Where are your thoughts today? Where are they taking you?
What messages are you sending yourself about yourself, the Universe, and your place in it? Are you thinking about how you are emotionally connected to those you love? Are you thinking about how you can make those emotional connections stronger?
Are you thinking about your strengths, your gifts?
It matters, what you think about.
“Without hard work, nothing grows but weeds”. Quote by Gordon Hinckley
Relationships are like a garden. They need careful tending or they don’t produce the harvest. As a relationship and mental health counselor, it’s been my privilege to walk the most intimate journey of people’s lives with them. Through my learning from others, my study and education along with my personal growth through 37 years of marriage, there are 6 skills I’ve found in common with healthy relationships. In healthy relationships it’s important to:
Build confidence in your partner;
Couples that seem to grow strong find themselves purposely lifting up their partner in private and public. They say sincere compliments and act proud to be their friend. Good practice: try several times a day to surprise your spouse with a special act or word or gesture of appreciation. Begin sentences with I’m thankful for..; I appreciate it that..; I’m excited about…; I was impressed that…; The garden analogy may be the trellis. Without a trellis many plants fall over on themselves and eventually break or stop giving.
Be credible;
Secrets or lies by omission are culprits of healthy relationships. In this era of technology, it’s easy to leave spouses out of the loop and create insecurity. Healthy relationships are open about their electronics, phones, and schedules. Good practice: Ask your spouse what one or two gestures would build trust and credibility. Be proactive about honoring their requests. Garden analogy: It’s more than frustrating to think you are planting corn and instead have melons.
Please check back next week to read part two of our three part series on more ways to “grow” your relationships.
Sharon Nelson, LCSW
Changes occur all day long. An appointment gets cancelled, you encounter a detour on the way home, you were anticipating roast beef for dinner and you got chicken. It’s what life is and while you might get a bit frustrated, you learn to roll with it. But what about the big changes? Job transfers, marriage, divorce, children, medical changes and the death of someone you love. How do you learn to adapt with the changes that will affect the rest of your life?
Whether you’re leaving the community that you’ve built strong relations with or having to bury a loved one, you will feel anger because it wasn’t your choice for this to happen to you. Healthy coping skills result in better emotional stability. Poor coping skills result in anger and resentment.
First, it is helpful to recognize that you are in the midst of change and that change is part of you. Instead of thinking about all the negative issues, try making a list of all the positive benefits of this change. Visualize all the possibilities and write them down. Make up a “to do” list if there are things you need to accomplish before the change happens. Call a friend and discuss your fears and ask for their advice. If you feel that you can’t get past your fear, anger and resentment you may need to talk to a professional. In talking with a therapist you will get an unbiased opinion and they will be able to give you some insight and the coping tools so that you can move on and embrace your changes.
“Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.” ~ Jim Rohn
A good place to start is to gently discipline your mind to become a welcoming place for whatever thoughts may happen along. When sitting in meditation, you become like the gracious host of a party. You want to know who is at the party. But it’s a relaxed and welcoming party, a come-as-you-are party, so whatever thought opens the door and enters is not judged for doing so, for being there.
Try to do this with your awareness in meditation: put your energy into breathing and your awareness into your thoughts. You mildly curious to discover which thought decide they want to come to the breathing party. You don’t need to puzzle through why they are there. Just recognize that they are.
Most importantly: if you are breathing and sitting in stillness and silence, you are already doing the right thing. Keep doing it and amazing things will happen.
“Loving ourselves through the process of owning our own story is the bravest thing we will ever do.”
-Brene Brown
Vulnerability is scary. It is so often avoided. It means to show the parts of ourselves that we are afraid aren’t “good enough”. But you know what? Everyone has the same fear of not being good enough. When we are held hostage by that fear, we miss out on our true happiness. You live a life that you think others want you to live.
No one is perfect. Perfectionism is a cruel joke. Perfectionism makes us wake up every day feeling like we failed yesterday. There is no joy in that life. Dare to practice loving yourself for who you really are.
For more on this, watch this clip of Dr. Brene Brown on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YeulUgWNp8
or the full TED talk:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCvmsMzlF7o
Rachael Nachtigal, LPC
A good place to start is to gently discipline your mind to become a welcoming place for whatever thoughts may happen along. When sitting in meditation, you become like the gracious host of a party. You want to know who is at the party. But it’s a relaxed and welcoming party, a come-as-you-are party, so whatever thought opens the door and enters is not judged for doing so, for being there.
Try to do this with your awareness in meditation: put your energy into breathing and your awareness into your thoughts. You mildly curious to discover which thought decide they want to come to the breathing party. You don’t need to puzzle through why they are there. Just recognize that they are.
Most importantly: if you are breathing and sitting in stillness and silence, you are already doing the right thing. Keep doing it and amazing things will happen.
Healthy marriages and relationships are wonderful. They add to the excitement, acceptance, and well-being of individuals. With the garden analogy, one can agree that having help to “hoe a row” makes life less burdensome and more productive. Happy gardening!
Notice and be noticed;
One of the basic human needs is to be noticed in positive ways. Healthy relationships provide daily structure for conversations and comments about noticing a spouse’s feelings, accomplishments and gifts of service. Good practice: Each day either right before bed or earlier comment on something that you have noticed about your spouse in the past 24 hours. Have an agreement to seek new ideas and not repeat your compliments. Something new every time! Garden analogy: even if it seems trivial or common knowledge, keep the sunlight on your awareness of each other.
Enjoy;
A foundation of any healthy relationship is to enjoy the companionship, laughter, and activities together. Planning a variety of fun activities that brings out a playful side is a key ingredient. Good practice: Have regular and also spontaneous play dates with your spouse. Find mutual activities that are easy and bring a bond of laughter, or smiles, or fond memories while doing. Garden analogy: Stop and smell the roses. Why have them if you don’t enjoy them.
Please check back next week to read part three of our three part series on more ways to “grow” your relationships.
Sharon Nelson, LCSW
Anxiety can be confused with fear. Fear is a response to a very real and concrete danger that makes you want to pull away from or escape, because it could be a threat to your physical or emotional safety. The fear response can affect both the physiology of the body and the chemical balance of the brain. Anxiety is a generalized sense of dread about something that seems menacing but actually may not be menacing or may not even be out there. Feeling anxious may make it difficult for you to talk yourself out of this foreboding and you become trapped in an endless loop of “what ifs”. Anxiety can produce feelings of worry, stress, stomach butterflies, and other manifestations of anxiety. While this emotional and physical discomfort can be worrisome, anxiety can often be a valuable signal that “trouble is brewing” and signals you to pay attention to be a problem that needs to be addressed. If you feel your anxiety is getting in the way of daily functioning, seek professional help as there are many effective treatments to reduce, manage, or eliminate anxiety.
Running on my lunch break yesterday, I passed a young man walking in the opposite direction. His reply to my smile of greeting was sincere. A statement of fact. An honest wish. “Good morning,” he said. Did he misspeak? It was nearly 1:00 PM. Is my early afternoon his morning? Late shift worker or late night lurker?
My thoughts drifted as I ran.
He was right. He is right.
It is a good morning. Somewhere. In fact, somewhere the sun is rising over misty mountains, filling the valley below with light and warmth and promise. Somewhere the sun is rising. For someone the sun rises today to bring the most important day of his life. Someone today is going to make a decision. A life changing decision. Big or small, things are going to happen today. Somebody somewhere is going to stop hurting someone they love. For good. Someone somewhere else is going to finally clean out that closet. Maybe keep it clean. Someone is going to decide to go back to school. Someone is going to pay off a loan.
Somewhere the sun is rising. That means that life is happening.
Good morning.
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