inspired to set up another date, but you’ll let him or her know if that changes.

For example, what I said on the phone was, “Thanks for a really nice time, I enjoyed getting to meet you. I’m not inspired to set up more dates for now” If you like, you can add, “but I’ll absolutely let you know if that changes”. There was more small talk around the edges, but this is the essence of it.

Appreciate and acknowledge the other person and/or their good intent, then say no thanks. Simple, direct, and kind.

Try it out and see how it goes.

If you'd like an opportunity to connect with other conscious singles, you might like our 75-minute mini-workshop, Singles Connecting in Corona Times. We set up a safe, facilitated space for you get to connect with other singles in a fun and meaningful way.

Learn more here: https://loveworkssolution.com/singles-connecting-in-corona-times

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How do you get anger in a relationship under control?

That's a very big topic. In this short episode, we’re giving you a few important pieces of background about anger plus one simple tip to use when you or your partner get angry.

If anger turns to abuse or violence, get help immediately.

Relationships don’t get angry, people do. But relationships suffer from the impacts of people’s anger.

Simmering anger, yelling, cursing, muttering under the breath … over time this creates an environment of fear and distrust.

I can still remember the feeling I had a kid when my dad was angry. Even if he was outside, and I was inside, I still could feel it, afraid of what might happen if it got worse.

Sometimes anger seems to stem from a direct source, FX you got angry because your partner called you a derogatory name, or I get angry because my body breaks down so I can’t do what I want to do.

Sometimes anger is a habitual response to any form of discomfort. FX, you might notice, as has been true about me, that you get angry when you feel scared, sad, hurt or insecure. I’ve talked to a lot of men who, like me, have learned that anger is a more acceptable feeling to display than sadness or fear or insecurity, so without thinking we overlay these other feelings with anger. To those around a person like that, it simply seems to them that he angry all the time, because his habitual response to any sort of discomfort or uncertainty is anger.

Whatever the apparent source of anger, it can almost always be boiled down to one simple thing: A person gets angry when there’s something they want that they’re not getting, or that they think they can’t get.

An angry person is almost always thinking, consciously or unconsciously, to themselves, “I’m not gonna get what I want … I never get what I want”.

Think about it … Listen to the whole episode to get the rest (or watch the video version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGVpbe52df0)

Of course, anger and hurt in relationship are to be expected. That’s why we designed a 90-minute mini-workshop for couples to address that very topic. It’s called How To Stay In Love, Even When You Get Hurt Or Angry.

In this workshop, you’ll experience and learn …

Deep connection with your partner
Insight into what has you feel love, loving, loved
Ideas for how to recreate that in-love feeling
A powerful process for finding love in anger
Concrete practices for how to stay in love

It’s designed for you to be able to do in one morning and then get on with your day.

Learn more here: https://loveworkssolution.com/how-to-stay-in-love/

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During my years of relationship coaching, I can’t tell you how many men have said something like this to me: “If only I had a bullet point list of what do do to make her happy”.

In this 4-minute videos, I’ll give you just that, a bullet list with 6 points for what to do to make your wife or partner happy. Of course, you have to actually DO it to ever find out if it works, and not just once, but as an ongoing practice of relating.

With no further ado, we’re jumping right in.

1 Engage in the relationship.

We men have a tendency to think that once we’ve gotten into a relationship, or once we’ve gotten married, we’re done. In the back our minds, we say, “Mission accomplished” to ourselves and give our attention to the next accomplishment. Nothing could be further from the truth, and the attitude of “I’m done” is responsible for countless love stories turning from sizzling hot to lukewarm to ice cold.

When there’s a kerfuffle, a conflicts, or some sort of tension and upset, don’t back away or shut down. Instead, engage. Step in, even though your natural instinct might very well be to get the heck out of there. Engage and participate actively, both in the fun and sexy parts of the relationship, as well as the tedious or tense ones.

2 Connect. Talk. Share.

One simple way to accomplish “connection” is to talk. Share about yourself, your day, how you feel, what you dream of, and what you’re afraid of. When she asks you how your day was or how you’re doing, answer in more than one word. To this day, I still sometimes have to remind myself of this, because it is so ingrained in me to just say, “Fine. Great. I’m good”, or another one-or-two syllable response.

It’s not that I’m trying to withhold information, it’s just that to my practical brain, “Fine” is a satisfying answer to “How are you doing?”

But it does not produce a sense of connection for my wife. Connection is produced by the back-and-forth passing of something, in this case words. it’s like going out to throw a baseball with a friend. Imagine you throw it to your friend, he catches it, and then just keeps the ball. Boring game, right? To have a game, you have to keep throwing the ball between you. Same with connection and conversation with your wife.

3 Listen. Without taking stuff personally. Listen to the whole episode (approx. 4 minutes) to get the rest of the tips (or watch the video version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYzlAjRjIsQ)

And if you want to make her REALLY happy, take a small initiative that pertains directly to your relationship (per #1: Engage in the relationship).

Invite her to join you for our upcoming 90-minute mini-workshop, How To Stay In Love. It’s super easy, you do it from your couch or kitchen table. Takes the same time as a standard movie, so you still have your whole weekend.

Some of what you will learn and experience:

Deep connection with your partner
Insight into what has you feel love, loving, loved
Ideas for how to recreate that in-love feeling
A powerful process for finding love in anger
Concrete practices for how to stay in love

https://loveworkssolution.com/how-to-stay-in-love/

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How to make your husband happy ... in 4 simple steps you can listen to in 3 minutes!

How often do spouses wonder how to make their partner happy? Do you ever wonder how to make your husband happy? Does it sometimes seem that what you’re doing must not be working, because he doesn’t seem all that happy?

(Next week, we’ll publish a post about making your wife happy)

Making your husband happy is one of those instances that often seem difficult, but at its essence is quite simple. I’ll give you a brief 4-point list for how to make him happy. Don’t take my word for; try it out and see what happens. I use all four as a permanent part of my marriage and I have a very happy husband (editor’s note: Christian here, she’s telling the truth:-)

Without further ado, here we go:

1 Tell him he's a good man!

I have seen countless men burst into tears when they finally get to hear this from their wife/partner. Men are working so hard to make us happy and to do the right thing, so when they get to hear “You’re a good man”, it touches them deeply.

2 Give him points for effort.

Giving points for effort means to appreciate him for what he does do, instead of pointing out all the things he doesn’t do. It means to give appreciation even when he makes a gesture that doesn’t turn out the way you wanted it to. Give appreciation for trying.

Many men have a strong internal critic, so whenever they hear even a tiny bit of criticism from you, it’s as if it invalidates everything they did do, and they end up feeling inadequate and unappreciated.

The more you appreciate your husband for what he does do, the more it inspired him to want to do more, give more, because men are motivated by the reward of appreciation and the result of you being happy.

Appreciation is more effective than criticism, only 100% of the time!

3 Respect his choices

How often does your husband do something you simply don’t get? Where you might be shaking your head?

It’s crucial to realize that everything he does makes sense from his point of view. There is a reason for everything he does, even if you don’t understand or approve of that reason.

At the very least, when he make a choice you don’t understand, get curious about his motivations, ask him about it instead of condemning it.

4 Share your physical affection and appreciation

When we lead our sex workshops, one of things that surprises and touches me every time is how poetic, loving and spiritual men become when they talk about what sex and physical affection gives them.

In stark contrast to the stereotype that men only want sex to “get off” or that they just want you for your body, they will describe how profoundly it touches and resets them when they get to share sex and touch with you.

So when we say yes to sex and touch, it fills them up in ways we might never understand. Plus, it feels good to us when we make love too; to get in our bodies and enjoy our sensual connection. Of course, this doesn’t mean you are somehow obligated, but say yes whenever you can. I do, and I appreciate it every time I do.

That’s it for now … if you take on these 4 simple steps you will definitely see results in terms of a happier husband.

Let me know how it goes for you.

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If you have the experience that your husband/BF/partner doesn’t value you, you probably feel hurt, angry, sad, or all of them in combination.

Feeling unvalued impacts your own self esteem and spills over into the quality of your entire relationship, and you might be questioning yourself, the future of your relationship, and whether there’s something wrong with your partner, your relationship, or yourself.

Feeling unvalued by your partner can show up in a myriad of ways. Perhaps he …

Doesn’t listen to you Doesn’t tell the truth Doesn’t prioritize you Gives you the silent treatment Withdraws Offers little or no connection and communication Gives romantic or sexual attention to other people Belittles you, uses demeaning comments Doesn’t spend time with you and/or your family Speaks poorly of you in public Ignores or doesn’t honor your boundaries Doesn’t include your opinions and concerns Offers little or no appreciation, affection, or loving gestures.

And that’s not an exhaustive list.

If this describes you and how you feel about your partner, what can you do?

Our first tendency when we’re not getting what we want in relationship, is to get the other person to change their behavior. In this case, you might find yourself criticizing and nagging at him way more than you like, in an attempt to get the message across that you want something to change.

When we’re unhappy with our partners, we often come at them with lists of rules for how they should behave. Whereas it’s perfectly understandable that you want his behavior to change, this approach will not give you what you want. Even if you’re 100% right about your complaints and all your friends agree with you. If that approach worked, all we needed to do to have perfect partners was to tell them exactly what they’re doing wrong and how they should behave, and we’d be done.

Listen to the full episode (or watch the video version here: https://youtu.be/-EOXgPZmAu0)

Check out our newest virtual mini-workshop, How To Stay In Love:

We love to feel in love. But anger and hurt can take us out of love. How do we stay in love? What keeps us in that in love state? How can we get back to love when angry?

In this mini-workshop, uncover what produces that “in-love” feeling, and discover how to get back to love when hurt or angry.

Some of what you will learn and experience:

Deep connection with your partner
Insight into what has you feel love, loving, loved
Ideas for how to recreate that in-love feeling
A powerful process for finding love in anger
Concrete practices for how to stay in love

More info and register here: https://loveworksforyou.com/how-to-stay-in-love/

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10 Signs of a Toxic Relationship

Have you ever found yourself in the kind of relationship where you’re asking, “Am I in a toxic relationship?” or “Is this relationship really good for me?”

Toxic relationships are often complicated by being combined with a powerful attraction. We've had clients who one day are desperate to get out of an abusive situation, but the next day can't wait to get back to their partner. It becomes like an addictive behavior where the "drug" of choice is the strong love/attraction you also feel.

Dr. Lilian Glass said back in 1995 that a toxic relationship is “any relationship [between people who] don’t support each other, where there’s conflict and one seeks to undermine the other, where there’s competition, where there’s disrespect and a lack of cohesiveness.”

There are other definitions of toxic relationships, but the most important thing is that you can recognize if your relationship is one that’s not healthy for you, and then to empower you to do something about it.

We’ll offer 10 signs of a toxic relationship, plus some actions you can take to change your dynamic if you are in a relationship like this. Mind you, you don’t have to be in a relationship that can be classified as “toxic” in order for you to want to make serious changes. Whenever you feel unhappy, lonely, scared, or bored in your relationship, it’s worth getting some education and support.

1 Physical abuse, pain, or violence

This one doesn’t have a lot of wiggle room. If you’re experiencing physical violence, pain, or abuse in any shape or form, it’s a toxic situation, and you should get out. Or at the very least get help. No one deserves to be physically harmed in their relationship, period.

2 Name calling, belittling, demeaning

Do you feel like an “emotional punching bag” in your relationship? Are you being put down, belittled, constantly criticized? Which leads directly into #3 …

3 Public humiliation, spreading of negative gossip about you

2 above pertains to your private relationship and communication. #3 is outward-facing behavior. Does your partner humility you in front of friends or family? Spreads negative stories about you behind your back?

Listen to the episode to hear the rest of the signs of a toxic relationship (or watch the video version here: https://youtu.be/wo6o9mmS-R8)

About LoveWorks: The LoveWorks Solution is a practical and positive approach to marriage, relationship, intimacy, communication, and dating.

LoveWorks offers private coaching and relationship counseling to couples and singles, from anywhere in the world; as well as online and live workshops for couples and singles.

Connect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Loveworkssolution
Get the free E-book, How To Save My Marriage (and many more free resources for your relationship), here: https://loveworksforyou.com/

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If you have the experience that your husband/BF/partner doesn’t value you, you probably feel hurt, angry, sad, or all of them in combination.

Feeling unvalued by your partner can show up in a myriad of ways. Perhaps he …

Doesn’t listen to you

Doesn’t tell the truth

Doesn’t prioritize you

Gives you the silent treatment

Withdraws

Offers little or no connection and communication

Gives romantic or sexual attention to other people

Belittles you, uses demeaning comments

Doesn’t spend time with you and/or your family

Speaks poorly of you in public

Ignores or doesn’t honor your boundaries

Doesn’t include your opinions and concerns

Offers little or no appreciation, affection, or loving gestures.

And that’s not an exhaustive list.

If this describes you and how you feel about your partner, what can you do?

Listen to the full episode to get more background and the rest of the tips. (or watch the video version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wR_rlDudeY)

About LoveWorks:

The LoveWorks Solution is a practical and positive approach to marriage, relationship, intimacy, communication, and dating. LoveWorks offers private coaching and relationship counseling to couples and singles, from anywhere in the world; as well as online and live workshops for couples and singles.

LoveWorks is founded by Sonika Tinker, MSW & Christian Pedersen, CLC, who have 35+ years of experience coaching and educating about relationships.

They designed The LoveWorks Solution to be practical, applicable, fun and light-hearted, demonstrating that deep relationship work can be done in a positive way while having a good time.

Connect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Loveworkssolution
Get the free E-book, How To Save My Marriage (and many more free resources for your relationship), here: https://loveworksforyou.com/

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My wife doesn't respect me! What I am going to do about that?

This is a refrain we often hear from husbands.

Obviously, we would all hope that our partners would treat us with kindness and respect, but sometimes that’s not the dynamic we have established. If we were talking directly to your wife, we’d be giving her her own coaching, but assuming we’re talking to you, the husband, we’ll focus on what you have some control over, namely your own behavior and how you communicate with her.

Not being respected can show up for you in a myriad of different ways. You might experience that she …

Belittles you
Emasculates you
Puts you down
Nags
Criticizes
Withholds affection, touch, love, sex
Doesn’t appreciate you
Doesn’t acknowledge the things you do do
Questions your choices
Doesn’t trust you
Talks down about you to other people
Tries to control or micro-manage you

Or perhaps it’s something else for you?

When you have the experience that your wife doesn't respect you, there's her responsibility in that situation, and there’s your responsibility. It’s not all on her, nor is it all on you. It’s a co-created dynamic. When we coach couples, we help each person take their share of ownership. As mentioned above, we’ll focus on what you can do to change this dynamic and in effect encourage her to respect and appreciate you more.

For starters, look at what she’s judging you for. What is she criticizing you for?

Then, take an honest look at yourself and ask, What’s the grain of truth in what she’s saying about me? Notice, we say “a grain of truth”, i.e. it’s not the full story about you.

Next thing to focus on …

Listen to the episode to get all the tips.

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Is he the one? Is she the one?

When you’re a single person, that’s a really big, important question. As it turns out, sometimes it’s too big.

I still remember from all my single years how much that question was on my mind, even haunted me.

The search to find “The One” is exhilarating and full of so much hope. But sometimes, like for me, the “quest” also caused a good deal of anxiety and when I went dating, I did that thing so many singles have tried on dates: Meeting someone and instantly passing judgment as the whether the person in front of me was “The One” or not (they never were).

I kinda wish someone had shown me this podcast back then. In this episode, we’ll offer you important tips for what to pay attention to in order to answer that question, Is he/she the one?

The first thing to do to make your own journey more enjoyable is to make it ok that the “big question” just sits there, unanswered, for a while.

No one can put a timeline on finding the love of your love, and if you add a deadline of your own, you’re likely to also add a bunch of stress and pressure. So see if you can relax into the uncertainty. Tell yourself it might take a while, and that’s ok, because you’re going to have a good time as you go.

For Sonika & I, it took over two years before we could answer the question, before we knew for sure we wanted to commit and be together. We couldn’t have done it any faster, and during that process, we paid attention to all the factors we’re sharing with you below.

Second and equally important, throw out the whole notion of “The One”. We know that might sound like odd and contrary advice, but think about it. The idea that among 8 billion people there is one and only one person for you is just not very likely.

Instead of looking for “The One”, look for someone who’s a great fit for you, someone you can make a wonderful relationship with. Thinking there is only one just puts more pressure on yourself to find a needle in a global haystack.

Some of what we recommend you pay attention to (listen to the episode for full details):

Attraction and chemistry
Are you attracted to them emotionally?
Do you feel intellectually stimulated?
Trust. Do you feel you can trust this person?
Personal growth. Is this someone who is committed to growing?
Do you feel free to express yourself?
Can you handle and resolve conflicts?
How about their quirks and issues.
What are their other relationships like?
Do you feel safe? Do you feel comfortable? Do you feel trusting? Do you have that sense of being "home"?
Notice if you frequently have the sense that something is not “quite right"?
Practice telling the truth

Use all your dating experiences as an opportunity to practice being in relationship, practice showing up as the best version of yourself, as the kind of person you would like to one day find!

During Corona times, we are providing a safe, fun, facilitated space for singles to connect with other singles.

Check out our next upcoming Singles Connecting in Corona Times, 75-min free mini-workshop here: https://loveworksforyou.com/singles-connecting-in-corona-times

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How Personal Stress Affects Our Relationship.

It’s no surprise that personal stress spills over into our relationships, and to all other aspects of our lives. Stress tends to be contagious, too, so that one partner’s stress “transfers” to the other partner and sometimes kids.

Even in the best of circumstances, there’s a lot of stuff one can be stressed about. Just making a living, minding a job or business, raising a family and dealing with the myriad responsibilities of modern life can raise anyone’s blood pressure.

Personal stress can show up in many ways and have many side effects. Here are some of them …

One or both partners withdraws
We disappear into ourselves
We quit communicating
One person shuts out the other
We become alienated and disconnected from each other
We might become less affectionate, distracted, superficial
We obsess about the things that stress us
We get more sensitive and take things more personally
Negative behaviors become more visible
We’re less able to stop ourselves from reacting
We get more irritable, hostile which leads to more fighting
We have shorter fuses
We tend to vent, we got less filters, we say stupid stuff that creates more problems
We get depleted, tired, fatigued.
We can’t think as clearly, we make more mistakes

And there are probably more (we didn’t even mention the physical health consequences of stress, which are legion!)

So what can we do about this? We share 5 tips, including lots of practical ideas.

If you want and additional opportunity to de-stress and work together, check out the 90-min. mini-workshop for couples to deal with stress and disagreements, How To Be More Understanding During Disagreements.

In this workshop-from-your-couch, we help you:

Find understanding
Relieve tension and stress
Discover common ground between each other
Get on the same page
Learn techniques to de-escalate during conflict
Get back to connection

We have helped thousands of couples navigate crisis and stressful times, and we'd be honored to help you, too.

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When you have the experience of your partner being emotionally unavailable, you're probably feeling that you're not being "met", that you're not being heard, that you can't get your messages across, or that he/she is always trying to fix you when you try to share something. You might find your partner aloof, stonewalling, or defensive. Or any combination of these.

It's natural that you want to be more connected, more in communion, with your partner.

It’s important to understand that there are inherent differences between men and women, between personality types, and between … just people! We all have a different way of feeling, accessing and expressing our emotions.

For instance, we worked with a couple where the woman was vivacious, talkative, charismatic, and the man was stoic, unmoving, and only talked sparingly. She loved asking him questions, and he hated being asked questions. It’s easy to assume that she’s emotionally available and he’s not. But it’s not that simple. When we took the time to create the right space, he too shared profound insights and emotions.

Some people cry at movies, some don’t, but remember “emotionally unavailable" doesn't (necessarily) mean they don't feel or have emotions.

If you have the experience of someone being emotionally unavailable, and they feel judged by you, all that’s going to produce is have them clam up even more.

For starters, what you can do is accept differences and get curious about what those differences might be. Ask questions in a mood of curiosity. Ask you partner, “What happens for you when you watch that movie?” or “What happens for you when so-and-so happens in our family …?”

Some people have much quicker access to how they feel. Like Sonika and me, for instance. it seems to me she’s always in touch with how she feels at any given moment, but I often have to stop and “think” about how I feel; I have to tune in in order to know how I feel. From her point of view, it might seem as if I’m not feeling anything, but I just need time to access my feelings.

A great tip is when you ask a question, let the person explore for a little bit, give them some time.

On the flip side, if you're the "unavailable" one, add a little more detail than you normally would. Instead of just answering, “Great!” when she asks how my day was, I can elaborate a bit and add, “I did have an interesting experience with John at work …”. This breeds emotional connection.

Ask yourself, if there isn't a lot of talking, do you assume it's disconnection? Another way to think about this, is to join your partner in the silence, and to enjoy the connection inside silence. That’s a different kind of emotional availability, beyond words.

When you’re with an emotionally unavailable partner, it’s easy to have all of your attention is on what your partner is not

doing, what they’re not saying. You try to get your partner to be more vulnerable and available.

Instead, try turning it around and ask yourself, How can I be more vulnerable? How can I be more emotionally available? Because often, when you’re busy trying to get your partner to be more available and in touch with their feelings, you’re not in touch with yours.

When you can get more in touch with your own emotions, and share that with your partner from an open, vulnerable place, you invite your partner into your world, which invites your partner to share more deeply.

Granted, there are different degrees of emotional unavailability. Most often, the tools and tips we’re sharing here can help, but if your partner (or you) are completely stonewalling, refusing to engage, you might need a different level of intervention. You can reach out to us for private coaching or talk to a local coach/therapist.

In relationship, we have a tendency to talk more “about” our problems, or “about” our emotions, but the more we talk “about” it, the further we get away from the connection we’re longing for.

Instead of talking "about", turn it around to explore what am I feeling? How can I be more vulnerable here? How can I be more curious about you? That creates a space for us to "drop in" to, a place of connection and feeling, the place we’re wanting in the first place.

Finally, look for any place where your partner does reach out, where they do share, and where they do connect. Then, once you see those places, appreciate your partner for it. Thank them for where they DO connect with you. That way, you find some small pieces of what you want, and you make them bigger.

If you want to improve you and your partner's emotional connection, here’s a great opportunity to practice:

We created a 90-min mini-workshop for couples to deal with stress and disagreements, How To Be More Understanding During Disagreements. In this workshop-from-your-couch, we are going to help you:

Find understanding
Relieve tension and stress
Discover common ground between each other
Get on the same page
Learn techniques to de-escalate during conflict
Get back to connection

We have helped thousands of couples navigate crisis and stressful times, and we'd be honored to help you, too.

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How To Communicate About Relationship Issues.

The most common issue couples present to us is Communication (or lack thereof). It is one thing to communicate about logistics and practicalities such as who goes shopping, who makes food, who picks up the kids, and when. It's quite another to try and communicate about touchy issues, such as our different preferences or personalities.

In this episode, we share 4 tools to improve your communication.

All too often, our first communication is about what our partner is doing that we don't like or find irritating. Basically our default, go-to strategy when we want something to change in our partner's behavior, is we tell them about it. We point it out to them, so hopefully they'll get the message and change.

The problem with this strategy is it always ends up sounding like complaining and criticizing to our partner, who then get's defensive, silent, or complains right back.

1 Shift your complaints to requests

When I say to my partner, "You're not listening to me!" or, "You don't respect me", I'm hoping it will result in her changing to now listen to me and respect me. But when someone tells you, ""You don't listen to me!", do you want to listen more or less? Yeah, less. And you might want to add, "I do listen" (defensive), or "You're not exactly the best listener yourself!" (complaining back).

It is much more useful to go directly for what you want, bypassing the complaint altogether. So you shift your complaint to a direct request instead:

Would you be willing to listen to me for five minutes?

Would you be willing to tell me something you respect about me?

Go directly what is wanted, namely listening and a sense of respect.

2 Express appreciations to your partner every day

It has been shown that the more appreciations and the less complaining we have, the better our chances of keeping our relationship strong and stay together.

Plus, appreciations are to humans what water and sun are to plants. We need it to not wither inside.

Appreciation is the perfect antidote to complaining because in order for me to appreciate something about my partner, I have to shift my attention onto something I like, something I love, something that IS working in my relationship.

Find something your partner did today, or some quality about them that you like, and say it out loud.

"Thanks for making breakfast today"

"Thanks for doing the shopping, that was really nice"

"Thanks for being so responsible with our kids"

"I love how you make people laugh"

Anything will. We've kept up a routine for over ten years now. Before we go to sleep, we share at least three appreciations of the other person. Try it out!

3 Talk about your own experience

You've probably heard the recommendation to speak in I-statements. It's much easier for your partner to hear you saying, "I feel scared when we argue" as opposed to "You're always arguing with me!". Sharing your own experience makes communication a lot safer. We call it the "un-arguable truth". No one can argue that I feel scared. But you can - and probably will - argue if I say, "All your yelling is making me scared!".

4 Expand to include

This is a central notion in the LoveWorks Solution. I expand my understanding and mindset to be big enough to include yours. In disagreements, we often think only one of us is right, can be right, but in truth, it’s possible that we’re both right. Expand to include the differences in opinions and styles.

If I love cilantro and you hate it (that's Sonika and me:-), there's no point in me arguing that you should love it too. Instead, I expand to include your point of view.

If you want to improve your ability to get on the same page, here’s a great opportunity to practice:

We created a 90-min mini-workshop for couples to deal with stress and disagreements, How To Be More Understanding During Disagreements. In this workshop-from-your-couch, we are going to help you:

Find understanding
Relieve tension and stress
Discover common ground between each other
Get on the same page
Learn techniques to de-escalate during conflict
Get back to connection

We have helped thousands of couples navigate crisis and stressful times, and we'd be honored to help you, too.

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Can You Rebuild Trust In A Relationship?

When trust is broken in a relationship, it can cause a lot of harm. If trust is broken repeatedly over time, sometimes years, it becomes very difficult to repair and stay together.

Whether trust can be rebuilt depends on the situation, and the way in which trust was broken. If you are willing to ...

Own what happened and take responsibility
Learn from it
Change behaviors
Apologize
Making new commitments backed by action.

Then you have very good chances of repairing trust and healing, even growing, from what happened (and if not, it becomes very difficult to repair trust and stay together).

In order to rebuild trust in a relationship, some important steps to take are ...

Get really specific about where trust was broken. It's a different situation if your partner showed up 5 minutes late to an appointment or emptied your retirement account and ran off with a lover. Both could be characterized as "broken trust", but obviously not the same.

Instead of stating a general, "I don't trust you!", get specific. Is it that you don't trust your partner to be with the kids? Or to shop for the right ingredients for dinner? Or to be faithful?

Getting specific makes it easier to repair trust, and it also makes it easier for the person who broke the trust to do something about it.

For the person who broke the trust, the first "something" to do is to go through a complete apologies process. Just saying, "I'm sorry" just doesn't get the job done.

A complete apologies process involves steps such as ownership of the behavior, demonstrating to your partner that you understand the impact of your actions, making amends to repair the damage, making new promises, and of course, keeping said promises.

If trust has been broken repeatedly over time, or the breach was severe, repairing trust is process over and extended period of time, not a one-time apologies process. It takes many new promises that are repeatedly and reliable backed by action to heal from breaches of trust. It takes the ability to clean up when you fall short of your promises.

In the process of repairing trust, make sure you acknowledge and speak out loud your appreciations for the efforts and progress made. If my partner had been lying to me, but now I see real demonstration of him or her being truthful, I make sure to say, "Thank you so much for telling me that, I really appreciate it".

Repairing trust takes willingness from both parties. Even if your partner was the one to break trust, it also takes willingness from you to learn and grow from what happened, and willingness to let go of what happened (with proper apologies and new actions from your partner).

Final word, breaches of trust, betrayals, affairs, lying, etc. are difficult to deal with in a relationship. It brings up all manner of feelings and the hurt can run really deep.

So get help! The faster the better. Call coaches like us, use a local therapist or a trusted friend. But don't just stew with it on your own, that doesn't help anyone.

One of the ways you can support your relationship to have strong trust, is by having solid communication skills. And one of the best ways to do that is to enhance your understanding when there's something you disagree on.

We created a 90-min mini-workshop for couples to deal with stress and disagreements, How To Be More Understanding During Disagreements. In this workshop-from-your-couch, we are going to help you:

Find understanding
Relieve tension and stress
Discover common ground between each other
Get on the same page
Learn techniques to de-escalate during conflict
Get back to connection

We have helped thousands of couples navigate crisis and stressful times, and we'd be honored to help you, too.

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A lot of couples are in VERY close quarters during Coronavirus (Covid-19) times. Whereas during "normal" times couples need to carve out time together, during shelter-in-place it's a bigger challenge getting time apart.

Actually, that's our first tip for keeping your intimacy alive while in such close quarters.

Relationships need to "breathe", that is to have time together and time apart, time together and time apart. We need both. It's a common recipe for resentment when we use our spouse as our only social and physical "fueling station". It puts too much pressure on our partner and on the relationship.

There are many ways to take time and space for yourself in ways that nourish and replenish you.

1 Take time and space for yourself

Take a walk on your own
Hang out with your friends online separately
Nourish your soul, body, mind by doing sports, exercises, nature walks, meditation, painting, building ... whatever does it for you.

2 Grow, learn, expand, and step outside your comfort zone.

It might sound like peculiar advice for keeping your intimacy alive to keep growing and learning. But growing yourself as a person is "hot", it gives you new material to bring into conversations and it keeps you on your toes.

You can even ramp it up and use each other as a sort of accountability partner. For example, you might state a commitment to your partner like, "By this Friday, I'll have read chapter 1+2 in my coaching book and completed the homework that goes with it" (this is Sonika's current commitment).

Then give progress reports as you go along and talk about what you learned. This keeps your mind fresh, your curiosity open, and helps you avoid the very common trap of stagnation.

3 Carve out time to focus on your relationship

Even if you're completely overbooked and corona has given you a boatload of extra responsibilities, it's still essential that you find time to focus on your relationship. If all you can do half an hour a week, great, do that, but do it with focus and gusto.

Do things like ...

Ask each other Intimacy Questions
Do vulnerable heart shares
Use Repeated Questions to take you deeper
Make eye contact
Hold hands while on a walk
Chase each other for fun
Play games and make each other laugh
Make love
Take a relationship class

To that last point, we have an opportunity for you.

We created a 90-min mini-workshop for couples to deal with stress and disagreements, How To Be More Understanding During Disagreements. In this workshop-from-your-couch, we are going to help you:

Find understanding
Relieve tension and stress
Discover common ground between each other
Get on the same page
Learn techniques to de-escalate during conflict
Get back to connection

We have helped thousands of couples navigate crisis and stressful times, and we'd be honored to help you, too.

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How to make marriage fun again!

Anyone else feel like "Groundhog Day" in your marriage these days? Other than stuff we find on our screens, there's a whole lot less diversion and adventure while we're waiting out the corona restrictions. As couples, we need to find ways to laugh together. Even under "normal" circumstances life is hard and at times completely absurd, so we need a good dose of humor to make it through.

Couples often forget to have fun. Not cuz we don't want to, but because we get sucked into the myriad responsibilities we all have and we often simply get out of the habit of laughing, enjoying life and each other, and just plain old having fun.

They say that couples who play together, stay together. Whether that's true or not, it's definitely true that couples who play together ... well, play together! They just have more fun, period.

Even in the confines of our houses there are lots of fun options to make your marriage fun again.

You can watch this episode as a YouTube video here ... (see a hilarious fail at 01:23).

For extra credits ...

We created a brand-new, 90-min virtual mini-workshop for couples, How To Replace Complaints And Criticism With Constructive Communication.

Imagine how much more fun you'd have if you could replace criticism with good communication!

In this mini-workshop, we'll help you:

Stop the cycle of complaining
Talk to your partner when you/they get upset
Find compassion in disagreements
Relieve tension and stress
Learn techniques to de-escalate during arguments
Use productive communication tools
Get back to connection

Check it out and register here: https://loveworksforyou.com/how-to-replace-complaints-and-criticism-with-constructive-communication

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Date Night Ideas for Married Couples.

Date night is always a good idea. With the increased "ground hog day" feeling many of us are having during Coronavirus (Covid-19) times, coming up with date ideas can be a really great romantic break from the humdrum. But we're probably not going out, so we need home based date night ideas.

For date nights, we recommend one of you be accountable for the night. That just makes it more likely to happen in the first place. Plus, it might help come up with new ideas if you take turns being "on point" for the night.

On the podcast, we share 9 great ideas, with lots of suggestions for each point. There are classics such as Candle light (Zoom) dinner and bubble baths (don't scoff at the classics - they still work:-) but with added twists of intimacy questions and more.

Then the ideas turn more sensual such as pleasure sessions. See for yourself. For intimacy questions to ask your partner, download our free ebook here: https://loveworksforyou.com/100-questions

If you want to improve your ability to get on the same page, here’s a great opportunity to practice:

We created a 90-min mini-workshop for couples to deal with stress and disagreements, How To Be More Understanding During Disagreements. In this workshop-from-your-couch, we are going to help you:

Find understanding
Relieve tension and stress
Discover common ground between each other
Get on the same page
Learn techniques to de-escalate during conflict
Get back to connection

About LoveWorks: The LoveWorks Solution is a practical and positive approach to marriage, relationship, intimacy, communication, and dating.

LoveWorks offers private coaching and relationship counseling to couples and singles, from anywhere in the world; as well as online and live workshops for couples and singles.

LoveWorks is founded by Sonika Tinker, MSW & Christian Pedersen, CLC, who have 35+ years of combined experience coaching and educating about relationships.

They designed The LoveWorks Solution to be practical, applicable, fun and light-hearted, demonstrating that deep relationship work can be done in a positive way while having a good time.

Connect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Loveworkssolution
Get the free E-book, How To Save My Marriage (and many more free resources for your relationship), here: https://loveworksforyou.com/

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And how to communicate with your partner when you disagree.

In relationship, it can be a real challenge to stay on the same team during Coronavirus times. When your partner has a different understanding of how to observe safety precautions than you do, and you both have strong feelings about the matter, you can quickly become adversaries instead of allies. You become two teams of one, instead of one team of the two of you.

Here are some ideas for how you stay on the same team (these are great relationship tools in ALL times).

1 Give your partner the benefit of the doubt.

No matter how outrageous your partner’s ideas seem to you, we guarantee you he or she is trying to accomplish something positive. Just like you are. In marriage or committed relationship, we operate on the foundation that your needs are as important as mine; not more, but also not less. So in order for me to be happy, I have to not only get my way, but also ensure you get what you want. Otherwise I might get what I want, but I have an unhappy partner.

2 Expand to include

3 Speak in "We"

Any argument is pretty much a series of “me vs you” statements. “I want this but you want that”; “I think this but you think that”. That vast majority of times, there’s a lot more overlap to our desires than meets the eye; you just have to be able to see it. Begin to speak more as “We”, instead of only “me or you”. When you “expand to include” more than one viewpoint, you can include each others’ desires and needs into “We” … a powerful way to get yourself on the same team.

4 Give first, give fast

When relationships break down, in pretty much any form, one or both partners have stoped giving. In the early phase of your relationship, when you were still madly in love, remember how much attention, praise, time, touch, love, hugs, and sex you gave each other? Now think about a stressful time in your relationship - perhaps now? - and see if you are giving less? Probably so. One of the most effective ways to restore love, and to get back to being a team, is to pick up giving. We say whoever gives first, wins. Give first, give fast. Don’t wait for the other person to start.

5 Explore how to create a win-win

In order to find solutions that work for both of you, you need to slow down the process. If you just plow ahead with your practiced behaviors and patterns, you’ll like just repeat whatever you’ve done in the past. We are firm believers in your ability to come up with win-win solutions. The four tips above are part of the foundation for successful “trouble shooting” and resolution.

If you want to improve your ability to get on the same page, here’s a great opportunity to practice:

We created a 90-min mini-workshop for couples to deal with stress and disagreements, How To Be More Understanding During Disagreements. In this workshop-from-your-couch, we are going to help you:

Find understanding
Relieve tension and stress
Discover common ground between each other
Get on the same page
Learn techniques to de-escalate during conflict
Get back to connection

About LoveWorks: The LoveWorks Solution is a practical and positive approach to marriage, relationship, intimacy, communication, and dating.

LoveWorks offers private coaching and relationship counseling to couples and singles, from anywhere in the world; as well as online and live workshops for couples and singles.

LoveWorks is founded by Sonika Tinker, MSW & Christian Pedersen, CLC, who have 35+ years of combined experience coaching and educating about relationships.

They designed The LoveWorks Solution to be practical, applicable, fun and light-hearted, demonstrating that deep relationship work can be done in a positive way while having a good time.

Connect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Loveworkssolution
Get the free E-book, How To Save My Marriage (and many more free resources for your relationship), here: https://loveworksforyou.com/

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During Coronavirus (Covid-19), many more relationships have turned into long distance relationships. If you're not sheltering in place with your partner, you could be living in the same town, but still effectively have a long distance relationship.

We had a very-long-distance relationship for over 2 years. Christian is from Denmark and Sonika lived in California, so it was a 9 hour time difference, 11 hour flight and 8500 miles that separated us. So we know a bit about making long distance relationships intimate.

We recommend focusing on 4 different areas, and in the video we give you ideas for each of these 4:

Intimate communication
Touch points
Moment-by-moment relating
Getting creative

When you're in a long distance relationship, you definitely need to get creative. There are so many things you can't do that you would naturally do in physical proximity, such as touching each other, leaning on each other, running an idea by your partner, relaxing together, cooking together, making love together, and many more.

And conflicts and disagreements can be really tricky.

Because of the restrictions and challenges of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) there is so much extra stress, fear, and tension in our relationships. This stress takes a real toll on us as individuals and on our marriage or relationship, when really, we need to be connected and in sync more than ever.

We created a 90-min mini-workshop for couples to deal with stress and disagreements, How To Be More Understanding During Disagreements. In this workshop-from-your-couch, we are going to help you:

Find understanding
Relieve tension and stress
Discover common ground between each other
Get on the same page
Learn techniques to de-escalate during conflict
Get back to connection

We have helped thousands of couples navigate crisis and stressful times, and we'd be honored to help you, too.

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What kinds of questions to ask your partner to get to know him or her in a deeper way?

When you've been together with someone for a while, maybe even several decades, it's easy to lose your sense of curiosity and assume you know everything there is to know about that person. You might even begin to take your spouse or partner for granted, and when that happens, boredom and emotional flat-lining sets in.

One of the best ways to get to know your partner again is to ask them certain questions, in a mood of wonder and curiosity.

We share three categories of questions you can ask to get to know your spouse or partner better, and for each category, we give examples of specific questions you can use.

The three categories are:

Deepening questions
Intimacy questions
Understanding questions (or curiosity questions).

The first two categories are super effective in building intimacy and trust in a relationship, quickly. The last category, Understanding Questions, is extremely important to avoid triggers and upsets when you see your partner doing or saying things you don't like or understand.

We created a 90-min mini-workshop for couples to deal with stress and disagreements, How To Be More Understanding During Disagreements. In this workshop-from-your-couch, we are going to help you:

Find understanding
Relieve tension and stress
Discover common ground between each other
Get on the same page
Learn techniques to de-escalate during conflict
Get back to connection

We have helped thousands of couples navigate crisis and stressful times, and we'd be honored to help you, too.

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During Coronavirus (Covid-19) times, a lot of people are finding themselves working at home. It can be really challenging when you got two people working and living in the same house, perhaps with kids or family too.

Here are 5 Tips for How to Survive Working From Home With Your Spouse:

Compartmentalize workspaces
Create time apart (relationships need to breathe)
Nourish your soul, body, and mind during your alone time
Designate who is where, and when
Express appreciation and gratitude.

Right now, there is so much extra stress, fear, and tension due to the Coronavirus and the impact it has on our personal lives, careers, finances, and relationships. This stress takes a real toll on our relationships, when really, we need to be connected and in sync more than ever.

We created a 90-min mini-workshop for couples to deal with stress and disagreements, How To Be More Understanding During Disagreements. In this workshop-from-your-couch, we are going to help you:

Find understanding
Relieve tension and stress
Discover common ground between each other
Get on the same page
Learn techniques to de-escalate during conflict
Get back to connection

We have helped thousands of couples navigate crisis and stressful times, and we'd be honored to help you, too.

About LoveWorks:

The LoveWorks Solution is a practical and positive approach to marriage, relationship, intimacy, communication, and dating.

LoveWorks offers private coaching and relationship counseling to couples and singles, from anywhere in the world; as well as online and live workshops for couples and singles.

Connect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Loveworkssolution
Get the free E-book, How To Save My Marriage (and many more free resources for your relationship), here: https://loveworksforyou.com/

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During the social distancing we’re all finding ourselves in, it’s essential that we find ways to grow in our relationship. We’ll share 3 ways to grow together, plus some suggestion for how to make it practical.

1: Define what “growing” means to you. What do we want to create in the next 6-8 weeks.

2: Deepen your intimacy. A great way to do this is to ask Intimacy Questions.

Download our free ebook, 100 Intimacy Questions here: https://loveworksforyou.com/100-questions

3: Appreciations. Speak out loud your appreciations to your partner.

Tell your partner what you like about them and why. Sonika & I like to do (at least) 3 appreciations of each other before bed.

The LoveWorks Solution is a practical and positive approach to marriage, relationship, intimacy, communication, and dating.

LoveWorks offers private coaching and relationship counseling to couples and singles, from anywhere in the world; as well as online and live workshops for couples and singles.

Connect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Loveworkssolution
Get the free E-book, How To Save My Marriage (and many more free resources for your relationship), here: https://loveworksforyou.com/

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There’s a lot to disagree about in quarantine times. Which rules and recommendations do we follow? How do we interpret them? When we disagree, there’s always a deeper motivation. We share a simple method to discover your deeper motivation.

A common example is blended families where kids go back and forth between houses. In one house, the kids have to take all their clothes off and shower as soon as they enter the house, but in the other house, they don’t. Or in house it’s ok to take walks in the neighborhood, but in the other house, the kids have to stay in the house at all times.

Couples and families end up arguing about how to best interpret the rules and recommendations, and given the generally heightened level of stress, these disagreements can add significantly to the stress and disconnection we feel.

Behind our preferences and interpretations are always a deeper motivation than meets the eye. When someone says, “In my house, everyone strips before they enter the house”, they have a deeper motivation. When you can discover the deeper motivation, you find that you’re not as far apart from your “opponents” as you think, maybe even on the same page. Plus, discovering the deeper motivation makes it ten times easier to find common ground and practical solutions.

We share an easy tool for how to discover these deeper motivations … the So-That Tool.

The LoveWorks Solution is a practical and positive approach to marriage, relationship, intimacy, communication, and dating.

LoveWorks offers private coaching and relationship counseling to couples and singles, from anywhere in the world; as well as online and live workshops for couples and singles.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more practical relationship advice.
Connect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Loveworkssolution
Get the free E-book, How To Save My Marriage (and many more free resources for your relationship), here: https://loveworksforyou.com/

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Do you get what you want and need in your relationship? If not, you’re probably not using this highly effective “ninja” tool of communication. To get what you want, this is a must-use technique, and it’s soooo simple.

Normally, how we know we want something to change, is when we feel bad or irritated. Being in the same house and your partner (almost) all the time now, you get irritated about all kinds of stuff. And when you get upset or irriated, what do you do? You tell your partner.

You say stuff like,

"Why can't you leave me alone!"
"Do you have to clean up my stuff every time I turn around?" (example from our house:)
"Why are you on the phone all the time!?"
"You're so annoying right now!"
Add your own examples ...

Does that get you what you want? Nope!

But what's great about the stuff you get irritated about is they have a direct link to what you want, and when you use the tool we teach in this video, you're very likely to get it. Try it out!

The LoveWorks Solution is a practical and positive approach to marriage, relationship, intimacy, communication, and dating.

LoveWorks offers private coaching and relationship counseling to couples and singles, from anywhere in the world; as well as online and live workshops for couples and singles.

Connect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Loveworkssolution
Get the free E-book, How To Save My Marriage (and many more free resources for your relationship), here: https://loveworksforyou.com/

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The questions you ask determines whether you feel panicked or inspired. The questions you ask can help your mind - and your relationship - go in a powerful direction or a terrible direction. What questions to ask?

DON'T ask questions like: - Will this never end? - Why can't you just ..... (do it my way, get it right, get your s*** together, connect, etc.)? - What's your problem? - What's wrong with you/me/our relationship?

DO ask questions like:

What's one important thing am I going to achieve today?
How can I best contribute to my spouse/family/team today?
How can I maximize my energy level throughout the day?
What one special thing can I do for my spouse today?
What will I do today that will push my boundaries and make me grow?
Who can I contribute to or uplift today?
What is one self-care activity I can do today?
What is one soul-nourishing just-for-fun activity I can engage in today?
What is one risk I can take today?
What is something new that I have never done before that I could do todaY?
What is one thing I can do today to help me grow or learn something new?
How can I show up more in my life today?
If I trusted that the truth would be a contribution to our growth and empowerment, and ultimately bring us closer today, what would I reveal?
If it wasn't an option to walk away from this conflict or challenge, how would I use it to step more into my Full Potential?

The LoveWorks Solution is a practical and positive approach to marriage, relationship, intimacy, communication, and dating.

LoveWorks offers private coaching and relationship counseling to couples and singles, from anywhere in the world; as well as online and live workshops for couples and singles.

Catch the live broadcast on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Loveworkssolution
Get the free E-book, How To Save My Marriage (and many more free resources for your relationship), here: https://loveworksforyou.com/

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In Corona times, do you go to proactive “Warrior” response, passive “wait and see” response, or something else? How do you deal with your partner's response? Plus good tips from a couple doing their work #loveinthetimeofcorona #relationshipinthetimeofcorono #couplesinquarantine

The LoveWorks Solution is a practical and positive approach to marriage, relationship, intimacy, communication, and dating.

LoveWorks offers private coaching and relationship counseling to couples and singles, from anywhere in the world; as well as online and live workshops for couples and singles.

Catch the Facebook Live's from our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Loveworkssolution
Get the free E-book, How To Save My Marriage (and many more free resources for your relationship), here: https://loveworksforyou.com/

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There are a lot of different ways we can deal with the Corona threat. And because individuals have different ideas about the right way to do it, it’s easy to get triggered when our partners or family members have a different idea about the “right way”. Here’s one step to take to deal with your triggers. #loveinthetimeofcorona #relationshipinthetimeofcorono #couplesinquarantine.

About The LoveWorks Solution and the founders, Sonika & Christian:

The LoveWorks Solution is a practical and positive approach to marriage, relationship, intimacy, communication, and dating.

LoveWorks offers private coaching and relationship counseling to couples and singles, from anywhere in the world; as well as online and live workshops for couples and singles.

Connect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Loveworkssolution
Get the free ebook, How To Save My Marriage (and many more free resources for your relationship), here: https://loveworksforyou.com/

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When fear takes a hold us, it has immediate impact on our own state of mind and the quality of our relationships#loveinthetimeofcorona #relationshipinthetimeofcorona #couplesinquarantine.

Here are several tips for how to deal with your fear better, such as:

Find the positive, productive intent of your fear
Fear is "poor use of the imagination"
Look at what's the more "like outcome"
Don't take your own fear out on your partner

About The LoveWorks Solution and the founders, Sonika & Christian:

The LoveWorks Solution is a practical and positive approach to marriage, relationship, intimacy, communication, and dating.

LoveWorks offers private coaching and relationship counseling to couples and singles, from anywhere in the world; as well as online and live workshops for couples and singles.

Connect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Loveworkssolution
Get the free ebook, How To Save My Marriage (and many more free resources for your relationship), here: https://loveworksforyou.com/

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A man asked us if or how he should see his boyfriend, given the current restrictions. And how DO we stay connected when we can’t get together with our partner or loved ones? We share a hot tip from when we were long-distance relationship (before FaceTime and Zoom:); plus a great idea from a client of ours who found a creative way to "go exclusive".

Catch our next Facebook Live broadcast with more useful corona relationship advice, 1:00 PM PST on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Loveworkssolution

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There’s a lot to grieve these days, many losses big and small in our relationships. We lose jobs, income, security, friends, family members, opportunities, and memories we don’t get to make. We share some of our own losses and give an idea for how to be with the grief and loss.

Catch our next Facebook Live broadcast with more useful corona relationship advice, 1:00 PM PST on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Loveworkssolution

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When relationships are strained, all the stuff that doesn’t work takes up all your mental “bandwidth”. Problems appear bigger and bigger. Our minds go searching for more evidence to prove all our negative stories about ourselves (e.g "I'm unlovable"), about our relationship (e.g. "We never make time for each other"), or the current situation (e.g. "The world is going down!"). But there's a way we can use our mind mechanism to our advantage, to support and strengthen our relationships and ourselves.

Catch our next Facebook Live broadcast with more useful corona relationship advice, 1:00 PM PST on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Loveworkssolution

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When you’re stuck at home with kids, it can be truly challenging to take care of everybody - including yourself and your partner - without losing your s***.

As the adults in the house, it is imperative that you stay in a good mind and heart space, because you set the tone for your entire family and household. We give you several good ideas to stay sane and stay connected!

Catch our next Facebook Live broadcast with more useful corona relationship advice, 1:00 PM PST on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Loveworkssolution

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It's easy to let the Corona stress get to us and it comes out with our partners or loved ones. We share a quick process for how to keep your mind on a productive track and use these challenging times to create a better future, as a couple and as individuals.

Catch our next Facebook Live broadcast with more useful corona relationship advice, 1:00 PM PST on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Loveworkssolution

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Yesterday, we talked about how to share our stress and feelings with a partner or friend. Today, we'll give some tips for how to have a bit of fun in our relationship with all the feelings we have inside and all the stuff there is to complain about, plus we share a simple process to deeply share yourself and connect with your partner (or anyone).

Catch our next Facebook Live broadcast with more useful corona relationship advice, 1:00 PM PST on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Loveworkssolution

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We have a lot of feelings about the Corona situation; sometimes our feelings are contradictory or just all over the place. We share a great tool for how to express yourself and share what’s going on for you, in a good way that really helps you connect deeper with your partner, kids, or friends.

Catch our next Facebook Live broadcast with more useful corona relationship advice, 1:00 PM PST on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Loveworkssolution

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Do you hate feeling judged in your relationship? Yeah, you and pretty much everyone else.

The judgments we have of one another comes out of our mouths as complaints, criticisms, and accusations. We say things like, OMG, “You’re so stubborn. Why do you always have to micro-manage me? You are totally self-absorbed! Why do you have to be so judgmental?!

When we talk to each other like that, we infuse our communication with irritation, anger, and hurt, and not only do we not get what we want in terms of listening, understanding, and harmony; it also sours the mood in our house; it feels bad.

On the other hand, theres’ no denying that as humans, we make up judgments. On one hand, that’s a good thing, right? We use our sound and positive judgment to navigate the world, to determine what activities are safe and what we should avoid, and to make judgments about what we value and what we don’t. So try as we might to be non-judgmental, these brains of ours are judgment machines.

But what are good ways to use our judgments, to build connection and understanding instead of distance and irrigation.

Try this quick experiment … think of a judgment you have about your partner or someone else? Do it now …

To get the full podcast and finish the experiment, listen to the podcast, or find the blog post here ...

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As a child, when I didn’t understand something my father was saying, he would simply say it again louder. If I still didn’t “hear him” the second or third time, he would continue to increase both his volume and enunciation of the same phrase over and over again to the point of yelling, which only culminated in his exasperation and me bursting into tears.

Can you identify with my dad? Ever feel frustrated or angry because your partner or kid or boss doe sn’t hear you?

For some people, not feeling heard is a big trigger point and sore spot in their relationship. Conversations can easily escalate to the point of yelling or even violence if people feel misunderstood and not heard.

Feeling heard is an essential part of the two-way communication process. One person speaks, or delivers a message non-verbally, and the other person deciphers that communication in the form of listening and receiving.

Hearing is an important part of the communication bridge in relationship that makes connection and the coordination of action possible. If we miss the communication, if we don’t “hear” what the other person is trying to convey, we fall off that bridge of connection.

In extreme instances, miscommunications like these can be life threatening. But even if the misunderstanding is about something as mundane as whose job is it to do dishes, while not actually life threatening, we can still feel as if we are going to explode if the other person doesn’t get our side of things.

What are we actually going for when we want to be heard? And why is it such a big deal when we don’t have that experience?

Below, I’ll share some of the reasons why being heard is important, I’ll give examples from coaching sessions, and finally, I’ll share how this is useful in your relationships.

Agreement

For some of us, being heard means we will get what we want. We believe that the experience of being heard will result in the other person seeing our side of things, agreeing with us, and that will increase the likelihood that we will get what we want.

I remember having a heated conversation with our son in his teens, when he was trying to talk Christian and I into having a drug/drinking pool party at our house without adults on the premises. We were not willing to budge on our decision, and even though I was hearing my son and repeating back his well-intentioned points, he insisted I wasn’t hearing him because we weren’t changing our minds. He was confusing hearing with agreeing.

Call to Action

For some of us, being heard means you get my words and the call to action behind my words. In the example above, my dad was confusing me not understanding what he was saying with me not being able to hear his words. He spoke to me like I was someone who was hard of hearing or didn’t speak or understand English.

But it wasn't because I wasn’t hearing his words. It was the meaning behind his words that I couldn’t hear or make sense of, which hindered my ability to take the action he was requesting of me. When he asked me to get him a wrench, for example, and I had no idea what a wrench was. Him yelling louder about it didn’t change anything about my understanding or ability to fulfill his call for action.

In order for us to hear a request that requires a response or action on our part, it helps if the speaker is direct with their requests. However, in the world of relationship, we are often indirect in our communications. For example, if I say, “the garbage is overflowing”, I am likely to not feel heard if you take what I said as an informational report rather than as a request: “Will you take out the garbage?”

Feeling Known

A man recently sent us this in an email … “I feel as a man that being heard is a real issue. I grew up not trusting anyone with my innermost secrets and feelings. [Despite my] really working on and making efforts to be accountable, honest and open, I don’t feel heard in my relationship. Seems to me my wife wants me to "talk" and "share feelings" and "be open" so long as it fits her agenda or ideals. This just sends me back to the point where I feel "sharing" is not worth it.”

For many of us, sharing and being heard is a way for us to know ourselves, and to experience feeling known by others. When we put our internal experience on “loud speaker” and are able to freely explore our thoughts, feelings, values, dreams, desires and inner workings, we come to accept and know ourselves more deeply.

When someone hears our ruminations with curiosity and interest, without judgment or interruption, we feel known, seen, witnessed. We feel close to the listener. We feel less alone in our separate existence and experience. Not only that, but we are more inclined to want to continue sharing ourselves if we are received and heard when we do.

Meaning

I witnessed a coaching session last week that was deeply moving. The coach listened to his client talk about her mixed feelings about moving from New York back to Italy, her country of origin, after several years in the states. She spoke of herself as a risk taker, highlighted her successes, and spent most of the time talking about the challenging logistics of moving.

When the coach reflected back what he had heard, he added having heard her underlying fear and concern of looking like a failure to her family at returning home. She was deeply affected by his reflections, seeing the truth of his words. He had listened not just to her words, but to the deeper fears behind her story.

A client of ours was complaining about her husband’s preoccupation with work. His long hours at work meant less time at home and she was fed up with having to do everything herself. Instead of reacting defensively to her criticisms, with our help, he was able to listen “underneath” her complaint to her loving desire for more time together. Instead of hearing her disapproval, he was able to hear her loving call to connect with the man she loved. This allowed him to lean into creating more connecting time with his wife and family at home.

Validation

Sometimes what we want in our quest to be heard is validation and affirmation for who we are. We want to know that we are okay, that we are loved, and that we matter. When you hear my words, respond to my requests, meet my needs, mirror back my deepest feelings, I get to feel like I am important in your eyes. Your acceptance of me helps me accept myself. Your love for me helps me love myself more.

One of the best definitions I once heard of love is, “Love is granting space for something or someone to exist.” When you hear and allow what I say without resistance or judgment, it is like you are allowing me to exist in your acceptance of my communication. In this way, you could say that hearing me is one of the deepest expressions of love you can offer.

Being Right

Recently, I coached a couple that was stuck in negative stories about each other. She was afraid he was withholding secrets from her and wanted access to his phone. He felt micromanaged and didn’t want to give her access to his phone to avoid feeling powerless. In each case, their listening of each other was shaped by their own fears and negative stories.

Every time she shared her fears, he heard, “I want to micro-manage you!” Every time he moved to protect his autonomy, she heard, “I am withholding secrets from you!” They couldn’t hear their mate’s underlying fears: “I am afraid to lose you if you talk to your ex” and “I am afraid of your rejection if I do something that scares you.” They were too busy fighting to be right about the other person being micromanaging or withholding.

Sometimes our communications are attempting to prove our innocence and goodness. If I can just get you to hear that the reason I didn’t make dinner was because I took care of the cat, then you will quit judging me as wrong and bad for not keeping my agreement to cook. Once you hear me, I will get to be right about not making dinner as promised.

How Can We Use This?

There are many different experiences and results we are after when we are going for being heard. The most important thing we can do to help ourselves feel heard in relationship is to first explore what we are after. Do we want to be known? Do we want to be right? Do we want to get our way about something? Do we want someone to act? Do we want something to change?

The next thing we can remember is that we human beings are closed biological systems with our own interpretations and understanding of things. If feel that you’re not hearing me, maybe there is something going on in you that is preventing you from hearing me. Maybe you have an old negative story about me that has you interpret what I am saying as criticism versus a compliment? Or maybe you have a different definition of “helping around the house” than I do and what’s required is more exploration

Or maybe I am not being clear about my intention in sharing, and I can rephrase what I am saying in a way that produces my desired result and outcome. Instead of launching into a complaint about us not having sex anymore, which might have you rebuff me, I can slow things down and share how much I miss connecting with you in this really special loving way. Instead of complaining about how you are never home, I can make a direct request, “Would you be willing to come home early on Wednesday so we can have a date together, just you and me?”

If you find that clarifying your intentions and making clear requests before going for getting heard doesn’t work, get support from an experienced coach or therapist to help you bridge the gap.

One couple who always fought when she wanted to share something she was triggered about and he disappeared to work in the yard as fast as possible, were able to understand each other’s differing responses to stress with the help of our coaching.

Now, when she wants to “talk”, he hears her desire to connect, and when he disappears to work in the yard, she hears his desire to avoid criticism and be a good man in her eyes. This different understanding has helped them be less reactive and they are better able to hear each other as a result.

Your desire to be heard is a good thing. Use it to bring you closer to all the good things you long for.

“Listening is an attitude of the heart, a genuine desire to be with another which both attracts and heals.” L.J. Isham

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Valentine's Gift for you today: a free Communication Challenge, only takes five minutes a day for a week.

Happy Valentine’s Day! V-day is a day where we can have many different experiences. Some of us don’t even care about it that much. I used be pretty cynical about it, brushing it off as just another consumer fest. At this point, I have to admit I have a softer heart for it (doesn’t hurt that it’s Sonika and my wedding anniversary:)

For some, V-day is a great day of romance and going the extra mile for our relationship, while for others it’s a day of grieving because it’s a reminder of love lost and relationships past.

Either way, we encourage to use V-day as an “excuse” to have elevated awareness of sharing expressions of love. For your partner, your children, your friends, and not least yourself.

In the podcast I give a few ideas for how to do that, and share about a women who recently lost a relationship and how she is making V-day special, loving, and nourishing.

Finally, we’d like to give you a Valentine’s gift today. Drumroll, please ….. it’s the free Communication Challenge! All you need is five minutes a day for a week, and it’s totally free. The challenge is designed to be fun and easy while also challenging you to go a bit deeper in your communication that you normally would.

If you have any relationship experience - and we all do! - you know how much poor communication ruins our love and intimacy. It's the #1 problem we hear from couples and singles when they come to us for support and coaching. Improving your communication IS improving your connection, intimacy, and romance. That's why we put this fun challenge together.

Join the free challenge here …

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Whether you receive or reject someone's invitations, will literally make or break your relationship!

Anyone who’s been around children knows how much they enjoy showing their creations. They’ll make a drawing and bring it to mom or dad and say, “Look!” As the adult, in that moment, we face a relationship-building or relationship-breaking decision. Choosing the former, we might say to the child, “That’s wonderful, thanks for showing me”. But if we choose the latter, we might say, “I don’t have time for that! It doesn’t even look like anything, it’s just scribbles!”

When we go with the first option, the kid feels validated and encouraged and will typically return to playing. With the latter option, the kid will feel deflated, rejected, and hurt, like she just received a verbal slap across the face.

Adults are no different. We too want someone to see our creations. We want someone to see us. What the child did is called “making a bid”. It’s an offer to share something, to show something. What the adult did is either accepting or rejecting the bid.

I first heard this term from Dr. John Gottman’s research into what makes some relationships succeed and some fail. From Dr. Gottman’s website ...

“In his research, Dr. Gottman observed that happy couples turn towards their partners approximately twenty times more than couples in distress during everyday, non-conflict discussions. In a newlywed study, newlyweds who were still married six years after their wedding had turned towards each other 86% of the time while in the lab. Those who were divorced six years later, however, had only turned towards each other 33% of the time.”

Turning towards means you accept someone’s bid. Turning away means you ignore or reject it. As adults in relationship, we make a lot of bids of our partners or prospective partners. Some of these bids we make consciously. “Wanna go to a movie?” “Can I get your phone number?” “Will you spend time with me?” are all examples of bids we make deliberately.

And then we make lots of bids embedded in everyday conversations. “Look what I found on Facebook!” “Did you see that?” “We sure haven’t had sex for a long time”.

On a deeper level, making a bid is an invitation for someone I care about to step into my world, sometimes for just a moment. In that way, we are all still like kids showing off our drawings in the hopes that someone will say, “Wow, you did really well with that”.

When someone receives our bid, we feel validated and witnessed and it gives a little jolt of “I matter”; which is a powerful antidote to the negative sound tracks many of us have running in our minds. When someone rejects our bids, we feel a little “ouch” inside. If our bids are rejected with force, like “I don’t have time for your nonsense!” it can really sting. And what do we tend to do when we feel stung? We counter-attack, get defensive, or withdraw, all of which contributes to the pollution of our intimate environment. If our bids keep getting rejected, we might eventually stop making them altogether.

For example, a couple who’s stopped having sex and intimacy is a couple where lots of bids got rejected over time (and/or the bids weren’t skillfully made, but that’s material for another article), eventually one or both partners stopped making bids.

As Dr. Gottman’s research suggest, accepting or rejecting your partner’s bids will quite literally make or break your marriage or relationship. Once you know these concepts, it’s easy to recognize, both in your own relationship and in observing others. Want to be a “relationship scientist” and make a prediction about the quality or stability of someone’s relationship? Watch if the partners reject or receive each other’s bids.

The studies quoted above are about married couples, but making bids is just as relevant for singles. The dating process is essentially one long string of bids that either get received or rejected. Sending someone a message is a bid. When you reply to a message sent to you, you accepted someone’s bid. Asking for a phone number or a coffee meeting is a bid. You might even say swiping right is a sort of indirect bid that you hope will be received. We talk to so many singles who get fatigued or guarded because they feel discarded and rejected, without anyone ever really receiving their bids.

In LoveWorks, we are big proponents of receiving bids with grace and kindness. For one, it’s effective communication and relationship behavior, it secures loving stability; it just works. Secondly, when someone makes a bid, that person is taking a risk, putting themselves out there in a somewhat vulnerable position, just like the kid showing off her drawing. Making a bid inherently makes us open to rejection, and we generally think that should be rewarded kindly. However, that doesn't mean you have to say yes to what is asked of you.

Yes, you can receive a bid kindly and still say no to the request. Say someone asks for your phone number, but you don’t want to give it. You receive the bid first by saying, “Thanks for asking for my number, I’m honored you would ask”. Then, you can give your reply, by saying something like, “I’m not prepared to share my number with you right now (or quite yet); but I’d be willing to take yours”. Point being, first receive with kindness, then give your response.

In a recent article I quoted a movie character for sharing her theory that why we get married is so that we have a witness to our lives. In a world of billions of people, what does one life really matter? But in a marriage or committed relationship it’s as if we say to each other, “Your life will not go un-noticed, because I will notice it”.

Philosophically, we believe there’s a lot of truth to that theory. Practically, in our day-to-day lives and relationship, this philosophy gets played out by the making and subsequent reception or rejection of bids. Our invitation to you is two-fold:

Notice how and where you make bids in your relationship. Do you do it consciously or unconsciously? Do you do it a positive way? (You can make bids negatively. “We never have sex anymore!” sounds like a criticism, but is often a bid for more sex and intimacy).
Receive bids with kindness and compassion. Even you can’t say yes to the request, you can still receive the gift of the bid. That goes a long way.

Image by Aravind Kumar on Pixabay.

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You know what it means when someone takes stuff personally, because it’s really irritating when’s it’s someone you’re trying to talk to.

What you might be less aware of is when you take things personally.

Taking things personally happens all day every day for most people in most relationships. In case you’re wondering, “what are you doing when you’re not taking things personally”, here’s what you’re doing: You’re listening. You’re observing. You’re calm. You consciously choose your response to a given input.

Taking things personally shows up in a multitude of everyday situation. Some examples …

You’re sharing something about yourself or about your day with your partner and he makes it all about himself instead of just listening
You go on a date, enjoy yourself, the next day you send your date a text and you get no response. You immediately think, “I know I didn’t show up very well; I’m not very attractive; I’m too old; I never get a second date”
Your boss says, “We really need to shore up our numbers this quarter”, and you immediately think, “I knew she didn’t like me; I’m going to lose my job”.
You partner initiates sex, but you’re really not in the mood, and ask for a rain check. Your partner says, “Why don’t you love me anymore?!” That’s your partner taking in personally. Or you might think, “Why am not turned on anymore? What’s wrong with me?” That’s you taking your own lack of desire personally.
You want to find a solution to an issue with your partner or someone. Could be about where you live, where you go on vacation, how you earn or spend money, how you have sex, how you raise your children or any other topic. You say, “there’s something I’d like to talk to you about”, and your partner says, “Now what did I do wrong?”
Any time you think or say things like, “I don’t deserve it; I’ll never get what I want; no one loves me; I’m not attractive; i’m not successful enough” Those are all versions of taking things personally, that is, you’re making whatever is happening about yourself.
Any time your partner or your kid or someone near you gets upset, and you think, “Now what did I do?”, that is, you assume their upset must be because of something you did or didn’t do, that’s you taking it personally.

In the podcast, I break down what happens when we take things personally, and what it does to our relationships, plus I share five valuable lessons. Listen to the podcast to get the lessons.

PS. I mention the men’s retreat I’m hosting Jan 17-19. Here’s the link: https://loveworksforyou.com/mens-retreat-jan-2020

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Masculinity, and why it’s challenging for us men to find our own authentic masculinity. We are caught between several competing strong forces that pull us in different directions. I’ll give examples of how this dilemma shows up in men’s relationships.

I have been engaged both professionally and personally with men’s work for over 10 years now. Through that work I have worked with, coached, educated and learned from thousands of men. Once a year, in January, I host a small private men’s retreat, so as I’m gearing up for this retreat I’m putting some extra focus on men and masculinity and men’s relationships.

You can find details about the men’s retreat here: https://loveworksforyou.com/mens-retreat-jan-2020

Today, when we hear the word masculinity, it’s mostly in relation to “toxic masculinity”.

Toxic masculinity is part of our cultural conversation now (type “toxic” into Google and guess which search term is the first one to show up?)

It is a powerful development that toxic masculinity is being talked about so openly now; it’s a human rights victory for women and anyone else who are victims of toxic masculinity that they have some recourse and more options than just suffer in silence, as has been the case for a very long time.

It’s also really sad how much we talk about and hear about toxic masculinity, for a couple of reasons:

It’s sad because there’s so much to talk about! There are so many incidents of toxic masculinity, every day, in every part of the world. Abuse, violence, harassment, lying, stealing, cheating, manipulating, threatening, stonewalling, raping, pillaging, and on and on.
It’s sad because the whole discussion about toxic masculinity gives masculinity a terrible name, it gives the impression that masculinity is somehow inherently toxic, and nothing could be further from the truth. Masculinity is a beautiful, positive force. I feel sad how much more I hear about toxic masculinity, as opposed to healthy masculinity, generous masculinity, protective masculinity, inspiring masculinity, kind masculinity, innocent masculinity.

I personally want to do anything I can to foster more of those kinds of masculinity.

I see (at least) five competing forces that influence a man:

Innate masculine or biologic forces, such as aggression, sex drive, or assertiveness
nnate feminine qualities such as nurturing, empathy, compassion, vulnerability
Cultural ideals, such as rugged and self sufficient
Another set of cultural ideals, emanated from the women’s liberation movement, such as being more soft, non-dominant, non-threatening, collaborative, agreeable, pacifistic.
Higher consciousness, morals, and ethics.

It’s really tricky at best, or downright schizophrenic at worst, being a man and trying to deal with these various forces that impact how I show up and how I relate, because it seems no matter what I choose to do or how I choose to show up as a man, one or more of these forces work against me.

Listen to the episode for examples of how this shows up for men, and how these forces are confusingly contradictory.

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You and your mate both come home from work. You expect to relax, chill, and reconnect. But somehow, you end up feeling stressed out and arguing!

That is one example of a daily transition going wrong.

Transitions are a “hidden regulator” of our daily quality of relationship and wellbeing. Hidden, because the vast majority of our transitions take place with no conscious thought. Regulator, because the content and quality of our transitions often determine if we feel great or terrible, or if end up connecting deeply with your partner or yelling at them.

Every day, we go through many transitions. The first transition of the day is from sleep to being awake. Then there’s another transition in going from your home to your work place. And on and on, all day, until you make your last transition of the day, going to sleep.

There are some transitions that commonly result in breakdowns and upset:

Coming home from work. By yourself, or reuniting with your mate.
Coming home from stressful work environment, and keeping the stress going even though you’re home.
Kids coming home from school. Parents often have a different idea what this transition “should” look like than the kids do
For blended families, when it’s time for the children to from one house to the other
Evening time for couples: Transitioning from busy day/evening to a sensual space of (potential) love making
Vacations. Going from “regular” working life to vacation mode

Looking at these examples, can you relate to having breakdowns and disconnects during those times? Like, when you think “bedtime” means having sex, but your partner thinks it means sleep? Or when you come home from work, expecting to relax in silence, but your partner can’t wait to talk and do stuff together? Or when you come home from tense or stressful work environment but you can’t the tension go? Or when you and your partner have been loving hanging out with your (step)kids, but now it’s time to send them to their other family?

In all these cases, and many more throughout our days and months, we end up with upset, disconnection, and stress because we don’t know how to do transitions consciously.

In our intro workshop, we teach a whole host of tools for this purpose. More info here ...

Listen to the podcast for more ideas and insights.

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The process of dating and exploring new relationships can be both exhilarating and frustrating, fun and demoralizing. If you’re having fun the process, more power to you. We hear from a lot of singles who are not having fun, and who feel overwhelmed and disillusioned with the entire process. We’ve had people tell us that dating is like having a second full-time job! You don’t have to be a relationship expert to figure out that that is not a good starting point for any new relationship.

In this podcast, I'll talk about many different issues singles run into, such as:

- I can’t find the right partner; it’s like there are no good ones in my town.
- They’re always incompatible.
- I never get a second date.
- Or, they want a second date and I don’t know how to say no.
- All they want it sex (also see our podcast ep. 39: When To have Sex When You’re Dating).
- I feel judged and discarded.
- I feel loneliness and empty. It’s so long between the times i get touch and affection.
- CPFS - Chronic Profile Fatigue Syndrome … others’ profiles as well as your own.
- Dating, Amazon.com style (also see our podcast episode 12)

Here are some of the suggestions for how to make dating enjoyable and productive. This is the short bullet list; you might want to listen to the entire episode to get the context and full details.

Ease up on “the List”
Practice relating.
Put yourself in a relationship mindset and act accordingly.
Improve your expectations.
Quit looking for “the ONE!”
Make it meaningful. Go deep fast.
Have better intentions that set you up for victory and connection.
Vary your first-date MO.
Offer appreciation and validation. Even if you never want to see them again.
Treat your date like “The One”. Even if you never want to see them again

Rooting for your enjoyable dating experience:))

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How do you move yourself from feeling like a victim, to a stance of power?

One aspect of this process is taking 100% responsibility. But what does that mean, and how do you do it?

Taking responsibility often slides right into self-blame, basically being a fancier way of saying, “It was my fault”. That’s not useful.

In fact, there are three ways to take responsibility, and using responsibility.

The first way has to do with the past.

The second way has to do with the present.

The third, and perhaps most empowering way to take responsibility, has to do with your future.

Listen to the podcast to learn the differences, and how to actually apply it for yourself.

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“My partner doesn’t want to work on our relationship!”

Have you ever been in that situation? Where you want to, and feel the need to, engage in some sort of relationship work, but you get a “No” from your spouse or partner?

Maybe you’ve been the partner who doesn’t want to engage in relationship work?

Just in the last few weeks, we’ve heard from 5 couples, where one partner is eager to work on the relationship, and the other partner is either resisting or flat-out unwilling.

This if sad because marriages/relationships break up because one or both partners didn’t engage in doing some sort of “relationship work” in time.

In coupled relationships, we’re big proponents of not making any significant decision before you get on the same page. But there is one important exception to that rule: When one of you wants to get relationship help, don’t wait till you both agree it’s “bad enough” to get support.

Besides, even if you’re happy with the state of your relationship, but your partner isn’t, you now live with an unhappy partner who isn’t happy. Does that really work for you?

Listen to the full podcast for ideas for how you talk to your partner, and how you might understand your partner better.

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Interviewing Susan Bratton, sex advisor to millions of people, and according to herself, “very opinionated” about porn. Curiously, Susan herself produces graphic sexual education materials.

Susan is the founder of Personal Life Media which publishes educational materials to make you a better lover.

Susan is part of a big, and free, online summit about sexual vitality. Get access to the summit here ... (Sonika and I will definitely be tuning in)

On this episode, hear how she distinguishes between degrading porn versus graphic sexual material that’s love-making centered and kind.

Some of the other topics in this podcast:

How to pornography industry preys on men (and increasingly women, too)
Why it’s a shame if couples need porn to get excited about each other
When using porn you’re following some else’s agenda, not your own.
Everything you need to have an amazing, vibrant sex life is inside of yourself.
You can generate hot, connected sex without the use of porn
If you’re addicted to porn, you might need to “cold turkey
The many different orgasms and kinds of sex play you can explore
The effects of porn on relationships
Men and masturbation
For some couples porn is fine, but for others detrimental
And much more …

Porn is a big topic with far-reaching impacts, and whereas this episode does not cover all angles and perspectives, we trust you'll find food for thought here.

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“You’re always late!” … How often does being late show up as a source of irritation, frustration, or even major breakdowns in your relationship?

Maybe your partner is the one who’s late, maybe it’s you, or maybe it’s your kids or your friends. Either way, someone gets irritated, and someone gets defensive, and arguments ensue.

Being late is among the very top complaints we hear from all the couples and singles we talk to. Often, we have two people with completely opposing positions on the matter of timelines and punctuality. To one person, it’s clearcut: If you say you’re doing something at a certain time, you do it at that time or earlier, or you’re late, and being late is disrespectful. But to the other person, it’s simply not an important matter, and why are we even making such a big deal out of nothing.

As you’re about to hear, there are lot of perspectives around this recurring issue. If you’re someone with strong opinions or values around this subject, you might even get triggered listening because this reminds you of how your partner never keeps his or her agreements. Make sure to listen to the entire episode, and towards the end of the episode we’ll talk about broken agreements and how to clean them up.

In addition, I’ll offer practical tips for what you can do about this.

Some of the perspective and tips addressed in the podcast … (as per usual, listen to the podcast for the full content):

Agreements. What does being late even mean? And what actually constitutes an agreement?

Culture, context, and personality and how they influence your relationship to timeliness.

Domain-specificity. Is being on time always important to you, or does it depend on the occasion?

Make-ups and meaning. When someone is late, what do you make up about it, and about them? What do you think it means? What you answer to this question, will impact what you do next.

Values and preferences. What do you value around time? What’s your preference, and why?

Rules around time. What are your made-up rules? Typically, the stuff you put the word “should” in front of. Such as, “people should be on time”

Broken agreements. What are the impacts of broken agreements, and how do you clean it up?

Requests. How to ask for you what you want around timeliness.

As always, you can reach out to us for coaching or support about your relationships. Email us at clientcare@loveworksforyou.com or call us at 530-878-3893.

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

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“I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing a relationship workshop - it was totally out of the question”

A married man who came to several of our workshops with his partner, told us this, and he added, “It wasn’t until a trusted friend told me about it and spoke very highly about it!”

And yet, this same man, who according to himself was not the workshopping kind, came back to several more workshops and has now been raving about the results he gained. Both him and his wife have stated that their communication, sex, and partnership are vastly improved, and they have referred several of their friends to our workshops.

If it weren’t for a trusted friend, this man would have never experienced a workshop and all the transformation he gained for himself and his relationship, and that’s a shame.

We’ve been leading workshops for decades, and we’ve heard many of the myths or prejudices people have about workshops, so we thought we’d offer you some of the myths we’ve heard, plus our responses to them.

Of course, we’ve heard directly from our students how their participation in workshops have profoundly transformed their individual lives and relationships and marriages.

Listen to the podcast to hear our full responses to the myths and fears someone might about workshops. Spoiler alert: These myths and fears are just that … myths and fears.

Some of the myths and fears about workshops …

It’s all hippie antics, people getting naked, kum-ba-ya, touchy-feely stuff. (Actually, our workshops take place in professional hotel conference rooms and everyone’s fully dressed:)
You have to air your dirty laundry in public (Actually, you never have to say a word if you don’t want to. Besides, your “dirty laundry” is hardly ever useful to improve your relationships).
I’m ashamed to have problems - I should be able to handle it myself. Plus, relationship stuff should stay behind closed doors (Actually, it’s a bygone macho-ideal that you should be able to “go it alone”. Not getting help keeps you small and isolated).
It won’t work, won’t make a difference, We’ve done other workshops, didn’t solve our problem. (Actually, there’s no guarantee a workshop or any other learning method will fix everything. Relationship is a process, not a done-overnight one-time endeavor. Besides, even if you haven’t gotten the results you want yet, wouldn’t that be even more reason to keep trying?)
It’s a waste of time / don’t want to spend a whole weekend (We’ll freely admit it does take time to do a workshop. Time most of us would have benefitted from doing years ago. When’s the last time you spent a weekend just for you and your relationship? Besides, the time you spent will be returned to you many-fold in time saved arguing and fighting)
I’d rather go to therapy. (Therapy can be very useful, and many of our colleagues and clients are fine therapists. But it’s not therapy OR workshops. Best case, try both).
I want to, but partner doesn’t (Actually, our workshops are for individuals, singles, couples, anyone with a desire to improve their relationships and have more love in their lives. Even if your partner doesn’t want to come, you still can. Many do).
It’ll sort out itself out. (Actually, relationships don’t get better on their own, and no amount of hoping is going to change that. If you’re having relationship trouble, it’s like having a broken ankle and “hoping” it’ll get better by itself. Sure it might heal up somehow, but you’d be a lot better off seeing a doctor).

Why do a workshop?

It’s a fun and lighthearted way to do deep work on your relationships and yourself. We once had a married couple on the verge of divorce attend. After the first day, the woman exclaimed: “I can’t believe how much fun I’m having working on our marriage!”
Getting out of your usual environment. This breaks your habits and patterns and opens the door for transformation. You make your relationship work a fun getaway, and you get to escape the force of your screens and actually connect with you partner or other humans.
Learning new skills. An immersion like a two-day workshop is the best way to learn at lot - fast. Because you get to practice on the spot, you retain the new insights and tools much better. It’s a concentrated learning environment and you get a ton of “bang for your buck”, both time and money wise.
The power of the “mastermind”. Something happens with groups of people with like intention come together. The “mastermind” is the synergy of everyone’s minds. Everyone gets to tap into a larger wisdom than their own. Plus, in a group, others do your work for you. By watching another person or couple work on their issues, you get to reap the results without doing the actual work.
Investing in your relationships. Investing in your relationships is a must for keeping them thriving. You can’t just push the “autopilot” button on your relationship and hope it handles itself. Your investment of time, energy, attention, and money is an investment that keeps paying returns for the rest of your life.

About our workshops, Tania Choi, LMFT, whom we interviewed in episode 38, said after attending our weekends, “I’ve done Gottman, Harville Hendricks’s Imago, Hedy/Yumi’s Encounters in Intimacy, Stan Tatkin, Somatica Couples training, Family Life, New Life and multiple church marriage camps - nothing parallels the life changing, accessible and game-changing tools I learned at LoveWorks.”

Listen to the podcast for full details.

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Powerful tools to shift yourself out of negative states of mind and situations.

Positive Reframes are are “mind tricks”, simple changes to your thinking that can change a negative situation or mood to a positive one, often quickly, even instantly.

Theses tools can help you when you feel small, powerless, insecure, sad, hopeless, jealous, stuck, or any other negative state.

Reframing

Definition - When an undesirable behavior or trait or situation is conferred a positive intention: reconsidering things in a positive, more empowering light. For example, when you say to yourself, "Ugh, I have to go to work", you produce a sinking feeling inside. You assume the role of a victim; as if someone ordered you to do something you don't want to do, but you have to. Like being a kid and having your mom or dad order you to clean up your room. If you reframe this statement to "I get to go to work", you not only produce a more uplifting feeling inside, but you also declare that you are choosing to go to work. You might even appreciate the fact that you have work, and appreciate the fact that your work helps you put food on your table, pay for your entertainment, and much more.

In short, a simple shift of a few words in your mind can produce a vastly different experience and outlook for you.

Other examples:

I have to ➤ I get to
Shoulds ➤ Coulds
Make/Force/Effort ➤ Allow/Invite
Problem ➤ Opportunity
Permanent ➤ Temporary
Always ➤ Sometimes
Slow/Stuck/Impatience ➤ Making Progress
Controlling ➤ Pro-active Planner
Endings ➤ New Beginnings
Problem ➤ Gift
Me or You ➤ Us/We
Size Matters

Make yourself bigger in your mind when standing next to someone you feel inferior to or less confident around. In your imagination, blow yourself up to equal or slightly bigger than equal to this person or situation. This will equalize your relationship with this person or situation, restore your sense of power and value, and positively influence your behaviors and actions.

Position Yourself

When jealous or insecure or feeling left out, you are imagining yourself on the outside. In your mind, put yourself in the center. Instead of your friends being together and you are on the outside, picture you and your friends all together on the inside. Instead of picturing your partner and your ex together with you on the outside, picture you and your partner together with the ex on the outside. This will reaffirm your position, re-establish your connection, and restore your sense of belonging.

Listen to the podcast for the full story.

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We received a great question from a listener.

“How long should you wait to have sex in a new dating relationship? It seems that relationships that start off physical tend to fizzle out but holding off seems to add to the pressure and causes some awkwardness.”

How long should you wait to have sex?

You can find all manner of advice to this question by asking your friends, watching movies, or googling the topic.

You might have heard of rules that say you always have sex right away because that way, you’ll know if you’re sexually compatible. You might find rules that say you always wait one month, or until the 4th date before having sex.

My rule is this: There is no rule. But it can be useful to make up your own.

I’m not aware of any data that gives meaningful scientific background to this. Although I did find an article written by Justin Lehmiller, Phd, from Men’s Health Magazine, where he talks about a study published in Journal of Sex Research. In this study, they interviewed about 11,000 unmarried adults, who were in serious relationships. They wanted to see if there was any connection between how satisfied they were with their relationship, and how soon they had started having sex.

Whether the people interviewed had started having sex within one week, two weeks, on even before the first date, did not make any meaningful difference for their relationship satisfaction. Curiously, I did not see an option for people who had waited a month or more.

The article concludes there is basically no hard and fast rule.

That’s my viewpoint too, there is no rule. That being said, it can be really useful to make up your own rules.

The biggest issue with this question is how much anxiety it creates for the person wondering about it. You know that feeling, you’ve just started dating someone, or at least fairly recently, and it’s swirling in your head when the right time is to suggest sex, or initiate sex, or when to say yes or no. The questions themselves produce anxiety and insecurity, which impacts how you show up in the relationship. As our listener said, it can create awkwardness.

Here’s why it can be useful to make up your own rules. I’ll give you a personal example. When I was younger, when I’d go dating or hook up with partners in bars or at parties, we’d always go have sex straight away. Basically, that was the primary desire. Often, we’d wake up, say goodbye and never see each other again, and for a long time, I was fine with that. But as I got older and started to want more emotional depth and connection, I didn’t know what else to do, so I just kept doing what I’d always done. Have sex right away and hope for the best. And the vast majority of my relationships didn’t go anywhere, and even the ones that felt promising based on my sexual experience, fizzled out quickly.

So when I wanted to create a different experience for myself, I made up the rule that I would not have sex on the first date, nor the second or third. I would wait till I felt I knew the person outside of sexual interaction. it was a real eye opener for me. And I got into relationship with a few women who were incredulous, even hurt, that I wouldn’t have sex right away. But it worked for me. I felt good about it. When I met Sonika, I did the same thing.

I’ve coached a lot of women who feel tremendous pressure to have sex right away, and who feel angry and hurt that their dating partner seems to be focused primarily on sex. I’d say there’s nothing wrong with that, but I also recommend that you make up rules that work for you. For women who’ve had that experience, it can be really useful to make a rule like no sex for the first four dates, or the first month. That way you get a chance to see if your date wants to see you again even if you’re not having sex.

Of course, this all depends on how you feel about sex. For some, it’s no big deal to have sex with someone you hardly know, and for others, it’s a very big deal. Since there are no official rules, follow your own guidance. And definitely don’t have sex just because you feel pressured to do it, or because you think it’s expected.

Also, I would say don’t have sex because it’s awkward not to. That awkwardness could actually be used as part of the excitement of a new relationship. You might consider it part of the foreplay, of getting aroused without the release, until such a time that you decide to have sex.

And the part of our listener’s question, that relationships that start off physical tend to fizzle is another matter altogether that has to do with how you keep your sex life sizzling over time. There are many ways to accomplish that. For starters, go listen to Sonika’s episode about how to have high transcendental sex. It’s episode 13.

If you want to have rules, make up rules that work for you, and then experiment and see how they work.

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I’m talking to Tania Choi, LMFT, psychotherapist. Tania specializes in trauma for teens, couples, and individuals. She’s an EMDR specialist and Recovery specialist, and a former tech designer.

We talk about how trauma shows up in relationship and for individuals. Trauma is the unconscious that drives us to do things we know aren’t good for us. Any time you have one of those reactions where you go from 0 to a 100 in no time, you’re in trauma, and not using the conscious thinking part of your brain.

Tania defines trauma as any moment in time where we lost our sense of choice.

When we were children, there’s a little camera in our hearts that always takes pictures of the world, of how people love us, or don’t. As adults, we find someone whose pictures match ours. That’s what has us feels like we’ve known someone our whole lives. It’s also what sets us up to reactivity, because that person’s painful “pictures” are likely to match ours.

Tania says one of the main ways she works with couples is using a tool she learned at LoveWorks, which is to examine the stories and “make ups” we create based on our individual traumas. Simple example: Instead of saying to your partner, “Every time you don’t put the cap back on the toothpaste, you’re disrespecting me!”, you could say something like, “When you leave the toothpaste cap off, the story I tell myself is that ….”.

When you get into arguments with your partner, it’s hugely important that you talk about just the issue at hand - say, someone doesn’t put the toothpaste cap back on - and that you don’t spout off your “trauma soundtrack”, which says, “You don’t love me, you don’t respect me, no one loves me, I never get what I want, I never get the respect I deserve” or some variety of this.

What determines whether a relationship survives or not is whether the partners take ownership of the stories they tell themselves. In therapy, it’s called Narrative Therapy.

Tania says she still practices this in her own relationship with her partner, and stresses the importance of making your relationship a practice. She and her partner still attends LoveWorks workshops every three months. It’s like going to the chiropractor for an adjustment to keep your alignment. Going to a workshop is a relationship adjustment that puts you back in alignment.

When you get too focused on what your partner is doing wrong, on their dysfunction, you’ve have displaced the source of your power. Even if your’e right about your “analysis” of your partner’s dysfunction, you still give away your power if all your attention is on trying to fix your partner.

If you’re a partner of someone who has a diagnosis such as borderline personality, or Aspergers, here are few things Tania says to consider:

Get yourself in community; find a tribe that understands your situation.
Be clear about the needs your partner can provide for and which the cannot provide for. Be clear about what your limits are.
Approach your situation with consciousness and compassion.
Be big on your self-care piece. Take good care of yourself. Get the support and care you need to take care of you.

There’s much more on the podcast, such as four steps to check when you’re looking for a partner.

Find Tania’s work at traumatreatedtenderly.com

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Money is one of the topics couples fight about the most. We often have strong values and opinions around money. When we don’t have enough of it, it activates our survival fears and once that happens, it’s hard to think straight and make good decisions.

Some experts say that disagreements over money is the number one reason for divorces. We can’t verify that statement, but we know for sure it’s a topic that causes a lot of fighting and breakdowns. If you don't find a good way to deal with your money conversations, it'll be a source of contention over and over again, because money is not something we can just ignore or let go of.

This episode offers a five important ideas to help with your money conversations, and I share story about a boat and what happens when a couple don’t get on the same page before making an important purchase.

Listen to the short episode to get five important ideas to help you with money conversations.

Image by LillyCantabile from Pixabay

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We received a great question from a student in our Relationship Mastery Program, and we addressed it on the weekly group coaching calls we host for this group of couples and singles.

The question was, “What do I do when my partner is always is blame or attack mode?”

Can you relate to that situation?

We offer six or seven different approaches to a situation like this, both in terms of how you communicate directly, what to say, and also in terms of seeing underneath the blame and attack, for the purpose of communicating more directly to the core issue.

Listen to the 24-min episode for great tips on dealing with a blaming or attacking partner!

The Gift of Conflict workshop we refer to can be found here ...

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She was crying in the corner. I went over to her and asked, “You ok? What’s going on?”

Through tears, she proceeded to tell me that she didn’t know why she was still single, especially after all of her hard emotional work over the past many months. She was sure it was because there was something wrong with her. She was too old, not sexy enough, too shy and introverted, and she probably wasn’t open enough or fast moving enough for the men she was attracted to.

Another man I spoke to, also in tears, shared his frustration at not being able to create the living situation and career in music he has always dreamed of. “Everything is falling apart and I just don’t seem to be able to do what I have always wanted to do! I feel depressed.”

Several weeks ago, our daughter came home in tears after chemistry class. “I feel stupid. I have to work so much harder than some of the other kids to understand this stuff and get good grades.”

Each of these people suffers from Not Enough Syndrome. In fact, countless numbers of people suffer from this condition.

Not Enough Syndrome stems from the belief that “I am not doing enough or being enough” or “I need something I don’t have in order to accept myself, feel successful, confident and peaceful.” It includes thoughts like, “I’m not smart enough, thin enough, pretty enough, talented enough, loveable enough, rich enough, productive enough…”

Some people with Not Enough Syndrome are depressed, lonely and withdrawn while others are outgoing, friendly and successful. Despite appearances, inside, there is a shared sense of not measuring up to some expectation or standard.

Not Enough Syndrome is best fueled by comparing oneself to other people who seem to have what we think we “should” have or be how we think we “should” be.

I too suffer periodically from Not Enough Syndrome. Thoughts have crossed my mind like, “I don’t have enough friends, enough clients, enough time with my kids. I should weigh ten pounds less. I am getting old. I should have more money saved in retirement. I should be able to pick up the latest line dance steps faster.”

One of the best gifts a friend of mine gave me in my thirties, after I had just sobbed my way through telling her I wasn’t enough, was saying to me, “You are right. You aren’t enough.” I was shocked at first. Then I thought she was joking. But when she said it again with a straight face, “It’s true. You aren’t enough.” I realized she was serious. Then she added, “So what? You aren’t enough. Are you going to let that stop you?”

The more I thought about what she said, the more I saw the truth in her words. Compared to standards and expectations, compared to experts and people more successful than I, compared to my ideal visions and goals, compared to perfection and God, I would never measure up. I would always fall short. I would never be enough.

Accepting that I wasn’t enough and would never be enough brought with it a sense of peace. Instead of fighting it or trying to change it or being resigned to it, I could just let this not enough thought be there. I could bring it along with me like an old friend, and not let it run me or limit me in any way.

When you think about it, don’t a lot of successful people think they aren’t good enough? Didn’t Princess Diana think she wasn’t good enough? And Ghandi? It’s no secret that a whole host of famous people had numerous failures before their big successes: Albert Einstein, Walt Disney, Sir Isaac Newton, Stephen Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey to name a few. It makes sense that they didn’t always think they were good enough either.

And when you think about it, doesn’t Not Enough Syndrome come with some positive useful benefits? Doesn’t it dampen down arrogance, foster humility, promote compassion, and fuel achievement, growth and success?

I have come to make peace with my Not Enough Syndrome, to use its presence in my life for many positive outcomes. It helps me cultivate deeper love and appreciation for others, as well as for myself. It keeps me honest and vulnerable and humble. I use it as a launching pad for helping me grow and expand into new areas I’d like to develop. And it supports me to soften into appreciation and gratitude on a regular basis.

If you are a woman and you suffer from Not Enough Syndrome, I encourage you to join me for my upcoming Women’s Retreat: For Women Who Want More. At this retreat, you will get to explore your Not Enough Syndrome, become aware of its impact on your mood, relationships and productivity, and learn how to counteract its negative effects with positive uplifting practices.

Rest assured, Not Enough Syndrome is curable. The first aid response includes a solid dose of love, acceptance and appreciation. The long-term treatment plan includes a heightened awareness, a restructuring of beliefs, and a series of positive uplifting practices that will support you to keep going for your dreams with healthy confidence and power.

Not Enough Syndrome doesn’t need to take you down or out!

The woman who was crying about not being enough for a relationship? Well, she was left knowing she is a beautiful soul and appreciates her innocent desire to find love. The man who wanted a lucrative career in the music industry was empowered to go for his dreams. And our daughter, well – she is feeling pretty good about acing her Chemistry class!

Here are a two tips for counteracting the Not Enough Syndrome. Listen to the podcast for 7 more great tips.

Instead of comparing myself to those who have more or have accomplished more in their life, I compare myself to those who have less. This practice has me feel grateful for what I do have and what I have accomplished.
Instead of comparing myself to unachievable standards, I look back and acknowledge the accomplishments I have achieved that exceeded previous expectations, and the people I have made a difference for. Celebrating my successes has me acknowledge, appreciate and feel good about my triumphs and reinforces my value and inherent worth.

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“LoveWorks is the information I wish I’d had when I was 20. I wish I’d had it when I was 25, when I was 30, when I was 40”

Today I’m talking to Jordan Fisher-Smith, author of Nature Noir and Engineering Eden. Jordan Fisher Smith is a Northern California writer and a Loveworks workshops participant for over five years. He has written for the New Yorker, Men’s Journal, and Salon.com and many others. His second book, ENGINEERING EDEN, won a California Book Award and has just been released in paperback.”

There are many fascinating aspect to Jordan Fisher-Smith. Like the fact that he was a California State Park Ranger and law enforcement officer for 21 years, or that he wrote a noir-genre book about being a park ranger in Auburn State Recreation Area; that he narrated and featured in the the movie Under Your Skin, or that he restored a beautiful Victorian house from the ground up.

From the perspective of what we do here at LoveWorks, there is a different kind of fascinating fact about Jordan. He hated workshops. As he says, “I had a strong aversion to it … I would have thought myself the least likely person to end up in a workshop”.

And yet, he did find himself in a relationship workshop and has been coming back for five years.

As he said, “LoveWorks is the information I wish I’d had when I was 20. I wish I’d had it when I was 25, when I was 30, when I was 40”You’ve been very skeptical of workshops … what changed your mind?”

Listen to the podcast to hear what a staunch workshop skeptic has learned and why he finds it valuable enough to keep coming back.

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"We're supposed to get married but now I'm not sure ... We have a great relationship, we function well together, but our communication could be deeper and the fire isn't burning so much anymore. So How do we balance doubt with commitment? How can we know if and when it's the right choice to commit or marry someone despite our doubts?

Our listener asked this question before she’s gotten married. But we get similar questions from couples who’ve been married for 5, 10, or 25 years.

We’ve saved many marriages from divorce, and sometimes, we even save marriages before they happen.

When you’re looking at tying the knot, it can be really heart-wrenching to have these doubts, because of course you want to make the right decision and no one wants to go into a marriage that might not work out. We respect that!

As relationship coaches we never tell anyone that they should or shouldn’t get married, or divorce for that matter. There are definitely relationship coaches and counselors who do dispense such advise, but we feel it’s much too important a decision for us to make it on your behalf. It’s a decision that has to be sourced from inside you. We instead use or coaching and expertise to empower you to make that choice. Besides, if someone else makes the choice for you, it’s likely you’ll still have doubts. So let’s see if I can offer some tips that will help you get more clear about this.

When you ask this question, I’m going to assume you genuinely love each other. I figure if you didn’t we wouldn’t even have this conversation, you would have just left the relationship already.

In this situation, there are things you can do together with your partner, and there are things you can do by yourself. Let’s start with what you can do with your partner.

When one person has doubts about a relationship, in this whether to get married, it often looks as if it’s only that person that has doubts, and the other partner is totally committed and ready to move forward. But that’s deceiving, because in my experience, each person owns a share of the doubt as well as a share of the commitment. It’s just that the doubt gets expressed through one person on behalf of the relationship.

Sit down with your partner and both of you answer these questions: What part of you is fully committed? And what part of you is not sure? Both of you look at where you have doubts. Both of you look at where you are committed. And you’ll very often find that you are much more on the same page than you think. The very act of sharing your doubts openly with each other helps to create connection and clarity. Besides, isn’t that what you’re wanting in a marriage anyways? A place where you can share everything, even the difficult parts? Don’t wait till you’re married, start right now.

If you need help to facilitate a conversation like this, that’s perfectly ok. Reach out to us for coaching, or ask someone else you trust.

And when the issue is - as our listener said - that communication isn’t very deep and the fire isn’t burning as hot as is desired; that can be worked on. That can be remedied. As an example, we just led our Sex Workshop last month. There was a couple there who hadn’t been sexual at all for several years! After the first day of the workshop, they went back to their hotel room and made love and connected at a whole new level.

One of them shared with us, “Thank you for a wonderful workshop. I feel like I am walking on air ... Not just because of the sex. but from the breakthrough in our relationship. We had an epiphany about why sex matters to us which is where we were stuck and not communicating. The closeness and intimacy generated in the workshop led us to discussing some things that influenced the dynamic in our relationship overall.”

And communicating at a deep, intimate level can absolutely be learned. Sitting down for a talk like I suggested is one way to communicate at a much deeper level.

Now, for what you might do on your own. First, you could do what I’ve already suggested, simply by yourself. Write down, or at least look at, where you have doubts, and where you are committed.

Secondly, given that you’re reaching for clarity, and I assume, commitment as well, notice that in your very questioning is a good deal of non-commitment. The questions you ask are questions asked by someone who is not committed in themselves. And it’s painful to live with doubts in your mind. It’s like sitting on the proverbial fence; it starts to hurt your butt pretty quick. Except in this case, it’s your head and heart that hurts.

Try to redefine commitment. Instead of committing to someone else, or to the marriage, think of commitment as a declaration that you will be able to handle anything that shows up; that you will make good on anything that comes your way. The doubt in your mind reflects a fear that you won’t be able to handle what might show up in the future. That you’ll regret your choices. What if your commitment was a commitment to yourself that you trust you’ll be able to deal with anything?

Most of all, here’s what I suggest you try on. Commit fully. Step in with both feet and your whole heart. It is in throwing yourself fully into the relationship that you’ll have the best chance of discovering if it’s the right relationship for you. You already said it’s a great relationship, so we know some things are working well. We know you must like and love each other, or you would have probably been out of there a long time ago.

When you’re plagued by doubts, you are not fully engaged in your relationship. You’re not fully engaged with your partner. And that impacts everything. That by itself makes the relationship seem less alive and passionate. Doubts make you less passionate. So jump in with everything you’ve got. You could even postpone the wedding date if you need more time to test this out. There’s no rule for when you should get married.

Give it everything you got. Come do workshops with us to deepen your communication and elevate your passion. Or find another class or coach to figure this out. What you learn will serve you forever. Even if you decide down the road that this relationship is not for you, your new skills will make your next relationship so much better. By you putting yourself in all the way, even if you decide later this relationship is not for you, you’ll know you gave it all you had, that it wasn’t because you didn’t put your heart into it. And that brings its own sense of clarity.

More than likely, though, if you commit yourself, if you do what you need to do to learn deeper skills of communication and how to fire up the passion, you’ll find the love and clarity you’re looking for.

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How much do you like it when your partner or someone else, criticizes your behavior and tells you what you should be doing? Not very much, I’ll bet. No one likes being told what to do.

On this short podcast episode, I want to present just one simple idea to you. Yesterday, in my coaching and also on a call that Sonika and I lead for our Relationship Mastery Program students, we talked about the very common experience that most of us have had in one relationship or another, that our partner gets ON us about something. He or she might be telling you, stop being on your phone all the time, etc.

When someone corrects your behavior or criticizes your choices, there’s a translation that happens in your mind. The actual message coming out of your partner’s mouth might be something like, “Are you still on your phone. Put it away and be with your family”. The translation that happens in your mind makes this message much more personal. In your mind, it sounds more like, “You’re bad. You shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing. You’re making bad choices. You’re not good enough”.

And because there’s a part of you that fears they might be right about that, you instinctively fight it. Because you don’t want it to be true that you’re a bad person, and that you’re not good enough. So you resist, you tell your partner to sod off or mind their own business, or if you’re less direct, you say, ok fine, I was just resting a bit, alright, alright, I’ll get on it. You make a change in your behavior because if you don’t, he or she is going to get very upset and you make the calculation that it’s not worth it, so you do as they say.

But the thing is … when you make a change to your behavior that’s only fueled by someone else telling you to change; or you change simply to avoid being criticized more, the change you make tend to not stick.

That’s the simply idea I want to give you is that if you want to make any sort of real change to your behavior, you have to change because YOU want to.

I suggest an experiment: When your partner says, “You’re always wasting time on your phone, why can’t you just be with me!?”

Put their criticism aside this time. Take them out of the equation.

And then simply ask yourself, How do I like what I’m doing? What do I think of my behavior? Do I have any desire to change how I’m showing up?

If your genuine answer is that if you’re fine what you’re doing; if you feel your behavior is in accordance with the person you want to be, then great. In my opinion, you’re better off just owning your choices and not pretend otherwise.

But if, on the other side, you look at your own behaviors, and like the client I was coaching yesterday, and you conclude that your behavior is not a match to who you want to be, and that you really do want to make a change, great. Now you have some ownership. Now you have some skin in the game of your own change.

So the simple and hugely important idea is this: If you want to make any real changes in your behavior and in your life, YOU have to want to. YOU have to be the one to say you want to change.

Now you can go about making some actual change. And hey, if you realize that your partner had a point about you wasting a ton of time, it wouldn’t hurt to tell them.

Image by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash.com

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We often make a sharp distinction between work and play. We think of work as serious, as drudgery, as something we have to get through or something we should do. At work, we go through the motions only half engaged, present and expressed, doing what must be done. Play is what we do later, after we are done working and accomplishing the things on our logistics list. Play is separate from work.

When we think about improving our relationship, at making changes in our love life, it often seems like work. Hard work. Something we don’t look forward to. Talking about problems can seem like a negative endeavor with no real reward at the end, so why bother!

What if everything was play? What if we could bring an attitude of playfulness to our work? To chores? To our relationships? Just like children who play all day everyday, what if we played while driving the car, played while cleaning the kitchen or folding laundry or making the bed? What if we played at interacting, flirting, and making love instead of having everything be so serious? What if we had fun discovering each other in conversation? What if we had fun creatively coming up with solutions to our disagreements and problems?

If single, what if we played a game to collect dates, to not stop asking for phone numbers until we had three yes's? What if it was fun to flirt when out at singles events?

Playing shifts our mood. Playing shifts our stories. Playing opens us to new possibilities. We are less afraid and take more risks when we play. We are more engaged, more present, more fulfilled, more creative, more connected.

Ask questions when you are resisting something or not looking forward to something. What am I thinking about this? Did I choose this thought? What could I think instead? How could I make this more fun?

A woman shared today that she took on a goal to work 1-20 minutes a day cleaning her office. Instead of thinking, "This room is disgusting. It is going to take forever", she now playfully thinks, "Hmmmm…. I wonder what am I going to get to clean today?"

Another woman shared that she is playfully initiating intimacy and sex with her husband after spending a weekend at a dancing event. “I feel sexy. I am shimmying while folding laundry, knowing I am cleaning off the bed for later.”

A man shared how much more fun he is having with his fiancé since he took time to learn how to express himself.

Bring play to your work. Bring play to your chores. Bring play to your dating and relationships. Play in the face of adversity. Play with manifesting miracles. Play with creating new habits. Shimmy while you fold laundry. Play music and sing while driving. Do dance breaks at work. Notice what shifts!!

If you want to have a more enjoyable time improving your relationship, have a serious (:-) look at our Give Yourself To Love workshop ...

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On the heels of our Possibilities Of Sex workshop, we share several aspect of sex and intimacy that got discussed and worked on at the workshop.

Topics such as …

When we stop having sex
If you’re single or have no sexual partner, how is sex even relevant?
Sex becomes boring an predictable over time
How to talk about sex with your partner
Getting triggered around sex
Receiving or rejecting sexual advances
One person wants sex, the other person doesn’t.
Having sex when you’re “not in the mood”
Sexual “love language” — what turns you on and your partner?
What happens to us when we get to enjoy sex, and when we don’t
How to make sex a priority.

Listen to the whole podcast for useful insights and tips on sex and intimacy.

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A comment we receive a lot in our relationship coaching sessions is this: “I don’t want to say anything to him about how I feel because I don’t want him to feel bad or wrong.”

For women, it’s easy to put another’s needs ahead of our own. We are biologically wired to put relationship concerns ahead of our own personal needs. It is how we ensure the kids are taken care of and our husbands are nurtured, so they will love us, take care of us and go “hunt” food for us again day after day.

There is a real fear in the background of our animal brain that if we say or do the wrong thing, he might not love us or hunt for us anymore. From men, we consistently hear that you censor yourself because experience has taught you that emotional uproars are likely to occur when you try to share what’s on your mind. Many men have a deep fear of their partners getting mad at or disappointed with them, so it seems easier to just not say anything.

But there is a very real cost to not saying what we feel and need.

Imagine that you and your partner are looking into each other’s eyes, melting into this beautiful place of oneness, and there is nothing blocking the incredible flow of love between you.

Now imagine that there is something you want to say that you don’t say, and let’s symbolize this something as a brick that is now placed between you. At some point, there is another thing you don’t say, and so another brick is laid. Pretty soon there is another, and another. Everything you don’t say is another brick in the wall being between you and your lover, obscuring your vision and flow of love.

Before long, there is so much that isn’t said between you, that you can barely see each other at all. Instead of having a relationship with your partner, you are now in relationship with all of the things you are not saying

Needless to say, the love you feel gets more and more obscured as well.

Our relationship advice is this: Say it! Don’t hold back! Take the risk to speak your heart. And of course, say it in a way that optimizes your chances of being heard.

One of the best relationship tips we can give is to be transparent, withhold nothing, to say it all. When we share ourselves completely, that is when our light shines brightest. It is when we are real, vulnerable and open that we are the most attractive.

As mentioned above, the reason we tell ourselves for not sharing something, is most often a variation of “I don’t want to hurt my partner”, or “I don’t want to cause a stir”.

In our experience, what this really means is, “I’m scared of what’s going to happen if I say this. I could get in trouble”. It’s often our own fear, more than our concern for our partner, that makes us choose silence. Or perhaps you’ve tried sharing yourself in the past, and based on those experiences, you’re pretty sure your partner is going to feel offended, triggered, or hurt; or that you’re going to end up arguing about something.

We suggest that you don’t take this as evidence that you shouldn’t say something, but instead as evidence that you and your partner need to learn a new way of sharing and listening, or get some qualified help to facilitate the conversation.

Despite the risks you might feel when sharing something that’s on your mind or heart, it is your openness that will call your mate to meet you with openness and presence in return. We’d even say that you must find a way to share yourself, because if you don’t, the wall built between you will eventually negate to your love and connection altogether. So there’s really no other good choice!

Now, there are ways to share and ways to not share. Here are ten tips for sharing:

Set your partner up to listen. Ask him or her to listen without interruption or without trying to fix anything.
Give your partner a time limit. Men in particular will be more present with your sharing if they know it will end in a certain time, say 15 or 20 minutes. Men are not as comfortable with and don’t enjoy long-winded sharing sessions that go on for hours as much as women tend to do.
Let your partner know you want to share something with them. Reassure them that it is not because they did anything wrong. Promise you will not turn your share into a dumping or complaining session. This will help them to relax and hear you better.
Be as vulnerable and real as possible. Share your feelings of anger, hurt, sadness and fear. The more vulnerable you are, the more likely your partner is to meet you with compassion and empathy.
Use I-statements. Avoid You-statements. “I feel scared when you leave the room.” Or “I miss feeling close to you.” Owning your own feelings will minimize defense and inspire listening and interest. (Note, “I feel like you’re an immature jerk” does not qualify as an I-statement:)
Tell the microscopic, unarguable If you say, “You don’t love me”, your partner is going to argue with you about that. But if you say, “I feel scared. I notice that there is a knot in my stomach. I am thinking that you might not love me”, there’s nothing to argue about; it’s simply your internal experience.
Ask directly for what you want. Say, “Would you be willing to ______?” as this engages your partner’s will and inspires a specific response to your question.
Say what you DO want and why you like it, not what you don’t like. “I really like it when ________” is much more useful than, “I hate it when you ________”.
When you’re done with your share, thank your partner for listening. Remember, your partner wants you to be happy and to feel heard, and they want the same for themselves. The more you acknowledge them for listening, the more they will want to listen to you again later.
Get help from a professional if your sharing leads to distance and defense, or if it is too scary to get started. There are many ways in which a coach or therapist can help to create a safe space for sharing difficult things.

The most important thing is to keep practicing sharing your innermost feelings and thoughts every time, and as they arise! The love that flows from regularly and steadily removing bricks is reward enough and will soon raise the bar on the value of sharing everything in your relationship.

And remember, practice makes perfect. It does get easier over time!

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How does your purpose and mission in life go together with your relationships?

This week’s episode is a recorded interview we did for the Power of Purpose Summit hosted by the ManKind Project, an international non-profit supporting men.

As Eric Thomas, the interviewer asks early in the interview: “A lot of times people have a commonly held belief that relationships require some sort of compromise between my individual sense of life purpose and the commitment to my relationship. But it sounds like you view this as both-and? How do relationships support someone's individual purpose?

We go into more depth about this question, and many more that relate to purpose in life.

It’s been evident to us for many years working with singles and couples, that when we get mired down in silly arguments with each other, like arguing over the dishes, or when my thoughts get locked onto how I’m not smart enough, or wealthy enough, or lovable enough, it is often because we simply don’t have anything more important to occupy ourselves with.

When we spend a lot of time arguing about silly stuff, it’s because there’s nothing bigger calling us forward; no bigger purpose for ourselves and for our relationships.

But what if our relationships were in service of something much bigger than ourselves? Bigger than just me and my own needs fulfillment?

What’s YOUR purpose in relationship? Do you have one?

That’s the discussion we’re having on this episode …

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I’m interviewing Veronica Monet, Sexologist, Relationship Coach, and author of Sex Secrets of Escorts: Tips from a Pro, and the upcoming book, How To Say Your No. Veronica is also the founder of The Shame Free Zone (see her full bio and additional resources at the bottom).

As you’ll hear on the podcast, Veronica is uniquely qualified to speak with authority about sexuality, intimacy, porn, shame, and many other sensitive areas of relationships.

There is A LOT of great material about sex in this podcast, way too much to write down in this summery. I had to stop myself asking questions after 45 min, but I could have gone on for hours:)

Please listen to the whole episode for deep, insightful and provocative input about sexuality and intimacy.

A few of the topics you’ll get enlightened about:

When the doctors say there’s nothing wrong with you, but you still aren’t able to or don’t want to have sex
The “Sexual Ghetto” we create around our own sexuality
Why sex is natural and how even in the womb, we experience pleasure, masturbation, and orgasm.
The shame we carry around about our own sexuality
How our genitals don’t lie
Why sex and intimacy end up at the bottom of our priority list.
How couples can keep their sex alive and not settle for scraps
When one partner in a couple wants sex every single day or else …
Why sex is highly relevant for everyone, even if you don’t have a sexual partner
Why we often talk ourselves out of sex
How we rationalize settling for very little when it comes to sex and intimacy
The relationship between sexual intimacy and emotional intimacy … which is more important?
Porn: The use of porn, the effects of porn, “good porn and bad porn”, and how high-speed internet porn can can hurt men’s ability to have erections and orgasm. (Veronica is a fabulous coach around porn. She truly has no judgments about it. She herself was part of the sex industry for many years).
How our “pornofied" culture has removed us from basic truths about sexuality in general, and female sexual responses in particular.
The spiritual, divine side of sexuality.
Why we see more sexually addictive behavior in men
The 5 steps to say powerfully No (From Veronica’s new book, How To Say Your No: Five Simple Steps to Heal the Heart and Soul of Your Relationship)
How we try to perform sex instead of having sexual intimacy
MeToo and a new standard for consent

MORE ABOUT VERONICA MONET:

Veronica Monet, ACS is an internationally acclaimed sexual and spiritual empowerment change agent. CNN, FOX, Politically Incorrect, Yale, Stanford and UC Berkeley are just a few of the numerous news and educational institutions that have hosted Veronica for her forward thinking insights and expertise.

Veronica helps individuals and couples heal shame, align with their spiritual core and live more joyfully. As a Relationship Coach, Sexologist, Anger Specialist and Empath, she combines her extensive education and experience with deep emotional intelligence and compassion. Having personally overcome incest, rape, violence and abuse, she is committed to helping others own their personal and erotic empowerment.

Veronica invites you to join her in The Shame Free Zone™. Here you will discover her game-changing Exquisite Partnership Formula ™, a program designed to turn conflict into connection and sexual intimacy that grows deeper with each passing year.

Find Veronica on theshamefreezone.com

Here’s the fun and educational TED talk Veronica mentioned, “10 things you didn’t know about orgasm” ... click here ...

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I’m interviewing Dave Klaus, who participated in our Relationship Mastery Program with his wife, and whom I originally met through the men’s organization, The ManKind Project. (See Dave’s full bio and website at the bottom).

Dave is a very interesting person, a Renaissance Man from San Francisco. He's a devoted husband, a father of two amazing young adults. He’s been a Public Defender for twenty years in Oakland, he’s a musician and a poet, as well as a martial artist and ordained Zen priest, to name a few of his many skills and talents.

Like many others, what inspired Dave to seek out men’s work and relationship work was being miserable, to put it very briefly. Suffering inside himself and in his marriage eventually brought him to reach out for support, first in the form of men’s circles.

He discovered along the path that evolution is not a steady climb, more like a painful rollercoaster, where change and openings are preceded by contractions, and then finally integration.

One of his biggest learnings is being able to relax even when he or someone around him gets triggered.

A simple, everyday example: He’s working in the kitchen, his wife comes to join to help him. But she’s not doing it in the way he’s used to doing it, so he feels the tension building, the triggered reaction happening.

One of the best tools he and his wife learned at LoveWorks is the Do-Over, where you literally re-do a situation that didn’t turn out the way you wanted it turn out. It’s a conceptually simple method, but not always so simple to pull off on the spot.

As Dave says about the kitchen example, it’s about who’s willing to soften first, to deescalate first. As Sonika & I sometimes say, either person in a relationship can be the first one to soften and open and break the stalemate, and we have this game where we say, “First person to open wins”.

Dave shares how at the first workshop he and Alycia did with us, Give Yourself To Love, they experienced a big “melting”. He said, “we had developed a certain iciness and coldness between us”.

This is a good way to describe what often happens to couples when over time. You often turn into business partners who just talk about logistics, child calendars, who-does-what’s and so on. And you can probably relate from your own experience what he means by, “a certain iciness and coldness had developed between us”.

Even in his as a Public Defender, dealing with defendants, prosecutors, and judges, he says, “it’s all about relationships”. Even in a legal business environment, relationship tools like the Do-Over are highly useful.

Dave talks about how being a man of accountability has been a crucial piece in his development as a man, husband, and father. Especially being a father of two teenagers, who, in his words, have a huge “hypocrisy meter”. They sniff out when we parents are not walking our talk.

On the flip side, when we as parents do act with accountability, when we demonstrate listening and honoring others, when we do Do-Overs after mess-up’s, it’s like a “virtuous virus”, it gets passed on to our kids.

Listen to the whole podcast for more great conversation, incl. Dave’s final wisdom about the two biggest things that make a marriage lasting and alive. Powerful wisdom.

You can find Dave’s poetry and writings on his website at daveklaus.net

DAVE’S LONG BIO:

Dave Klaus, Flow Coach

I have always been a seeker, eager to try new adventures in a quest to figure things out, but it wasn’t until I stopped looking outside of myself for answers that I discovered my life’s purpose.

After an All-American high school swimming career, I attended Dartmouth College and Michigan Law School, and then devoted my career to serving the underdog as a Public Defender in Oakland where I have been representing poor people accused of serious crimes since 1996.

Along the way, I earned a 2nd degree black belt in jujutsu, learned to lead in partner dance, climbed mountains, and have spent many years at Burning Man, where I discovered that I was an artist and a community leader.

As I turned forty, it seemed like I had everything, a career, a wonderful wife, two awesome kids, a house in San Francisco, and a loving community, but when my body suddenly began to fall apart, so did my self-identity. At the same time I started having disabling back issues, I learned that I also have a degenerative lung condition due to a rare genetic disorder.

I felt a huge sense of grief and loss and unfairness,, and dove right into a mid-life crisis. I wallowed in distraction, substance abuse, and depression, and nearly lost everything, until in desperation I began doing Men’s Work with the ManKind Project.

By looking deep inside at my shadow beliefs and my unconscious patterns and habits, I turned it around and committed to living a life of integrity, accountability, emotional vulnerability, and radical authenticity.

Simply put, I learned how to show up in the present moment and share my gold and serve my mission: to serve wonder by resting in presence, unconditional acceptance, and loving attention. This led me to become a Zen priest-in-training, with a daily meditation and qi gung practice.

As a Coach I empower my clients to find their way to a path of clarity, flexibility, open-hearted connection, and flow in every moment. In partnership, we set visionary goals, and then tackle the resistance that arises with compassion and skillful means. Together, we chart a new path into the present moment, where all the magic of life happens.

I am also a writer and poet and you can read my stuff at www.daveklaus.net.

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"Everything you want is outside of your comfort zone!"

Where do you stop yourself because of your fear? In what ways do you stay safe and comfortable instead of venturing out towards what you really want? This episode is part of the preparation for our Fearless Life workshop, first weekend of March. More on that workshop here ...

As per usual, the full podcast has a lot more detail than the written summary here, so listen to the full episode.

Almost always what keeps us from stepping out and taking risks is our fear of failure. We are scared of things not turning out well. We make up a story that the outcome will be bad in the end, and we feel so uncomfortable at the mere thought of doing something new that we stop before we start.

But everything we want is outside of our comfort zone!

That experience of aliveness, exhilaration, expansion and passion that we all long for, comes first from a willingness to be physically uncomfortable as you step into new territory, and to take action no matter how scary it might seem. Over and over, Christian and I watch people in our trainings navigate through discomfort only to discover massive transformation, deep love and bliss on the other side.

Certainly one of the side benefits of taking risks, is that we often discover that our fears are way worse than reality. Even if we do happen to fail, we find that we can learn from our mistakes and grow ourselves to be more competent and powerful than before.

I have developed a working relationship with fear over the years, by taking fear with me into new experiences – some of which were terrifying for me.

I have jumped out of an airplane, gone spelunking in underground caverns, parasailed at 200 feet, crossed rickety bridges and zip-lined over deep canyons, hurled myself through the air on ropes courses I don’t remember the names of, and rafted down white-water rapids in California and Wyoming. I worked in Yosemite as a national park laborer for three summers, bravely handling a chainsaw my first year. I walked on coals twice, led workshops in the nude, and was a guest speaker at numerous conferences.

I led sexuality classes in college as a student teacher where I passed around sex toys to middle-aged women who didn’t know whether to giggle or throw up. I have subbed for ministers on Sundays delivering inspirational sermons that made people cry. I have been married and divorced more than once. I traveled to Mexico by myself when I was 18. I have designed and facilitated relationship trainings for over 38 years – in Michigan, Canada and California, and even on cruise ships to Mexico.

I have had my failures over the years. I have had my voice crack in the middle of singing a song to a crowd. I have bombed miserably in front of hundreds from a joke gone bad or one of those terrifying blank-outs when I couldn’t for the life of me remember what I was going to say. And I have had two people show up to what was supposed to be a large speaking gig. Imagine the hollow sound of their two-person applause!

These “failures” have taught me a lot about fear and life, and about humility and humor. I have learned that all failures and mess-ups diminish and heal over time. There is almost nothing that can’t be repaired, forgiven or learned from. When we use failures and mistakes as learning opportunities, we can never really “fail”.

We know a man who literally passed out from anxiety and stage fright at the first workshop he was leading. It turned out that his fainting created immense vulnerability, connection and love between him, his wife and the workshop participants. As a result, it substantially changed his relationship with fear. Why? Because, when the worst thing happens – and you’re still ok – you don’t have to worry about the worst thing happening ever again.

More importantly, I have discovered through my many mess-ups, that no one cares!People are so afraid of failure themselves, that they actually aren’t judging you as much as you think they are. In fact, they love it when you mess up and laugh at yourself. It gives them permission to take risks and make mistakes too! I have learned to laugh out loud at myself if things don’t go as planned.

Oh, I still get scared. Two years ago, I participated in a Dancing With Our Stars event in Nevada City, where I performed two dances with a sore hip, two weeks before my 60th birthday, in front of some 700 people. I was afraid off and on about that dance competition. One day I was so afraid that I burst into tears with my hairdresser. But it didn’t stop me. On the actual evening of the event, I simply took my fear with me for a twirl out on the dance floor! I was proud of how well we danced, at how low to the floor I got on some of our moves, and how I remembered all of the steps! And when I messed up at the start of one dance, and when we didn’t win anything at the end, I laughed and appreciated the heck out of myself for risking stepping out on the edge of life yet again!

My favorite motto came to mind, “Trust, Risk and Keep a Sense of Humor!”

Taking action in spite of fear is a skill to develop. Befriending and even enjoying your fear is one of those skills that will serve you for life, and save you from a lifetime of agony. It takes practice!

If you would like to take a dynamic look at your relationship with fear, and step out beyond your comfort zone so that you can milk this life for all it has to offer, you are invited to attend Fearless Life, Fearless Love. Discover and create a new relationship to fear so that you are never stopped again from doing what your heart longs for!

Click here to check out the Fearless Life workshop …

Here’s to trusting, risking, and keeping a sense of humor!

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I’m talking to Brian Lewis, MFT.

Brian is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Registered Art Therapist specializing in teen, individual, couples, and family psychotherapy. He has a private practice in Auburn and Roseville in Northern California. He is also a husband and father of two teenagers. Brian works with adults and teens, and focuses on creating relationships based on truth and trust. Find him at http://www.brianlewistherapy.com.

Brian says, “Therapy is a process of unhooking the pieces of your soul that got snagged on the jagged points of your traumatic past and brining them back together into your current-self consciousness”.

There’s a difference in how we feel internally, and how we present to the world. For instance, Brian discovered in his training to become a therapist who uses art as a healing method, as he says, “I’m a pretty mellow guy but all these angry paintings came out of me”.

When it comes to trauma, there is only so much you can do by talking about it. Often, there is no verbal or logical memory or access point to why something that triggered you today originally got created when you were much younger.

Brian walks us through the central developmental phases of growing up from childhood to adulthood, and how it we get “pieces of our souls snagged on the jagged points of life”.

We talk about the dangers of self-diagnosing phycological disorders, or even more tricky, trying to diagnose your partner, and why you can’t be your partner’s “therapist”. Today, when you google some type of disorder and read through the symptoms, it can easily appear as though you, your partner or child, is suffering from that disorder. But it’s not that simple.

Brian shares his Whole Self Counseling Approach where you self-examine the 4 quadrants of yourself, The Intellectual Self, the Physical Self, the Emotional Self, and the Spiritual Self, and he gives simple tips for how you can begin to create real change for yourself, in your life, and in your relationships.

Often, when we are in pain today, or riddled with anxiety or stress, we have a big wound in our Emotional Self. In every wound there is pain, power, and potential, and much too often, we get stuck in the pain portion. Brian shares his process for how to shift attention and energy away from the pain-points to the power and potential instead.

Plus, we talk about how this all relates to our personal relationships.

Listen to the podcast for the full content.

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Dr. Robert Glover is the world renowned, best selling author of the seminal book, No More Mr. Nice Guy. His website, drglover.com, features numerous online self-help courses, workshops, podcasts, groups, and trained coaches and therapists. Dr. Glover lives in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

The premise for No More Mr. Nice Guys, or the “Nice Guy Paradigm”, as Dr. Glover calls it, states that Nice Guys believe that if they are good and do everything right and hide their flaws, they will be loved, get their needs met, and have a problem free life.

Dr. Glover explains how this pervasive and ultimately self-limiting myth arises in men. Inside this statement are three covert contracts:

1) If I’m a good guy, I’ll be liked and loved, which includes women will like me and want to be in relationship with me.

2) If I meet other people’s needs without them asking, they’ll meet mine without having to ask.

3) If I do everything right, I’ll have smooth life and a problem-free world.

All manner of problems arise from these “covert contracts”.

We talk about what creates a Nice Guy, how Nice Guys get in trouble trying to get their needs met, and how often, their behaviors serve to make sure they don’t get what they need, and even push their partners away.

Nice Guys are notorious pleasers and are hell-bent on not being jerks or abusing their power. But as you’ll hear in the podcast, just because a Nice Guy appears to be nice and mellow all the time, doesn’t mean he’s extinguished his masculine power or his sexual drive. They’ve just been forced “underground” and now needs to come out some other way.

So how does a nice guy avoid being a doormat, but also not go over to being a jerk?

And what can partners of Nice Guys do to support themselves and their man?

Listen to the podcast for lots of powerful insights from a true pioneer in men's work!

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On this episode, I'm interviewing Jonathan Robinson.

Robinson is a psychotherapist and author of 12 books. He has been a frequent guest on Oprah, CNN, and the Today Show. Jonathan is also a professional speaker and life coach. He focuses on practical methods for creating better communication and more love in life. His website is MoreLoveLessConflict.com and his latest book is also called More Love Less Conflict. Also check out his podcast, Awareness Explorers.

For 30 years, Jonathan has been creating, teaching, and writing about quick and effective ways to have more love and happiness and less conflict and arguing.

As he says, “I don’t like to read, and I want fast results” … hence, he’s a “hacker” when it comes to distilling information down to methods that can be done in one or two minutes, whether it’s for restoring love with your spouse or finding more peace and calm inside yourself.

We talk about the biggest mistakes couples make, and what happens that turns a loving, passionate relationship into one where arguments and conflicts are the norm.

Jonathan shares his best wisdom after having talked to luminaries like the Dali Lama or Mother Teresa, or that time he travelled 18,000 miles to India because he’d heard there was a wise man there who knew the best mantra in the world to produce happiness and peace (the answer will definitely surprise you and probably put a grin on your face — it did for me:)

We talk about the most important thing Jonathan has learned from 30 years of study and teaching, which is relevant for individuals and couples as well as the current political climate.

Listen to the whole episode for a fun and useful conversation about love, relationships, inner peace, and spirituality.

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In previous episodes I’ve talked about how men use or lose their power in relationship, so if you’re interested in this topic, go check those out as well.

In one of those episodes I opened with the question to men: Do you feel you have power in your relationship?

To partners of men: Do you think he feels that he has power in the relationship? Do you think that he gets to feel like a powerful man in your relationship?

In those previous episodes I’ve given advice to both men and to the partners of men, for how feel more powerful in relationship.

In this episode, I want to add a few distinctions to this conversation.

So when we talk about “being powerful” of “feeling powerful” what does that mean?

A short definition is, the ability to confidently and openly communicate what they want and need, and to remain emotionally present with what is happening with loved ones.

In a relationship, that means you feel safe and confident to share what’s really on your mind. You feel ok to be open about what you want and need. It means you can stay present in the face of your own or others emotions and communications. And it means you can be honest; that you can say yes when you mean yes, or no when you mean no.

When men don’t feel powerful in themselves, they tend to do one of two things: The become "doormats" or "dicks".

I know that might be a bit crass, but it’s useful, because everyone immediately understands what it means.

No one wants to be a dick. No one wants to be a doormat.

No one wants their partner to be a dick, or a doormat.

There’s a whole host of undesirable side-effects of being a dick or a doormat.

These two extremes represent an underuse of masculine power and an overuse of masculine power, respectively.

A man in “doormat” mode is hesitant, insecure, and has a hard time speaking up for himself and asking directly for what he wants and needs. He’s the classic people pleaser, the “nice guy”, or SNAG (sensitive new age guy).

Behaviors you’ll see from a “doormat man” who’s under-using his power are things like …

Being a yes-man (heard many times at my men’s retreat)
Saying “sure” but then turning away seething
Not displaying any strong emotions, other then being generally ok, fine, and happy
Trying to get what he wants in indirect or underhanded manners. Like trying to get some quality time or attention by saying, “well, you don’t care what we do as long as you have your netflix series”
Trying to predict what others want and give it to them before they even ask
Lots of resentment
Being wishy-washy in decision-making (“whatever you want is fine”) and in asking for something, like sex.
Feeling victimized and “woe is me”
Gauging their value as men on everyone else’s mood (when they’re happy with me, I’m good)

On this other end of the spectrum, men who overuse their powers will display behaviors like …. - Lots of anger. - Yelling - Bossing around, barking orders - Impatient and not allowing space for others - Using too much aggression, manipulation, or coercion to get what he wants. - Coming in “hot”, with too much energy and intensity. - Scaring others.

Men on both extremes on this “dick-doormat” spectrum feel bad about themselves, and tend to have lots of regrets about the things they did or didn’t do.

And because both types of behavior is fueled by underlying beliefs such as…. - I’ll never get what I want - I can’t win - I’m unworthy - I’m not lovable - I’ll never be enough - I’m not respected

Men who act like this feel bad about themselves. And both the "doormat" behaviors and the “dick” behaviors are only attempts to get some internal need met, like feeling loved or relaxed.

So if you’re a man who knows you either are way too much of a "doormat", or you find yourself being a "dick", that’s your sign that it’s time for some serious looking in the mirror and time to get support in some way. Good news is there are lots of ways to get support. Find a local men’s circle. I’ve been sitting in a men’s circle through the non-profit MKP for over ten years. Every week or other week for over ten years, I get together with other men in my area and we help each other out; we talk; we look in the mirror, and we get support to find better way of being a man, that’s not being a doormat, and not being a dick.

There are lots of good books out there, a classic that comes to mind is No More Mr. Nice Guy by Robert Glover.

You can call a coach, someone like me who has experience working with men around these issues.

And finally, talk to your partner, if you’re in relationship. You have to dare to show yourself, in your fear and sadness, as well as your power and confidence.

The power you have as a man; that ferocious force that lives in you; literally a force of nature; is there for a reason; it’s there to be used to accomplish things; to break through barriers, to help you move forward in the face of fear; to protect, and much more.

When men turn either "doormats" or "dicks", it’s because they’ve been trained to do so, or have watched others do it before them. And when their behaviors begin to cause harm to other people around them, it’s because they’ve lost access to their own hearts. Because when your heart is open, you tend to be attuned to how others feel around you. And when you’re attuned to how others feel, you’ll be more aware of how your own behaviors impact others. You’ll begin to know if you’re scaring your kids; or your partner closes off to you (Not to say that’s exclusively your responsibility).

So a big part of the work to explore your own power should include exploring your heart and your love and your feelings. It’s by being in touch with how you feel and how others feel that you can trust your power to be used for good, to uplift yourself and others, to protect yourself and others.

This collaboration of a man’s power and his heart is so crucial I made it the title of my men’s retreat - Power And Heart.

If you’re the partner or family member of a man who you see being too much of a doormat or too much of a dick, do your best to give him the benefit of the doubt, knowing that his behavior is his own attempt to get love and respect. Then practice your own version of power and heart by talking to the man and tell him how you feel when you see his behavior. And that is just the very beginning of a conversation, of a work in progress.

Just remember, when we close our hearts off, when we’re no longer present to how we and others around us feel, that’s when we can do harm without even noticing.

For more practical tips for what a man or his partner can do, listen to the 2-part episode called How Men Use Or Lose Power In Relationship.

So go observe yourself. My advice would be don’t be a dick — and don’t be a doormat either. Find a way to be a man beyond those extremes.

Reach out to me if you need support or coaching: christian@loveworksforyou.com

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Do you feel seen? Do you feel seen in your relationship? Do you feel that people around you see your value and your contribution? Do you feel seen for who you really are, and for how hard you try to do well and be a good person? Do you feel your partner sees you and appreciates everything you do to make him or her happy?

For way too many people, the answer to those questions is No.

Feeling seen is feeling (not just a visual). It's akin to feeling ...

Heard
Known
Understood
Gotten
Appreciated
Validated
Received
Accepted
That you belong
Connected

In a Psychology Today article titled, Feeling Understood Is Even More Important Than Feeling Loved,Leon Seltzer, PhD, says, “Not feeling that others really know us can leave us feeling hopelessly estranged from the rest of humanity. It may well be that feeling understood is a prerequisite for our other desires to be satisfyingly fulfilled.”

When you don't feel seen, you might feel ...

Invisible
Isolated
Alone
Disconnected
Like you don't belong
That your existence is meaningless

Which is extremely common in today's society. Just talk to young adults going through high school. Many of them will report (we know many who do) that they feel like no one notices them, or even cares if they show up or not.

Feeling seen is a human need, right up there with food, water, and shelter. Ok, you might not physically die if you don’t feel seen, but you’ll begin to die inside. It’s a need that has to be fulfilled for us to function effectively in the world, and certainly for us to feel safe, loved, cared for.

However, most of us don’t openly acknowledge that we have this need to feel seen. So we put ourselves in a catch 22. I have a need, but I can’t openly get it satisfied.

So we try to get it taken care of in subversive manners. We might do things like ...

Keep fighting to be seen
Argue, yell, pull, nag, insists, until the other person sees your point
Hold on to grudges
Withdraw and go silent
Act out and do “stupid stuff”
Use addictions to fill the empty unseen hole in your heart
Have emotional or sexual affairs

But all these ways of being seen have significant “side-effects”, they create their own secondary problems, which now need to be dealt with, and typically further worsens your feeling of not being seen.

So how do you get seen and help others be seen?

How you can help yourself be seen:

Look for where appreciation IS
- I felt seen by Sonika when she brought me tea yesterday, and I thanked her for it.
- Thank the people around you for when they do notice you.
Ask directly for being seen and validated. You might say, “Would you be willing to tell me three things you appreciate about me?” Or, "Would you tell me how you see I contribute to our family?"
Provide what’s missing - help others feel seen
- Appreciate others. Speak what you like about your partner, kids, or friends.
- For example, one year our son wrote a letter to Sonika with all the things he appreciated about her and growing up in our family.

How you can help someone else be seen (which in turn helps YOU to feel seen too):

Make eye contact
Ask questions, be curious and interested about them.
Receive their bids for connection
- When your partner says, "Did you see this cool thing on Facebook", it's a bid for your attention. Join with them for a short while. Say, "Yeah, that's really cool".
- Sonika asked me to remove a piece of tape high on the wall she couldn't reach. It's a bid for connection. I removed the tape, and she felt seen and supported.
- Touch each other. Hold hands. Hug. Kiss.
- Take a moment to really connect with your partner or kids when you come from work.
Listen with undivided attention
And there are many more ways to do it ...

In the 2004 movie, Shall We Dance, Susan Sarandon’s character asks a man played by Richard Jenkins, “Why is it that we get married?” He says, “Passion!” To which she replies, “No, it’s because we need a witness to our lives. There’s billions of people on the planet, what does one individual life really mean. In a marriage, you’re saying, ‘Your life will not go unnoticed”

In being witnessed, our lives become real. Our existence is confirmed. Contrast that to when we feel no one would even notice if we were gone, it’s as if we don’t exist.

Here’s to you feeling seen, and helping others to feel seen!

For a great uplifting story about being seen and validated, watch the short film, Validation, here ...

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This is Part 2/2 of How Men Use Or Lose Power In Relationship

The men’s retreat I mention in the podcast can be found here (note: there’s an early-reg deal happening right now): https://loveworksforyou.com/mens-retreat-jan-2020

What a man’s partners can do to help him

Offer general appreciations and affirmations of him being a good man

So many men (and all people) were coded to believe they are a piece of shit. It still stings. It’s still active. Just at our last workshop, a man came up me after an exercise where show our students how to be truly seen for their goodness. He said, “That’s the first time in my life I really felt seen. My folks always told me I was a piece of shit and wound’t amount to anything, and I’ve believed that ever since. 2. Witness his anger and don’t take it personally.

Anger is a central feeling for most men (whether they express it outwardly or not). For many men, anger is the only “acceptable” feeling other than happy. Anger is a “top-layer” feeling in that it often is the first feeling a man is aware of, even if he’s actually feeling more sad or afraid. Anger is on top of sadness, fear or shame, and if you as his partner shies away from his anger, or worse, condemns and criticizes it, he’ll never get to the deeper feelings underneath.

We recently chatted with a couple in our Mastery Program, and the wife, Carol, shared that just a week before, she had successfully been present with, or witnessed, her husband’s anger. And the results were profound. She said for the first time, they both went right through the anger to resolution, and it was done, just like that. In the past that would have resulted in days or weeks of disconnection, or they simply wouldn’t talk about it.

For the record, being present with his anger of course doesn’t mean you have to take a vicious dumping or verbal or physical abuse. 3. Allow time for processing emotion

Not everyone can eloquently articulate their feelings in real-time. Just like not everyone can’t immediately read and understand the manual for their new computer. To women, it’s sometimes baffling how anyone would have difficulties knowing how they feel or communicating how they feel, because to most women, it’s as natural as speaking their native tongue. For a lot men - myself included - that language of emotion is a foreign language that has to be learned and practiced.

So you as his partner can help him out by honoring that it might take him longer to figure out how he feels, and to talk about it. A man on Facebook shared this: “As a protector and provider, for me to relax and be in intimate space requires me to trust that everyone is safe and I have enough time to get out of my armor. If I am criticized for the length of time that takes it will never happen.” 4. Allow time and silence to be a valid reset strategy.

Just like it’s important and effective to use conversation to get back into harmony, so is silence and space. In the world of intimate relationships, it’s often assumed that more talking is better. More communication is better than less communication. Whereas effective and loving communication is definitely a must, that doesn’t mean that silence and space can’t be valuable strategies. In fact, for many men, silence and space are much easier and more effective strategies for “resetting” themselves back to harmony, than any number of conversations will ever be.

So honor that his natural way of dealing with stress and conflicts are also valuable, and try them out sometimes 5. Give points for effort

As mentioned in #1 above, many men have an internal conversation (often in the stern voice of their fathers) that tells them they’re no good, and that they can never do it right. Because of this, men are sometimes reticent to even trying, and criticism lands really hard on them. So when you give points for effort, it helps your man tremendously to keep up the good work, to keep trying, to not back off and check out. If in your opinion, there are ten issues in your marriage that needs improvement, and he’s making some effort on one of them, give points for that effort before moving on the the other nine. Say, “I really see you making an effort here, thanks so much for giving it a shot, that makes me feel good”, or the likes. 6. Fill yourself up.

Don’t count on your man to be the only social support structure, or your only conversational partner. In modern marriages/relationships, we sometimes expect our partners to provide all of our needs, for conversation, for company, for affection, for intimacy, for sex, for fun, adventure, you name it. No one person can provide all that all the time. And it’s highly likely you’ll want to talk a whole lot more than him. So make sure you also have other quality people in your life to fill some of your needs.

Veronica said this on Facebook: “When I would simply want an ear, Eric used to try to "fix" and I'd get frustrated because he wasn't listening. He soon learned to say, "Call your mother" which was actually a good idea. In time he totally learned to listen (and tune out when necessary... LOL).” 7. Give the guy a break - take his stance at face value and honor it.

Here’s a classic example: Next time your man says, “It’s not a big deal - it’s not worth making a discussion out of; let’s just move on”, try accepting his sentiment and actually drop it and move on. That doesn’t mean you never get to talk again, or that you should let big conflicts go unresolved. But just like you his partner, have a perfectly legitimate desire, or demand, that he engage in discussions you feel are important; it’s also a valid point to sometimes not have a discussion about something.

Many men have a fabulous ability to let stuff go once they “sleep on it”. Even if they were really angry or withdrawn about something, give them a few hours or a good night’s sleep, and they’ll genuinely let upsets go. That’s a great ability. Sonika often talks about how she learned to let upsets go in her youth, and how much it’s served her ever since. Try it.

Also in this podcast, I share some more questions and comments from listeners. Check out the podcast for full details.

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Here's the quick summary, but remember to listen to the podcast for the full content.

“Men, you have the power to make or break a relationship … Research shows that what men do in a relationship is, by a large margin, the crucial factor that separates a great relationship from a failed one …. The data proves that a man’s actions are the key variable that determines whether a relationship succeeds or fails”. Said Dr. John Gottman, et al, in the book A Man’s Guide To Women.

That’s worth repeating: Men have the power to make or break a relationship.

I’m gearing up for a small private retreat for men called Power and Heart, where men get to explore how to express their masculine power in their relationships and lives. Where men get to discover what their personal version of being powerful looks like. Not what society, or Hollywood, or their partner say they should be. More info here …

In preparing for this retreat, I’m talking to men and women about what it means for a man to show up powerfully in relationship, about what happens when he does, and what happens when he doesn’t.

Because we have seen thousands of men and women, couples and individuals, both in individual coaching and the workshops we lead - We being Sonika and myself - we have a lot of insight into men’s relationships; insight about what works well, what doesn’t work, and what can be done differently to make things better.

My intention with this podcast episode it to support my fellow brothers to have an experience of being powerful and confident and open, in their lives in general, and in their intimate relationships in particular. It’s also my intention that this episode helps those who are in relationship with men, wives, girlfriends, husbands, partners or others, to better understand why their men do what they do, and how they can more loving, satisfying relationships with the men in their lives.

Even though we are all unique humans beings, based on my experience there are near-universal complaints from partners about their men, and there are near-universal complaints men have about their partners.

The #1 complaint about men: He’s not there for me, I don’t feel safe, I can’t trust him.

The #1 complaint from men: It doesn’t matter what I do, I can’t win. She’s never happy

A man told me, “I feel like a second rate citizen in my house” . Ouch. That should never be the case.

He was a classic Mr Nice Guy, works hard, provides, works some more, gets a promotion to keep up with the increasing costs of the good life he wants his wife and kids to enjoy: but somehow, his wife never feels he gives anything. And he just keeps accommodating, trying to provide more and work harder.

That’s one common example of a man working really hard, but somehow not being in his power and achieving the success in his marriage that he’s striving for.

There are many ways we might define power and being a powerful man.

A recent definition I heard states that a man who owns his shadow as well as his gifts; a man who is accountable for his actions, and a man who keeps his agreements and promises; that is a man in his power.

When it comes to relationships, there are certain qualities a powerful man has:

Be present with what is happening in the moment
Be honest and open about what you want and need
Having the courage and the skill to create what you want together with your partner
Know and Express the full range of your emotional life
Owns his radiance. Embodies sexuality. Has fire in the belly.

A powerful man holds certain beliefs as well (or some version of these):

My wants and needs are ok
I’m going to get what I want (not at anyone’s expense)
I’m worth being loved
My masculine force, including my sex drive, are natural and good

Some of the ways you as a man can watch for losing your power in relationship. These “symptoms” always create trouble for you and/or your partner:

You hate it when your wife/girlfriend/partner gets upset and emotional about something. Especially when it's about you or something you did. When that happens, you just want to get the hell out of there, or make it stop.
You don't dare share your vulnerability, your fears, and your insecurities.
You say Yes when you mean No, or No when you really wanted to say Yes. In other words, you "bend" too much away from your own knowing of what is right and true.
You simply avoid engaging with her about emotional or triggering stuff. You don't talk, you check out, you find reasons to be elsewhere, you stay busy with work or projects.
You feel you can't speak your truth. You can't say what's REALLY on your mind. You don't want to hurt her and cause another stir, so you keep it to yourself.
You're afraid of her anger ... or your own.
1. Man who said, “Gimme a band of robbers anytime. But when my 5-ft-1 wife gets mad, I run”
Try to dominate her with logic and reason; making her arguments less valid.
Wimp out, fold, bend, “under the slippers”. Resign to your “fate”

Some of what you as a man can do to be grounded in your power and get what you want.

Own your wants and needs, and speak them. Dare to go directly for what you want. Don’t second guess your desires, thinking stuff like, “Naa, it’s not that important, I’ll get by, never mind”, when in actuality it’s important to you.
Know and communicate how you feel. Get to know you own emotional landscape, and tell your partner how you feel about … anything, really.
Stay present and engaged, even when things get emotionally heated or intense. Don’t check out - don’t back off. Remain open even the face of ferocious feelings and outbursts, your partner’s or your own. (Shutting down in the face of emotions is a prime way to destroy intimacy).
Take space consciously and powerfully. It’s ok to need space or silence. You don’t need to come up with important reasons/excuses, or make up stories (“I really HAVE TO finish this project so I have to go my office”) in order to take space. Simply do it, but consciously. Communicate what you’re doing.
Be willing to take an interest in stuff that isn’t your highest priority. More details on the podcast.
Make connection a priority. It may or may not be on your priority list, but 9 times of out 10, it’s in your partner’s top 2! Take time to connect, in words, touch, activities, shared spaces.
Keep your promises. Integrity. Trustworthiness is the #1 quality women want in a man (according to Dr. Gottman’s research, quoted above). Heck, it’s the #1 quality I want in my male friends. And when you don’t keep your word, you create distrust in yourself; you lose trust in your own word, hence in your own power.
Connect your heart to your sex. This a development which more than anything grounds a man in his power. Power is not just physical prowess, but access to your love, your heart. When you connect your love and your sex, then truly magical stuff happens in your for yourself, your partner, and your relationship.

Turned out this episode has so much material I decided to make this episode Part 1 of 2. I will complete in Part 2, with more details about what a man’s partner can do to help him ground in his power and create more satisfying relationships.

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For this episode, we have a present for you:

The material Sonika's talking about has been turned into an E-book which includes the 100 questions for intimacy-creating conversations that she mentions.

Simply go download the ebook and you'll have it forever. It's free (and we do ask you for your email address to get the ebook).

Download the ebook here: loveworksforyou.com/100-questions

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When couples or family members experience conflict, it is easy to rush into generalities.

"You never help me around the house! I always have to do everything myself!" “We never have sex anymore. I am tired of being in relationship with someone who doesn’t value intimacy and sex.” “You never take responsibility for your side of the street. You blame me for everything!” “I am sick of being the only one who initiates working on the relationship. I want to be with someone who actually wants make things better!” “You are such a hypocrite!”

It is almost automatic to generalize when we feel triggered, hurt or angry. Unfortunately, there are many problems with this habit that prevent us from resolving our conflicts and coming back to love and harmony with our partners and loved ones.

When something happens that we don’t want, e.g. when someone doesn’t keep an agreement or says ‘no’ to a request or need, our mind gets instantly flooded with past memories of times when we felt similarly. Old beliefs of not being lovable or deserving bubble up from the deep and we find ourselves awash in a bleak sea of negativity. Our unhappiness and dissatisfaction skews our current world-view, and suddenly our entire relationship sucks and has always sucked. We begin to see disheartening and frightening patterns.

We can’t help but share our newfound thinking, the connections we are making between what is happening now and what has happened in the past. We might focus solely on the person we are in conflict with and where that person has always been the same (“You have never helped around the house!”), or we might broaden our connections to include previous partners (“All three of my husbands never wanted to help around the house”), or we might even go all the way back to our childhood (“My dad never helped around the house either! I can’t believe I have created the same exact pattern with you!”)

We typically share these “insights” in the middle of being upset or triggered, which is not particularly helpful, to put it diplomatically. The problem with bringing up the past is that you are no longer dealing with a specific breakdown or problem, no longer focused on the one problem that is presenting itself at the moment. Your focus shifts away from productive solution discovery, away from actions and steps that will help you resolve the conflict and get what you want. Instead, you spiral downwards, into what some call “circling the drain”.

Generalizing and bringing up the past also reinforces your sense of powerlessness. When you generalize, you effectively blow your problem up to unfixable proportions. You add weight to negative stories you have about yourself and others. Once you get lost in these general loops of negativity and complaint, you will likely feel more and more powerless and victimized, because all of the evidence you gather from past similar experiences essentially prove the unworkability of your current situation.

Not only do you feel powerless, but your partner feels powerless too. When your partner feels negatively characterized, pigeonholed, or blamed, they will naturally resist your view and defend themselves and their actions. When they hear your negatively biased view of them or the past, they will want to correct your perception by blasting you with evidence to the contrary, proving their side of the story. They will be reluctant to hear you and your concerns, and will likewise be uninspired to work with you to create win/win solutions to the presenting issue. This is the recipe for pointless arguing.

What to do instead?

Stay away from lumping whatever you are experiencing now with similar instances from the past. Keep your focus on the specific issue, problem or breakdown at hand, and work it all the way through to completion. Resolution and changes occur when you break things down to specifics - to specific steps - to something you can do or say or think differently right NOW.

You can start a conversation by saying …

“When __ (specific instance) happened, I felt ______. What I made that mean is ______ What I want is ________ What I’m willing to do to that end is_________ What I’d like from you is _______ Would you be wiling to do that?"

As an example … “When you sat at the dinner table while I cleared the dishes, I felt mad and hurt. What I made that mean is that you don’t care about me, that I have to do everything myself, and that you’re above working in the kitchen. What I really want is help to clean up after dinner. I want us to work together to clean up. What I’m willing to do to that end is make a calm request and hear you side of the story. What I’d like from you is help to clear the table and do the dishes. Would you be willing to do that?”

Granted, there are a myriad variations depending on the specific situation, but hopefully you can see from the example that you are only talking about one specific instance, not bringing up the past or making sweeping generalizations.

This kind of communication has a much better shot at a positive result than, “You never help around here! My dad was just like that! I always have to do everything myself!”

Beware of your mind’s tendency to look for generalities and patterns when you’re feeling triggered. Reaction = Re-Action, meaning we are re-enacting an old story from times past. Which is just to say, that whenever you are upset, i.e. “in reaction”, you ARE in the past! You aren't in the present moment!

By using the example above, you help yourself to stay in the present moment, and you help yourself work an issue all the way through to a workable solution. Try it. And if by chance you do see patterns, or if resentments and hurts from the past do come up that need to be discussed, healed, or released, talk about those separately at a different time, one at a time, until they are worked through all the way to completion.

Use your awareness to powerfully generate specific action steps you can take NOW to create change. And don’t hesitate to get support from a professional if they feel too big to resolve on your own. While there are several more actions you can take to work problems through all the way to completion, keeping your focus on the specific problem at hand, avoiding generalizations and not talking about the past will go far to help you resolve conflicts.

Lastly, if you want a chance to work out actual conflicts with support, learn cutting edge tools, and gain a totally different view and skill set around conflict resolution, check out our Gift Of Conflict workshop, Nov 10-11, in Auburn, CA. This is an advanced workshop and normally for members only, but when space allows, we open up a few seats to the public. Contact us right away if you are interested.

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Am I in the right relationship? Is my marriage worth fighting for? Are we ever going to be in love again? I love my partner, but I don’t feel that feeling anymore. I love my partner, but our sex is lacking. I love my partner but I’m not IN love.

So … should I stay I should I go? Should we split up or stay together?

This dilemma haunts a good many people, in long-term marriages as well as brand-new or budding relationships. It’s genuinely unsettling when you don’t feel secure about the future of your relationship.

Whereas this dilemma shows up in many varieties, one common example was presented by a woman Sonika coached this week. She said, “Well, I love my husband, we’re a great team, we’re really good with our kids and family, we support each other, we’re good friends …. BUT … I’m not in love; I don’t feel that feeling, I don’t feel the passion anymore”.

We hear this story from both men and women, young and old, in new relationships or thirty-year marriages.

When this doubt is present for you, it comes with a host of other questions, such as …

Should we split up?
Could I do better elsewhere?
Can I live without the passion?
Why doesn’t he/she love me in that way anymore?
Why can’t he/she just …?
What’s wrong with me that I can’t make it work? What’s wrong with my partner, or our relationship?
It’s not supposed to be this hard, is it?
Will I ever feel alive again?
Am I wasting my time, spinning my wheels, in this relationship?
Should I just “cut my losses” now and start rebuilding?

Having these kinds of questions banging around in your head creates anxiety, stress, and a sense of “unsettledness”. It’s natural for us to want to eliminate those questions and get them answered asap!

However, this presents a new problem. When your relationship isn’t working the way you want it to, you’re missing certain FEELING. Call it in-love, passion, zest, aliveness, it goes by many names. Bottom line, you’re missing a feeling. How you try and fix that is by THINKING your way to an answer. In other words, you get “in your head” about it, trying to figure it out. But when you “get in your head”, you also pull away from your partner and from you out of it. When you’re haunted by “should I stay or should I go”, you compromise your own commitment, in effect jumping from one side of the fence to now sitting squarely ON the fence. And as we all know, sitting on the fence is painful.

Plus, the doubt created by these questions creates an energetic and emotional “leak” in your relationship, which to both parties feels like lessened commitment, which again compromise the trust you’ve built together.

So what is it we’re looking for you when you begin to wonder if you should look outside your current relationship?

This aspect is very elegantly covered by Esther Perel who talks about the two concurrent, but opposing, needs we have in relationship. Think of them as being on opposite ends of a spectrum, which on end has Intimacy, and on the opposite end, Passion. We need both, but they work against one another. In a brand-new, just-fallen-in-love kind of relationship, there’s lots of passion. Passion is fueled by newness, uncertainty, risk, danger, adventure, and the unknown. But there’s not yet a lot of intimacy, which is fueled by honesty, familiarity, routine, safety, closeness, and predictability.

In the example I mentioned in the beginning, the woman has boatloads of intimacy, safety, and predictability, but longs for more passion, risk, edginess, and spontaneity. But you can easily imagine that if she decides to leave her marriage (which she still might), she’ll be freed up to pursue newness with someone else, but will have lost, partly or wholly, all the intimacy, familiarity, and safety she’s built with her husband over many years.

What to do then?

Well, there’s more in the podcast itself, but here’s a couple of really good questions to ask yourself, which will often open up new actions and insights for you:

How would I were totally committed and I didn’t even have the option to leave?
How would I be if I knew you were the one for me?
What would I do or say if I knew we were going to be together forever?

Those questions help you plug the energetic and emotional “leaks”, which is a faster way to get the clarity you seek. Whether the outcome eventually will be you staying or leaving, jumping in fully gets you the clarity faster.

We have a sort of rule of thumb about this question, Should I stay or should I go?

If you’re not ready to move out tomorrow, and if the questions are still rattling around in your head, you’re not done yet. Until you’re ready to walk out, be in all the way. You can trust the answer to present itself in due time.

At our Give Yourself To Love workshop, both couples and singles can learn how to drop down into the experience they long for, and quickly, too. Plus identify with great clarity what is it they really, truly want, and get a chance to connect heart to heart. Often, this weekend experience will clear up your doubts altogether.

Check it out here …

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9 tips and insight on how to make and keep a woman happy. But before I say another word, here’s a very big disclaimer … and I’m going to get this out of the way, so I don’t have to preface every statement with another disclaimer, and thus bore you to death!

Whenever we talk about what women like or what men like, or how women or men think, and so on, we’re always generalizing. Which means, it’s not true for everyone. If you’re a woman listening, you might hear me say that women love this or that thing, and you might not relate to it at all, that’s to be expected and totally fine. Also, because I say that women like this or that, it doesn’t mean that men wouldn’t also like the same thing. As a very real example, you’ll hear me say that women have a huge priority and desire for connection. That does not mean that men don’t also desire connection … I for one want that very much. But in contrast to my wife, connection is not my primary desire and I’m am not nearly as motived by it as Sonika, and many women with her, is. Also, as part of the disclaimer … I’m a straight male married to a women, so that’s the vantage point I’m speaking from.

Let’s dive in …

I was coaching a man the other day who told me his girlfriend and him were in a breakdown. His girlfriend had said to him, “well, you convince me why we should be together”. He said, as the logical, good-natured, speak-the-truth kinda man he is, he said, “I don’t think I should have to convince you - we should both want to be here because we like each other”.

That didn’t go over very well.

In matters of love and intimacy, when you are a man in relationship with a woman, much of the time you cannot expect to make success with your own way of thinking. In this example, my client’s answer is perfectly logical, I’d even agree with his sentiment.

Without going too deep into the differences between men and women - and there are many - let me just give you a great general principle when you’re relating to a woman: Think not so much in terms of what is the “right” thing to do, or what is “logical” or what makes sense. Rather, think in terms of what would open the situation up to more love. What would open her heart more, maybe put a smile on her face. That’s a really useful rule of thumb.

I want this episode to be practical, so I’m going to share useable tips, and where relevant, I’ll include some background to deepen the understanding.

The first tip is what I just said is a good general rule of thumb. To focus more on what would open the situation up to more love, than on what is logical and accurate. Like my client above who said, “I don’t think I should have to convince you … “ and so forth. What would have opened that situation up to more love is for him to say, “I love you, honey! I know we’ve had some trouble, but I am here with you, and I’m here for you, and I want to be with you. I’m not letting you go, we can work this out, you and me!”

When she says, “convince me why we should be together”, she’s not looking for a rational reason for sticking together. She’s looking for reassurance that he still likes her, that he still wants her. It’s as if, after every breakdown or disconnect, she needs to know if he chooses her all over again. Women really like feeling chosen, like you picked her out of all the other women you could have chosen, you picked her.

I’ll list the tips below, in short form. Notice there’s more to the story, get the full content by listening to the episode.

Tip #2: Make her feel chosen and special, by doing things like …

- Speak compliments and acknowledgments
- Good ole-fashioned chivalry; open doors, pull out chairs, carry her stuff. Note, when you do that, it’s not a statement that she can’t do it herself, of course she can. It’s a mark of honor and respect, a way to say, “I see you”, and “I’m willing to go out of my way for you, even if I don’t know you”

Tip #3: Make her feel held. (Feeling “held” is a somewhat nebulous concept for some, but I promise your woman will know exactly if she feels held or not). Ways to help her feel held …

- Be with her in emotional situations. Don’t check out, don’t fix, don’t defend, don’t distract, just BE there with her.
- Take care of things around the house. Whether it’s going to work, or fixing a leaking gutter, those are all examples of “taking care”
- Do stuff for her. If she’s wanted to move the couch for three months, you do it. Just do it for her.
- When she enters the room or you see her car coming down the driveway, get up and greet her at the door, or in the driveway. See if she’s got bags you can carry for her. Again, this simple act says, “I see you! I notice you’re here”

Tip #4: Don’t take her emotions personally

- One of the qualities women consistently tell us they love in their partners is the ability to be with her while she’s having feelings about something. Men often get scared of her emotions, hence try to make them go away.
- Just be with her, that’s it.
- No need to repair the situation. Ask, “you want advice, or for me just to listen?”
- Don’t make about it yourself. Don’t be so self-absorbed to think that every time she feels happy or sad, angry or scared, it has something to do with you.

Tip #5: Pay attention, be “tuned into her”

- The technical term is Attunement, having a conscious sense of how your partner feels and how she’s doing right now.
- This concept is critical in sex, where being tuned into her is what tells you when to come in stronger, when to back off, when to be gentle, when to be more forceful, and so on. You know this by paying attention to her body language, eyes, facial expressions, sounds, and sensing her emotions.

Tip #6: Be helpful

- For some, this might sound like old news. But I can’t tell you how many women have the ongoing complaint that their boyfriend or husband is like “having another kid around.”
- You DO NOT want your woman to see you as another kid. It’s terrible for your relationship, it’s terrible for your mutual respect, and it’s very terrible for your sex life.
- Especially if you live with our girlfriend or wife, it’s more than just “being helpful” around the house. It’s a matter of considering the various tasks around the house as YOUR job as well as hers. Sure, you can share the tasks of everyday life and households as you wish, but make sure you take care of business too. Whether it’s cooking, cleaning, laundry, lawn mowing, whatever. I promise you the goodwill you harvest from her by you doing simple stuff as food shopping or cleaning the house - without being prompted - will make her love and respect you.

Tip #7: Take initiative. Do things like …

- Initiate activities. Simple stuff, go to the movies, out for dinner.
- Particularly, take initiative around something that pertains to your relationship. Make a date night, buy relationship book and offer to read it together, sign up for a workshop, find a YouTube video with cool relationship tips. In the vast majority of relationships it is still the woman who takes the lead. One way we see this is who reaches out for relationship coaching, or who takes the initiative to come to do a relationship weekend workshop. It is definitely changing so that now more and more men take on that role. These are not numbers I track but based on our ten years of offering workshops and coaching, I’d make the guesstimate that 75% of the time, it’s the woman in a relationship who takes the initiative. And when she’s the one to always initiate date nights, or relationship workshops, or movie night, or getaways, or whatever it is, it’s easy for her to feel lonely, like her guy doesn’t care, and to feel that’s she’s carrying all the weight alone. That breeds resentment, not connection.
- So one thing you can do is to take initiative. Start something. Arrange a getaway. You buy a ticket for a weekend workshop.

Tip #8: Play with her. Actually, play, period.

If you’re a man who’s anything like me, you know you can sometimes be quite serious and somber. Left to my own devices, I don’t really play much. I don’t think too much about having fun. Having fun is not one of the values I reach for in life. That’s not say I don’t like playing and having fun, it’s just that if I don’t put some conscious attention on it, I’ll just work, work, work, and forget about playing.
Playing and dancing and other ways of keeping the energy light and fresh between you makes her happy. Makes you happy, too. Even if it’s a stretch to play because you like working so much better, still take time to play, somehow.

Tip #9: Be accountable with your word and your time.

In short, that translates to doing what you say you’ll be doing. Showing up when and where you said you’d be showing up. Participating in your relationship in the ways you say will participate. Don’t make agreements you can’t keep. It’s better to say, “I’m sorry, I can’t meet you at 7 because I’m working that night”, than it is to say, “Sure, see you then” and then not show up.
I know to some, this sounds like nitpicking and making a big deal of out nothing. But I promise you, it’s not nothing. Every time you say you’ll do something and you don’t, it’s a small breach of trust. With your partner and with yourself. Over time, if this becomes habitual, you’ll stop taking your own word seriously. And when she stops taking your word seriously, it’s not a good situation. You’ll have become a lesser man in her eyes, and what makes her happy is having a man who feels strong and good about himself.
So be precise with your word, and do what say you will do.

Like I said in the beginning, some of the actions and tips I’ve shared here today for how to make her happy may sound very simple, so that when you hear them, you go, “Oh yeah, that’s easy, I know that”. But the real question is, are you DOING this?

There’s a very simple method to answer that question. Just look at the woman you are in relationship with and ask you yourself, Is she happy? Is she happy with me? Are WE happy?

Of course her happiness depends on all kinds of factors that are her sole responsibility, but make no mistake, you as her partner can play a very big role in making her happiness easy and abundant, or difficult and elusive.

Hope that was useful, I’ll see you next time.

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When we make love with our partner, I believe we secretly long to have a shared soul-merging experience of eternity and bliss with our beloved. We seek nothing less than to lose ourselves completely in love and to be consumed wholeheartedly in pleasure, uniting the physical and spiritual, the human and the divine, in a grand climactic ecstasy of spiritual oneness.

Unfortunately, for most of us, sex is a hurried rush of routine under blankets in the dark, devoid of a miraculous transcendent experience. We enter and leave our sexual encounters already disappointed and vaguely dissatisfied by the mundaneness of our love and pleasure expressions. Many of us wonder if we aren’t missing out on something really important.

I used to think that high transcendental sex wasn’t possible in this life, that it was but a fanciful dream relegated to some afterlife, romance novels, artful porn flicks, or experienced Tantrikas. It wasn’t until I fell in love with Christian and experienced the profundity of sex that I discovered that not only was blissful sex possible, it was entirely re-creatable.

What is transcendent sex? It is a blissful magical extraordinary experience in lovemaking where one enters into an altered state of the Infinite that transcends time and place; where body and spirit, self and other, blur in a mystical realm of non-duality; where high pleasure states and orgasmic energy streams ripple through the entire body unencumbered (not just the genitals); where high emotional embodied states of love, bliss, and ecstasy extend beyond the five senses.

I will attempt here to discuss how to have high transcendental sex with your partner – whether new lover, beloved soul mate, or long time spouse. Much of what I will write here requires a shift in focus and the patient development of new relationship and sex practices, as well as attunement to the moment without expectation or goal (probably the hardest part).

I will be sharing many aspects and tips for how enjoy this kind of sexual experience.

Among many aspects, I will share how to …

Expand your definition of sex
Leave your personalities behind
Slow down
Not be afraid to stop in the middle
Use your breathing
Move freely and make sounds
Relax in high states of arousal
Interrupt patterns, habits and routines

Listen to the entire podcast to get the full picture.

As you practice this, remember that most of us have been impacted by an abundance of negative sex messages from our family and culture, or perhaps direct sexual abuse, and very few of us have had any sex education at all. As a result, our reticence to fully express ourselves in sex is understandable. Truth is, it takes time to learn new ways to be in sex, and it takes time and practice to create an experience of High Sex with another.

So please be gentle with yourself and your partner or partners. Take risks where you can. Little actions, like making sounds when you orgasm if you are usually silent, or turning your partner over for a new position, or making eye contact and breathing in unison with your partner, will altogether ultimately open you up to more and more pleasure over time.

Here’s to your enjoyment and bliss:)

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“Online dating is a full-time job”. Said by a friend of mine, a good-looking, conscious, kind man with a great job and great income. An “eligible bachelor”, if I ever met one.

This episode is about dating, with special emphasis on online dating. There are a lot of cool things about online dating, and likewise a lot of challenges and pitfalls which translates to frustration and heartache for singles looking to create relationships — perhaps you’ve been there?

Some of the amazing benefits about online dating:

It’s easier than ever to find people to meet and date. You can literally do it from anywhere, anytime.
You can filter through vast numbers of potential partners, and thus get to have a look a many more potentials than would have been humanly possible in the past.
You might meet your soulmate in ways that would have never happened in the past, because an online service or app find that person for you
If you’re kinda shy or reluctant to “get out there” on the dating scene, online dating can be an easier way to get started, to put your toe in the water, so to speak.
It can be a fun and simple way to just find a date for Friday night, wherever you are located.

If you look up “online dating statistics”, you’ll find all kinds of interesting material.

For example, on eHarmony’s website, you can read that …

50% of the US population consists of single adults. That means it’s never the case that there aren’t enough good men or women out there for you to be in relationship with. “There are no good men or women out there” is basically a lame excuse, along the lines of “I didn’t have time”.
40 million Americans use online dating. Same comments as above:)
53% of people lie on their online dating profile, particularly about their age, height, weight, and income. Which we’re trying to make our own “product” look better than we think it it.
20% of committed relationship started online, and 7% of marriages in 2015 were between couples that met online.

That last stat is important, because it tells you that online dating is only one - and not the most important - way to meet people.

Please remember that until 20 years ago, there was no online dating, period, and people still met, dated, fell in love, and got married. So in case you’re not enjoying your online dating experience, and you opt not to use that method, you can still meet, date, and find the love of your life.

The stat about how 53% of people lie on their profiles illustrate one of the main difficulties with online dating. Actually this is an issue with dating in general, but greatly exacerbated by online dating.

The issue is what I call Dating, Amazon.com Style. We go dating online like we shop for products on Amazon. We quickly scan the photo, then the product specs and details, and buy it or not. It’s normal we’re scrolling through hundreds of items before we choose one.

The sheer number of potential dates gives rise to profile fatigue, or as one of my friends called it, indecision overwhelm. It’s the same thing that happens when you to the supermarket to buy peanut butter, jam, or bread. You are faced with so many options that it’s hard to decide. And studies now show that even when you choose an item, you’re not satisfied with, because you know it’s likely it could have been better.

Same thing happens in online dating. Because we aware how many options there are, and because there is so much information we can sort and filter people by, even when we pick someone to date, it’s hard to get rid of the nagging doubt that we could be - maybe even should be, deserve to be! - with someone who is more loving, sexier, better off, healthier, better looking, and more like us.

We all have a “list” of what we want in a partner. Some write it down, some just have one in their mind, but it’s a list all the same. The list is full of specs, or “must-haves”, criteria by which we sort the potentials. Things like, must love dogs, must be into personal growth, must be vegetarian, must work out, must love traveling, must make $100K a year, must be certain age, and many more.

This list, combined with the ease of scrolling through hundreds of profiles, turn human beings into two-dimensional “products” that seemingly consist of only of a few pictures and some specs. But of course, human beings are so much more complex, deep, rich, and multi-facetted than can be present on a profile.

Just think about your own profile. How well does it tell the full story of who you are as a human being?

You can also be sure that the same way you sift through people, and discard them based on their age, height, looks, income, religion, and interests, is also being done towards you.

Now, it’s not to say it’s a bad thing to have preferences and be looking for someone you are a good match for. It’s just that there’s normally a big difference between what we think we want and what we really want. Sonika & I have been teaching a method to distinguish the two for years. In the entertaining and enlightening book about dating by Aziz Ansari, Modern Romance, he quotes a study for saying, “The kind of partner people said they were looking for didn’t match up with the kind of partner they were actually interested in”.

Some of the things I share for what to instead to make a better dating experience for yourself are …

Remember online dating is just one - and not the most important - way people meet. If you don’t like it, don’t worry, there’s still hope.
Seek out people in real life you think might be a good match. If dancing is your biggest passion, go to dance community event and interact with 3D humans. If you’re into spiritual growth, look up Meetup groups in your area that match that interest, and go interact with people there. If it’s important to you to find someone who’s a good communicator and wants to use your relationship for growth and mutual empowering, come to one of our workshops where we do just that (many new couples have happened from singles coming to our courses - we don’t promise that, but your never know:)
Ditch your list of specs. Or at least loosen your grip on it, and avoid being too quick to discard someone because he’s 10 older or younger, or because she has two kids. If Sonika and I had used dating apps, no algorithm in the world would have matched us up. Sonika’s 15 years older than me, already had two young children, lived 8500 miles away. I wasn’t looking for that. I, on the other hand, was basically starting over in life, had no job or stable income, but significant debt. Not what she was looking for. Not what anyone is looking for, actually.
Let relationships take time to build. Connection takes time … preferable non-judgmental time, intimate time, time to talk, time to see bot the good and the bad about someone. Trust gets built over time, by going through experiences, joyful ones and tough ones. No one gets a full picture of who you are on the first date, let alone by scrolling through your profile for 7.4 seconds.
Take the time pressure off the process. A lot of singles create tremendous stress for themselves by having an arbitrary deadline for when “True Love” should happen. The bio-clock is ticking, or I’m turning 50, or I’ve already been single for ten years, so I got no time to waste. The deadline makes it very hard to relax and show up in a good mood for dating. Make it ok that it won’t happen tomorrow, while trusting that you’ll find what you want.

There’s much more in the podcast … hope this is helpful, and I’m rooting for your enjoyable dating experience.

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“To succeed, we must first believe that we can”. Michael Korda

The article with this podcast was originally published in a book Sonika co-authored, Seize Your Opportunities: How To Live Your Life Without Limits.

There is no doubt that what we believe influences who we are, affects the choices we make and ultimately determines the results we produce. Beliefs shape what we see, what we experience and what we expect. More than anything else, they determine how we feel.

If we want to increase our effectiveness in business, empower our relationships and enhance our joy in life, we need to improve the quality of our thinking. We need to shift our limiting beliefs to empowering ones, replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts and nurture internal conversations that inspire us to risk living our full potential. We must acquire the beliefs of winners if we are to be a winner, the beliefs of successful entrepreneurs if we wish to be a successful entrepreneur. We must work as much, if not more, with our minds as with our behaviors if we are to create ourselves anew in any context – business, marriage, sports, health, school, family, work, etc.

What is a Belief?

A belief is a recurrently practiced thought that is held as true or real. It is a statement we repeat over and over to ourselves, consciously or unconsciously, until it becomes second nature. Beliefs are so successfully and habitually reinforced that they become an unconscious insidious force that filters how we view, experience and manifest reality. We are so accustomed to these filters that we don’t realize we never experience the world as it is; in fact, most beliefs go unnoticed and unexamined our entire lives. Despite this fact, beliefs have great power - they have been known to heal us, kill us, motivate us, immobilize us and inspire us. Our very happiness and success depends on what we believe.

Luckily, beliefs can be examined and changed. Any old belief can be replaced with a new practiced thought.

How Do I Decide Which Beliefs to Change?

In order to shift a negative belief to a positive life-affirming one, we must first take stock of the disempowering beliefs that grip us. Observation is always the first key to changing any unwanted behavior. It is through observation that we can bring unconscious beliefs up to conscious awareness and then decide which ones we want to actively change. The best way to bring to the surface beliefs you would like to change is through self-examination.

You can discover and examine your beliefs best by journaling and noticing what you write about. Pick any topic to explore - business, life, relationship, yourself, your children, health, sex, religion, money - and you will see beliefs all over the place! Write a narrative and simply go back through your writing and notice what beliefs lie hidden throughout.

Or talk out loud with someone who will take on the role of helping you listen for and pull out beliefs as you do. We are often blind to our own beliefs, so an outside ear can be extremely valuable in helping us uncover unconscious thought patterns. Have your partner repeat back or write down the beliefs they hear.

As you explore a topic, notice specifically where you are unhappy or dissatisfied. Unhappiness is our biggest clue that we are holding beliefs that are inconsistent with who we want to be. Use complaints, upsets, disappointments, fears, etc. to point you to beliefs you wish to change. Anger, fear, panic, doubt, depression, sadness, resentment – all intense feelings are tied to strong beliefs, so anytime you are feeling intense emotion, it is a good time to notice what you are thinking.

Ask yourself questions. What don’t you like about who you are or what you do? What experience in your life do you wish to change? Or spout off a list of what you think you can’t do. Say why you aren’t more successful. Complaints and upsets are imbued with limiting negative beliefs.

You can also pay attention to yourself in unpleasant situations, especially at times when you feel emotionally disabled or immobilized from taking some action you really want to take. There is nothing like being in the middle of an unpleasant experience to take note of the thoughts and beliefs that are running haphazardly through your mind!

Another powerful way to discover your operating beliefs is to listen to winners and successful entrepreneurs talk about their beliefs. Sometimes hearing what someone else believes will make you aware of the gap between what they think and what you think. For example, I recently heard a very successful entrepreneur say that he assumes everyone he meets wants to buy from him, wants to be his partner and wants him to fulfill his dreams. When he walks up to the door of a potential prospect, he imagines a red carpet laid out for him. Hearing this made me aware of contrasting beliefs I have about myself in comparison and gave me some powerful beliefs to aspire to.

How Do I Go About Shifting Negative Beliefs?

There are several ways to successfully change beliefs. These ten strategies are not presented in any particular order. Feel free to read through them and choose whichever ones appeal to you most for changing your beliefs.

Remember, a belief is a practiced thought that is held as true. Question the truth of it, and it breaks down. As a result, in the strategies that follow, many questions are asked. If you merely read the questions and avoid asking them yourself, you will not get the power of them. Be sure to pick a belief of your own that you want to change and sink into the questions and processes presented here. If you do, you will experience profound changes in how you think and thereby open up limitless new possibilities for yourself.

In the many strategies that follow, and for purposes of illustration, we are going to work with changing the belief, “I can’t make enough money”.

Examine your belief: Question its validity; create doubt.

A first step to shifting a belief is to non-judgmentally and curiously inquire into the belief. Sometimes examining a belief is enough to shed new light on old thinking and break a belief apart. Ask questions, like: “Why do I believe this? What evidence or proof do I have to support the truth of this belief? Where did this belief come from? When was the first time I remember thinking this thought? Did my parents have a similar belief?

If you believe you can’t make enough money, you are likely to uncover other supporting beliefs. “I can’t afford to take a long vacation” or “I still have lots of credit card debt”. But even these, when inquired into with questions, will eventually break down what appears to be a grounded belief into an irrational one. For example, you could ask, “Why do I think I don’t make enough money just because I have credit card debt?” Or “Why do I think I can’t afford a long vacation?”

Keep breaking the belief down into tiny little bits. Every generalization will break itself at some point. “Is it true all the time? According to whom? Was there ever a time when I did make enough money? What would happen if I was wrong about this belief and I did make enough money? What is true about the statement, I can make enough money?” Keep going until you have poked holes in your belief and created doubt about it.

Look for evidence to the contrary.

We do not see things as they are. Everything is filtered through our beliefs. Since we are never seeing the world as it is, we filter out conflicting evidence to our belief. We only see what fits with our belief, that which proves the belief. So a great way to dismantle a belief is to look for evidence to the contrary. You might say, “Well, it’s no that I couldn’t pay bills last month, I just couldn’t pay more on all my credit cards like I usually do. Oh, and I did make more money last month than I have ever made before.”

When you look for evidence to the contrary, you pave the way for a new belief. You present evidence to support and strengthen your new belief while simultaneously weakening the old unwanted belief.

Re-frame the belief.

An event has no meaning on its own. It just is. People give events meaning according to their beliefs, values, like and dislikes. In other words, the meaning of an experience is dependent on the context and who’s experiencing it.

Reframing is changing the way you perceive an event and so changing the meaning. When the meaning changes, the response and behavior changes also.

An example of reframing “I can’t make enough money” might be “I am so great at always creating new dreams to spend money on that I am always wanting to make more money”. Now, the negative frame around “I can’t make enough money” has changed to a positive one and the belief has new meaning.

Explore the gift behind your belief.

One of the most potent questions you can ask about your belief is “What is my belief giving me? What is good about my believing this?” There are always benefits to our negative beliefs, gifts we receive.

One tool I have used in my coaching practice to help people access gifts they receive from their negative belief is to ask, “If some part of you were giving you this experience to help you learn something, to help you grow or empower you in some way, what do you think there is here for you to learn?” This is a very powerful question to ask and may pull out a hidden opportunity for you to use this belief to expand yourself beyond what you may have previously thought possible.

Another way to get at what your negative belief gives you is by enthusiastically exaggerating your belief, to embrace it as good, to release your resistance to it. “I love that I can’t make enough money! Yippee! It is so great that I don’t have all the money I want!” Then explore in an upbeat mood, “What is great about not having enough money? What do I love about not having enough money?” You might respond with, “I don’t have to pay taxes! I get to only work 10 hours a week! I’m inspired to go make more money than ever.”Once I loaned someone a lot of money with a high rate of return and he couldn’t pay me back as promised. My belief that I was foolish and bad with money, which was the source of my having given him the unsecured loan in the first place, was reinforced. The gift of my belief, upon examination, was that I got to blame him for my financial situation rather than take responsibility for myself. As a result of seeing the gift of my negative belief, I was inspired and motivated to believe otherwise and to make money on my own like never before. Armed with my new belief, I went from making $1,000 a month to well over $10,000 a month in just six months!

Take 100% responsibility for your belief.

Most disempowering beliefs give us an excuse to not take action, to stay safe, to resist change, to blame others or situations for our experience of reality. We get validation for being and staying exactly where we are with many of our unworkable beliefs. For instance, you may just prefer to blame and complain rather than to actually take the actions necessary to bring more money into your life. So what you get out of believing this thought gives you an excuse to not act. We are often more comfortable with taking a victim stance than being 100% responsible for what we believe, feel and do.

Ask yourself what you get to be right about by having this belief. Who or what do you want to keep blaming for your current situation? Take responsibility. Choose your belief. Say from a powerful place, “I want to believe I can’t make enough money. I love that I can’t make enough money.” Or better yet, explain to someone how you make sure you don’t make enough money. An interesting thing happens when you take responsibility for and choose your beliefs. The moment you own a belief as yours, take responsibility for creating it and for keeping it alive for all it gives, you in that same moment become aware of your power to change it.

There was a time when I was in a battered relationship and I was quite accustomed to thinking of myself as a victim. That all changed dramatically one day when I described in great detail all of the things I did and said to keep myself a victim in my relationship. Soon afterward I ended that relationship and never again created a relationship where I was victimized. Taking responsibility had me see how much power I had in that situation and I couldn’t help but use that same power to create big changes!

Declare the desired belief as though it were already true now.

A belief like “I can’t make enough money”, is merely a practiced and well-rehearsed thought. That is all it is. Every part of us is wired, however, to think a habituated thought is true.

One way to shift your negative belief is to state the new desired belief as if it were already true now. “I can and do make more than enough money.” Speak it out loud. Feel the power and possibility of this new belief. Focus on what you want to be true with all of your attention as if it were already a reality.

Add strength to your belief by looking for evidence of where it is already true. (You will have already done some of this when you looked for contrary evidence to your old belief.) Speak the evidence you find out loud. You might say, “I do pay my bills every month. I have $4000 in my retirement account. I make more money now than I ever have before. I pay more than the minimum balance on my credit cards every month”. The more solid the evidence you find, the more congruent your new belief will feel to you.

Utilize the power of visualization. See your new belief played out in your mind.

Visualization, which is sometimes referred to as the "theater of the mind," is the ability to see, in your mind's eye, some event that you know will take place in the future. The mind doesn’t know the difference between an imagined and actual occurrence and there have been studies carried out that show an improvement in performance when visualization is used.

When visualizing, it is better to use all of your senses as if you are really living your vision, not just observing or remembering it. Successful visualization requires not just thinking the right thoughts, but also feeling the emotions and vividly imagining the behaviors. Seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting should be part of your “theater play” in your mind.

When ready, close your eyes and ask yourself, “Who would I be without this old belief”? Really feel and see yourself without this belief. What would you be like? What might you believe instead? Then, imagine your new belief being played out in your day-to-day life. Visualize your bank account with a higher balance. See yourself getting more clients or prospects, or your boss giving you a raise. Imagine higher sales commissions and company awards for having made the most in your company. Hear the applause. Feel the feelings associated with your visual experience. Make it as real in your mind as you can.

Whatever story you have imagined sets the stage for what you experience in life. It is very beneficial to write your vision in story form of how you want your life to be. Write out a narrative of what you are accomplishing and experiencing with your new belief. You can look one, two, five, ten, twenty years out, and write a different story from each vantage point. What are you doing? How much money are you bringing in? Write about your credit cards being paid off and going on a long vacation. Include how much money you have been able to save up and the fun, good things you have been able to buy or do because of your increased revenue. Write about everything as if it were already true now. You add great strength to new beliefs with present-time narratives to live into and read over and over again. It is especially fun years later to read them over and see how much of what you wrote you have actually created!

Living in the Question.

Most of us are trained to think that the way to change a belief is to have a change in some outside stimulus first. For instance, you might think the way to change your “I can’t make enough money” belief is to first have enough money. Once you have enough money, then you will be able to do the things you want to do with money, and only then will you believe or experience that you make enough money. This is another way of saying, “I need to be presented with new evidence first in order to believe a new thought.” In a diagram, this line of thinking would be illustrated as: Have à Do à Be.

In actuality, changes in belief and behavior occur in the opposite order: Be à Do à Have. First, we need to become and experience as true what we want, then take action consistent with that experience and only then will we have the outer manifestation of what we are wanting.

One way to practice “being” is to do what I call “living in the question”. It is my favorite way to shift beliefs. The question to live into has the following form: “If I knew ________, how would I be now? What would I say now? What would I do now?” To make it specific to our example, you would ask, “If I knew I could make enough money, how would I be now? What would I say now? What would I do now?”

What I love about this question is that it tricks the mind. By asking an “If” question, old beliefs are temporarily suspended and you can bypass the usual resistance of the mind to new ways of thinking. Not only that, but you have to actually imagine what you are asking before you can answer the question! You have to see yourself making enough money before you can say what you would be doing if you were making enough money. Your mind is now smack dab in the middle of a new vision, a new belief possibility, and your mind didn’t even know it!

The beauty of the unconscious mind is that it will always answer whatever question it is asked. So, when you ask the question, “If I could make enough money, what would I be doing now?” an answer will invariably arise. Now the most important part of this question is the word “now”. You don’t want to answer this question with some un-useful, disconnected generalization, which is what you will get if you don’t include the word “now”. You want to come up with an answer that will inspire you to take some new action in this moment, an action that will in turn provide you with more evidence to reinforce and strengthen this new belief.

For instance, your mind might answer, “If I knew I could make enough money, I would make more sales calls”. If that is the case, follow up your response to that question with action. Actually go make more sales calls. This is why I call this strategy “living in the question”. It is a question to live into, a question to ask several times a day, a question to take action on the answers to as you receive them. When you repeatedly “live into” the question and take action accordingly, you will over time find that you have indeed added more evidence to back up and reinforce your new belief.

Act as if.

This takes visualization and puts it into action. Pretending you already believe something new has great power and backing it up with posture and action helps you embody a new belief more fully. Acting as if something is already true, in short, helps you believe it.

“Acting as if” calls you not only to imagine who and how you would be if you already believed what you want to believe, but to ask yourself what you would do differently if you already fully embodied this new belief. Where “living in the question” calls for new actions in the moment if the belief were true, “acting as if” calls you take actions now as if you already embodied these new beliefs. Act now like you already are your imagined future self. Act right now like you already can and do make enough money. Carry big bills in your wallet. Offer to pay someone’s meal. Tell someone you will attend an expensive seminar. Walk with your head up high. Attend a business meeting in a suit.

Then bump it up a notch. Ask how you would act and what you would do if you already made much more than enough money. You might stay at a fancy hotel, or fly first class, or wear a nice suit, or ride in a limo. “Acting as if” might manifest as you walking into a fancy hotel in a nice suit and ordering a drink at the hotel bar like you were a wealthy person staying at the hotel, or test driving a fancy car or checking out million dollar homes available for sale in your area.

You will be amazed how “acting as if” helps to convince you that your new belief is real.

Get support.

Be with people who believe what you want to believe. Hang around successful folks who are already living the life you want to live. Remember, you become like the people you are around. Or said another way, your network = your net worth. So get yourself a coach or a mentor. Join a class or a group of people who are moving consistent with the beliefs you want to embody. All successful people have outside support. These chosen support networks will be a source of hope and inspiration for you when you fall back into old belief patterns and habits.

To get support, we often need to be willing to be uncomfortable. When we are with people who live beyond our beliefs, dreams and current lifestyle, we often feel uneasy. Old beliefs are brought to the surface, and oft times, we feel bad in the face of them. To avoid feeling bad, we avoid the very situations that would nourish us to rise to our full potential. And sometimes, we just plain have a hard time asking for help. We think we ought to be able to produce massive change all by ourselves. But as is commonly known, most every successful person has support. If you are serious about shifting significant beliefs so you can life the life of your dreams, then be sure to secure support for yourself.

Summary

Beliefs can change in an instant or it can take years. How long it takes depends on what you believe [pun intended]. The important thing is that you can change them. You can believe anything you want.

Shifting beliefs is the most powerful thing you can do for yourself to bring more joy and success and love into your life. When you successfully change a belief from a constrictive one to a more expansive one, your entire world changes. What once felt like a closed door will suddenly feel like an open window, a breath of fresh air, an unlimited space of possibility. There is nothing you can’t do or be when you choose and line up with beliefs that are matched up with your full potential, with who you are meant to be.

Give yourself the gift of change. Choose a new thought. Experience the wonder of living beyond belief.

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One of the biggest mistakes we witness people make in relationship is the decision, conscious or unconscious, to rein in some of their own desires or dreams because it triggers their partner, because they think it’ll cause too much of a stir, or because of they convince themselves they “should”.

See if you can relate to any of these examples from people we’ve been coaching recently.

Anna thinks there is something wrong with her because she doesn’t want to marry and have children with the man she has been dating for ten months. After all, he’s a good guy, loyal and responsible (in stark contrast to her ex). He really wants to marry her and make a new life together. So Anna is trying to talk herself out of her feelings of doubt and lack of desire to marry, in order to make him happy and because it just makes logical sense to marry this nice guy.

Anthony damps down his desire for sex in several ways: By not acknowledging his need for it in the moment; by trying to talk to himself out of wanting it by minimizing its importance (“It’s not that big of deal, anyway. I’m fine without it”); by not initiating sex or touch with his partner; by backing off at the first sign of discomfort or refusal; and by routinely putting his partner’s needs ahead of his own.

Finally, Robert, who is in the throes of divorce and is discovering that he doesn’t know what he wants anymore. He has gone along with his wife’s desires and demands for some 30 years and has totally lost touch with his feelings, desires and dreams. During their marriage it simply became second nature to let her desires be their desires, and whenever he did want something different from her, to just let it slide, because “it was easier that way”.

In each of these three examples, you could make the case that they are just being generous – they want their partner to have what they want and need. You could say they are being flexible, because they’re not attached to having things their own way. We could posit that they are peacemakers who value harmony more than getting what they want. We could even call them super spiritual in the sense that “The Great Way is easy for those who have no preferences”.

Just today, we read a great article [https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/how-to-have-a-long-lasting-relationship] that states the most important ingredient of a lasting relationship is generosity. We don’t disagree, generosity is essential.

However, in the three examples above, our friends are not being generous. Let me qualify that. I’m not suggesting that they are not generous and flexible people, or that they don’t want their partners to have everything they need, or that they’re not spiritual or understanding people. I know for a fact that they are these things, too.

The problem here is that what masks as generosity or flexibility in reality is much more avoidance of “trouble”, fear of rejection, lack of power to stand up for oneself, or flat-out laziness.

There’s always a long-term price to pay for the short-term gain of “not making trouble” by letting your own desires go. Whenever anyone damps down their own feelings or shuts off their own desires to avoid upset or conflict in relationship, whenever they don't stay engaged and go for what they want and create win/wins that enliven both partners, they set themselves up for breakdown; ultimately risking the stability of their relationship.

No one can remain disconnected from themselves and their feelings and their passions for a prolonged period of time without the potential consequence of wanting to break free from their imprisoned experience in relationship in an attempt to “find themselves” again. In other words, negating your own desires and dreams over time creates resentment.

This is tricky stuff, no doubt. Who can’t relate to wanting something that you know might trigger your partner, so you go, “Whatever, it really isn’t that important”? You let it slide and don’t speak up about what it was you really wanted. And for a while, it’s totally fine. Until it isn’t.

Like Robert, who inadvertently did this with everything, by his own admission. Where they went on holidays, when they took holidays, or not; who they visited, for how long; what color to paint the house, what school to send their kids to, you name it. Her preference became their preference. For the longest time, this system worked fine.

Only now, as they’re divorcing, he’s resentful in retrospect that he always got “steamrolled”. In our coaching, he had a profound realization. He went along with her desires because “it was easier”. In doing so, he believed he did her a favor by not causing a stir and thus keeping the peace in the house. He believed he was being easy-going and flexible, and that she’d love him more for it.

What actually happened? She lost respect for him, and he lost respect for himself. Plus, he totally lost touch with what he actually wanted about pretty much every aspect of life. To be blunt, he “chickened out” on his own dreams.

I offered him this image. From her point of view, his “going-alongness” made her feel alone. It’s like, every time she’d offer up an idea, instead of a sparring partner, he showed up as an amorphous blob, without any distinct boundaries or edges, like a bowl of jelly. In partnership, it produces safety and connection when a partner can put her hand on the other and feel some substance instead of “jelly”.

Flexibility and easy-goingness are great qualities and can absolutely support harmony and easy flow. Always yielding like a jellyfish, however, produces loneliness and resentment. Generosity is indeed an absolutely crucial part of a successful, loving relationship. Self-sacrifice to the extent of not getting what you need is something else entirely.

The article we quoted above included this important detail: “Giving until it hurts or trying to buy affection does not develop a healthy relationship ... It does not take the place of caring for yourself or expecting your partner to do his or her part.”

It’s easy to get mad at your partner when you don’t get what you want. It’s tempting for Anne to get mad at her boyfriend for pushing the marriage agenda. It seems logical for Anthony to get mad at his partner for not being more into sex. (On a side note, there are many ways to communicate directly to your partner about situations where you want seemingly different things. That is outside the scope of this article.)

Here, we want to offer you the opportunity to look inwards, specifically at where you let go of your own desires, for whatever reason, when in actuality it was important to you. Look at where, like Robert, you let it happen that you don’t get what you want. Where you let it be ok, even though it’s not really ok with you, to not get your needs met.

We encourage you to ask yourself questions like:

Where am I not going for what I want?
Where am I settling?
Where am I holding myself back from my own passionate aliveness?
Where do I “forget” what I want and need, in the interest of peacemaking, taking care of my partner, or someone else’s desires?
What am I afraid would happen if I stood up for what I want and need?

The upside here is for you to find your own clarity about what you want, and the power and worthiness to stand up for what you want as well as what your partner wants.

Optimally, you’re saying (and this is part of our definition of a successful relationship or marriage), “I deserve to have what I want, and so do you. I want you to have your needs met, and I want that for me, too. I’m not going to sacrifice my needs to satisfy yours, or yours to satisfy mine. We are both going to get what we want. If we don’t know how to accomplish that, we’ll learn. But we’re not giving up on both of us being satisfied”.

You might even consider that you owe it, not only to yourself, but to your relationship, and to your children (if you have children), to listen to the whispers of your dreams and desires, lest you end up resentful that someone didn’t give you everything you wanted.

So take the risk. Go for what you want, for what makes your heart sing. Work it out with your partner, so you both get to fly.

If you don't know how to do that by yourself, learn. Get help. And don’t back off from what you want.

:-) Sonika & Christian

PS. If you’re curious about the kind of coaching we offer, use our contact form here to get in touch with us.

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Judgments are an integral and inescapable part of being a human being, and certainly of being in relationship with other human beings. Even the most spiritual among us still judge each other to no end.

When you feel judged by a partner, you often react strongly against it, fighting to prove it wrong. When you’re the one judging your partner, your kids, or anyone in your life, you might be reticent to admitting that you’re indeed passing judgment.

Our judgments of others can be used productively in several different ways which is covered in this podcast.

They contain a plethora of information about ourselves and our world.

For example, judgments ...

Reveal our values and what we care about.
Point to our dreams and our desires, for we usually want the opposite of what we judge.
Showcase our past, our history, our identity. Decisions we have made from our pain and our joys.
Display to us our unenforceable rules, the codes of conduct we have written for ourselves and other
Lets us know how much we don't understand or know about another person or another point of view.
Illuminate the confines of our thinking and reveal our lack of curiosity and openness to that which is unknown, foreign, different and uncomfortable.
Reveal to us our shadow, our unconscious material (we often judge in others what lives in us unseen). I project my shadowed aspect on to others.
Reveal aspects of ourselves and our lives that we don't allow or push away, and point to where we would benefit from expanding and growing.
Show us where we have closed off our hearts and could stand to love more.

In this podcast, you will discover how to use your judgements of others to gain insight into yourself, and how to ultimately replace judgments with understanding, compassion, forgiveness, empowerment and even love - for yourself and others.

Once you can more flexibly work with your own judgments of others, and others’ judgments of you, you might even have fun with it.

Sonika will sometimes say to me with a grin, “You are one judgmental bastard!” To which I respond, “It’s true”. On another occasion, she said, knowing my prolific judgments of TV watching, “I’m going to watch TV now - wanna judge me?” To which I replied, “Yes, I do. Let me tell you what I think about that ….” :)

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Lisa Schrader is the founder of Awakening Shakti. For more than twenty years, she has been supporting and teaching women about awakening their inner Shakti, the sacred feminine energy. She guides women to tap into their magnetic radiance to attract their desires more easily. In other words, how to feel more naturally turned-on and sensually alive.

In our modern Western culture women as well as men live under the creed of work more, perform more, make more money, make more happen, a way of being that is heavily skewed towards masculine energy and ideals.

For a lot of women - and men too - this is highly exhausting and stressful and the effects can be seen in record-high number of depressed women, or women with “adrenal blowout”, to name a few.

In the realm of relationships, women often complain of “not much happening in the bedroom”, or “sex has gone flat”, or, “all the men I date are wimps”.

For every woman, there is an opportunity here, and it’s not just to wait until the perfectly sensual partner shows up and stokes her fire. The opportunity is to find that fire inside yourself, right now, and not only after you’ve accomplished something … like lost 20 pounds, found an awesome partner, gotten bigger breasts, or made yourself look younger.

As Lisa puts it, after awakening her own Shakti and practicing these skills, she now permanently has a “simmering fire” inside, so that whenever she and her partner come together, as an example, she is ready to dive into pleasure and orgasmic enjoyment.

It is this internal “simmering fire” that makes you feel alive, radiant, sensual, and attractive, as well as productive and ready to lead.

Right now, Lisa is gearing up for her coaching program called Lover, Mother, Leader, where she guides women to awaken their own Shakti and reveal their radiance, in all the archetypical roles of a woman’s life, such as Lover, Mother, and Leader.

Check it out here ...

Also, Lisa gives tips for how to get started, even if you’ve never delved into this conversation before. Maybe you can just relate to being tapped out and overworked?

Listen to the entire podcast for more powerful insights and tips.

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Exploring a new relationship with someone is both an exhilarating experience and a frightening one. Here you are, opening your heart, soul and body to someone with wild abandon and love but absolutely no commitment or guarantee of any future.

There is immense possibility for creating the relationship of your dreams on the one hand, and great risk and uncertainty on the other. Somewhere, you know, without a commitment or promise, you could be abandoned or rejected and deeply hurt at any time. There is great love, and great fear. It is challenging to open your heart to someone so completely with no promise or certainty.

The discomfort of not knowing the future that comes with the joy and exhilaration of intimate bliss can be emotionally quite unsettling. Even terrifying. The unsure mind wants to comfort itself with knowing the future.

It attempts to answer questions like ...

Is this THE ONE?
Are we going to be together forever?
Does he or she love me?
Do I love them?
Is this what I really want?
Am I settling?
Am I wasting my time here?
Will I be happy?
What about the problems we have? Will they escalate and get worse? Or improve?

Unfortunately, trying to answer these questions too soon is a mistake. Too often, people rush into making relationship determinations and decisions before their time. Or they try to force their partner to decide the future of the relationship before they are ready.

This focus on trying to figure out whether to marry or split up gets in the way of allowing the relationship to organically unfold.

People end and start relationships too quickly because they cannot stand to be with the uncertainty of the questions and the corresponding fear that arises.

In reality, it takes time to assess whether or not you are willing to commit and spend your life with another. It takes recurrence with someone over time to know whether or not you can trust one another to work through breakdowns as they arise and to successfully take care of your mutual needs and desires.

It can sometimes take people a couple of years before they feel resolved enough in their relationship choice to commit to marriage. So what do we do with all the emotional discomfort in the meantime? How do we deal with all of these unanswered questions and the fears that arise in the course of building relationship?

First, make peace with the questions - both yours and theirs. They will be here awhile. Know that questions do not necessarily mean you do not want to be together or that you don't love each other. Expand yourself to include both the deep love you are experiencing with your new partner and the fears, concerns and questions that abound. These questions are part of the dating process.

Focus on the now as much as possible. Instead of future thinking, focus on what is good and wonderful about your relationship. Enjoy the experience you are having, not the one you imagine you will not be having later.

Be in a mood of appreciation and gratitude for the wonderful experiences you are sharing together. Speak them out loud to each other. This practice will soothe your fears.

When you are afraid, feel, own and share your feelings. For example, saying, "I am scared", will bring you closer whereas jumping into your head and trying to get him or her to commit too early will only drive you apart.

Instead of asking future questions that instill doubt and fear, ask questions that instill joy, confidence and hope. Ask questions like, “How can I express my love more today? Where can I be more honest and transparent? How would I be if I trusted the perfect unfolding of this relationship? How would I be if I knew this was my perfect partner or a divinely inspired step towards my perfect partner?”

And most importantly make sure to keep nourishing yourself outside the relationship. Take bubble baths, listen to uplifting music, get together with friends, dance, exercise, meditate, get emotional support from a coach, keep working on your own personal development, etc.

Participating in activities and engaging in practices that keep you feeling good about yourself are crucial. They will help you stay centered and expand your emotional capacity to deal with the uncertainty inherent in the initial phases of courtship. Lastly, know that your questions will get answered over time. The old adage, Time Will Tell, has great truth. YOUR QUESTIONS WILL GET ANSWERED BY THEMSELVES!

You need only trust this fact and wait patiently, while doing what you can, as recommended above, to have a great time. Be sure to revel in the bliss and wonder of your relationship in the meantime! Allow love to flourish and take you where it wants to go.

As much as possible, enjoy the rush that comes from the unfolding of love, and don't rush to decide where it will all end up too quickly. Because, if you do, you may very well prevent love from growing at all.

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A woman came into our office; we’ll call her Karen, very upset and jealous that her husband was “attracted to other women”. She had come across a picture of a woman he had liked on his Instagram account, which set off her jealousy. In fact, she got so mad at him, she accused him of being unfaithful and threatened to divorce him.

A man I coached, let’s call him Timothy, was enraged with his girlfriend, because she was always talking about how great her car was. Every time they’d go driving, she’d say, “I love this car, it makes me so happy driving it!” When he heard her say that, he’d feel a wave of anger arising inside him, and he’d clench his jaws in hopes of not saying something nasty. But sometimes he just couldn’t help himself and berated her for going on and on about her “stupid car”.

What do these two examples have in common?

First, both people got really angry over their partner’s behavior. Secondly, both of them reacted out of anger in ways they afterwards felt bad about, and which created a significant fall-out. Karen ended up with a serious breakdown after her outburst and accusations, and Timothy ended up having to apologize and backpedal after letting his girlfriend have it, but even after apologizing, he still felt mad and she felt hurt and kept her distance.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, both Karen and Timothy shared a very common predicament: They both made sketchy conclusions based on sketchy evidence.

Did you ever read or see the Hunger Games series? In case you haven’t, our young protagonists Catniss and Peeta go through all manner of harassment and awfulness at the hands of the “evil empire”, called The Capitol. Peeta is tortured and brainwashed to the point where he believes his beloved Catniss is his mortal enemy. The bad guys messed with his head so badly he can’t tell friend from foe, love from hate, fantasy from reality.

When they get reunited, Catniss and Peeta make up a game, a test of sorts, to help Peeta regain his sanity. Peeta says what he thinks, then asks Catniss, “Real or not real?”

In the final scene, they’re snuggled up in bed, and Peeta says, “You love me. Real or not real?” You might guess what her answer is:-).

Why is that relevant here?

Because both Karen and Timothy, although dealing with seemingly very different situations, are in a similar situation to Peeta in the Hunger Games. They don’t know what’s real or not real, true or not true, accurate or false. They don’t know what is fantasy and what is reality.

Karen sees an image on her husband’s Instagram account and quickly makes several conclusions.

She concludes that …

He’s attracted to this woman
He’s attracted to many other women, too
He’s not attracted to her (Karen)
She’s not attractive, period
He’s unfaithful
He’s lying
He’s deliberately keeping secrets from her

Real or not real?

Timothy, in his situation, when he hears his girlfriend talking about how much she loves her car, makes several conclusions, too.

He concludes that …

She loves her car more than she loves him
She thinks her car is better than his car
She thinks he’s a loser because his car is a piece of junk
She thinks he’s not successful in life
He really isn’t as successful as he should be
Other guys are way more successful than he is
She’s deliberately mocking his car and him

Real or not real?

When we talk more in depth with Karen and Timothy, it quickly becomes clear that they don’t really know if any of these conclusions are real or not real. What IS real is that they themselves made up these conclusions based on the “evidence” at hand, which in each case was very skimpy evidence for such heavy conclusions.

What IS real is that Karen saw an image of a woman on her husband’s Instagram. And what IS real that Timothy’s girlfriend said, “I really love my car”.

Beyond those simple facts, everything else is a made-up conclusion that may or may not have any real basis.

How do you tell the difference between reality and fantasy?

One way is to simply ask yourself, like Peeta did, “Real or not real?” and sometimes it’ll be evident. For example, when Timothy realized he was concluding that his girlfriend was deliberately mocking him, he immediately said, “Not real, she’d never do that, that’s ridiculous”. (As you might know already, sometimes the stuff we conclude is flat-out ridiculous when we look at it).

Secondly, you ask the other person(s) involved. In Karen’s instance, she wasn’t sure if her conclusions were real or not real, so we would recommend she ask her husband about it.

A word of caution. When you ask your partner, or someone, if your conclusions or assumptions are real or not, try saying it this way.

“Because I saw a picture of so-and-so on your Instagram, I’m making up that you’re attracted to her and you’re not attracted to me. Is there any grain of truth to that?” (“Is there any grain of truth to that” is another way to say, “real or not real?

DO NOT say, “You always have these skanks show up on your profile! Are you sleeping around with them, too!?” Don’t accuse before you know.

By including the words, “I’m making up that ...”, you acknowledge that what you’re making up could be just that, purely made-up conclusions with no grounding in reality.

When you ask directly, you might sometimes discover that some of your made-up conclusions do indeed have a solid basis. Sometimes your partner might say, “Yeah, there is a bit of truth to that”, which could open up some really juicy conversations, if you’re willing to go there.

The main point we want to make here is that we all suffer from the predicament of making up sketchy conclusions based on skinny evidence. Often, our conclusions are detrimental to our own wellbeing and to the health of our relationships.

When Timothy makes up that his girlfriend is telling him he’s not successful enough, it’s more a reflection of his own lifelong fear that he’s not successful enough, than it is her putting him down. In this case, she just loves her car, plain and simple. That’s it. The rest came straight from his “mind factory”

Don’t believe your own conclusions too readily. Especially the ones that make you feel like crap!

The wonderful Byron Katie asks of her own thoughts: Is it true? Can I be absolutely certain it is true?

Questioning your own conclusions might just set you free from the occasional madness of your own mind, and open up more space for love in your relationships.

Real or not real?

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Bickering and arguing can suck the life out of any relationship. Most of us have at one point another found ourselves in the kind of bickering fests, or arguments, where we wonder what we’re even arguing about in the first place.

If you haven’t been there yourself, you’ve probably witnessed the bickering couple at a family gathering, where aunt Jenny and uncle Bob are constantly correcting and retorting at each other.

If bickering and arguing was merely annoying, it might not be such a big deal. But more than that, it drains the sweetness out of your relationship and sours the mood in the house, or wherever you go. Plus, it’s a misguided and often covert attempt to get needs met, which always fails, leaving one or both partners unfulfilled.

In this podcast, we are going to share four of the biggest communication mistakes most couples make that keep you fighting like 3-year olds, and at least 5 easy remedies you can take to dramatically improve your communication in relationship, thus quitting bickering like kids and starting to communicate like loving adults.

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“Everything and everyone wants to be loved.”

When we feel unhappy, lonely, disconnected, despairing, hopeless, disappointed, angry, hurt or any other unfavorable feeling in relationship, our first attempt at repairing the relationship and restoring love is to talk about our problems.

We focus on what isn’t working and on what we don’t like, we bring the issues in our relationship to the forefront – often in the form of complaint or blame or criticism to our partners – hoping they’ll instantly change for us as proof of their undying love.

We call this “technique” Complaining For Change. Sadly, this is the #1 go-to solution we use to fix problems in relationship.

Unfortunately, complaining for change and talking about problems often produces resistance, upset and more distance with our partners. It even actually makes our problems worse. It literally produces the exact opposite result you were trying to accomplish.

What to do instead?

In this podcast, we give you solutions for how to positively get your relationship back onto a positive love track. You will learn how to turn your attention towards, and how to highlight, the more favorable aspects of your partner, your relationship and your life together, so that the best of you and your partner can shine.

With this upward spiral of love and appreciation now in motion, many of your problems will evaporate, plain and simple. The ones that remain are more easily addressed from this new foundation of love and appreciation.

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This is Part 2 to the last podcast where I talked about our tendency to talk about our problems – or as we call it, Complaining For Change – when we want improvement in our relationships.

The positive intent behind talking about problems is the desire to get back to being in love, back to being connected, back to being in harmony, back to feeling good about ourselves, empowered and in love as a couple.

When I have a complaint, for example, that you don't listen to me. It’s as if I’m trying to convince you that I am right about how you don't listen. So I present all of this evidence to reinforce my position so that you will take me seriously and really get that I'm right about my perspective.

Once you see that I’m right – so the fantasy goes – you’ll make changes accordingly. Right?

It's a bit like I'm going to court to present my case so I can get the jury to agree with me that, yes, it’s true, he really doesn't listen to me.

Unfortunately, if I am right about how you don't listen, I am left with a partner who doesn't listen. If I am right about how you don't listen, what I “win” is that I have a partner who doesn't listen. Which is definitely NOT what I want.

I am in effect fighting to be right something I don’t want to be right about. I am going to court to fight a battle I don’t even want to win.

Here are a few stories to illustrate.

A man came to work with us. He was 49 years old, and he had been single most of his life. He’d never fallen in love, he said. All he really wanted was to have a relationship and create a family. He really wanted to have children and he wanted it more than anything. But he believed, indeed, he was fighting to be right about how it was too late for him, and he was too old, and it was never going to happen.

He didn't believe that he was worthy of creating that kind of relationship. He didn't think he had the experience. He didn't think he had the opportunity.

One of the first things we did when we worked with him was to ask if he were willing to be wrong about these negative self-assessments. Because in order for him to create what he wanted, he had to be willing to be wrong.

So he took it on. He took on being willing to be wrong. He showed our live trainings, he got to practice being in relationship in our interactive workshops.

About 10 months after starting with LoveWorks, he met Jessica and they fell in love. They got together. They got pregnant, and now have a precious three-year-old girl and are carving out a sweet life together. It all started with his willingness to be wrong about all of those old ideas and notions that he had been carrying around for almost 50 years.

Here’s anotherl story to illustrate how we inadvertently and unconsciously end up going for what we don't want when we're fighting to be right about an old story versus going for what we do want, which requires us being wrong.

Jenna and Tom were very estranged. They hadn't been sexual for a long time. They were sleeping in separate rooms. He was upstairs in their bedroom. She was downstairs on the couch and he was pissed off that they hadn't been intimate and sexual and she was really angry at their lack of intimacy and connection.

In the process of working with me, she began to uncover her real desire for connection with her husband that she really wanted to be wrong about certain aspects of him, that she really wanted to create a different connection, a different kind of relationship with him.

After one of our sessions she decided that that evening she was going to go up to her husband and initiate an intimate sexual interaction. So she did. She went upstairs, crawled into bed with her husband, and the first thing out of his mouth was, “See! You never do this! We never have intimacy. We never have sex because you are never this way!”

He then launched into complaining about their problems and everything that was missing. In that moment, Tom – like so many frustrated partners, missed the opportunity to have the intimacy and the sexual connection that he was longing for because he was fighting to be right about her unavailability.

He couldn't see her availability when it was right in front of him. And that is exactly what happens for a lot of us, we miss out on the opportunities to actually have the experiences of love and connection and joy that we long for because our minds are searching for evidence to reinforce us being right about very old dysfunctional stories that keep us unhappy and stuck and unsatisfied.

Begin to pay attention to and notice in yourself, what you are fighting to be right about that you haven't even noticed you've been fighting to be right about up until now.

Typically it's the stuff you say. It's the stuff you say to your girlfriends. It's the stuff you think in your head when you're really mad. It's the stuff you say when you're in a fight. Those sentences, those thoughts, those beliefs are often the very things we are fighting to be right about.

A powerful tool is to slow it down and find out what you're fighting to be right about. I'm never going to get what I want, right? Thoughts like, I’m never going to get what I want. You don’t listen. You don’t care. I’m not worth it. I’m the only one who cleans up around here. On and on.

Try writing them down so you can see it in print. Your identity is wrapped up around these thoughts. You’ll be able to see how you've been gathering evidence for these crappy stories your entire life.

Once you can see this, then play with being willing to be wrong.

I ask myself, “Am I willing to be wrong about that?” There’s all kind of things I’d like to be wrong about. I want to be wrong about how I'm not going to make enough money. I want to be wrong about how my kid's not going to turn out. I want to be wrong about us not being able to have a really great sex life. I want to be wrong about me not being able to find a great partner. I want to be wrong about me not being able to create the best living situation possible.

This is what’s going to help you create a successful relationship, so try it out.

Till next time, have fun being wrong!

If you found this valuable, hit the Share button and help your friends be wrong, too!

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This is a quick intro episode to tell you a little bit about us, about our philosophy, and what you can expect from this podcast.

On the Dare To Love podcast, we intend to share with you insights, techniques, and practical tools for improving and empowering all your relationships, from your close intimate relationships with your spouse or partner, kids and family, all the way to your social and professional relationships with coworkers, employees or bosses.

Relationships are often an overlooked constant in our lives. Unless you aspire to be a hermit in a cave somewhere, you are in relationships every day. Actually, even the hermit can’t escape being in relationship with him or herself.

To be a happy, harmonious, and productive human being, all of us need to be skilled at navigating our relationships, working through conflicts and harmoniously creating loving meaningful connections with others.

Relationships are unique in that they have the potential to either lift you up or tear you down. Your relationships can make you feel like a million bucks, full of love and possibility, or they can feel terrible, break your heart and make you want to give up.

When experts talk about relationships, it’s almost always in the context of marriage, if you are a couple, or dating if you’re a single person. And whereas those are called your primary relationships for a reason, we’re suggesting that your relationships are something that affect your entire existence, and that both the victories and the downturns in your romantic relationships affect greatly every other aspect of your life.

Here are a couple of examples.

A young couple called us. Jeremy told us, “We had hit a really rough spot in our relationship, I had my bags packed and was basically just going to get in my car and go. Luckily, we pumped the breaks and my girlfriend called the number we had for LoveWorks.”

Inside less than a year, this couple went from splitting up, to recommitting to each other and starting a family. They now have two young children and are happier than ever. And if that was the end of the story, that’d be a wonderful happy ending.

But in the process of working with our LoveWorks system, what they learned spilled directly over into their work world. Jeremy is a corporate manager for chain of restaurants in California. He’s responsible for overseeing operations in a region that consists of 6 locations and over 400 employees. Jeremy said, “My business relationships have completely transformed. Today how I communicate and follow through on agreements based on skills I have learned from LoveWorks form the basis for how I do business. Using these skills have in part contributed to my company having double-digit growth the past 3 years in a very competitive industry. My personal financial reward based on these skills has also been amazing. I have seen my income double since 2015.”

As Jeremy expressed, your primary romantic relationships are not an isolated island in your life. The skills required for being an amazing husband, wife, or partner are directly transferrable to your career or community life.

Another great example was a naturopathic doctor, Dr. Cari, who sought out our work because she was tired of being single, and tired of, as she said, “Dating the same guy over and over again”. She said about herself, that, “I pretty much didn’t know how to relate to anyone. I faked it….”

Like so many people in today’s world, Dr. Cari is an example of an extremely accomplished, independent person who’s successful elsewhere in life, but couldn’t quite make love work. After working with our LoveWorks system, Dr. Cari did indeed meet the love of her life. They got married on a sandy beach in Costa Rica, and they moved in together a few states away with his two younger children. Great ending, right?

Well, it didn’t stop there. Dr. Cari later said, “Working with LoveWorks has changed the way I am at work, with my staff, with my friends, with everybody, and it certainly set me up to have the relationship I actually want.”

Working with any of your relationships can improve all your relationships, and actually your entire life.

We’re here to tell you that you have a lot more power and influence over how your relationships unfold than you might think. In fact, we believe relationships can be uplifting, connecting, loving, and mutually empowering.

Your relationships have the possibility to be a place where you get to be and express more of who you are, not less. We believe relationships have the possibility of being fun and easy, connecting and uplifting, and that working on improving your relationships can be fun and easy too.

When it’s not fun and easy, when it’s not satisfying and empowering, then something needs to change in a productive way. Unfortunately, most people don’t have the skills and tools to make productive changes, so they often devolve to complaining or separation and divorce, or just staying lonely and miserable.

Even the most annoying people in your life, the ones that push your buttons the most, which of course are often the very same people you love the most, even your relationships with them can be used to empower yourself and to expand your capacity for love.

Daring to love means to be your best self while supporting your partner or whomever, to be their best self. Raising each other up, instead of pulling each other down.

That’s what the Dare To Love Podcast is all about. Over more than 35 years, starting with Sonika and the last 10 years with Christian as well, we have invented and developed a lighthearted and extremely effective body of work for how to create loving, soul satisfying relationships, with a whole host of practical exercises, tools, and techniques to make every one of your relationships work.

We have dealt with and addressed pretty much anything you can imagine in the realm of relating.

Whether it’s communication, intimacy, sex, parenting, long-distance relationships, divorce, step-families, recovering from infidelity, masculine-feminine power dynamics, dating and brand-new relationships, non-monogamy, conflict resolution, work relationships, dealing with teenage kids or uncooperative ex’es, how to be a better boss or a happier employee, or simply a more powerful human being, we have tools and materials for all of it!

We’d like to change the stereotypical account that working on your relationship is hard and tedious and involves endless processing before you see some light at the end of the tunnel.

We once had a couple who came as a last-ditch effort to our workshop to save a 30-year marriage. They had been through a couple of years of traditional couples therapy, and the woman said, “It was like walking through mud, with no light at the end of the tunnel”.

But halfway through our weekend training, she said, “Wow, I had no idea it could be fun working on our relationship!” It can absolutely be fun and uplifting.

It’s our philosophy that if we can help you connect in love, to make an intimate space, then half your problems will simply disappear on their own, and everything else will look a lot brighter and will be easier to deal with.

On this podcast you’ll hear from both Sonika and myself, sometimes together, sometimes just one of us at a time, and you’ll also hear from other experts who have unique and interesting approaches to relationships.

At times, you’ll hear us talk about or recommend books or trainings from other experts, and you’ll hear us refer to our own workshops and coaching too. We offer several different workshops on love, sex, conflict, and fear, and we offer men’s, women’s, singles and couples retreats as well. We have been coaching individuals and couples, men and women for many, many years through our live and online trainings, our private coaching sessions in person or by phone, and our audio programs.

Which is just to say that we are here for you, should you need or want additional support or training, whether you live local or far away in another state or country.

You don’t need to improve your relationships this alone.

The fact that we are a couple deeply in love after 14 years is an interesting love story in and of itself, and also testimony to the efficiency of this work. Because Sonika and I are in many ways a very unlikely couple. When we met, Sonika was 47 and I was 32. Sonika is American, and lived in CA, I’m Danish and had lived in Denmark all my life. Sonika was well established in life, she owned houses and rental properties and 401k’s and had been in business for 20 years, whereas Chr was starting over, had no belongings, career or savings, for that matter. Sonika had young children, Chr was looking for someone to start a family with. Let’s just say the odds were definitely not in our favor!

And yet, here we are, 14 years later, married, teaching and running a business together, parenting and "playing house", and being wonderfully in love all the while.

We’ve had so many of the challenges modern people deal with. Blended families, and co-parenting with an ex, long-distance relationship – VERY long distance – financial ruin, we lost almost everything in the 2008 crash; Christian is an immigrant and that entire process is very challenging to deal with; we've had health challenges, you name it.

How did we manage all that, while remaining grounded, in love, and happy 95% of the time? We practiced all the stuff we teach, at our workshops and in private coaching, and here on the podcast. In short, we are here to offer empowering, uplifting conversations about the most important aspect of human existence, our relationships with other people.

We welcome your input or suggestions for topics to talk about. If you go to our website at loveworksforyou.com, you’ll see a Contact menu (here ...) and you can send your thoughts and ideas. Or simply shoot an email to clientcare@loveworksforyou.com.

And hey, as a last personal note for this brief intro episode – if your relationships aren’t what you want them to be, if you have too much arguing and too little fun, friendship or sex, don’t let yourself get stuck in loneliness or feeling bad about yourself.

There’s always another option, there’s always an improved place to step into. You never need to be stuck. The Dare To Love podcast is here to give you options, to reveal new possibilities and to help you dramatically improve your every relationship!

We look very forward to being with you! :-)

Sonika & Christian

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In the beginning of your relationship, when you're all enamoured and in love - AKA the Honeymoon Phase - your partner is the best. You love almost everything about him or her and you let them know in every way possible: You touch and kiss and make love, you spend tons of quality time together, you speak words of admiration and appreciation. In short, they're amazing, you're amazing, your relaitonship is amazing, and your future potential is ... well, amazing!

At some point, your partner begins to show signs of being a mortal, like leaving their stuff everywhere, saying no to your advances, wanting to hang out with other people instead of another romcom on the couch with you. You begin to hear an edge to their voice, irritation with your habits, or sometimes even flat-out hostility that you totally hadn't seen coming.

When that happens, what do you - or really anyone - do in order to make it better, to bring it back to love?

You talk about it! You mention it. You bring it up. You complain. Now, when you're the one doing that, it seems to you that you're merely bringing up a good point, in a calm and reasonable manner, so you can deal with it like adults. Right?

But rest assured, in the ears of your partner, it always lands as complaining, critisizing, or fingerpointing. So we call it simply "complaining".

You complain for a good reason, though. Why? Because you think it's going to affect a positive change. The fantasy is that if you say, "You never listen to me!", your partner is going to say, "Really? OMG, I'm so sorry, that'll never happen again, I want to hear every word you say".

Does that ever happen in real life? Nope, it doesn't.

Instead, what happens? Your partner gets defensive, or shuts down, or goes away. Either way, they're definitely NOT listening to you more. Hence, your attempts to improve the situation produce the exact opposite.

We call it Complaining For Change. It's what start the downward trend of your relationship. It's the slow, painful kiss of death for your love. It sours the mood in your house and in your own mind. And it's imperative that you stop it.

Additionally, because most of us suffer from what is called "negativity bias", once the honeymoon is over, we focus more and more on the negative stuff, the things we don't want and don't like. And we say something about it (i.e. complaining for change), and thus we start the downward spiral.

If you've been in any significant relationship, you know this phenomenon. Somehow, it just get harder and harder NOT to see the things that annoy or concern you. Often, you don't notice till it's too late that your increased focus on what's not working simultaneously decreases your focus on what you love and appreciate. It's a double-downard-whammy.

In order to create powerful, loving, satisfying relationship, we need to make a shift in how we respond. A shift from Reaction to Creation. Instead of reflexively reacting to what we don't want (e.g. your partner saying no to your advances, or not listening as much as they should), we need to be able to consciously create what we want, consciously choosing a path that produces a better result for us.

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Do you ever feel starved for touch, intimacy, and sex? Do you get afraid this state of affairs will go on forever?

If you've been single for a long time, it's no wonder if you long for touch. It's a human need to not only be seen and acknowledged, but feel the touch and warmth of another loving human being.

To avoid feeling lonely and panicked about being single forever, and desperate for touch, here are a few things you can do.

Get massages from the gender you want a relationship with! Feeling a man or woman's hands on your body can be very nurturing and healing.
Touch yourself - both sensually and sexually. Include fantasies of your ideal partner as you do so.
Really imagine yourself being in intimate loving relationship with someone to give yourself the experience NOW that you are wanting. Let yourself fantasize like crazy!
Find someone with whom you feel safe to cuddle or sleep - a cuddle buddy. You could even create a "friends with benefits" arrangement to take care of your sexual needs. We've had singles in our LoveWorks programs make agreements to be each other's "holding buddies".
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, find a story to live inside of that is empowering and expansive.

Another useful technique is to "play out" the worst case scenario. Something interesting happens when you can (in your mind) make it ok to experience what you fear the most. When you can make your worst fear ok, you don't have to be afraid of it happening for real.

So what if you were never going to be in a relationship?

Imagining a future without relationship may free you up to not "look" for someone and get on with creating purpose and meaning and love in other places. It might also free you up to be yourself with everyone you date - to be less cautious and careful - and therefore more likely to actually create relationship.

On the other hand ... What if you KNEW your relationship was on its way to you?

Believing wholeheartedly that your relationship is coming may also free you up to not "look" or worry.

What if your desire for relationship wasn't personal?

What if it was a spiritual calling, and unseen forces are at work preparing you to meet your partner?

What if you trusted that the universe is in process of lining things up for you and your soul mate?

What if you knew there wasn't anything wrong with you that is keeping you from meeting "the One", but it is only because your partner isn't quite ready yet?

Settling into trust and relaxation and heart opening love is paramount to successful singledom AND successful coupledom. Success at either and both requires that we be experts at managing our minds, at trusting that we will create a great life no matter what shows up!

How would you be if you trusted that Spirit has something beautiful and right for you in mind when it comes to love?

The LoveWorks Solution Podcast: Recent Episodes

Christian Pedersen & Sonika Tinker, founders of LoveWorks!

1 Engage in the relationship.

2 Connect. Talk. Share.

3 Listen. Without taking stuff personally. Listen to the whole episode (approx. 4 minutes) to get the rest of the tips (or watch the video version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYzlAjRjIsQ)

1 Tell him he's a good man!

2 Give him points for effort.

3 Respect his choices

4 Share your physical affection and appreciation

1 Physical abuse, pain, or violence

2 Name calling, belittling, demeaning

3 Public humiliation, spreading of negative gossip about you

2 above pertains to your private relationship and communication. #3 is outward-facing behavior. Does your partner humility you in front of friends or family? Spreads negative stories about you behind your back?

1 Shift your complaints to requests

2 Express appreciations to your partner every day

3 Talk about your own experience

4 Expand to include

1 Take time and space for yourself

2 Grow, learn, expand, and step outside your comfort zone.

3 Carve out time to focus on your relationship

1 Give your partner the benefit of the doubt.

2 Expand to include

3 Speak in "We"

4 Give first, give fast

5 Explore how to create a win-win

1: Define what “growing” means to you. What do we want to create in the next 6-8 weeks.

2: Deepen your intimacy. A great way to do this is to ask Intimacy Questions.

3: Appreciations. Speak out loud your appreciations to your partner.