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 …
Important Questions for the Honeymoon Phase
The honeymoon stage usually lasts up to two years but will vary for every relationship. It is the time when we fall in love, Hollywood style. You are both wearing your rose-tinted glasses, you spend a lot of time together, …