Have you ever heard of a paradigm shift?
A paradigm shift is when you force your mind to look at a situation in a different way.
Instead of looking at a potential problem, you could be looking at a potential solution, or window of opportunity.
We all react to situations in different ways. In our mind we choose to react to situations.
You can choose to react in a positive way or a negative way. It is all up to you.
How do you decide which way to look at a situation? That is up to you to decide.
You can only get out of life, that what you put in it. Love is an action verb. That means that if you want to be loved, you have to show love.
You are where are in life because it is where your thoughts have lead you to. You can only go in life where you thoughts lead you.
Where do you want to be in life? Okay, start going that way. It is just as easy, but it might take some hard work.
Let your mind take you where you want to go. Do you want to be in love? Do you want to love? When your heart is set for love and really desire love, then be in love. It's that easy! Act and feel everyday how much love is a part of you, then let it show and happen. Soak it in, to be in love is a very amazing feeling. You can tell by looking at a women just walking down the street whether she is in love.
Love makes your life different everyday, you look at life with such open eyes and heart.
Try it. Wake up tomorrow morning and say to yourself! I am in love, I desire love, love desires me. And let yourself act and feel freely all day and see how much better your day is, see how much better your husband responds to you. If you act as you are in a high school puppy love romance daily then the response you will get from your husband will be quite a surprise.
I love being in love, I love the look of love on my husband and the way it feels.
Showing posts with label marriage tips advice for women. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marriage tips advice for women. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Understanding Co-Dependency
The first step in changing unhealthy behavior is understanding it.
It is important for co-dependents and their family members to educate themselves about the course and it's cycle and how it extends into their relationships.
A lot of change and growth is necessary for the co-dependent and her family. The co-dependent must identify and embrace her feelings and needs.
Throughout this article I am going to use the term "her" many times. I use "her" because this is me... I am the co-dependent struggling to save my marriage. I hope my Marriage Tips; Marriage Advice will help you in some way~
Hope lies in learning more. The more you understand the better you can cope with it's effects. Reaching out for information and assistance can help you live a healthier, more fulfilling life.
You will have a successful recovery by adapting good learning skills, taking a good look at yourself and your actions, and allowing the necessary TIME to make changes that work for YOU! While codependency can be tackled by yourself with motivation, discipline, and education, counseling along with a positive supportive spouse can make these tasks tremendously easier by pointing out problems and non-helpful behaviors. Plus, counseling gives you a chance to process your plans and progress on a weekly basis. When you've moved on, you will find it was more than worth it. Remember to keep weekly journals of your progress. (this was very helpful to me, to be able to look back and see how much I have changed and developed.)
Learning assertiveness, listening, and communication skills is important to help your spouse in being a supportive partner. In treatment your spouse can help you by becoming more aware of non-helpful actions/behaviors, and work with you on developing new, healthier coping skills.
In the case of codependency though, counseling only helps if the counselor is aware of their own tendency towards co dependence, or if the counselor has some understanding about the addictive push in our society. Counselors, in the case of codependency, need to educate you in good boundary setting and healthy living.
IDENTITY CRISIS
You are likely to go through an identity crisis. Be prepared to see and become who you really are. Maybe you won't be the cute, innocent, docile creature you think you are. So be it! Better to be genuine. Your real personality will not hurt anyone. Your truly wonderful and valuable personality characteristics will remain intact. The only aspect that will be lost will be the phony ones that you are clinging to, or that others have imprinted upon you but that are not the REAL YOU!
It is important for co-dependents and their family members to educate themselves about the course and it's cycle and how it extends into their relationships.
A lot of change and growth is necessary for the co-dependent and her family. The co-dependent must identify and embrace her feelings and needs.
Throughout this article I am going to use the term "her" many times. I use "her" because this is me... I am the co-dependent struggling to save my marriage. I hope my Marriage Tips; Marriage Advice will help you in some way~
Hope lies in learning more. The more you understand the better you can cope with it's effects. Reaching out for information and assistance can help you live a healthier, more fulfilling life.
You will have a successful recovery by adapting good learning skills, taking a good look at yourself and your actions, and allowing the necessary TIME to make changes that work for YOU! While codependency can be tackled by yourself with motivation, discipline, and education, counseling along with a positive supportive spouse can make these tasks tremendously easier by pointing out problems and non-helpful behaviors. Plus, counseling gives you a chance to process your plans and progress on a weekly basis. When you've moved on, you will find it was more than worth it. Remember to keep weekly journals of your progress. (this was very helpful to me, to be able to look back and see how much I have changed and developed.)
Learning assertiveness, listening, and communication skills is important to help your spouse in being a supportive partner. In treatment your spouse can help you by becoming more aware of non-helpful actions/behaviors, and work with you on developing new, healthier coping skills.
In the case of codependency though, counseling only helps if the counselor is aware of their own tendency towards co dependence, or if the counselor has some understanding about the addictive push in our society. Counselors, in the case of codependency, need to educate you in good boundary setting and healthy living.
IDENTITY CRISIS
You are likely to go through an identity crisis. Be prepared to see and become who you really are. Maybe you won't be the cute, innocent, docile creature you think you are. So be it! Better to be genuine. Your real personality will not hurt anyone. Your truly wonderful and valuable personality characteristics will remain intact. The only aspect that will be lost will be the phony ones that you are clinging to, or that others have imprinted upon you but that are not the REAL YOU!
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Marriage Tips: Help and Hope
* Go for help. A reputable therapist and supportive spouse is a very important tool here, because others can help you see your own co-dependent behavior and attitudes in ways you may not see yourself.
* Make recovery a first priority. Like all addictions, co-dependency is insidious, you may recognize yourself in the symptoms, but then deny their importance or deny that they apply to you after all. You may decide to change, and then time after time find yourself doing the same old things. Making recovery a first priority means outlining your destructive behaviors, finding alternative behaviors, and then implementing them! It means, challenging yourself, talking with others about changing, and then changing!
* Begin to know yourself. The more you learn about this disease, the more you will see how it creeps into every aspect of your life, and how destructive it can be. Listening to others, and identifying with them can help you recognize yourself and understand yourself, and setting higher standards, more appropriate goals.
* Develop a spiritual side through daily practice. An inner life is important to those recovering from co-dependency, because it will allow you to see that you are love able, and that your whole world does NOT have to revolve around your spouse. Find serenity outside of your daily life and family... any activity which is serene and focuses you on a source of nurturing outside of your brain. (Mine is the gym!)
* This is a tough one for me, still to this day: STOP managing and controlling others. This is a big challenge, but an important one. Here you stop telling the other what to do, how to live, what is wrong - or right with him. You stop intervening, helping, advising, you simply stop. You allow this other person to make his or her own decisions, for right or for wrong, you let them live their own life. Marriage is NOT ownership!!! This includes taking responsibility for their own mistakes, their unhappiness, their issues and their own growth. You cannot help them without helping yourself first.
* Courageously face your own problems and shortcomings. Now that you have liberated your energy from the other person's life, you have lots of time and energy to focus on your own life. All the things that occupied you with your husband might actually need attention in your OWN life! Often co-dependents say that they never realized how chaotic their own lives were, or how empty, how lonely, etc. Now is your time to face yourself, instead of dissipating your energy on trying to fix someone else.
* Cultivate whatever you need to develop as an individual. In facing yourself, you may see that you need to get in touch with your anger, or grieve what you have lost or what you never had, or contact your inner life. You need to sit still with yourself, that is important...WITH YOURSELF... and find out what you need to do, what you need to be, what you need to address to continue with your development in life.
* Become "selfish." At this point, you need to practice putting yourself first. Do you know how they tell parents on airplanes to always put on your oxygen mask first before trying to help your child with their mask? The adult has to be able to breathe and the have his or her needs adequately addressed before being able to help anybody. This is true for all aspects of life, not just for oxygen masks! Make sure your basic needs are met before you start giving away your time, energy, money, and other resources. Make sure you get your sleep, your meals, your serenity, and whatever else is important to you. When you are adequately supplied, then and only then will you have "stuff" to give to someone else. I never cared what decisions were being made, and let my husband run the show. I had to START CARING.... to show up and have an opinion. It is important here to learn how to advocate for ourselves.
* I love this one~ But I still struggling daily with it. Begin to feel that you are worthy of all life has to offer. This is tricky. Most people, if asked, will say "of course I think I am worthy!" But if you look at their lives, you may see a pattern which belies that belief. They are unhappy in their work, underemployed, bored or otherwise unhappy. No real future goals put into play. Perhaps they don't take care of their bodies, and they are frequently ill. Or they become very obsessive ( this is what I did.) and compulsive. They do not complain, or realize what needs fixing in there life. They just take it as it comes at them never asking how do these areas reflect my self-esteem?
Recovery from c-dependency is based on increased self-esteem... a self-esteem which can be gained by increased self-knowledge, your strong points and your weak points, and a full acceptance of yourself. There is a basic self-love, which you carefully nurture and expand. You get in touch with your feelings and attitudes about every aspect of your personality, including your sexuality. You begin to not only accept, but to actually cherish every aspect of yourself: your personality, your appearance, your beliefs and values, your body, your interests and accomplishments. You begin to validate yourself.
As you do this, you can enjoy being with others, especially your husband, who believes you are fine just as you are. You will not need to be needed in order to feel worthy.
You also work on accepting others as they are, without trying to change them to meet your needs. You know that you are safe because your standards are higher; you become open and trusting, but only with APPROPRIATE people.
You no longer expose yourself to the exploitation of those who are not interested in your well-being. Usually this means many friendships will be lost. (I struggled here, loosing some friends was tough, but I soon realized what the real definition of friends) Your higher criteria and standards are reflected in your approach to relationships. You will find a circle of supportive friends, your husband and healthy interests to see you through crises.
Your values change; now rather than your husband, you value your peace of mind and serenity above all else. You lose interest in the struggles, drama and chaos of the past. You become protective of yourself, your health and your well-being. You come to realize that for a relationship to work, it must be between partners who are equal and on not empowering the other. You want loved more than you need loved and you will find that your spouse will start respecting you with the love that you were trying to force the first time.
You come to know that you are worthy of the best that life has to offer, and you know that with help, perhaps, you can find a way to achieve that!
ASKING FOR HELP IS OK! You need to learn to ask for help instead of helping others first.
* Make recovery a first priority. Like all addictions, co-dependency is insidious, you may recognize yourself in the symptoms, but then deny their importance or deny that they apply to you after all. You may decide to change, and then time after time find yourself doing the same old things. Making recovery a first priority means outlining your destructive behaviors, finding alternative behaviors, and then implementing them! It means, challenging yourself, talking with others about changing, and then changing!
* Begin to know yourself. The more you learn about this disease, the more you will see how it creeps into every aspect of your life, and how destructive it can be. Listening to others, and identifying with them can help you recognize yourself and understand yourself, and setting higher standards, more appropriate goals.
* Develop a spiritual side through daily practice. An inner life is important to those recovering from co-dependency, because it will allow you to see that you are love able, and that your whole world does NOT have to revolve around your spouse. Find serenity outside of your daily life and family... any activity which is serene and focuses you on a source of nurturing outside of your brain. (Mine is the gym!)
* This is a tough one for me, still to this day: STOP managing and controlling others. This is a big challenge, but an important one. Here you stop telling the other what to do, how to live, what is wrong - or right with him. You stop intervening, helping, advising, you simply stop. You allow this other person to make his or her own decisions, for right or for wrong, you let them live their own life. Marriage is NOT ownership!!! This includes taking responsibility for their own mistakes, their unhappiness, their issues and their own growth. You cannot help them without helping yourself first.
* Courageously face your own problems and shortcomings. Now that you have liberated your energy from the other person's life, you have lots of time and energy to focus on your own life. All the things that occupied you with your husband might actually need attention in your OWN life! Often co-dependents say that they never realized how chaotic their own lives were, or how empty, how lonely, etc. Now is your time to face yourself, instead of dissipating your energy on trying to fix someone else.
* Cultivate whatever you need to develop as an individual. In facing yourself, you may see that you need to get in touch with your anger, or grieve what you have lost or what you never had, or contact your inner life. You need to sit still with yourself, that is important...WITH YOURSELF... and find out what you need to do, what you need to be, what you need to address to continue with your development in life.
* Become "selfish." At this point, you need to practice putting yourself first. Do you know how they tell parents on airplanes to always put on your oxygen mask first before trying to help your child with their mask? The adult has to be able to breathe and the have his or her needs adequately addressed before being able to help anybody. This is true for all aspects of life, not just for oxygen masks! Make sure your basic needs are met before you start giving away your time, energy, money, and other resources. Make sure you get your sleep, your meals, your serenity, and whatever else is important to you. When you are adequately supplied, then and only then will you have "stuff" to give to someone else. I never cared what decisions were being made, and let my husband run the show. I had to START CARING.... to show up and have an opinion. It is important here to learn how to advocate for ourselves.
* I love this one~ But I still struggling daily with it. Begin to feel that you are worthy of all life has to offer. This is tricky. Most people, if asked, will say "of course I think I am worthy!" But if you look at their lives, you may see a pattern which belies that belief. They are unhappy in their work, underemployed, bored or otherwise unhappy. No real future goals put into play. Perhaps they don't take care of their bodies, and they are frequently ill. Or they become very obsessive ( this is what I did.) and compulsive. They do not complain, or realize what needs fixing in there life. They just take it as it comes at them never asking how do these areas reflect my self-esteem?
Recovery from c-dependency is based on increased self-esteem... a self-esteem which can be gained by increased self-knowledge, your strong points and your weak points, and a full acceptance of yourself. There is a basic self-love, which you carefully nurture and expand. You get in touch with your feelings and attitudes about every aspect of your personality, including your sexuality. You begin to not only accept, but to actually cherish every aspect of yourself: your personality, your appearance, your beliefs and values, your body, your interests and accomplishments. You begin to validate yourself.
As you do this, you can enjoy being with others, especially your husband, who believes you are fine just as you are. You will not need to be needed in order to feel worthy.
You also work on accepting others as they are, without trying to change them to meet your needs. You know that you are safe because your standards are higher; you become open and trusting, but only with APPROPRIATE people.
You no longer expose yourself to the exploitation of those who are not interested in your well-being. Usually this means many friendships will be lost. (I struggled here, loosing some friends was tough, but I soon realized what the real definition of friends) Your higher criteria and standards are reflected in your approach to relationships. You will find a circle of supportive friends, your husband and healthy interests to see you through crises.
Your values change; now rather than your husband, you value your peace of mind and serenity above all else. You lose interest in the struggles, drama and chaos of the past. You become protective of yourself, your health and your well-being. You come to realize that for a relationship to work, it must be between partners who are equal and on not empowering the other. You want loved more than you need loved and you will find that your spouse will start respecting you with the love that you were trying to force the first time.
You come to know that you are worthy of the best that life has to offer, and you know that with help, perhaps, you can find a way to achieve that!
ASKING FOR HELP IS OK! You need to learn to ask for help instead of helping others first.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Marriage Tips- My journey begins.
As I started therapy, I not only learned many knew and disturbing things about myself. I changed therapist about 1 month or so into my journey and found the most amazing spiritual, honest, empathetic yet not afraid to tell me when I was screwing up female therapist named Tammi. She broke the news to me early on that I was suffering from Co-Dependency! What the hell is that? I was stumped. I knew I had issues, but this was something that I had never even heard of: Please read the below carefully, and perhaps you will find yourself saying "this sounds just like me!" Those were my words exactly when I read and re-read the information my wonderful therapist sent me.
CO-DEPENDENCY~
By now, many people have heard the term "co-dependency." That is because the syndrome of co-dependency is so widespread, and it appears with ever increasing frequency. What is co-dependency, exactly? And why is it so harmful?
Co-dependency is actually an umbrella term; it represents an entire range of feelings, beliefs about ourselves, behaviors and symptoms. The main characteristic is a BIG focus on another person. This is usually our loved one- spouse, significant other. But a persona who is co-dependent often is focused on EVERYBODY else, rather than on herself. For example, when going out to a restaurant with a group, everyone might be trying to decide on where to go. The co-dependent person will demur, saying, " I don't care, anywhere is ok with me." While this can be a very useful strategy in a group and make getting places easier, for the co-dependent, this lack of decision making ability and knee-jerk compliance is a big problem. The co-dependent becomes so compliant and passive, eager to please the others that she really does forget to know what she wants, likes and prefers!
Typically, the co-dependent person came from a home in which their emotional needs were not met. Their parents were not able to provide the attention, warmth and responsiveness which kids need in order to feel that their needs count. So, they grew up feeling that their needs did NOT matter, that their desires were unimportant, that they themselves were 2nd class citizens. Over time, the co-dependent person actually FORGETS what there needs, desires, feelings about things even are.
Of course, as kids, we try to get the response we need from our parents... at least until we give up completely. But we remain always drawn to that same sort of familiar person... an emotionally unavailable person whom we can try to get love from, whom we can try to "change." The need to re-play the childhood drama and TRY, TRY ,TRY to achieve a different ending is so intense, that it determines even the type of person the co-dependent is drawn to! A person who is kind, stable, reliable and interested would not be attractive, typically to the co-dependent person... they would appear "boring." Having received very little nurturing, the co-dependent tries to fill this unmet need vicariously, by becoming a care-giver, especially to any person who appears in some way needy.
Many consequences flow from this sorry state of affairs. For one, co-dependents become addicted to emotional pain. They are drawn to people who are not available to them, or who reject them.
The co-dependent is often immobilized by romantic obsessions. They search for the "magical dream" in others to make them feel complete. They might idealize other people and endow them with powerful symbolism.
In the relationship, the co-dependent will do anything to keep it from dissolving. This is because she is terrified of abandonment, the same psychic abandonment she felt as a kid when the parents were not there. So nothing is too much trouble, takes too much time or is too expensive if it will "help" the person the co-dependent is involved with. Co-dependents are willing to take more than 50% of the responsibility, guilt and blame in any relationship.
Accustomed to lack of love support, and stability in a relationship, co-dependents are willing to wait, hope, and try harder to please. At the same time, they have a desperate need to control the relationship. this is because the need for the missing love and security is the foremost motivation in any relationship for a co-dependent. Co-dependent people mask these efforts to control people and situations as "being helpful." In fact, attempts to "help" other people, when these others are adults, almost always have elements of control in them.
The paradox here is that co-dependents really fear relationships, because of their bad track record at home! In the relationship, they fear abandonment and rejection. This is because deep inside, there is some sort of belief that they do not deserve the love they seek, they do not deserve to be happy. Rather, they must work to earn the right to be happy... and of course, they never win and commonly ending in abandonment. Since the co-dependent does not understand what is happening in there destructive life they usually cannot save there relationship and it is too late. The co-dependent needs to have the relationship partner understand the addiction in depth to help to co-dependent.
By being drawn to people with problems that need fixing, or by being enmeshed in situations that are chaotic, uncertain and emotionally painful, they avoid focusing on their responsibility to themselves. In trying to conceal the demanding-ness from themselves and others, they grow more isolated and alienated from themselves and from the very people they long to be close to! They may be predisposed emotionally and often biochemically to becoming addicted to drugs, alcohol, and /or certain foods, especially sugary ones. They may have a tendency toward episodes of depression, which they try to hide or deny.
No doubt about it, co-dependency can be a serious addiction. Most of us have some of these characteristics, at least at times. And we have to ask what can be done about it? Fortunately, there is hope for the person caught in the trap of co-dependent relationships/personality traits. Recovery from co-dependency is much like recovery from any other addiction: it takes time, commitment, willingness to do the work and an incredibly supportive reliable partner.
To read about how to put the magic back in your marriage GO HERE
Secrets to a happy Marriage, Click HERE
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Marriage Tips: Crossing over the 7 year hump in your marriage
Women and marriage, why is that we sacrifice everything and our husbands rarely sacrifice anything? Or at least we "feel" this way. After being married for a wonderful 10 years now I realize that we are the glue! But how much glue do we really need to go through for our husbands to start giving back? This past year I went through a very rough spell in my life and marriage. I felt very taken advantage of in my marriage, I felt I was always giving and never receiving. I made the worst mistake, of never conveying these feelings to my husband. Instead I wanted him to think our life was just peaches and cream.
I just sucked it up! I never complained, I worked my 10+ hours a day came home did his dishes from breakfast, started a load of laundry cleaning up here and there, and before you knew it I was making dinner taking a bath and off to bed to just wake up and do it all over again the next day.
I found myself letting the things that I loved to do and having my own life slipping away. I was living my life through my husband. I started getting depressed, sleeping a lot, not eating, no desire of life.
It took my life being turned upside down to realize that I have a life, I am my life, I am an intelligent driven individual! I was living in the fantasy world that I need a night in shiny armor to come and take care of me. My expections of what my marriage should be were so high that how could he possible ever reach them? Something funny about expectations, if he doesn't know what they are, how could he possible ever fullfill them? I am in the process of repairing my life for me! It takes some time, and it takes patience. And so far the hardest part for me has been giving up the control aspect of my marriage, and realizing "he can take care of himself!"
GO HERE for some great information that I believe will be useful to you
I just sucked it up! I never complained, I worked my 10+ hours a day came home did his dishes from breakfast, started a load of laundry cleaning up here and there, and before you knew it I was making dinner taking a bath and off to bed to just wake up and do it all over again the next day.
I found myself letting the things that I loved to do and having my own life slipping away. I was living my life through my husband. I started getting depressed, sleeping a lot, not eating, no desire of life.
It took my life being turned upside down to realize that I have a life, I am my life, I am an intelligent driven individual! I was living in the fantasy world that I need a night in shiny armor to come and take care of me. My expections of what my marriage should be were so high that how could he possible ever reach them? Something funny about expectations, if he doesn't know what they are, how could he possible ever fullfill them? I am in the process of repairing my life for me! It takes some time, and it takes patience. And so far the hardest part for me has been giving up the control aspect of my marriage, and realizing "he can take care of himself!"
GO HERE for some great information that I believe will be useful to you
I have attached a few other links with useful information/ guidance.
For My personal Favorite Go Here
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