The #1 Way to Become the BEST Gift Giver

While some of us love giving gifts to our romantic partner, others of us dread it. Will we get them the right thing? Will they like it? Will they hate it and not tell us… you get the picture.

Many times the way we purchase gifts is in a state of unconsciousness. We think about what the person might need or we think about what we would like the person to have. Often, we're not paying attention to what our partners want - and this is where we can blow it.

I just had a client this week tell me that he gives gifts to his wife "all the time" but it doesn't improve their intimacy. When I asked him if he does this number one thing before he gives her the gift, he went on to tell me about all the things he likes to buy her. While this is sweet and good intentioned, this loving man was missing the boat. As many of us often do.

Think about all the times you've gotten a gift from your romantic partner and wondered "Do they even know me"? And now, think about the gift that you would truly love from your romantic partner.

To give a great gift you have to do it in a state of authentic awakeness – if that's even a word. What I mean by that is,  you have to do it in a way that you truly consider what your romantic partner wants most from you (not what you mostly want to give them). I know you're saying, "But Jenn... this takes work. This takes more time then that unconscious stuff."

According to author Gary Chapman, there are five main ways we want to get and experience love. Each of us has a "primary" way and often a "secondary" way. He calls them the 5 Love Languages. These love languages include:

• Gifts
• Acts of service
• Quality time
• Words of affirmation
• Physical touch

Consider this, we often give love the way we want to receive it.  If your primary love language is "gifts" and your romantic partner's primary love language is "quality time," you could be spending a lot of money and missing the boat, every time. I know It's hard to see the disappointment in your loved ones eyes, when you buy them that little négligée that you thought was the perfect gift. However, through some easy investigation you can easily identify their primary love language and from now on, be giving them, what they feel, is the best gift they could ever received from you - and that's quality time! In fact, with some thoughtful awakeness, you could be giving them quality time while you're having lunch, holding hands, making eye contact and then shopping for that perfect négligée that you would love them to have. See how this works.:-)

Women often think that men's primary love language is physical touch. But most recently I had a couple who learned that his primary love language was actually words of affirmation. She was surprised and pleased to know this. He confirmed it was some laughter. Do you know your primary love language?  Do you know your romantic partners primary love language? If you do you're on your way to being the best gift giver!

The number one way you can be sure to rock it out of the park now and always is to be awake in your gift giving, Consider the person you're giving the gift to and what is their primary love language?  Give them the gift they want and watch them beam from ear to ear. 

To find out more about discovering your romantic partner's primary love language (and becoming an awesome gift giver) go to

www.5LoveLanguages.com

 watch the sweet 3 minute video and take the quick quiz.

For more information about having the best relationship you can have, check out

www.Orlandotherapyproject.com

or call me for a check up, check in or double-check.

The Secret to a Happy Marriage/Relationship –Lean into The Tough Conversations

How many times have you heard the question…”What’s the secret to a good marriage?” You’ve probably heard this or thought about it 1000 + times. How often have you heard an answer that makes sense to you? If you’re like me (and I see couples all the time), rarely! The dreamy answer of  “Never go to sleep mad” lingers with me in a romantic kind of way; but then I think about all the people who are up all night because they don’t want to go to sleep mad and then my brain gets fuzzy and I get fuzzy and my brain jumps to a new topic. Then, I’m left one more time with no answer to this burning question.

 After many, many, ma (I get 1 “many” for every 10 years) of practice & training, I have settled on a few things when it comes to marriage / relationship:

1. All marriages go through tough times. This isn’t saved for the crappy ones.

2. When marriage / relationship gets hard, this isn’t a universal indicator that it’s time to bail.

3. Divorce / separation doesn’t end pain. It just morphs it for a while.

4. Never going to sleep mad takes super human determination that may be only available to superheroes & cheesy movie characters.

5. Couples feel more understood and connected when they talk (to each other :-).

In the beginning, of a relationship, we’re often more generous with our time and more thoughtful with our words. But, there are times in all marriages when things get tough, when we want to run away. So what do we do? We go silent, we fight and sometimes, we run away. This strategy may work a few times, but it’s not the recipe for a “Happy Marriage”.

It turns out that happiness is only sustainable through connection and conversation. To be heard and feel known - to be understood by the person you love, that creates happiness. 

When a topic is tough or times are hard, you may find yourself avoiding significant conversations in your marriage. You find yourself “leaning out”. You can’t bear the discomfort, the sadness or maybe the anger. So, you wall off and over time disengage, maybe just one topic at a time until you feel alone in your relationship. (And this is where trouble can come knocking.)

The statistical research on couples shows, and I see it everyday in my practice, that the greatest indicator for success in a marriage / relationship is the couples’ willingness to have tough conversations. The willingness to “lean in” to the discomfort; take a chance; to move slowly. When couples “lean in” to the tough conversations, they are essentially saying to their loved one: “I care about you / us so much that I’m willing to take a chance, a roll of the dice – that we’ll find our way through this and be strong on the other side.” It says “I have your back and I don’t want you to feel alone in this world.” It says, “You’re worth it. We’re worth it”

So the next time you hear the question, what’s the secret to a happy marriage? And you hear the answer “Never go to sleep mad,” you can interpret that to mean: don’t clam up and ignore the tough stuff. Don’t “lean out” when things are hard. “Lean In” to the tough conversations; the rewards are immense.

After the Boston Marathon – The Emotional Trauma

The recent explosions at the Boston marathon may cause a ripple of trauma through our nation.  For those people that were physically present during the explosions, we expect that they may experience trauma symptoms.  What we can’t predict, is how it will impact the people who were not physically present, but watched as the news unfolded on their local TV stations or CNN.   

Traumatizing events, like the Boston Marathon, are events that disrupt the normal regulation of the nervous system. Essentially, they can be thought of as events that catch us off guard, that happen unexpectedly, that make us feel in fear of our safety and sometimes our life and in that moment, we feel powerless to prevent.  

It’s been reported that over 1500 changes occur in the body when we shift from feeling safety to feeling a life threat.

Everyone has experienced trauma at some point in their life. Some have experienced big trauma (car accidents, physical assaults, disasters, terrorism, tragic accidents, health diagnosis and even divorce) and others small trauma (being unprepared for an event, a brush with disaster, bullying) most of the time, we process trauma through to “full resolution” – meaning, in a reasonable amount of time, it becomes a story we can tell without an emotional response. But sometimes, trauma gets stuck and does not get processed through to full resolution. This is can be very evident when people can’t tell the story without having a visceral, or body response.   

Anyone can become traumatized with primary, secondary, or vicarious trauma. This includes, people standing on the finish line of the Boston Marathon, the first responders to the event, the people who only heard the sirens, and the millions who watched it on the news. How the information will get processed depends on an individual’s history, coping skills, their larger meaning of the event, and the reactions of their family and friends.

Symptoms of trauma are never a sign of weakness.

• ·         Decreased social interaction
• ·         Increased startle response
• ·         Stomach/digestion issues
• ·         Excessive sweating or chills
• ·         Increased heart rate
• ·         Intrusive imagery in waking and sleep
• ·         Inability to sleep
• ·         Anxiety
• ·         Depression
• ·         Headaches
• ·         Moodiness
• ·         Memory problem
• ·         Inability to stay focused

Before they can be effectively treated, a person should have their basic needs met of water, food, and a place of safety. Then, adults and children need resources around them to process and integrate the event = people & information.  If after a couple of weeks, these normal trauma symptoms persist, a person should reach out to a trauma specialist for additional help.

Contemporary developments in the healing of trauma have shown to be less medication driven and more inclusive of neurology and psychology.  This includes therapies that combine psycho-education (educating people about normal body and brain responses) with talk therapy. Therapists like myself, who work with trauma, find that when people are educated about what’s normal, they are relieved to discover they too are often normal.  

For additional information:

American Psychological Association

http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/recovering-disasters.aspx

Eye Movement Desensitization/Reprocessing (EMDR)

http://www.emdr.com/

What's Visual is Memorable

The picture by my computer- a reminder to "breathe."

It’s well established that using visual cues is a powerful tool.  People who have the most success achieving a goal, changing a habit or creating a new way of being keep their thoughts focused on that goal. They don’t rely on their memory; they rely on reminders…and lots of them. They use pictures, words, colors or objects that are representative of their goal, and they put them everywhere.

Imagine: wanting to be more patient in your relationship with your kids. You have to visualize it regularly and practice. But life is busy and mostly, you forget. Except when there’s drama and then you feel anxious. Then you practice for a few hours before your brain monkey jumps away to the next topic. Soon enough you feel hopeless and helpless. This is exactly what most people do.

Now imagine: wanting to be more patient in your relationship with your kids, so you pick a picture that reminds you of patience or a color or simply the word “patience.” You copy this 10 times and you put it on your bathroom mirror, your refrigerator, the dashboard of your car, the screen of your iPhone and your computers, your Daytimer(do you still use one?) and on your bed stand. Every time you see it, you’re reminded to visualize your goal. And you see it a lot. You practice a lot. It’s front and center of your psyche a lot. You don’t easily escape it with the monkey jump. It’s in your face all the time.

Before long, your thinking about this even without the visual cues. It becomes engrained in your brain and part of your daily thought process.

Try it! I’ll bet you a shiny quarter it works!

Reframe it and Embrace it!

I was listening to Talk of the Nation on NPR recently and Neil Conan was talking to Ellen Langer whose books include Counter Clockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility and Mindfulness and The Power of Mindful Learning.

A man called in and said that he uses mindfulness as a way to change a negative experience into a neutral or positive experience. He gave the example of cleaning the bathroom. He said that when his wife asks him to clean the bathroom, instead of saying to himself “I have to clean the bathroom” –ugh, he reframes it and says “I get to clean the bathroom.”  He explained that he consciously considers all the people who don’t have their physical health and can’t clean, who have lost their homes and don’t have a bathroom to clean or (my addition) have lost their spouse who might have asked them to clean.  Suddenly, it becomes a chore of appreciation rather than an irritating request by a spouse. 

I wonder how you can reframe things in your life and relationships; it can reduce external and internal conflict and may bring you some surprising peacefulness.  I reframe my teenager’s messy rooms all the time. I think:  it’s not that they’re showing disrespect to me, it’s that they’re not insecure and anxious to please others and they’re relaxed enough with me to let me see their “real” selves. See how this works ;-).