Self Awareness
- Trace your family's emotional history so that you can uncover the hidden expectations and communication styles which may be influencing your relationships.
- Recover your past decisions that may be sabotaging your relationships today.
- Know and appreciate the rich complexity of your unique personality.
Couples Awareness
- Acknowledge and enjoy the differences between you and your partner, rather than see them as a threat.
- Recognize the different roles you and your partner play - the masks you don, the behavior you assume in different moods or circumstances and find out how they work, or don't work, together.
- Avoid the mind-reading that so often leads to misunderstanding between couples; learn to avoid assumptions and not to expect that "if you loved me, you would know".
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Communicating
- Express your feelings so that they can get met without causing your partner to feel resentful, smothered, burdened, manipulated or inadequate.
- Recognize when your communication style is more of a problem than the actual problem you are communicating.
- Clear the air of fear, pain and anger between you and your partner before trying to resolve conflicts.
- Develop the ability to feel real empathy for your partner, instead of secretly resenting the roles of caretaker or provider.
Sexuality and Sensuality
- Satisfy your biological need for that combination of physical closeness and emotional openness, which is called "bonding".
- Learn the difference between affection, comfort, "bonding", sensuality and sexuality so that sex is not your only avenue to closeness.
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Fighting Fair
- Express anger without destroying love.
- Accept anger comfortably and non destructively.
- Recognize covert, indirect expressions of anger.
- Cope with either a fight phobic or aggressive hostile partner.
- Fight in such a way that you actually resolve the issues at hand, especially those related to sex, money, children, use of time, in-laws, ex-spouses, housework, fidelity and jealousy.
Negotiating
- Use a negotiating style in which each partner feels heard, respected and considered; avoid using power or control that makes the loser want to withdraw emotionally or get even.
- Negotiate a relationship you can both live with joyfully.
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