Trust is the foundation of any relationship. It is difficult to be truly vulnerable with someone you don’t trust. Trust isn’t built overnight; it takes time. In a relationship, many small moments added together become the building blocks of trust. …
Turning Criticism into a Complaint
If you grew up with a lot of criticism around you, you likely have a loud, critical voice in your head as an adult. Usually, that critical voice is directed inwards, but in intimate relationships, many people find that the …
Tips to Become Less Defensive
The four communication styles that have a negative impact on your relationships: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. Everyone will have a favoured method. Mine is defensiveness. Defensiveness is a response to criticism and tends to increase conflict because the other …
Communicating with Someone Who is Highly Anxious
When faced with someone experiencing high anxiety, rather than giving advice, which can feel invalidating, a better approach is to seek to understand how it is for the person. Let them know you are with them, and they are not …
Break the Cycle of Toxic Criticism and Defensiveness
When someone comes at you with criticism, the natural response is to defend. Criticism is a form of attack, so it is natural to protect instinctively unless you know how criticism and defensiveness play out in a relationship. Those of …
What is YOUR Word for 2023?
Rather than write a list of intentions for the New Year, I prefer to have a ‘word for the year’ that I can keep referring to. I can refer to it when I am making decisions and occasionally review the …
Compassionate Reflection of 2022
At this time of the year, I like to do what I call a ‘Compassionate Review’, a kind examination of the year that has been. Know that each year is different. If this year has been especially hard, know that …
The 5 Stages of a relationship
Reminder: it is NORMAL to have conflict in a relationship. Excellent relationship researchers, the Gottman’s, discovered that it was not the number of disputes that determined if a relationship was robust or not, but how the couple resolved the conflict.Notice …
Ideas for the ‘Struggle’ Relationship Phase
It is normal to have conflict and struggle in a relationship. When you begin a relationship, you usually spend a while in the honeymoon phase and lose part of yourselves as you enter the intoxicating phase of merging. As your …
Questions to Ask During the ‘Difference’ Relationship Phase
This is the phase where we step back from the intense merging of the honeymoon phase, we take off the rose-tinted glasses and ask ourselves if we can live with the reality of the other person. It is easy to …