Category: Relationships
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Sincere vs. Empty Apologies: Impact on Healing and Hurt
Some apologies promote healing and forgiveness. Other apologies are self-serving, insincere, empty, and promote anger, resentment, and further hurt. Empty apologies that don’t name the wrongs committed do not promote healing and forgiveness. “I’m sorry you feel bad about what I did,” ” I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it,” or “I’m sorry you feel that…
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Politeness Without Integrity: The Trap of Passive Aggression
Politeness is not a replacement for integrity. Would you excuse a robber for stealing your purse because he thanked you while stealing it? Passive-aggressive people say please and thank you while mistreating you. Recognizing when someone pairs polite manners with selfish or subtle aggressive behavior is essential for one’s emotional and physical self-protection in relationships.…
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Why Self-Centered Therapy Can Harm Relationships
Psychotherapy that encourages ‘me, myself, and I’ thinking is considered bad therapy. Many clients interpret seeking the fulfillment of personal goals and happiness to mean it’s acceptable to disregard the effect it will have on others. We are all part of a system. Psychotherapy is a self-focused process. Exploring feelings, wants, needs, past traumas, and…
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Forgiveness: A Personal Choice for Healing or Protection
Forgiving is a complicated process. For some, it’s a necessary step to achieve emotional healing. For others, attempting forgiveness is emotionally damaging. Whatever the degree of the abuse, neglect, or betrayal one has suffered, whether to forgive or not is a personal decision. Forgiving what has happened to you is not saying “I forgive you”…
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Making Dating Less Stressful and More Enjoyable Will Lessen The Dread Of The Process.
Many people dread the experience of dating. However, there are strategies, techniques, and attitudes that can make the process less tedious and anxiety-producing. Having conversations that match your dating stage helps the experience be more relaxed and less complicated. Changing negative attitudes and behaviours is essential. Dating is social time spent with another person engaging…
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Overcoming Fear to Build Healthy, Open Relationships
Feelings and beliefs that are based on fear create distance and conflict in relationships. Understanding why we are afraid to talk openly and how to overcome those fears is essential to establishing a healthy relationship. Restricted communication in relationships is as influential on intimacy as what partnrrs express to each other. It can be anxiety-producing…
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Effective Listening Requires Hearing Feelings and Intentions
Effective listening involves more than just hearing words being spoken. It means hearing feelings, intentions, and content. It means wanting to understand what is being said and being able to respond appropriately and accurately. Effective communication involves both talking and listening in a way that makes our thoughts, feelings, wants, needs, and opinions conveyed clearly…
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Why Avoiding Conflict Harms Intimacy and Connection
Couples who avoid conflict experience impaired intimacy, build resentments, and become disconnected from each other. Conflict leads to the experience of heightened emotions, which facilitates motivation to communicate and resolve problems. Engaging honestly and passionately about feelings, wants, needs, and ideas leads to conflict resolution. At the moment, deciding to let an issue go unaddressed…
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Understanding and Overcoming the Triggers of Social Anxiety
Social anxiety can be paralyzing. Some people suffer from social anxieties due to childhood trauma, low self-esteem, or peer pressure. Social situations can trigger fears of rejection, humiliation, and stress. Shyness also causes anxiety by triggering comparison to others and fear of failure at succeeding at social expectations. Physical symptoms like shaking, sweating, becoming speechless,…
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How Money Differences Can Break Relationships
The differences in how couples communicate about, manage, and feel about money can irreparably damage a relationship. Money represents different things to people. It can define one’s self-worth and sense of success. It also can symbolize power, control, security, attractiveness or freedom. The conditions surrounding finances in our families influences how we feel about and…