Yet Men fall in love faster because they are so visual!

Men tend to be more dependent on their g/f’s and wives for intimacy.

Men are over 2X more likely to kill themselves when a relationship ends.

Men show just as much activity in brain regions associated with romantic passion.

-Helen Fisher–Book:  Of Human Bonding

Jake said he came to counselling because his wife is always mad at him. If he does ‘this’ she is mad, and if he does ‘that’ she gets mad as well. Damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.

After many months of this, he told his wife he would no longer fight with her and that he was going to find out if he was the problem.

In the 90 minutes that Jake and I were in the counselling session, we explored his experiences with his wife. Jake’s experiences of caring is to help solve the challenges, the worries or the confusions. That’s what he knows how to do and also what he does in his professional job. He’s a problem solver. However, it was quite evident to him that this type of help and caring was not working for his wife.

Dr. Gary Chapman has written a book, The Five Love Languages. I brought Chapman’s ideas forth to Jake and this is what we found. Jake really saw that his love language is that of touch. In other words, he knows that when his wife hugs him, sits on his lap, holds his hand, initiates sex and so forth he feels really loved and cared for. This is a physical language.

When I asked Jake what he thought was his wife’s love language he paused and asked for a few minutes to think about what it was.

Upon reflection, it turns out that his wife’s Love Language is that of quality time. A time when he is totally present to listen and in particular hear what she is saying. And, above anything, he is not there to solve or suggest ways to fix whatever she is talking about. In fact, he doesn’t even have to understand—really—in order to just HEAR what she is saying.

There’s listening, and then there is hearing.

Jake said he never thought about listening in this way before and needed time to work through in his mind how he could care for his wife without thinking he needed to do something, say something.

It is when your life is the same all the time and nothing much is changing or happening.

Someone else said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing or ways over and over again and expecting change.   Being in a rut is the same.

Many of us want change in our life, we want something different. We are stuck in a rut we can’t seem to get out of.

Sometimes we stay stuck because we don’t know where we really want to be, where we want to end up outside of the rut, so we stay where it is comfortable.

It would take effort to move ourselves out of the rut, and even though we may not like the rut, it is comfortable, and we know what to expect there.

The challenge then is, nothing in the future will be improved if we don’t make changes to our present.

KEY: We have to decide that the desire for a different future is STRONGER than the comfort of staying in the same old rut.

Some things to do pull yourself out the rut

Seek help in counselling

a. Assess your current situation
b. What parts of the current rut DO work for you
c. Where do you want your life to go?

Always start with baby steps

When you are looking to disturb your present to improve your future, make sure that you do so in little baby steps.

Major change is difficult to maintain. Small steps are easier. Don’t work on everything at once.

Pick something to work on this week. Next week, pick something else.

Once you are out of the rut, your road may be bumpy for a while, until you make a new path for yourself. You will subconsciously slip back into the rut if you are not careful. Be on the lookout for frustration with the bumps and the discomfort of the new road.

Life is a string of stories. My father was a story teller. Not by
trade, mind you, but in general conversation he would most often have a story
behind his point. In the last 16 months of my father’s 92 years on Earth, I
spent many an hour listening to his stories.

Some were informative and filled in some of the missing
information I did not have about him or not interested at the time while
growing up. Some were about his and my relationship. I would tell him my
version of what I saw and felt, and he would counter with his. Somewhere in the
telling of such my father, who I called Dad, and I understood and forgave a lot
of judgments and hurts. Looking back on these months, these days, these hours,
were precious times.

In these 16 months I really came to see I no longer required my  Dad’s approval that over the years in my own journey to find me with me, I was  o.k.

In my mind, I no longer had to be a perfect daughter, I was, and
always had been, a good enough daughter. I did however, want his love. It’s
incredible when I removed the approval expectations then love was there. It was
all around me.

It was there in the errands I did for him. It was there in his
daily phone call when for his last 16 months on Earth he told each and every time, “I love you”.

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When you see kids go on a field trip, the questions pour out of them. Never ending, interesting, deep… even risky.

And then the resistance to do so kicks in and we apparently lose the ability.

Is the weather the only thing you can think to ask about?

A great question is one you can ask yourself, one that disturbs your status quo and scares you a little bit.

The A part is easy. We’re good at answers. Q, not so much.

The holidays are a perfect time to reflect on the many gifts that we receive all year; the gift of life, health, friends, family, love and hope. When our focus is off we tend to get the “After Christmas Blues”. It normally stems from selfishness and disappointments. We get on pity-parties and we become blind to all that we DO have. Some people bounce back fast, some slow and some not at all. I think that is why we embrace New Years. We crave second chances; a chance to make better decisions, a chance to be a better person or a chance to erase the past and start over. When we plan on making this fresh start we must realize that our body craves spirituality and it is an essential part to being completely healthy inside & out. If you are depressed, discouraged, defeated or downright blah, I encourage you to dig deep and seek the things in life that you need to make a change. Seek out people that seem to have holiday-like joy all year long. Tackle your New Year’s Resolutions with a new spirit and experience being both physically and spiritually fit. If your body is strong, but your soul is weak, you are still unhealthy. Your physical body will feel the wear and tear of a heavy heart. So, before you make that decision to get healthy this year, like so many of us do, remember that there is more to being healthy than strong muscles and skinny waists.

 So much like cars, relationships require maintenance and care. In most cases, action-oriented, professional counselling can get a stalled relationship back in gear and on the right track.

You’ll gain new insights and acquire useable tools for repairing and building a fulfilling and lasting relationship – all in a non-threatening, honest but uplifting format. The relationship tune-up has a positive and practical focus – there will be no shame, no blame, and no games.

 The goals of the tune-up are:

•  To identify your strengths as a couple and build new ones.
• To identify habits, behaviors, and old patterns that is unproductive and makes changes using concrete strategies.
• To strengthen your communication skills, including assertiveness and active listening. Also, to learn one another’s preferred “ love language”
• To explore your relationship from the experiences in your Family-of-origin.
•  To develop shared approaches to financial and family goals.
• To work through tensions regarding spiritual beliefs, intimacy, vulnerabilities, or other matters in a kind and respectful way.
• To understand better how your different temperaments and personalities can best compliment one another.
• Create a relationship manual for your relationship.

Sometimes due to some social anonymity in my mind about being in a metal box  with another or others, if someone does want to get on the elevator with me, I  will await another.  Or even if I am  already on and someone rushes to beat the elevator’s closing door, I whirl by them and rush out.  I have no interest in  explaining myself other than I allow my social choice if needed.

When the elevator door lumbered opened at the garage level, I could hear  voices, but not yet see the speakers as they were around a corner coming  through the heavy fire door that leads to the actual car park.   Rules.

“Hurry up!  I can hold this door all  day” said the irritated female voice.

I take a few steps and here they are:  And, yes, she is holding the heavy weighted metal door wide open with  her entire body.   She is weighted down  with sacks of groceries.

The two of them look older than God, wrinkly and worn.   Yet here they drag in the groceries in  hand—no cart.

To say that he can barely walk is an understatement—you can hear him push  his feet across the cement floor inch by inch.
He has a huge, frozen turkey in a plastic grocery shopping bag hanging  from his right arm.  It’s Thanksgiving in a few days.

I step aside giving them wide berth to get through the door I need to  use:   I say—and with a smile, “take your  time”.

He takes some energy away from his task at hand and gives me a quick  glance.  He had very kind eyes.  I hold my smile for him.

I remembered a recent article I had read about eyes—that our eyes are the  same size when we are born as when we die.
Funny how the brain flares and fires countless neurons and interconnections to meet an experience.

He was almost past me when she said back to me, “I have no choice!”

The door way was now clear and I could be on my way to my car.   The same door that had to be held open with  her entire body now whooshes close on its own—slam!

As, I drove out of the underground garage, I wondered if on her wedding day  many years ago how come she did chose him?

“Do you take this man for better or ….worn?”

Choice.

Anger is a problem that can cause some real hiccups in your social life. Not only social but your professional and personal life suffers from it big time if your wrath is getting out of control. In these times you need some serious help and that help can be provided to you by means of an effective anger therapy.

There is hardly any human being who does not have any anger. It may vary from a child to an old person. But there is no person who does not possess anger. But when anger reaches in such a situation that it goes beyond your control, and then it creates so many problems. It can destroy a life completely. So you must need to know the cause of anger and how you can control it and live a happy life. So anger management tips can help you to reduce your problems and make your mind fresh and cool. It can also help you learn how to express your emotions and expressions in a healthy way.

The problem with anger is that you don’t even realize and it starts taking a cancerous form in your personality and then it causes serious hitches and flaws in the progression curve of your life. Although you can bring your life back to normal by the help of an anger therapy but the main question is that how will you realize that you are suffering from uncontrollable anger? Well this question is surely a tricky one but it can be answered.

Being cynical, virtually all bad things in your life are a consequence of your anger. You owe all the disasters of your life, which can possibly turn your life upside down, to anger. There is a thin line between anger and uncontrollable anger, but the fact of the matter is that this thin line can create a great difference in your life. You have to undergo anger therapy if you are suffering from the problem of extreme wrath and it is a must because survival with this condition is not possible, you only find yourself at a dead end if you do not undergo anger therapy to help yourself out of this situation.

You should realize that you are suffering from the acute condition of uncontrollable anger if your life is a hell. If your anger is widening the gap between you and your friends and if you are alienating from your loved ones then it is a clear indication of the fact that you have a problem of uncontrollable anger. If others are getting emotionally hurt because of you and you are making them weep, then it is also an indication that you yourself are hurt internally by anger. If you feel like weeping when you are alone or if you feel frustrated and desperate quite often, then you must know that you require anger therapy. If you feel like punching a sand bag, or even on your neighbor’s face, then it is also a symptom of trouble. If your social life is melting down like wax and your relationships with others are ruined because of some reasons in your mind, then you should know the way to the psychiatrist’s office for anger therapy. If you have fears in your mind regarding known or unknown things, then it is an alarm. It is often said that fear is the root cause of uncontrollable anger. Hence you should never let your fears take over you and you should nip them in their early stage. And the last but not the least, if your anger is making you deny the fact that it is out of control then you should hurry to undergo anger management counselling.