Author: admin

How to Discuss “Eggshell” Topics

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One of the biggest challenges couples face is: how to talk about “eggshell” topics – those topics that you can’t discuss without fighting, or hurting feelings, or getting defensive – topics that one way or another, whenever you approach them, you both ending up feeling like crap about the relationship…
Topics like: in-laws and relatives and friends you disagree on; past hurts, or future plans; personal hygiene, kids – and of course, money…you avoid these topics, yet they simmer unspoken beneath the surface; live-wire obstacles to real trust and intimacy and fulfillment.
That’s why there shouldn’t be ANY “eggshell” topics in your relationship at all – and I promise you it can be done –
But for now, let’s just address how to actually have a breakthrough, and be able to discuss these “eggshell” topics in a new way.
First, you must understand why the topics are “eggshell” in the first place: it’s not just because you disagree with each other; it’s because you actually don’t feel safe with each other. Deep in your subconscious, you are both afraid that, because you feel differently about a topic, your partner will reject you – a painful experiences we avoid at all costs.
In fact, what you are both really avoiding is the need to change. Depending on who is “more” responsible for the particular situation, this change can take many forms – but at its core, it means a change in how you relate to each other. It means discussing “eggshell” topics in a way that both of you end up actually feeling closer and more loving with each other – better, not worse, about the relationship.
Topics are “eggshell” because they trigger negative emotions – and negative emotions make you both feel unsafe. This means that the art of discussing them successfully is, instead, to trigger positive emotions. This is not only easier than it sounds, it is actually one of the highest blessings of a relationship – the feeling that you are safe with each other no matter what comes up between you.
To do this, you must powerfully create a certain feeling between you – otherwise, the negative emotions will take on a life of their own. This requires that you speak to each other in a very special way. And since you are the one who is taking the lead on it, at first, only you will know how to do this – which you demonstrate by example.
So here are five basic steps to discussing “eggshell topics:

Step One:
Look into your heart and find the place that appreciates your partner, that is grateful for their being in your life. Find everything you love and honor and respect about them – all of their best qualities, all the ways you have known them to be good and kind and smart and terrific, as human beings, as your best friend and lover, perhaps as a parent. Really connect with this knowing within you.
Step Two:
Approach your partner and tell them that you love them. Tell them specific things you love about them. Tell them how grateful you are that they are in your life.
Step Three:
While holding this attitude of love and care – this reality – in your heart and mind, tell your partner that there is something that you want to talk about. Say that – so far – it feels like the two of you can’t talk about it without feeling uncomfortable, but you want to be able to talk about anything and still feel the love between you. Say that no matter what they say, you respect how they feel, and you love them. But you have to be able to talk about this topic, and there are things you want to say as well. Tell them you are willing to change and compromise and care about everything they have to say, to make sure they feel totally safe and loved by you no matter what, every step of the way – but also, this thing needs to be talked about – and you love them (you say again).
Step Four:
Empathize with their point of view: in other words, put into words how their point of view would make sense from their perspective: “I know you work hard for the money and it doesn’t seem like a reasonable purchase” “I know you don’t want to start a fight with your mother by not going” “I know how you must be so tired that you’re not even thinking about putting down the toilet seat” – then say, “But this is hard for me because…” and state your side of it. THEN say “I don’t care about being right, I just want us to figure out a way we can compromise on this and both feel great about our relationship and each other and the whole situation – and I love you!”
Step Five:
Throughout the conversation, keep telling them that you love them. That you support them. That you are so grateful they are in your life. Touch them gently, with love. Insert compliments into the conversation – things you love, admire, respect, and appreciate about them.
THE POINT IS NOT TO MANIPULATE – IT IS TO BE AS SINCERE AS POSSIBLE!
None of this is manipulative – it is caring about the fact that they don’t feel safe with the topic, so you are creating the space of safety for both of you. This is not “fake” because, well, if you don’t feel this way towards them, then why are you in the relationship?
No matter what they say, keep affirming how much you love and appreciate them.

There are many versions of “eggshell” topics, and this is just a basic overview of a general approach. It’s a radical way, and you have to be open-minded…but remember, conversation with your partner is just like sex: there is nobody looking but the two of you, so don’t try to be “cool”, instead care and connect and support each other, and then only magic will happen.
If it is hard to picture or understand what I have described here – or if you think that it is “just not you” – then I assure you, I can help you find the version of this approach that “is” you.
The big secret is: when you both feel completely safe with each other – all the eggshell topics will disappear – there will truly be nothing that you are uncomfortable talking about, and no problems you can’t solve together.
And when you have a relationship where you can talk about anything at all, you are both set free to become the man or woman you have always wanted to be – and to create the relationship with each other that both of your hearts have always longed for.
Please contact me with any questions or comments – this is all Truth, and I am here to help you with it.

Video: How Parents Fighting Affects Teens and Kids

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If there is tension and fighting between you and your partner, this video will help you understand, in ways you may not have understood before, the effects on teens and kids. If you’re on the front home page of my blog, click on the title of this article. Or if you’re already on the single page for this article, here’s the link right here : How Parents Fighting Affects Teens and Kids

What Does A Healthy Relationship Look Like?

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What does a healthy relationship look like?
This is one of the most-asked questions on the internet – which means that millions of people don’t know if they are doing it “right.”
Maybe you think you are “supposed to” hold hands all the time, and gaze into each other’s eyes, and make each other laugh, and have passionate sex every night – but instead:
“We never even see each other, and when we do we just watch tv and read without talking to each other – that can’t be right!”
Maybe your relationship feels right – but it doesn’t “look” right:
“We sleep in separate beds – is that OK?”
Or perhaps your relationship “looks” perfect, but you are unhappy anyway:
“We have great jobs and our kids are high achievers – is it me? I’m just screwed up, right?”
Or maybe…your relationship feels and looks totally wrong:
“We hate each other, hahaha!” –
Or else you are alone, and don’t want to be, but you’ve never even been in a “healthy” relationship, and even though you long to create one, you don’t even know where to begin –
Or – my last example here – are you confused because you have a relationship where the good seems so good, but the bad seems so bad…and your inner (subconscious) and outer (environmental) voices are so…conflicted…that you are blocked from even knowing the truth of your own heart…
(Where the answer shines on as it always has…)
So let’s make this very simple –
Are you ready?
Here it is:
– Your relationship is healthy if you are truly, deeply fulfilled by it.
– Your relationship is healthy if, despite how hard and lousy it feels sometimes, you and your partner are consciously working together to create that reality of being truly, mutually, deeply fulfilled.
The whole reason to be in a relationship is to be truly and deeply fulfilled – any attempt to create a healthy relationship must start with this understanding, this goal, and work backwards.
It’s not that you will feel this all the time – at first – but rather:
That you are both committed to creating a relationship that does indeed fulfill both of you. When pursued with devotion, this intention (and the actions it inspires) will actually create a relationship where you are deeply fulfilled all the time….as your definition of what fulfillment really means evolves along with your own maturity…
The state of being “truly, deeply fulfilled” is an experience that only you can judge – and getting to this state is a journey of self-discovery. That means that as you get to know yourself better, you might discover that some things you thought you needed actually do not really fulfill you…
For example, many men and women have a “checklist” of what they want in a partner – a certain profession, a look, a talent, a certain income level or social status – and rejoice when they find the partner who meets these specifications…. but after a few years, this checklist often leaves them feeling empty…unfulfilled….
Another common example is sexual chemistry – the sex is hot at the beginning, but after a few years of marriage, that heat, and/or the connection it once inspired, seems to vanish, leaving both partners feeling lost, wondering what happened….(don’t get me wrong – you can have amazing sex all your lives with that same partner – as long as the nature of that experience changes and evolves while you both mature together…but that is another topic…)
Notice that when I use the words “truly and deeply fulfilled,” I am describing an internal state of being – an experience that has nothing to do with external circumstances.
It comes when both partners make sacrifices for the relationship – and at a very deep level, those sacrifices fulfill them far more than actually getting “their way” – because they are instead creating something new and special –
Building a house of love…
And nothing makes them happier than to care for their partner’s heart…
When both partners live in generous joyful surrender to each other, both partners end up getting everything they really want anyway…and the things that seemed so upsetting, things they thought they “needed,” simply lose all their urgency and fall blissfully away….
It is possible to feel very “fulfilled” in a relationship for stretches at a time – when you are making love, perhaps, or sharing a particular experience – but then that feeling disappears, and you feel unhappy…in such a case, the “fulfillment” is more of an emotion-
And I am not talking about emotions here, which come and go and have no long-term reality if one is committed to personal growth.
Again, our goal is a state of being that you share with each other:
Truly, deeply fulfilled. This state of being is dependent on the quality of connection you create with each other: a shared experience of care, and safety, and warmth, and support, and trust, and interest, and intimacy, and connectedness…
You know if these words describe your relationship.
And if they do not, you also have a sense that it may be possible to achieve this state, if both of you want to do the work. All it takes is for both you and your partner to be clear that this is what you want – and to be sincere in your commitment to doing what it takes to get there.
This is the work I do with couples all the time – and when that breakthrough comes, it is a beautiful thing!
So wipe away all the pictures of who you “should” be, all the checklists, and all the voices you’ve internalized and adopted and mistaken as your own…all voices of other people (even your current partner) – telling you what’s right for you….
Trust yourself. Remember how to really see.
Ask yourself the question once more: what does a healthy relationship look like?
And then:
Open the eye of your heart.

Florida School Shooting – Reflections from a Healer and Therapist

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Another mass shooting yesterday…another school assaulted….unbearable pain for the kids and families…agony in our hearts…we send prayers to Florida, and at the same time feel helpless that this is all we can do….
We all share the same wounded scream to the heavens:
“WHY, GOD? HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?”
And also:
How can we prevent these atrocities?
Here are some reflections on those questions (because that is all I can do…):
There is nothing more basic than the need for safety – food, shelter, family (of some kind), social bonds…a civilization where we connect and lead meaningful lives…
We also need psychological safety within ourselves; the sense that we can handle the tough challenges life throws our way…
And we need love. Love is safety too.
So these shooters – what are they doing?
The shooter is a human being, and the spiritual core of the human being is love – but the shooter is destroying love, destroying us, destroying himself…
He attacks places that embody safety and love and society…foundations of our psychological and physical existence: when the shooter assaults a school, he is a living screaming unholy message: There is no safety! No family, no society! There is no Love!
We all depend on each other for love – we are doing it now, in the aftermath of this latest abomination…
Some of us experience this whole world as a human family, responsible for each other, connected to each other at a fundamental level – sharing an earth in a flow of life, an infinite exchange of energy (food, rain, waste, resources, ideas, love) that is oblivious to our superimposed tribal identities (religion, country, political party, income, education, profession)…
Others of us get everything we need (psychologically) from these tribal identities – as long as these tribes meet our immediate needs, we’re OK!
But one of the great laws of physics – that does not care about our ego-erected creations – is that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
And so when tribes are created based upon “us vs. them” – whether nations or gangs or religions or income levels –
When the culture and art and technology created by these tribes exploits this sense of “I’m right because you are wrong – I’m smarter because you are stupid – I’m strong because you are weak – and I will dominate and destroy you!” –
And when we bring violence into our families – through hard words and fighting and wounding and judgement and selfishness and blame and narcissism and any other toxic negativity where there should only be love love LOVE –
….When we do all this –
…Then we create the reality: there is no safety, no family, no society! Which wounds all the hearts and souls and spirits who have come into awareness open hearted with the tender need to drink from these watering holes, as is their nature, our nature –
And this sets in motion that unstoppable “Action – Reaction” process, of pain projected outward, that can only end in catastrophe…somewhere down the line, sooner or later, in the great chain of events, in that cosmic web we are always weaving…
And then this primal agony gets reflected back to us in the horrific destruction that devastates us all…
Mental illness is still a mystery, although we know many more details about its chemical and psychological mechanics than we ever have…
And there is truth in the uncomfortable sense we all share: that in human life as we know it, horror simply exists, it is , as part of a great cosmic order beyond our comprehension…
So indeed, there may be only so much we can do to prevent deranged individuals from aligning with the forces of spiritual destruction –
BUT ALSO – there is also a lot we can do!
By really taking responsibility for looking more deeply: at what Love needs at every level, macro and micro, of our interconnected shared space, even in ways that may not seem so obvious until we break through the clouds of our taken-for-granted perceptions and positions…
…And I wonder if the more we do, the more it becomes possible to create a healing transformation at the most basic structural levels of society, as we learn how our seemingly unrelated thoughts and actions really can affect a healing change that spreads outwards like blood and oxygen and nourishing food through the body of society, of our human family, that exists…well, why?
Why does it exist?
Here is a verse (49:13) translated from the Holy Quran – which is regarded as the Word of God by many, many different tribes, just as many different documents are looked to in the same way by many other tribes – all searching to know the same God, that master consciousness we all share and influence and co-create even as we are only the playthings and shadows of Divine expression, of the Real behind the illusion:
O mankind! We created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other (not that ye may despise each other).
Tribes! God created tribes! (Even if you don’t believe in God, you see this reality, right?)
And this is Why He created them – to know each other – to not despise each other – do you believe this?
Societal change can only be rooted in us as individuals – of course!
…In our own personal minute-by-minute choices…
….Within our families, as members of our various tribes…and within our own space of psyche and energy and mystery…
…That ultimately we – only ourselves – each one of us! – are responsible for….
Because we are all in this together!

How To Build Trust In A Relationship

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Don’t buy into the lie that you can never really know if you can totally trust your partner – you absolutely can create this state of complete trust between you.
This article will help you build unshakeable, rock-solid trust in your relationship- the kind where you both know that you would never hurt or betray each other, or be selfish, or unkind.
Come on: anything less than total emotional trust feels like crap – and your relationship is not supposed to feel like crap! (even though lots of couples live that way anyway. But that doesn’t mean that you should.)
Trust means emotional safety – and that’s the whole point of a committed intimate relationship. Without total trust, the relationship never becomes truly and deeply fulfilling.
So how do you get there?
I’ll give you a few simple rules.

RULE #1: No “Eggshell” Topics

This means that absolutely no topics are off-limits to comfortable, loving discussion.
NONE!
Not in-laws or family, not hygiene, not bathroom habits – not any of each other’s habits! – not sex, not kids, not the past, the future, or the present. In fact, the whole relationship basically breaks down at the point where the two of you can’t – comfortably and lovingly – discuss any topic.
Learning how to easily discuss “eggshell” topics is a skill set that can save your relationship. It is a topic all its own that I will address in other posts, but for now you must identify what these topics are –
And commit within yourself to learning how to talk about them – always and only with sincere care and respect for each other!

RULE #2: Never Put Down Your Partner

The truth is that your partner may do or say things that are stupid, selfish, mean, frustrating, time-wasting, unattractive, or that even seem repulsive to you either morally or aesthetically – AND YET – you are still not allowed to put them down for it –
Does that mean you have to accept words and actions that are totally unacceptable? NO!
It means that you learn the skill of drawing boundaries for what you will not accept without de-valuing them as a human being – here’s what that means:
There is a huge difference between communicating to your partner (with your words or your energy) “That thing you just did or said sucks – but I still support you” vs. “That thing you just did or said sucks, and so do you!”
It’s the attitude behind your words and actions that matter!
Look: the basic assumption behind any trusting relationship is that both of you are basically good people who make lots of mistakes, like everybody else – like you yourself, right?
And just like you want to feel safe to make mistakes – and just like you want to hear constructive criticism so you can improve yourself, without feeling judged or put down – you are responsible for extending that same form of safety to your partner.

RULE #3: Stay Connected by Talking, Touching, Texting – and doing nice things.

In a trusting relationship you never have to wonder what your partner is thinking or feeling – because they are always telling you, and showing you – and you are doing the same!
There is nothing sweeter.
The whole reason you are in a relationship is because you want a partner, right? A combination of best friend and lover, where you journey with each other to discover the best life you can live, and the best version of yourself you can be.
This happens by connecting: talking, touching, texting, doing nice things for each other, asking each other questions, sharing thoughts and feelings and experiences together.

I get it: you might be at the point in your relationship where this all sounds great in theory, but you may not be sure how to actually create it in your life.
Don’t worry – this kind of connection can be created, even if it seems out of reach at the moment. You first must decide that you want it, and then resolve to learn how.
Creating this kind of connection is a skill that can be learned, which I will address in detail in other posts. But for now, you simply need to understand that this dynamic is necessary to create trust in a relationship – and then resolve within yourself to learn how.
Keep an eye peeled to this blog for me to get very specific and go into more details about exactly how to create this trust – and of course, if you think you need some more personal help – just get in touch with me – I’ll show you how!
Let me hear from you with questions or comments!

Stop Fighting: Step One

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XelwII_epCE&t=3s

This is always the first thing anyone must learn to break through their old habits of fighting and arguing in their relationship – or in any life conflict, really…

The Secret Reason Your Relationship Sucks During the Holidays! (and how to fix it)

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Do you love or hate the holiday season?

That might depend on what’s happening with your spouse or lover, right?

If you’re married or with a partner but you still feel empty and unfulfilled, then the holidays are just a swamp of piled-on activities, plodding tasks, pressures, expectations, and overlapping dramas – and it all feels so….mandatory, and inconvenient, and intrusive.

Is that you?

If your holidays are a stressful slog, but you can’t put your finger on the problem – well, I just might know:

Dopamine.

It could be that you’re hooked on the stuff, and you don’t even know it – and this hidden addiction is all that stands in your way, between you and the holiday spirit.

Here are the facts you need:

Dopamine is a brain chemical that helps control the brain’s reward and pleasure centers; it also helps regulate emotional responses.

So when you’re longing for something, or even just wanting – a toy, a sushi roll, a social interaction, a loving touch – that whole process consists of flooding your brain with dopamine:

First the neediness, then the anticipation, and then finally: the attaining…getting a present, expecting a phone call…planning for sex…

These endless perpetual overlapping cycles self-generate all day and all night, through even the most mundane life activities.

Social media is a perfect example: whenever you keep checking your phone compulsively for new messages, or “likes,” or just scroll endlessly looking for something interesting – that’s you fiending for that dopamine “hit.”

In other words, dopamine is associated with addiction: the whole compulsive activity-reward-activity-reward-over-and-over mindless wanting…and you probably know that once the addictive cycle starts, it takes more and more to satisfy that endless black hole…

But even more importantly, this whole dopamine cycle isn’t just about the moment of reward – it includes the “build-up” as well: the act of driving to the “reward’s” location, or preparing the food before you eat it; of taking the works out of the secret drawer; of getting your chips and claiming your seat at the slot machine…or of looking down at your phone before you pick it up to check it….

In other words, not living in the “now” but in the future…and then – once the reward is delivered –  experiencing sensation as a form of absence –  an escape from being fully present and alive, letting this autonomous dopamine process take on a soul-destroying life of its own – again, not really being “now.”

But what does this have to do with you, and the holidays, and your love relationship?

Everything.

Our society, our culture, has trained us to base our sense of fulfillment, of “rightness” on external phenomenon: on acquiring experiences and objects, on checking items both big and small off the list…

The stuff of life, right?

No – the stuff of living.

One of my great teachers, Barry Long, often spoke of the difference between living and life.

Living is activity. But life is love:

Love as fully present consciousness. Love as your nature, your essential state of being.

Love as the energy and the stillness that you and your partner share with each other, through expressions of touch and vocal tones, and radiating energy of attention, and awareness, and admiration, and appreciation.

All the holiday gatherings, all those to-do lists, and activities – if your life is full of them, but you do not feel the love inside of you, glowing peaceably like a pilot light – then you are stuck on a cycle of positive or negative reward that will endlessly occupy you but never truly fulfill you –

Even if your partner is right by your side the whole time.

And so right now, you need to call or text or grab your partner and say “Thank you for being in my life! I love you!” And from there keep opening more deeply, more sincerely, then ever before…

If this is something that is hard or unusual for you, then try this:

Think of a way that you love, or admire, or respect, or are grateful for your partner…find the place within you that feels that way…and speak from that place, put it into words:

“I am so thankful that you…”

“That is so cool that you…”

“That is so awesome that you…”

And feel the real feelings – the vulnerability, perhaps the awkwardness, perhaps the melting away of your hard defenses…

Touch them from that place, be with them in that space…

But if this is something you simply cannot comfortably do, please know that you will find the solution to feeling unfulfilled when you are ready to take the inner journey to create this connection with your partner, which is a process that people like me can help you with…

And which starts when you find the real love that is hidden like a treasure within your being – the deepest truth of who you are…

Which is also something I can help you with…

And when you find this, then all the infinite spinning hamster wheels, of dopamine-seeking, and never-quite-rewarding rewards, will break down and burn in the fire of your freedom, and wash far away in the ocean of love…

Meanwhile all the pressures and strains of the holiday season will dissolve in the light of your radiant essence…as sex becomes, not an activity in the future that you need, but an expression, in the now, of the living love that you always feel within…and that you and your partner share each moment, always together, even when physically separate…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Long-Term Couples: Sexual Healing and Improving (Sex Blog #1)

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If you think you are dealing with sexual issues in your relationship, guess what: your issues are really much deeper than sex.

However, they are showing up in your relationship in the form of sex.

For the purposes of this blog, let’s define “sexual issues” as: one or both of you are uncomfortable or unhappy with the sex in your relationship – too much, too little, or the energy and emotions just don’t feel right.

Solving these issues requires a new mindset: before reaching sexual solutions, you must first face the more basic issues that are expressing themselves – sexually – between the two of you. You must, with gentle courage, discover what they are, and walk through them in every aspect of your life together, because they are not going to go away otherwise.

Once you break through them, you will easily make love, in a natural and fulfilling way.

The issues that come up in sex therapy cut to the core of who you and your partner are as human beings, often in unexpected ways. They are often so painful or embarrassing to face that people are either in denial about them, or are simply unwilling to deal with them.

“Normal” men and women (as well as self-professed “freaks”) can deny how deep these wounds really go: their self-protecting ego is also self-sabotaging; it has grown too fearful and inflexible to let in the light, and so therefore:

The first, most basic and ESSENTIAL step to take when solving sexual problems is that you both resolve -within yourselves – to be unconditionally kind, caring and patient with each other, while you work through these issues.

If this is hard for you – if you are impatient or fed up or too uncomfortable to deal – then this is your issue, that you are responsible for healing – if you want to redeem your relationship.

You don’t have to. You can do whatever you want. But if you want to create a healthy sexual relationship between you and your partner, you must sincerely work towards getting over yourself.

So does your partner – absolutely. But so do you – no matter what comes up.

Even if you feel like a victim – your partner feels like one too, I promise!

Don’t get me wrong: abuse is never, ever OK. If you need to get away from abuse, make that choice!

But if we’re really talking about bad habits – of thought as well as action – or a dynamic where the two of you are still calibrating your compatibility with each other (even if it’s been many years) –

Well of course that’s all got to change –

But such change only happens when both partners feel safe to share the truth of who they are.

It is very possible that deep down, your partner has issues with self-acceptance. They may even hate themselves – something they may not even admit to themselves. They may be projecting this self-loathing onto you, by treating you as if you are some kind of problem.

While conversely – maybe your sex life is forcing you to face ways that you don’t like yourself.

These are just a few examples of the kind of hidden dynamics that play out in a couple’s intimate relationship. The good news is that this space of intimacy and sexuality is the very place these issues can be healed and transformed.

However, the only way to heal these kinds of devastating wounds is through unconditional love and acceptance.

Not just kind in the bedroom, but in every aspect of your life together.

If a partner does not feel emotionally safe and connected outside of the bedroom, there is no way they can feel comfortable getting totally naked and vulnerable during sex. Even couples who have “successful” sex can be deeply unfulfilled if the underlying relationship issues remain unresolved.

So there is no room for judging or criticizing – only pure acceptance and support…for yourself, and for your partner, wherever you may be stuck now.

If you resist that idea, you must ask yourself why – are you just so sexually frustrated that you are out of patience? Do you feel like you have already tried over and over and are starting to lose faith that you can actually see results?

There is literally no chance of resolving sexual issues unless both partners feel emotionally safe with each other – no chance, in fact, of having a truly, deeply fulfilling relationship at all.

Give yourself the love and care you want from your partner. You deserve it! Lose the urgency, lose the despair – you have nothing but space and time to work through this. Have faith that however this situation resolves, it will ultimately leave you more comfortable in your own skin, more aligned with your true desires and needs, than even seems possible right now.

And then turn your thoughts to your partner…

Look into the depths of their being…(if you can’t do that, then we’re hitting the edge of the problem right there)…yes, look and ask yourself: if there is a special human soul, a hidden brighter light, shining behind wherever they are stuck, a light that can meet your needs….whether they are shut down or closed off or neurotic or anxious or mean or weird or fat or flabby or sad:

Do you see something deeper in them, a spirit on a journey, just like yourself, that wants to shine, and love, but hasn’t yet figured out how?

If so, then they are trapped by their own limitations just as you are trapped by their limitations – and of course, just as you are trapped by your own…

For at this moment in time, they are your reality – they are the life you have chosen and created for yourself. The life that you are responsible for.

And just as you are longing to shine your light, so are they –

Even if, for the moment, all you perceive is the shadow they cast…

But otherwise…ask yourself: If you could have a loving caring rock-solid physical connection with them – would you want that?

Not “do you believe you can right now,” but really, in a perfect world, if you knew you could – would you?

If the answer is yes, then this mindset I have described is the actual first, necessary step on the road to healing…a road which may be much shorter than it now seems…and a road which I will detail at great lengths in future posts!

Relationship Conflicts: When It’s Family vs. Partner at Holiday Gatherings

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Couple in love standing back to back ignoring each other

Do the holidays back you into a corner, forcing you to “choose sides” between your partner and one or more family members?

Is there a constant tension beneath all the hugs and smiles: your partner vs. your family?

Maybe it’s a general attitude, or perhaps the conflict is over a specific issue: differing opinions about a “bad” choice someone made – or perhaps an unforgiven incident from years ago, kept vigilantly, resentfully alive…

Or – maybe it’s a new conflict, specially manufactured just for the holidays this year!

Either way, somebody’s going to be mad at you, right? Either your partner or your family member(s)… and now the seasonal gathering means you must suffer through personality conflicts, pervasive nitpicking, and grudge-holding…through casual rudeness and insensitivity…and gaslighting, and disrespect.

OK, time to break through all that crap and enjoy your holidays -and here’s how:

Until now, you have made a choice: either you have defended your partner when family “go against” him or her, which makes you a “traitor” to the family that raised you…or…you take your family’s side, which leaves your partner feeling criticized and abandoned.

Well here’s some good news: you really don’t have to choose sides – even if you have an opinion that one “side” or the other is “right” – you can still give your love and support to all, without anyone feeling like you have turned against them – without anyone feeling devalued or disrespected.

But even more importantly: you SHOULD NOT choose sides. Again, I don’t mean that you shouldn’t have an opinion. You should feel free to have your opinion and to share it: but when you do, neither your partner, nor your family – no one – should feel judged or criticized or disrespected. Even if you feel strongly that one side or another is “right.”

The way to navigate this successfully is to BE TRUE TO THE SITUATION!

What does that mean? Two things: one regarding your partner, and the other regarding your family.

Concerning your partner: you are with them because you respect them, and like them – and of course, love them – or else, why are you with them? And why are you bringing them to be among your family? You have chosen them – they are a life choice you have made – an extension of yourself.

So if you don’t support them, then you are not being true to the situation.

You don’t have to be with them, right? But if you choose to, the whole point is to support them and care for their heart. If your family are not respecting your partner, they are not respecting you either. So if you allow your partner to be hung out to dry – if you align with your family against them by making them an emotional opponent – then you are also dishonoring yourself.

The same is true if you want to collude with your partner against your family – but it gets a little more complicated there – because you don’t choose your family. So your family might actually have some people you don’t really want to be around – but have to. (That is actually a form of being true to that situation – showing them the respect of your presence – unless they have been truly heinous, in which case, sure stay away – but otherwise:) even if you have unresolved painful emotions around your family, it is not right or fair to disrespect them by triangulating with your partner “against” them – after all, the very problem you have with them is that you feel they have not honored or respected you.

The two of you can talk about your family all you want when you get back home – but you while you are choosing to be in their presence, you owe them respectful treatment – or else, again, simply leave.

So what do you do when you become aware that there is tension between your partner and one or more family members?

You simply make it clear that you will not disrespect anyone. You can care about the feelings: very simply: “I care about how you feel.” You don’t have to believe someone is right to care about their pain.

And you can choose sides – but when you do so, it is in the spirit of care and generosity, of accepting everyone’s limitations, whether you perceive them as being stupid or shallow or neurotic or weird or defensive or anything else – you don’t devalue them as human beings, but rather accept them as broken people doing their best – as we all are.

Let them rant and rave, or wheel and deal in emotional drama. All you ever have to say is: “I see how upset you are. I don’t want you to feel that way.”

And if you disagree with someone who is trying to make another look bad, then say, with calm self-self-knowledge, “I disagree.” (without anger, and not needing to say more) Or, if you agree, “I support you. I am here for you.” But either way, you are creating a moment of truthfulness, not fanning the flames of drama.

When you go to such an event, it is your responsibility to make peace with the fact that you are choosing to be there, and you are choosing to bring your partner. Your only purpose is to explore where the greatest amount of love exists in that setting. Love is always the healer. And often, love simply means being kind.

You can always share your truth – but with love and honor for all. This is how you experience your own true power, and how you most deeply honor and respect yourself.

Ray Rivers