Hello everyone and Happy New Year! It’s a good time to dig within and discover what you would like to have happen in your life this year. Make any goals you’d like. Goals give us direction and are an affirmation that you’re interested in fully living your life in the year to come. The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written. We can help write that story by setting goals and visioning our life as we would like it to be.
For my first blog of the year, I highly recommend John Bradshaw’s new book, “Post-Romantic Stress Disorder”. I read it on the plane recently coming back from NY.
What a classic and profound book! His focus is on new discoveries about lust, love and saving your marriage before it’s too late. Basically it’s about what to do when the honeymoon is over.
His premise is that too many people break up marriages that are worth saving. He is a strong supporter of IMAGO Relationship counseling and agrees that in marriage we are there to heal our partners childhood wounds. Also that the infatuation stage is supposed to decrease in intensity, and when that happens, most people don’t know how to keep the romance and spark in their relationship. He says that being in-love is spontaneous, yet achieving a fully adult kind of mature love is not. It takes effort. He also says that there are things we’d all like to change about our partners, but we must be willing to change our self first. What I really like is that he confirms what I often tell couples, “couples who find satisfaction together are those who are willing to compromise and allow their partners to have their differences”. You don’t have to think alike to have a good marriage, you have to respect the differences. He also talks about how important it is to have a solid sense of self when entering a relationship and why it is essential. He writes about how to overcome shame and argue effectively. I think this book is particularly good for anyone thinking about couples therapy, marriage therapy or relationship therapy. But also, for individuals who want to know essentials of what makes a healthy relationship work.
A Chance To Learn More
I will be adding some of the concepts of this book in my class, on 2/28/15. “Successful Romantic and Intimate Relationships: How to Make Them Work”. You can register through Leisure Learning Unlimited, www.llu.com or 713-529-4414. It’s on a Saturday from 10am-12noon. Hope to see you there!
Register For “Successful Romantic and Intimate Relationships: How to Make Them Work“
or they will punish you if you’re not. So let them teach you, every day. Take everything as a lesson learned. If you regret some of the decisions you have made in the past, stop being so hard on yourself. At that time, you did your best with the knowledge you had. At that time, you did your best with the experience you had. Your decisions were made with a younger mind. If you were to make these decisions with the wisdom you have today, you would choose differently. So give yourself a break. Time and experience has a wonderful way of helping us grow and learn to make better choices today, for ourselves and those we care for.
– Confident people have no interest in pleasing everyone they meet. They are aware that not all people agree on things, and that’s just how life works. They focus on the quality of their relationships, instead of the quantity of them. So never let the opinions of the masses define who you are or what you can or can’t do. When you let go of the need to impress everyone, that’s when you begin to be truly impressive to the few people who actually matter. And when you earn the trust and respect of these select few people, no matter where you go or what you try, you will do it with confidence – because you know the people who matter are behind you.
– On the contrary, confident people think, “Why not me?” Sadly though, many people feel they have to wait: to be hired, to be good enough, to be chosen – like the old Hollywood cliché, to somehow be “discovered.” But confident people know that access is basically universal these days (especially if you’re online reading this article). They can connect with almost anyone through social media. (Everyone you know knows someone you should know.) They know they can attract their own funding, create their own products and services, build their own networks of clients and partners, choose their own path – they can choose to follow their dreams. And very quietly, without calling too much attention to themselves, they go out and do it.
– If success makes you arrogant, you haven’t really succeeded. If failure makes you determined, you haven’t really failed. Period. Think about success and failure differently. Don’t take everything that goes wrong personally, and don’t get a big head when everything goes right either. Be a humble, life-long learner. Create, enjoy, learn, love, experience, succeed, fail, persevere, make mistakes, make progress, take risks, and find the treasure in each day.
