The Soul Mate Secret
It’s so important to have that sense of love and connectedness in your life. Dr. Kenneth Pelletier of the Stanford Center for Research and Diseases Prevention goes as far as saying:
“A sense of belonging appears to be a basic human need – as basic as food and shelter.”
Those who have a sense of social support may even enjoy greater health as they age. There is a saying that tells us “Loneliness is the only real disability” because happiness and connectedness are something money can’t really buy. While you could certainly hire a companion or a caregiver, friendships and love relationships are what really keep us going.
As humans, we have a great need to belong. We have a need to feel connected with others through an enduring close relationship. Everyone has the desire to belong to something. This desire colors our thoughts, feelings, and emotions. When we are immersed in healthy relationships, we often feel immense joy. Love and friendships make our lives meaningful, in many ways. While money is certainly wonderful to have, love is even better and more rewarding.
As we have already seen, research has shown that infants who receive love and affection and touch fare much better than infants who don’t. Infants deprived of familiar attachments, or those who end up in institutions or in situations of extreme neglect, become withdrawn, frightened and silent. These attachments we form are the hub around our lives and these patterns may even follow us our entire life.
You can be lonely surrounded by people because loneliness isn’t just a result of being alone. When you are lonely, you are disconnected from the world and you may even suffer from anxiety or severe depression. Loneliness is really a much deeper problem caused by thoughts and feelings of inadequacy. It is a reflection of what is occurring deep within your mind, body and spirit.
Lonely people may even falsely believe that they do not deserve a healthy and mutually respectful relationship with loving affirming and generous people. Loneliness is a reflection of how you feel inside, as opposed to a condition that comes from outside.
Loneliness is a self-fulfilling prophecy because those who are lonely may actually seek out others who are similarly lonely, needy or insecure.
Relationships change over time. People tend to come and go. We live in a state of constant flux. Relationships are usually something we are always working on in some way, shape or form.
What is a Soul Mate?
According to Wikipedia:
"A soulmate is a person with whom one has a feeling of deep or natural affinity. This may involve similarity, love, romance, friendship, intimacy, sexuality, sexual activity, spirituality, or compatibility and trust."
According to the American writer Richard Bach, "A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are," (Huffington Post, 2013).
A soulmate is thought to be the epitome of the love partnership. It is that one person who truly has the key to our heart and soul.
There are those who believe that each of us only has one true soulmate, where others believe that one can have a number of soulmates.
Whatever you believe is your own choice, but one thing we do know is that everyone desires a soulmate, because humans are social creatures who crave love and affection.
Not just anyone can fulfill the role of the soulmate. Soulmates are like our other half; however, it's important to remember that we shouldn't look to someone else to complete us. A soulmate should be someone who complements you, not someone who completes you.
There's a lot of difference between your soulmate, or your heart's other half, and a life partner, although they may be the same person. A life partner could be someone who is a great supporter and a long-time companion, yet lack that ability or capacity to enrich your spirit.
A soulmate, on the other hand, is someone who makes you feel entirely whole, healed and intact. You might marry someone who is not a soulmate for many reasons from choosing someone who will is a great mother or father to someone who is a good provider. It's not bad to be with a life partner because they obviously offer us many good things from companionship to love.
Many of us remain in a life partner relationship because we "settle" for a number of reasons.
We fear being alone.
We fear not having financial security.
We feel guilty leaving someone.
We feel as if we will never find anything better.
We are biologically designed to fall in love, and it's only natural that we choose to pair up in this world. However, sometimes we prolong what is meant to be a temporary relationship and we mistakenly settle into them for good.
There are relationships, which are only meant to last for a certain period of time to close out a karmic chapter of life per se. There are even relationships in which we're only meant to have children with our partner but not necessarily meant to remain with them for life. It's hard to see the forest through the trees, and we often end up confused and bewildered as to what the next phase of our life entails.
You may actually experience several relationships before finding that one person you believe to be your perfect pairing. Whether you're currently married, in a relationship, or contemplating a new relationship with a new love interest, it is critical that you stop and think about the role this new person is destined to play.
Many of us struggle with relationships, even those who have been married for years. The problem is that as humans, we are not stagnating creatures. Each of grows and changes every moment of every day. Sometimes we find that one partner is growing and changing while the other is perfectly satisfied to remain at another level.
Sometimes there is no way to avoid the age-old question of, "Is this the person who I am meant to be with forever, or is there someone else out there that suits me better," or "Did I settle too quickly into a relationship with someone who may never be able to complete me?"
No matter what the category is that your partner fits into to, there are several indications that clearly outline a soulmate bond, or for that matter a lack of a soulmate bond.
According to Dr. Carmen Harra (Huffington Post, 2013), there are 10 elements of a soulmate. As you work your way through this list, take some time to consider whether your current partner fits this mold or not. Remember, it's OK to choose a life partner over a soulmate if you feel it is the right choice for the time as not every relationship is a lifetime partnership.
The 10 Elements of a Soulmate:
A soulmate brings out something deep inside you. Describing how this makes you feel may also be difficult. It's a tenacious, enlightening, profound and lingering emotion, which words cannot encompass.
You experience flashbacks. If your partner is your true soulmate, you may have been with him or her in a past life. Soulmates often choose to come back together during different lifetimes to scope each other out in the big world. You might suddenly experience a flashback of your soulmate, or you might even feel an odd sense of déjà vu.
You just get each other and understand each other. If you have ever met two people who seem to finish each other's sentences that might be a soulmate connection. Some people may think this means two people are spending too much time together, but it may actually just be a soulmate connection. You could experience this with your best friend or even your mother, but it is the telltale sign of a soulmate when you experience this with your partner.
You fall in love with their flaws. We know that no relationship is perfect, even a soulmate bond. Relationships by nature experience ups and downs. However, a soulmate bond will be much harder to break. Soulmates have a much easier time of accepting, and even learning to love, each other's imperfections. Your relationship may be a soulmate match if you both love each other exactly as you each are, accepting both the good and the bad tendencies we all have.
It's very intense. A soulmate relationship tends to be much more intense than a normal relationship, which can be both good and bad. The most important thing to remember is that, even during a negative cycle that you're focused on resolving the problem and can see beyond the bad moment.
It's you two against the world. Soulmates may view their relationship as "us against the world." They may feel so linked together that they're ready and willing to take on any challenge of life, so long as they have their soulmate by their side. Soulmate relationships may also be based and founded on compromise and unity above all else.
You feel mentally inseparable. Soulmates often have a mental connection just like that of twins. For example, they might pick up the phone to call each other at the exact same moment. Though life may keep you apart at times, your minds will always be in tune if you are connected to your soulmate in some way, shape or form.
You always feel protected and secure. Regardless of the gender of your partner, if he or she is a soulmate, they always make you feel protected and secure. This means that if you're a man, yes, your woman should make you feel protected, as well. Your soulmate basically makes you feel like you have a guardian angel by your side. In other words, if you are with someone who plays on your insecurities, whether consciously or subconsciously, chances are they are not your soulmate.
You can't imagine your life without them. A soulmate is not someone you can walk away from easily rather it is someone you can't imagine being without. A soulmate, in other words, is a person you believe is worth sticking with and fighting for.
You look each other straight in the eye. Soulmates have a tendency to look into each other's eyes when they speak, much more often than ordinary couples. This tendency comes naturally from the deep-seated connection between two people. Looking a person in the eye when speaking to them denotes a high level of comfort and confidence.
Whether you are designed by the universe to be with your soulmate at this point in time, or you have chosen to share your life with someone who is more of a life partner, the decision is yours, there are no right or wrong answers, only your answers.
If you are with someone who is caring and loving and considerate, but you don't really consider them are a soulmate, that's OK, because people come together for a reason or a season.
The great thing about free will is that you can remain in or change any relationship as you see fit. When you do find your soulmate, whether you are 25 or 65, doesn't really matter, because they are one of those true pleasures in life.
Manifesting Love
Relationships tend to resonate at the same energetic level, so if you want to become part of a relationship that is happy and affectionate, you have to first be happy and affectionate yourself.
Sometimes it’s hard to look at yourself objectively because you may think you are relatively positive and optimistic while someone else may look at you as bitter or angry.
Stop and ask yourself right now what kind of vibe you are putting out?
If you come across as desperate or unfriendly, it may be time to reexamine what kind of vibe you would like to be putting out and start moving into that way of thinking. If you want to raise your vibration, there are things you can do to achieve this.
Raising Your Vibration
Engage in activities that feed your soul.
Follow your passions or those things you absolutely love to do.
Try and be happy in the moment by appreciating those things you already have.
Be interested in other people – as opposed to trying to be interesting yourself.
Radiate love and affection – don’t judge ANYONE.
Meditate on the energy of divine love and send love out to everyone you know.
Smile more.
How To Attract Love By Thinking Like Einstein
We all know Albert Einstein knew a thing or two about the theory of relativity, but many of us may not be aware that he also knew a thing or two about love.
Each of us is a victim of our own limited mind, leaving us stuck in thoughts of failure. We know our thoughts become things, but we still can’t figure out a way out.
If you have never really experienced divine love or true love, it may be difficult for you to imagine yourself in this state. Einstein used his amazing imagination to create something he called thought experiments, where he would ride on a beam of light. Doing these thought experiments helped him create the theory of relativity. We all have access to this power via our imagination.
Einstein would put himself into a trance-like state where he imagined himself riding on this beam of light. He rode this beam of light throughout the universe, and even though that might seem strange, the fact was that it worked. You don’t have to be Albert Einstein to use and access this power, but the cause of everything in our lives begins in the mind with imagination.
Most of the time our very limited thinking mind only focuses on the mechanical process of something. What we fail to see is that everything is created from within. These seeds take hold and grow. When you use your imagination, you draw in a kind of collective consciousness of unlimited possibilities. This, in turn, opens a doorway that expands your mind. You may only see a tiny beam of light of light at first, but over time, the doorway will open more and more.
Even if you have never had a healthy love relationship, and you can’t logically figure out how it would come about, you can still use your imagination to fill in the gaps.
You can create a new vision of yourself in a healthy and loving relationship by tapping into this collective consciousness, which is virtually unlimited.
You don’t have to be a genius to use this power because the power is already there. All you need to do is be aware of it and imagine yourself tapping into it, using your imagination.
Lessons From Albert Einstein On Finding Love and Keeping It
Albert Einstein may have had some issues when it came to love, but his work is everlasting. He may have “failed” at lasting harmony with a woman, but we can still use his work to find love and keep it. There is a famous quote where Einstein said: “Lasting harmony with a woman (was) an undertaking in which I twice failed rather disgracefully,” but that doesn’t mean his work was not meaningful or helpful.
There are 8 lessons we can take from Einstein’s work.
Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.
Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT’S relativity.
The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.
The value of a man resides in what he gives and not what he is capable of receiving.
Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid becomes easy.
People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
There are two ways to live your life. One is though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
Sometimes we mentally project our fantasies onto other people. With too many preconceived ideas, we end up projecting our idea of love onto other people, and it’s no shock that they end up letting us down.
There is a funny story of a stage hypnotist who hypnotized a group of men to fall obsessively in love with a rag doll. The story goes that the men begged and pleaded the rag doll to marry them. They fought over the rag doll and got lost in their projections. Once you discover that most of your problems in love come from your own expectations or projections, you can begin to see that many of your issues begin and end with you.
Using the theory of relativity, we begin to see that everything is relative, even love.
Keeping this in mind, you can begin to understand that each of us brings our own unique perceptions into a relationship and we end up expecting to be hurt or let down. Einstein once said that the value of a man resides in what he gives and not what he is capable of receiving.
While we certainly respect Einstein’s opinion, we all know that relationships require give and take. If you cannot take in another person’s love and affection and you are not a good receiver of love, then it will be difficult if not impossible to enjoy the gift of love.
The best quote by Einstein may just be the insanity quote because many of us continue to do the same thing over and over, expecting different results. In terms of your life and your relationship, and in terms of love, it pays to start doing things differently. When you choose to see everything in your life as a miracle, there are no obstacles you cannot overcome.
What Is the Greatest Obstacle to Finding Your True Love?
To live and love requires great effort. We have all been “hurt” in relationships at some point in time. One of the greatest obstacles to love is most likely our own fear of being hurt again and again.
In order to find love, we need to first remove all the obstacles and clutter in our way. All of this clutter ends up distracting us and keeping us from the warmth and depth of a real authentic and loving relationship.
To be human is to risk being hurt or wounded. That is life. We all have a past and those past experiences live within our heart. These emotional wounds need to be healed. You cannot expect to draw in love if you are continually carrying around excess baggage. When you can confront the pain and let go of the anger, the hurt, and the resentments, you are then free to move into a space of love.
The process to gently uncovering and exposing the wounds of your heart is the path to healing. The timeline will be different for everyone. Depending on how much emotional baggage you have, you may see results immediately or you may find it takes a little while longer to release the pain and rejection from your heart.
Fear and anger keep us from living from the heart.
Releasing this fear and this anger and loving and accepting yourself exactly as you are is the key to your miracle. All forgiveness is self-forgiveness. We hold onto the pain and the anger like a badge of honor. However, all the pain and anger do is hold us back.
Unresolved emotional energy will continue to draw in people and circumstances until we recognize that we have the ultimate power to love and to heal. When we finally release the past and begin making room for love, we are then ready for a deep and loving and healthy relationship.
If you truly desire love and companionship and you are ready to release the past, then you can accelerate the process rather quickly. The more space you create in your energy and in your life, the faster this process works. In essence, all that is required is that you clean out your closets and make room for love to come in. You may need to even create a list of things you need to do to move into a space of love. These might be things like organizing your finances, cleaning out the clutter in your home, changing careers, or even getting in better mental, physical and emotional shape.
When you start telling yourself a new story and you have the courage to dump the old worn out story you can begin to carve out a new path for yourself in terms of love. Then and only then will you be ready to open up your heart and let the love shine through.
If you are ready for your miracle in love and ready to follow your heart, you are ready to begin the process of healing.
Therapy and Training for Relationships
So now that you have worked through all of these stages, you probably have a much better idea as to what your next steps are. If you are not immersed in a loving, healthy relationship, take heart, because there are professional intervention methods that work when it comes to enhancing your relationship.
If you have a desire to improve your relationship, whether or not it's a soulmate connection or not, professional intervention and/or couple's counseling is a great idea.
While there are many different types of therapy, you can and should choose one based on your specific needs.
Conflict can't always be avoided in relationships, and as a matter of fact, it can be downright healthy. You can have a certain amount of conflict, and still have a good relationship. Conflict means that you are openly expressing your true feelings, which is a good thing.
If you are with a partner, and you have never had a conflict or a disagreement, then chances are that the relationship may be superficial.
The truth is everyone has conflicts, even the most loving, stable couple because it's a part of life.
Learning how to deal with conflict ensures a successful and healthy relationship. Relationship challenges can arise in many ways, and being able to communicate with your partner is key to a healthy relationship. If you feel you can't openly communicate or express your needs, then you may need to re-examine if the relationship you are in, is the right one.
You should always feel free to express your feelings to your partner, no matter what. You can express your feelings in a loving and compassionate way, and still get your point across.
Functional communication leads to much better understanding between you and your partner, and when it comes down to it, understanding is the key to a successful partnership.
Do You Need Couple's Counseling?
An intimate romantic relationship is one of the closest relationships we have as humans. Choosing a partner and staying together through all of life's drama and twists and turns, can be very challenging.
Choosing to get married and raise a family together only adds to the complexity of a relationship.
Whether you have the occasional argument or you have simply stopped enjoying each other, very few relationships in life are free of conflict.
When our most important relationship begins to falter, our health and happiness often suffer as a result. While it may be tempting to try and work through problems alone, it can be really useful to seek outside help or counselling.
One route you can choose to something called couple's counselling - a form of talk therapy designed for those in a relationship. Couple's counselling is a therapy based on the relationship between two people, and it can help couples resolve issues within an intimate relationship.
Couple's counselling is ideally suited for couples who attend the sessions together. If your partner is reluctant to go to counselling sessions, you can always speak to a couple's counsellor on your own initially.
You may find your partner wants to join you after you have had some initial sessions - or you can choose to combine alone couple sessions with individual sessions.
What couple's counselling is not
It is important to remember that couple's counselling isn't designed as an instructional session where someone tells you what to do. The role of a couple's counsellor is to help facilitate change and seek resolutions by helping you both communicate much more effectively. Doing so will help you reach your own conclusions under the guidance of a consummate professional.
If you are nervous about discussing intimate or private matters with a stranger, keep in mind that a counsellor is not there to criticize you, but to help you work through difficult matter without judgment.
How can couple's counselling help?
When you have been in a relationship or a marriage for a long time it can be very easy to fall into the trap of not listening to the other person or not communicating your needs clearly. Sometimes it can be helpful to talk to someone with no personal connection to yourself. Doing so can help you gain a new perspective on the situation or relationship.
Couple's counselling offers here a chance to speak to someone with no preconceived notions of who you are or what your issues are, so getting this fresh perspective may be all you need to move forward.
The overall goal of couple's counselling is to help you:
Understand how external factors like cultural differences, family values, and even religion and lifestyle differences affect your relationship. I can also help you:
Reflect on the past and how it affects the present.
Help you communicate in a more constructive way.
Help you understand why arguments escalate.
Help you negotiate and resolve conflicts where possible.
As your sessions progress, you and your partner may discover ways of overcoming your issues, or you may decide it is time to call it a day or even part ways. Whatever you decide, counselling will offer you the space you need to grow and decide what the future holds for both of you and your partner.
Common Relationship Problems Explored
There are many issues that may bring you to couple's counselling session, e.g. a betrayal or affair to lack of communication. Other issues include:
Lack of trust.
An affair or betrayal.
Jealousy.
A lack of communication.
Financial issues or concerns.
Life or work-related stress.
Abusive behaviour, physical or emotional.
Different sexual needs or other sexual issues.
Family conflicts.
Different goals or values.
Different parenting styles.
Controlling behaviour.
Life changes.
This list is not conclusive, as every situation is unique.
When is the right time to seek help?
Every couple is different and so only you can decide when to seek help. If you are concerned about your relationship and things have gotten off course, and you feel you are unable to reach a conclusion alone, you may benefit from couple's counselling.
For some, the suggestion of couple's counselling is considered taboo, but it doesn't have to be. Many couples use therapy as a way to keep their relationship alive and healthy and as a way to address any underlying concerns that may become conflicts in the future.
What qualifications or training should a couple's counsellor have?
Currently, there are no legal regulations that stipulate exactly what level of training a couple's counsellor should have, so it is highly recommended that you check therapists to make sure they are experienced in couple's counselling.
A diploma level qualification or its equivalent in couple's counselling or related topic will provide you reassurance and peace of mind that your counsellor has developed the necessary skills. Another way to assure that a counsellor has undergone specialist training is to check if they belong to a relevant professional organisation that represents couple's counsellors.
Different Relationship Strengthening Approaches
There are obviously many different approaches when it comes to strengthening relationships. Some of these approaches can be done without a therapist or counsellor as well.
The goal of these relationship strengthening approaches is to help couples strengthen the bonds that hold them together in spite of the problems or conflicts. As the bond gets stronger, it becomes much easier for couples to commit to the work and compromise needed to resolve their differences.
Take a Relationship Inventory
Some therapists or counsellors urge couples who are in conflict to take an inventory of the things they like about each other or things they liked about each other in the past. Thinking back to those remembrances of special times when things were not so tense can help to reawaken those loving feelings you once felt. You can also create a list of things or a pros and cons list, so you can visually see things on each side of the list. Everyone has good and bad qualities, so sometimes this approach is very helpful.
Try a Partner Pleasing Exercise
Counsellors or therapists may also ask conflicted couples to commit to doing something, just one thing, that will please their partner, and to commit to doing this one thing for their partner as a gift, without expectation of reciprocation. These things can be simple things like giving your partner a complement or even giving them a neck rub or massage.
Whatever form the pleasing activity takes, it should be something that your partner genuinely likes or wants. Good gifts might be something free like a massage, or even fixing something around the house or offering to wash their car.
What matters the most is that the gift is given in a sincere manner - and not given in spite.
Doing this kind of simple practice with a positive intention is a step in the right direction, and it can sometimes rekindle those positive feelings that have faded over time.
Relationship Intervention Strategies to Practice at Home
Practising Forgiveness
Practising forgiveness can go a long way to mending fences. You can and should choose to forgive, both yourself and your partner's actions. The past cannot be undone, so the only thing that can help you move forward is practising forgiveness.
Finding it within your heart to forgive your partner for their transgressions they have made can help both you and the relationship move forward in a healthy manner.
Forgiveness can be difficult and challenging for everyone and it is a difficult movement for many people to make. In order to forgive, you must be willing to "lose a battle in order to win the war. You must also be willing to swallow your pride.
To forgive and forget also means disavowing revenge and allowing something that hurt you to go unanswered. While many people can force themselves to act as though they have forgiven someone who has hurt them, very few are able to authentically forgive completely without reservation. It's OK if you can't completely forgive, but try your best to release anything that is not working towards your highest good.
Any movement towards forgiveness is a good one in of itself because it helps you to recognise the human capacity for making mistakes. The truth is we all make mistakes so being able to forgive and forget can help both you and your spouse in a positive manner.
Forgiveness can release you from continuing to carry around negative emotions because the more negativity you can release the better you will feel.
Forgiveness makes sense when the harm done is not part of a larger, repetitive pattern, and when there is a reason to believe that the mistake will not reoccur. Forgiveness is not recommended if your partner continues to be abusive because abuse in any way, shape or form is never acceptable.
Make a little love
Connecting in an intimate manner between committed partners is often an important part of what keeps a relationship healthy.
Intimacy and sexual relations offer partners an opportunity to share physical pleasure and comfort. Intimacy also provides a release of tension and stress.
Intimacy can help you come back together as a couple, adding to your emotional bond. Many relationships and marriages suffer when sexual relations cease or occur with significantly less frequency than normal.
For these particular reasons, some therapists will encourage couples who are conflicted but committed to making time for playful sexual relations, or to agree to have sexual relations again if one or more partners is boycotting sexual relations in protest.
An Intervention Sequence
Though there are many ways a therapist can provide intervention to a couple in crisis and only some of these techniques will prove useful for any given couple.
It is part of the therapist's job to select a short list of interventions that he or she believes will be helpful.
A therapists' selection of techniques are dependent on many things including the intake assessment, and the stage of the relationship crisis.
For example, a couple that cannot talk to each other without fighting probably won't have the discipline to use active listening and repeating. However, it might make more sense to teach such a couple how to use strategies like time-outs to combat their emotional overwhelm.
Let's take a look at some of these methods now.
Intervention Methods
1) The Gottman Method
The Gottman Method Couples Therapy has three decades of research and practice in the clinical setting behind its name. More than three thousand couples have used the counselling techniques in order to increase affection, respect and closeness. The techniques used can help couples resolve conflict when they feel like they have reached an impasse. The method can help you and your partner learn to better understand each other so you can discuss problems more calmly.
The Gottman Method can show you how to build something called a love map, which can help you learn about your partner’s psychological world by the exercise of mapping out your partner’s worries and stresses, joys, hopes, and history.
The Gottman Method is based on the idea that both fondness and admiration are strengthened by the true expression of respect and appreciation for each other. This particular method of couple's therapy allows you to state your needs and focus on conflict management, as opposed to conflict resolution.
The method also allows each partner to speak honestly about his or her aspirations and their convictions as trust and commitment is what a lifelong relationship is all about.
2) Narrative Therapy
Narrative therapy is a therapy that allows each partner to express his or her issues or concerns in a narrative or story form. It also seeks to separate the problem from the person by helping each person externalise issues of concern.
In narrative therapy, a therapist will ask you to describe your problems in narrative form. At that point, the therapist will help each person rewrite the negative parts of the story.
Narrative therapy works by helping each partner to understand that acknowledging a problem doesn’t define a person - but is something a person has. Narrative therapy helps one gain a new perspective of the situation because it helps one view their problem from a different angle. By looking at problems from a cultural, political and social viewpoint, you can see issues more clearly.
By stating negative issues in a more narrative form, you become the actual dynamic in the story and this dynamic allows you to change the story.
Narrative therapy allows you to explore the past by bringing issues out into the light that would have otherwise remained hidden. By exploring negative perceptions and behaviours, you gain valuable insight into facts that have been troubling you and your partner. All in all, narrative therapy helps you find new ways to deal with your problems, effectively rewriting the narrative of your relationship.
3) Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy
Emotionally focused therapy was first developed by Dr. Susan Johnson. This type of counselling was first developed for couples but has since proven very useful for families as well.
Dr. Johnson’s method is used worldwide in clinics, hospitals, private practices, as well as training centres. Emotionally focused therapy is helpful in many situations, and should be considered if depression is a suspect in the culprit of relationship woes.
This type of therapy is typically a short-term approach and it has three main goals:
It encourages the recognition and expansion of key emotional responses.
It seeks to secure a tighter bond between you and your partner.
The therapy repositions each partner’s stance during certain interactions creating new, beneficial interactions in your partnership.
This type of specialised focused therapy has been found to move nearly 75% of relationships from a troubled state to a state of recovery and 90% of couples using the therapy have seen significant improvements.
4) Positive Psychology
Positive psychology has been around for many years and it focuses on positive emotions, and character strengths as well as constructive institutions to promote the notion that happiness is derived from various emotional and mental factors.
Positive psychology helps one identify the happy moments as they happen, as opposed noticing those moments in retrospect.
Through this type of therapy, you can learn to focus on the positive emotions and focus on living in the present moment.
Many couples find the idea of positive psychology both liberating and joyful. Specialists believe that one's perception plays a big role in one's level of happiness. Sometimes it can be difficult to identify emotions as they arise, but using positive psychology, one can see issues more clearly in hindsight.
5) Imago Relationship Therapy
Imago Relationship Therapy combines both spiritual and behavioural techniques with more western psychological techniques of therapy in order to expose unconscious components that help one choose their mate.
In this way, you and your partner are equipped to relate to each other in positive, more caring way. Using this technique, the therapist is able to view the couple’s conflict as a solution rather than the problem and this examination of the conflict is the key to finding a solution to disharmony.
Often times, emotional discord in a relationship is expressed as dissatisfaction, anger or even criticism. As a result, you are forced to seek comfort from other people, outside the relationship.
Imago Relationship Therapy examines the root cause of negative emotions and behaviours in order to find the cause of severed communication between you and your partner.
This kind of therapy helps one acknowledge that each partner is communicating differently, which in turn helps resolves problems. Using this method, partners learn that disagreements aren’t signs of a loss of love, but are normal occurrences in relationships that can be resolved through open and honest communication.
6) Analysing the Ways You Communicate
So often our problems stem from an inability to communicate. This lack of communication creates many problems in a relationship. Conflicts are bound to arise in relationships and partnerships, but learning how to communicate your position clearly, can help turn conflict into a constructive discussion.
Communication is actually a skill that requires a conscious effort.
In addition, what may seem clear to you may not always be fully understood by your partner. It’s important for each partner to fully speak their mind rather than expecting one another to read moods or body language, which are often open to misinterpretation.
Analysing the different methods you and your partner use to communicate can offer great insight into how things are misinterpreted. A therapist can guide each partner towards more functional forms of communication that can alleviate misunderstandings. Learning new ways to communicate may seem unnatural at first, but it can help you and your partner support and nurture each other going forward.
7) Exploring Unconscious Roots of Problems
Some counselling techniques focus on a more psychodynamic approach to therapy. The purpose is to bring the unconscious roots of a problem up to the surface, regardless of whether or not the problem belongs to one or both partners.
This form of couple's counselling is probably the most useful when irrational patterns of reacting exist. A psychodynamic counsellor's belief is that significant life events and childhood experiences serve to shape peoples’ behavioural tendencies.
These types of experiences may create an unfulfilled need or a distorted view of reality that often leads to dysfunctional behaviour and insight into these kinds if events serve to change one's perceptions as well as functional patterns of behaviour.
Situations, such as childhood abuse or even an unfaithful parent, can lead to unreasonable expectations in a love relationship. Unreasonable expectations sometimes cause irrational distrust or even jealousy. During couple's counselling, the therapist may explore major past experiences in order to change these distorted perceptions and to help eliminate irrational reactions to current events.
8) Enhancing Intimacy to Promote Closeness
Couple's therapy is helpful whether or not problems exist in your relationship and couples therapy isn’t just limited to deflecting or solving problems, it also serves to promote intimacy and that feeling of closeness.
Counsellors can help couples enrich each other's lives by helping in the development of friendships and promoting different ways to show affection.
By providing exercises to increase mutual support, counsellors can teach couples how to overcome existing issues and how to make the relationship more resilient. Learning how to tackle challenges without the aid of therapy is an important tool and one you can use to move into the future.
9) Individual Counselling
Individual counselling is recommended when one partner is unwilling to undergo therapy. Individual counselling can also be used as a precursor to couples therapy. If both partners are not able to seek help with typical methods of communication, couple's counselling can be ineffective.
One very common issue with individual therapy arises with the client’s right to privacy. Some therapists insist that their clients waive their rights to privacy before the therapist will work with partners individually.
The best outcome often occurs when both partners are committed to counselling, even if they aren’t firmly committed to each other. For a counsellor to have a good idea of what is causing the conflicts, each partner should attend sessions together or separately.
More techniques for repairing broken relationships
Love relationships are probably one of the greatest sources of happiness and meaning human beings have; however, they also cause lasting sadness and regret.
Many of us learn much about relationships from watching the television or movies, but what we fail to realise is that fairy tales are not real.
According to the statistics, 41% of first marriages and 60% of second marriages end up in divorce court.
Even the strongest relationships sometimes get off track because of the stresses of life. People also have different expectations of what a successful relationship entails.
Author Dr. Sue Johnson cites something called “attachment injuries” or ways in which we fail to hold & comfort each other during key moments of need (Psychology Today, 2013.)
Melanie Greenberg, Ph. D developed a four-step process to relationship repair, she calls this process the H-E-A-L technique (Psychology Today, 2013).
The H-E-A-L technique stands for Hear – Empathize – Act – Love and it can be used to heal damaged relationships by replacing defensive self-protection with compassionate presence and a loving connection.
To Hear Your Partner, Stay Present & Listen
Hear is all about being mentally present and listening.
When your partner speaks it's important to make an effort to really listen to what he or she has to say.
This part of the process is also about opening your heart up and taking down your defenses. It’s not so much about defending yourself, but about trying to understand your partner and taking steps to fulfill and learn about each other’s needs.
This part of the process is about more than merely listening it's about listening beyond words and watching for those nonverbal signs of emotion.
You can watch for angry expressions or sadness.
Watch for body language such as crossed arms or legs.
Try and comprehend what your partner needs in the moment.
The best way to soothe an angry partner is to let him or her know that you hear and & accept their unmet needs and are willing to make those changes to help meet them.
EMPATHIZE - Allow Your Partner's Experience to Deeply Affect you
This part of the process is about trying to understand what your partner is feeling and paying attention to what feelings YOU have when you observe these feelings.
It is especially important to search beneath the surface for those softer and tenderer feelings. For example, your partner may be expressing anger, when what they really are feeling is loneliness or sadness or even pain.
Striving to feel compassion and empathy rather than anger, can help you understand where your partner is coming from. Staying emotionally engaged and expressing compassion can provide immense healing, comfort, and connection.
ACT - Take Action to Address Concerns & Show Willingness to Change
The next step in the HEAL process is to commit to intentional action in order to address your partner’s needs and concerns. Actions often speak much louder than words, and these types of committed actions can go a long to helping you and your partner heal. Actions can be as simple as doing the dishes to picking up laundry on the floor. You could even do something as simple as letting your partner know how much you really care about them on a daily basis.
When your partner sees that you take his or her concerns more seriously, they will be more likely to feel valued and respected and this can create a positive cycle in each partner feels more loved and valued.
LOVE - Feel and Express Unconditional Love
Making space in your life to deliberately reconnect with the loving feelings you once had and still have for your partner is what this step is all about. You can do this even if you have had recent interactions that have left you feeling angry or distant.
When you focus on and think about all of the good qualities that originally attracted you to your partner, you can get back that loving feeling. You can do this by looking through old photos, or just thinking about special dates or events in which you connected in a positive manner.
If you can find a way in your heart to forgive and forget, you will be able to move into a space of love and compassion.
According to Greenberg, "love is defined as a concern for another’s wellbeing and a warm feeling you have towards another, (Psychology Today, 2013).
It's best not to make your expressions of love contingent on what your partner does or doesn't do but to simply reach out and express that unconditional caring, support, understanding, and forgiveness.
Relationships are hard work, and much different than those portrayed in the movies. Sometimes they work well while other times they are filled with challenges and problems. You could compare relationships to a complicated dance, or two people coming together, trying to learn each new step along the way.
When two people come together different issues often come to the surface, depending on the life experiences each person has had. Using these techniques, you can try to focus on the positive and on those things that brought you together in the first place.
Focus on the love, and you will always come out on top.