Fortify Your Marriage

Call me crazy, but I love working with couples in conflict. Many therapists I know describe the experience of couples work as exhausting and frustrating, but for me, it is fascinating and rewarding. I have found that a vast majority of couples who have entered my office come to me with the same issue. They have stopped working together as a team. They are succumbing to external life situations and instead of working together, they have begun fighting each other. Most of the couples with whom I work are actively engaged in tearing down the walls around their relationship which serve to protect them.  And so, much to their surprise at first, I guide them in identifying their foundation, and rebuilding their fortresses.

At first, this can be a bit shocking to the couple.  By the time many couples seek help, they are under attack from a slew of enemies; financial woes, in-law strife, parenting issues, job-loss, deployment, illness, and other life stressors. They want an ally in fending off their enemies.  They request my help in battling these foes and creating battle plans to attack and fight back. Asking them to ignore the enemy which has already infiltrated the marriage and focus instead on engineering their fortress to keep the enemy out seems counter-intuitive. But it works. Enemies will always be at the gate of a marriage, but if that gate is iron-clad, they will never get in.

You see, many couples who seem to be in constant conflict with each other have allowed their safe places to crumble and fall into disrepair. Maybe they have patched up a few holes here and there, but by the time a major life transition or event occurs in their life, the weight of that attack is far stronger and conflict seeps into every crack and break and they are overcome.  Learning how to fortify your marriage is essential to being equipped to battle the many enemies that life throws at us. When couples begin a difficult life conflict, event, or circumstance with a safe and protective base to retreat to, they are far more likely to overcome it without major casualty. I work with couples to learn how to unify in order to battle together.

While this is a process that takes time and energy with many variables, here is a starter list that you can begin applying to your relationship today. Examine the cracks and holes in the walls of your marriage, roll up your sleeves, and get to work on repairing and fortifying with these basic steps!

• Join Forces: Seek out your partner. Turn towards them instead of running away from.   In an effort to create an effective team, you must first create trust and commitment. This can occur in both small and large ways. This one is about emotional connectedness and safety. Make efforts every day to offer and accept emotional bids to and from your partner. Think of this as building up the emotional bank account. Hug and kiss them each day. Text a random “thinking of you” daily. When you get yourself a glass of water, ask if they’d like one too. Accept these gestures from your partner as well. When we practice making emotional deposits in our accounts, we are strengthening the walls of trust and commitment.  This is often the first break I see in relationships; when life starts bombing us with stress and pain, one or both partners go inward and shut out the other. Seek each other out, instead. Run to the other for shelter.

• Battle Buddies: Assume the best in your partner. This one is tough sometimes, isn’t it? When we are the most stressed, we are the most sensitive. It is easy to perceive every word and action of our partner as a threat. Choose instead to assume the best intention. Challenge your own thinking. Did your husband really forget to take the dog to the vet to make your life more stressful or did it really slip his mind because he is so busy at work?  Did your wife take over the kids’ conflict because she doesn’t trust you to handle it or because she knows what a bad day you had and is trying to take some stress off your plate? When we choose to believe the best about our partner, we choose trust and love- which are powerful enemy-fighting weapons.

• Battle Plan: This is your strategy, your ground rules. You wouldn’t just run towards the enemy with no strategy or direction, so nor should you expect to resolve conflict with your spouse without rules of engagement. This is an activity to do together. When conflict arises, what are the dos and don’ts? Will you take time outs when it escalates? Will you set aside conflict resolutions meetings each week? Will you use I statements or speaker-listener techniques? Will you separate discussing problems and solving problems? How will you make repair attempts when the rules are broken? I suggest putting these rules in writing and posting them to a wall, fridge, or mirror. Something really magical happens every time you successfully engage conflict while following your rules. You both begin to feel successful and solving solvable problems. You both begin to trust that you can be a team and work together. You grow intimacy and safety.

• Identify your Mission:  Define your expectations! You wouldn’t go to war without making sure everyone on your team knew the battle plan, right? Why then, do we forget to talk to our partners about what we need, want, and expect. Someone told me once that unspoken expectations are future resentments.  So true. It is unfair for me to expect my husband to know that I’ve had a bad day and need 10 mins to myself unless I tell him. If I rely on hoping that he will see my face when I walk in the door and suggest I take 10 mins alone, I may be disappointed. He may have had an equally rough day. I must be able to communicate my needs and expectations.

•  Camaraderie: Grow your friendship. Your partner is your battle buddy, remember? Grow your friendship, grow your intimacy. Set aside time each day to learn about your partner, laugh with your partner, and confide in your partner. When you need to vent about work, kids, family, friends etc. vent to your partner first. A wonderful activity to help foster your friendship is the Intimacy Vase. Put questions and topics on pieces of small paper and throw them all in a vase or bowl. Make it a ritual to pull one paper a day and discuss with your partner, even if just briefly. Join your partner in doing things that are meaningful to them. Invite them to do the same with you. Date night. Make conscious efforts to feed the friendship.

I encourage you to begin taking a look at how you can fortify your marriage with these basic strategies today. While these tools won’t prevent life attacks, they will strengthen your relationship’s ability to fight them off.  Marriage is hard work! Assess the holes and cracks you may have in your marriage walls and get to work on them today. You’ll be so glad you did, I promise!

Positive Perception: 10 Ways to Intentional Gratitude

What if I told you that the language we use can change our reality? Maybe that sounds crazy. You know that your words can’t change certain life circumstances. Words can’t take away illness, financial struggles, relationship problems and the like! True. Language cannot change many things that are out of our control. But, the words we use can change our thoughts. And thoughts can indeed change our perception. I am a firm believer that perception creates reality. If I use language in my life to depict hopelessness, disappointment, anger, dissatisfaction etc., chances are my perception of life will begin to grow very negative, too. How many times do you catch yourself saying or thinking things like:

“Life is so hard”

“My spouse never listens to me”

“I’ll never get on my feet”

“I’m so tired all the time”

“I’m so stressed out”

Could we change our perception if we slowly began replacing those thoughts and words? Could we/it actually have an impact on our reality?? For what it’s worth, I believe the answer is a loud and cheerful YES!  I am not suggesting we all walk through life in an idealistic fog of PollyAnna-esque optimism. Life can get difficult and we are stressed out, tired, disappointed etc. But I am willing to bet that even in the most difficult times, each and every one of us could muster up one thought or statement of gratitude and positivity.  And friends, gratitude is powerful!  By focusing less on our struggles and more on what is going well, what we are thankful for, and even verbally appreciating those around us, we begin to shift our views. So what does practicing gratitude look like?

Here are ten ways you can begin to practice intentional gratitude and positivity today and every day!

1.  Gratitude Journal- Keep paper and pen next to your bed. Immediately upon waking up (yes, you can have your coffee first) or right before  you fall asleep at night, jot down 1-3 things or people that you are grateful for. 
2.  Affirmations- Many of us are our worst critics; we are good at being kind to others but neglect ourselves. Practice being kind and positive with yourself by giving yourself a verbal compliment or statement of affection every morning.  Here is a list of several quick and painless affirmations to get you started. And when you’re ready, here is a deeper and longer list.
3. Smile- Especially when you least feel like smiling. Force yourself to smile at least 1x daily. Trust me on this one 
4. Compliment- Freely give your spouse, kids, boss, colleagues, employees, barista, cashier, anyone compliments. It is a practice in removing yourself from your own inner worries and struggles to offer a small joy to another with no expectations of anything in return. I have found though, that I benefit immensely from this practice.
5. Express Appreciation- This is a key practice in restoring love and intimacy to relationships, but it also has great individual returns. Just as you write your items of personal gratitude in your journal, set a goal of offering at least 3 authentic “Thank yous” a day to someone else. Make sure you are including sincerity and for an added bonus, try including why you are appreciative.  When I was working on transforming my marriage, it took a lot more energy at first to say something like “Thank you for taking out the trash today. It makes it easier for me to clean up the kitchen at night when the trash isn’t spilling over. I really appreciate you” as opposed to not saying anything at all or perhaps focusing on the fact that he hadn’t bathed the baby like I had asked. But, I intentionally focused on making appreciation become a habit and the payoff was more than I expected. 
6. Celebrate Success- ALL success! You went to work today even though you hate it there? Way to go! You only smoked 5 cigarettes today instead of your usual 6? Woohoo! You only yelled at the kids once? You’re on a roll! CELEBRATE YOURSELF!!!!!!! Just a quick internal high five is sometimes all we need.
7.  Ban the words NEVER, ALWAYS, and SHOULD-When you catch yourself thinking thoughts or speaking out loud with these words, stop, start over, and remove them from the sentence. Just don’t say them- to yourself or anyone you love.
8. Laugh- if you are about to go to bed and realize you haven’t laughed all day, laugh! If you need to find something or someone to coax a laugh out of you, do it. If nothing is available, fake it. 
9.  5:1-This will require a lot of self-awareness and intentionality, but for every negative statement or thought you make try to think of or say 5 positive somethings. If you can’t do this at first, it’s okay. Just the act of catching your negativity will grow your gratitude skills
10. Complaint-Free Day- You may have seen the 21-complaint-free-day challenge with bracelets floating around.  Start with just a day at time. Can you go a whole day without one complaint? I bet you can!

 While doing one, some, or even all of these activities will not change circumstances, they will change your language. They will change your perception. You will be well on your way to experiencing more joy, more freedom, and be better-equipped to ride out the many storms in your life. I promise!

Good luck and don’t be afraid to share your success in the comments below, I look forward to hearing all about them!

New Year, New You...But Should You?

Picture via www.alifeoverseas.com

Everyone does it. How about you? New Year’s Resolutions have become an expectation, a tradition, and a social-cultural requirement. Oh the pressure! The shame if you don’t succeed! With setting resolutions comes an enormous amount of fear and guilt. If you are like most people, you are riddled with shame from all of the past years’ goals that weren’t quite met; all the times you said you were going to make a change but never quite followed through. No worries! Only 8% of people who make resolutions actually stick to them. While “fresh year, fresh start” seems like a good enough reason to set new goals for yourself, setting a goal simply because it’s “what we do” is not enough to gain and keep momentum.

I’ve written about making changes before. It’s hard. Change is a process that must be intentional and begin with investment. I am not saying NOT to make changes and set goals. Quite the opposite, really. I am suggesting that before you embark on an emotionally-charged journey of changing traits and habits, take a long, hard look at your WHY. What’s driving you to set the goals you want to set? HOW will making this change impact you and those around you?  Instead of focusing on what you have to lose, focus instead on what you stand to gain. Are you committed to losing weight, giving up cigarettes, being kinder, reading more, ceasing yelling, spending more time with family etc. because YOU WANT to  or because you or others believe you SHOULD?

image via bigfouroh.blogspot.com

A brilliant therapist (my therapist) told me once that “Shoulds, Woulds, and Coulds are crazy-makers”. Truth! When clients come to me with therapeutic goals and frustration that they keep falling short of achieving them, I can almost always trace their “failure” back to a case of the Evil Shoulds. You see, my friends, each and every one of us has been programmed, trained,  and conditioned to believe in Shoulds.  We should be, do, feel, say….We have heard these early. We hear them daily. And while many of them are true (we should drink water to stay healthy, we should be respectful to others) we simply cannot subscribe to them all based on Should alone.

Change can only truly occur when you are bought in to your own goal. Are you trying to eat healthier because your doctor says you should or because living longer and feeling better  is meaningful to YOU? Are you trying to be more patient during rush hour traffic because it’s the right thing to do or because you truly want to become a calmer driver? Shoulds can provide guidelines, but only you can provide motivation. Find your inner motivation. Find your gains. Find your Wants vs. the Shoulds. Only then, can you create the kind of lasting and significant change that fulfills you, and only then can you work to achieve the goals you set.

How do you quiet the external Shoulds in order to hear your inner wants/needs? 

Investigate! 

• To start, take 2 minutes and write down every single thing you think you might like to change. Make it an exhaustive and all-inclusive list. 

• Once you have that list, I challenge you to investigate each item. Ask yourself why you want to change it, what will you gain, how will your life improve? If any of your answers include “should”, explore it. Who says you should? Your spouse, doctor, media, boss? Do you believe it? Are you invested? Do YOU think you should? 

• If you find that you have empty should on your list, toss it out. Keep only the changes you truly desire. Your list will be smaller, more achievable, and realistic.  

• Once your list is ready, pick just 1-3 you want to tackle first. Take note of these awesome tips on how to set yourself up for success, and beware of the Shoulds. 

Life is freer and more fulfilling when you set goals that you are truly invested in, I promise!

The Four Things We All Need (but especially your kids)

When I work in preschools and in my private practice with kiddos and their families, I often begin by determining the achievement levels of four basic needs to inform my treatment strategies. These basic needs are easy to understand and I find I go back to them time and time again when trying to decipher the meaning behind a child’s behavior. Lately, I’ve been examining the significance of these needs when working with couples and have found interesting parallels in relationships where one or both partners are missing one or more of these ‘C’ achievements.  In passing these along to you, my hope is you can find and make connections in your child’s, partner’s, or even self’s behavior and take the skills below to foster these Four Crucial C’s in your relationships. As always, I’m interested in hearing your success stories as you try to make changes in your home!

Much like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, The Four Crucial C’s posit that all of us have an intrinsic and developmental need to achieve Connection, Capability, Counting, and Courage. The way in which we view ourselves and interact with our surrounding world is dependent on the healthy attainment of these feelings and beliefs. Ideally, these are achieved in childhood, and much of the descriptions below will offer insights to help you grow these in your child. However, I challenge you to examine your own mastery of these beliefs, or find patterns in the important adults in your life, and make adjustments to help improve those relationships, too! As I always say, healthy external relationships first begin with positive relationships with yourself; how can you apply the Four Crucial C’s in your most important attachments?

       1) Connection

Connection begins in early attachment. People inherently need to feel secure, have a safe emotional landing, and believe that they belong. Our sense of connection enables us to reach out to others, establish trusting relationships, and work well with others.  When connection is underdeveloped or missing, children will attempt to receive attention in any way they can get it. Any attention, to them, is better than no attention. Negative attention-seeking behaviors, susceptibility to peer-pressure, low attachment to others, and even isolation can be sure signs of that a child, or adult, is lacking a solid feeling of connection. If you suspect connection is at the core of concerning behaviors in your home:

A)     Follow your child’s lead. Show interest in their hobbies and spend quality time with them learning about the things they love

B)      Freely give positive attention and do it often! Try ignoring the little things they do (provided it’s safe and doesn't break big rules) that are negative attention-seeking. A little noticing of all they do well or all you love about them can go a really long way.

C)      Accept them-inwardly and outwardly. Recognize their strengths and qualities. Resist criticizing their weaknesses.

      2) Capability

We all need a sense of achievement and mastery. Confidence in knowing we can do things helps us not only feel competent and worthy, but actually increases our self-control. If we feel inadequate, we can learn to become dependent on others for validation. A child or partner who believes they “can’t” will try to control others or behave defiantly; relying on power to fill their inadequacy void. To foster capability in your home:

A)     Provide opportunities to achieve tasks or skills independently. Encourage all efforts and resist doing for your loved one what they can do for themselves.

B)      Use mistakes as a learning opportunity. Avoid correcting or criticizing. Reflect with your child or partner on the mistake and work together to set a plan to achieve success next time.  Model or demonstrate the behaviors or actions you’d like to see.

C)      Notice and appreciate improvement, do not seek perfection.

3) Counting

This one is all about value. “Do I matter? Do I contribute? Do I have a purpose?” We all want, and need, to feel significant. When our value is validated and our contributions are appreciated, we gain a sense of worth and are better equipped to meet, and assume, responsibilities. Feelings of insignificance breed revenge. When we don’t believe we count, we may meet hurt with hurt and fight pain with inflicting pain; attempting to get our needs met through anger and aggression Try implementing these antidotes in your home:

A)     Offer choices. Children feel significant when they are able to make choices, big or small, and have a say in outcomes.

B)      Promote contribution. Ensure that every member in your family has tasks and responsibilities that contribute to the greater good of the family. Appreciate these contributions often.

C)      Discuss what is going well or needs improvement often.  Allow others to share their opinions and do not discredit those opinions.

4) Courage

Courage assumes we have the ability and strength to handle whatever comes our way. In order to face challenges and create resiliency, we have to believe we can get through obstacles. We feel equal, confident, and hopeful about our futures and abilities. When we lack courage, we feel less than; inferior. Often, those lacking courage will simply choose not to try. They are defeated before they begin. There is no hope or optimism. You will notice this in your home as task avoidance, forgetfulness to complete tasks, frustration in attempting to do things, avoidance of relationships, and giving up easily. To build up the courage banks in your loved ones:

A)     Make your words and actions scream “I believe in you!”  Become a master encourager. Be sincere.

B)      Validate frustration. Recognize the fear. “I know you are frustrated, it can be scary to try.”

C)      Make “try your best” your household mantra versus “practice makes perfect.”

D)     Leave competition to the sports fields. Cooperation should be the goal in your home, not a competition. Resist comparisons to others, one-upping, or statements that suggest your child or partner don’t have what it takes to get the job done.

E)      Replace their “I can’t’s” with “How can I help you believe that you can?”

When I first learned these concepts in my training, I, of course, took a good look at how I was or was not supporting them in my own relationships. Initially, I thought, “Easy! Of course I’m doing those things,” but further examination proved that while I had the basics down, I was not actively or intentionally implementing these tools.  In some areas, I found that I was actually impeding these growth points. I had to ask myself how often I was encouraging or supportive, how quickly I grew frustrated or how many times I ignored the signs.  Once again, learning new skills takes practice. We will not do it well or right away, but any effort is a step in the emotionally healthy direction. Just being aware of the behaviors in your home, and taking a look at what they might mean will increase your ability to address them with fostering the Four C’s, I promise!