Do you get stuck not knowing what to say or do when your partner treats you disrespectfully?
Louise asked me:
“Do you have any suggestions on what to say when my husband says unloving words to me in front of others, including our children? I don’t want my kids to keep witnessing disrespectful behavior toward their mother. When I challenge his treatment of me, his anger escalates and the chastisement worsens. I am frequently embarrassed when I am scolded like this in front of others, but more importantly, I wish my children to understand that this is not ok. How can I model what to say to him so that my kids can learn how to take loving care of themselves in such situations?”
Have you ever wondered why God allows so much abuse, so much pain, so much war?
“God has no hands but these.” - Mother Theresa
I am often asked by my clients, “If God is all powerful, why didn’t he stop my father (or mother, or brother, or babysitter, or uncle or a stranger) . . . → Read More: “Why Didn’t God Stop The Abuse?”
Many parents try to be far better parents than their parents were, yet their children grow up feeling lost and empty. Discover why in this article.
There was an interesting article in The Atlantic, entitled “How to Land Your Kid in Therapy: Why the obsession with our kids’ happiness may be dooming them to unhappy adulthoods. A therapist and mother reports.”
The article is about the way many parents focus much of their energy on being there for their children, but their children end up feeling lost and empty. Continue reading A Problem with Today’s Parenting
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. but in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”
The Four Loves, by C.S. Lewis
I am grateful that a friend sent me the above quote, as it wonderfully states a vitally important subject that we all need to struggle with – to love or not to love.
“Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.”
– Kahlil Gibran
While you might not be aware of it, we all have at least a second to choose how we want to respond to a trigger -- and most times more than a second. If you choose to take the breath and tune in, you have a chance of responding from your loving adult self rather reacting from your ego wounded self. You have the chance to move into compassion for yourself. […]
Life here is a great gift. In the spiritual realm, we do not come up against darkness -- the darkness that challenges us to discover our own light. Only by coming up against our own and other's wounds can we discover how to heal them. […]
We control to get love and avoid pain, yet by controlling rather than loving ourselves and others, we create the very pain we are trying to avoid. The negative aspects of your relationship and your expectations are fertile areas for exploration within yourself and with your partner. […]
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