1. Remember that your husband or wife’s happiness is not your responsibility. We are responsible for our own happiness. 2. Don’t expect life to go perfectly. Perfectionism kills joy and steals happiness. 3. Avoid making yourself a victim in relationships. 4. Stop trying to control the things in life you can’t control. 5. Train yourself […]
Blogs
THE STORIES WE TELL OURSELVES
UPDATE ON MY NEW BOOK…. THE STORIES WE TELL OURSELVES My original plan was to launch my book in late October 2013. However, I am the process of adding several exciting updates and additions to make the book as strong as possible. Additionally, I want to give more time to reach as many people as […]
Are You ‘Fully Present’ In Your Relationships?
For three months in 2010, Serbian-born performance artist Marina Abramovic sat in a chair in a gallery at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and directed her full, silent attention toward one individual seated across from her. The artist sat seven hours a day, six days a week, without eating or drinking, for a […]
Do You ‘Show Up’ In Your Relationships?
One of the greatest joys we have as human beings is to make a meaningful connection with another person—a friend, spouse, or our children. By ‘making a meaningful connection’ I mean that we are ‘in the present’ with the other person and really ‘show up’ emotionally and mentally. This type of intentional significant connection is […]
Do You Struggle With Insecurity?
Brené Brown is a professor at the University of Houston and nationally renowned for her work on connection, vulnerability and shame. She states that emotionally committed relationships require four steps: 1. Connection 2. Vulnerability 3. Risk 4. Sense of Love and Belonging In order to gain connection (one of our greatest human needs) you must […]
Can We Choose to Reduce Anxiety?
Recently, I was traveling down a major Dallas freeway, heading to an 8 a.m. meeting several miles away. Like most days in Dallas, there were probably 10,000 other people heading in the same direction – but on this cold and rainy morning in January it seemed like traffic was even heavier than usual. As I […]
Balancing Heart and Mind
When I was 10 years old, my mom took my 8-year-old sister and I to run some errands. I was in the front seat of our Ford F150 extended cab truck beside my mom while my sister sat in the small back seat. We stopped at a house on the outskirts of town, and my […]
In Love vs. Love
“I’ve been married for 17 years and I just want to feel something again. I want to be in love again, like when we first met.” A client voiced that to me recently in a session, and it’s something I hear daily in my work with clients. If we’re totally honest about it, I think […]
Are you willing to confront your unattractive behavior?
When couples come to counseling and we begin working together on their issues, I often start by asking each person two important questions: 1. Do you have a desire to work on the relationship? 2. Are you willing to confront your own unattractive behavior? Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? I believe that relationships cause us […]
Growing Up
Back in Spring of 2012, after 15 years of research and practice, I developed an approach to relationships called the Auxano Approach®. Auxano is a Greek word that means “to cause to grow, increase, or grow up.” I believe that relationships, and marriage in particular, cause us to “grow up” emotionally. In fact, I say […]
