Grapefruit: Mental Health Tracking App

Often, meetings with a therapist begin with a recap of what has happened and how a client has felt since the last session together. Lots of therapists recommend journaling or mood charts as a way to help clients actively process and track their own progress towards goals. Everyone has their own way of doing this, but recently I discovered an app that has been really helpful as I’ve begun to track my own moods and I think it could be really helpful for clients as well.

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Grapefruit from developer Angus Woodman is an app that allows you to “do a daily mental health check-in.” The basic idea is to journal and answer a few questions each day and, over time, you can view visualizations of your results that can help you identify trends, triggers, and more. I’ve been using it daily now for over a week and have been really happy with the results that I’m seeing and the flexibility the app allows in tracking my own custom datapoints.

I’ve been using the iOS version of Grapefruit which comes preloaded with some helpful questions to get you started on tracking your daily progress. Each day, you can identify one or more feelings that you had throughout the course of the day. The app is preloaded with a lot of feeling words but if you’re a feelings word nut like me, you can add your own really easily. Some of preloaded questions are great writing stems for journaling (e.g. Today I…, What’s one good thing that happened today?, etc) and others are just fun (e.g. Which of the seven dwarves did I feel most like today?)

You can track more than just qualitative data; it’s not just about journalling. The app also allows you to add rating questions (e.g. “How was work today [on a scale of one to five]?”) or other numerical data too that will get tracked over time. For example, in an effort to better understand if my own alcohol or caffeine consumption impacted my mood, I added questions like “How many alcoholic drinks did I have today?” or “How many cups of coffee did I drink today?” As those data get entered, the app will keep up and give you some helpful insights.

Each question comes with it’s own sort of summary and a visualization when possible. You can view a bar chart of your top emotions, or see the short-term and long-term trends around how satisfied you were with your day. You can see your overall ratings based on a day of the week. So far, I know that Tuesday tends to be my lowest rated day. Tuesday, is usually my first day back to work after the weekend since I often see clients on Saturdays and take Mondays off. With this data, I can start to figure out if there is anything else about Tuesdays that might be worth looking at to help me feel happier on those days.

I can also see things like the average response for my custom questions like how many drinks did I have. In addition to showing me the average consumption, Grapefruit also ties these data into the emotions that I’ve indicated for those days so I can associate my alcohol consumption with feelings over time.

I really like this little app for lots of reasons but, more than any, for the flexibility and customization. If you want to track fitness with your mental health, for example, it’s incredibly easy to add a question like “How long did I work out today?” or “How satisfying was my workout?” or “How would I rate my food choices today?” Because I can add whatever qeustions I want to add, this seems like an app that could have a ton of supportive uses for our clients and a great way to both track, visualize, and then act on the things that they learn about themselves.

How are some of the ways that you’re using apps like this to track your own well-being? Are there other apps in this space that you like?

What are You Trying to Say?

There’s a quote widely attributed to the great Maya Angelou that resonates with many of the people that I meet: “When someone tells you who they are, believe them.” Often, it’s used to point out when we give others the benefit of the doubt even when they do something that seems hurtful. For me, it’s a good reminder to listen to my instincts; instincts are trustworthy and wise even though we often don’t give them credit. As a therapist, it is critical for me to constantly work on developing that part of me that is in touch with my inner voice. More often than not, I find that there is something there worth listening to. It’s not perfect. Still, in session, it serves as a starting point for a conversation that often allows me to dig deeper into the root of the problems that my clients are really talking about.

In life, as in session, when we ignore our instincts, unfortunate things can happen.

When I work with couples, it’s seldom because things are going really well. Instead, it tends to be the case that couples therapy begins at the lowest point of a relationship. It’s not uncommon for these couples to be perplexed about how their relationship has deteriorated to such a point. Still, the same couples often will say that things have been bad for years and that they’ve never engaged with a therapist to help them work through their issues. All along, there was a clear inner voice that spoke of the condition of their relationship but there was also always a reason to disregard it. The intuitive self is often clear but rarely is it convenient. One of the many distractions – work, family, kids – often take priority and we take for granted that there will always be a tomorrow to work with our spouse to make things better. We even employ doubt or denial that things are as bad as they appear as a defense. It is in this situation, needing a significant amount of healing that couples most often show up at the therapist’s office.

When I work with these couples, I almost never tell them what I’m about to tell you now. At least not right away. It’s not that they don’t need to hear it; it’s simply that now is not the time. For them, there are many more pressing things that need to be said and heard. For you, though, if you’re in a relationship, these are words that are critical for the long-term health of your relationship. It’s a corollary to Angelou’s famous quote that we started this conversation with and it goes something like this.

If your spouse tells you that your relationship is in trouble, believe them.

By no means is this meant to be an I told you so sort of statement. Serious relationship issues, though, seldom come out of nowhere. There are almost always signs or symptoms, usually present for months or years before they reach a point that we would call serious.

To our credit, these messages are not always clear. Unless you’ve had the best mentors and examples of what it means to communicate in a healthy way, it’s rare to be able to communicate what you need in a healthy, productive way or to receive something from your spouse without feeling defensive and disengaging from them. Maybe you’ve heard phrases like “I miss you!” or “I just want to be alone!” Has your spouse ever said, “It feels like we’re roommates!” or accused you of only thinking of yourself? There is no situation in which these phrases are easy to hear, right? It’s not like these statements are made to make us feel better about ourselves.

Yes, these phrases are hurtful and just because your partner may not be able to communicate them in a way that is easier for us to digest, it doesn’t remove our ability to hear them. To compensate by the pain that these phrases elicit, we often deny them (e.g. “That’s just not true!”) or nullify them (e.g. “You’re just being emotional!”). Otherwise, we have to believe them. And, in believing them, we have to face the pain or anxiety or uncertainty that accompanies them.

You see, in hearing your partner say that they just want to be alone recalls every memory of being alone or abandoned in your past. It brings up the questions about self-worth if the person you love the most would rather be alone than be with you. The things that are said to us are not painful in isolation. They are painful because similar things have hurt us in the past. They’re painful because they might represent a threat to our closest relationship. We become defensive, outwardly, towards our partner because of a feeling that emerges from complex circumstances inside us.

Simply, I believe we listen exclusively to the pain inside of ourselves and miss the importance of what our partner is trying to tell us about our relationship. It’s difficult because if for no other reason, we’re most familiar with the messages that emerge from inside of us. We are wired in such a way as to listen to our own inner world first before taking in perspectives from outside – even when those outside perspectives come from the person who we love the most. When we look inside first, we are all prone to locating problems inside of us. There is something flawed about us and that thing is to blame. When that’s the loudest message, we feel the need to vindicate ourselves and to make the case that we’re not that bad. It can be an overwhelming urge because it’s so deeply primal.

My challenge to couples is to work on understanding these urges to protect themselves and how these urges can impede our ability to actually hear what our partner is saying. Your partner might be telling you that they’re scared or that they’re confused or that they’re lonely. They may not tell you that directly; it might be packaged in a way that feels emotional or intense, but the message is there nonetheless. However they tell you, though, our conversations will be more effective when we learn to moderate that inclination to step back and defend. It’s a foundational part of who you are so we’re not trying to get rid of it. We’re simply saying that it’s possible to be aware of that desire to defend and to also realize that there is more going on for us to hear.

Listening with that sort of awareness is hard, no doubt. For many couples, it’s the kind of thing that a few sessions with a therapist may help with. Couples therapists can help you really start to master the communication skills that are fundamental to helping relationships thrive. We can help you truly hear what your partner is saying even when they may not be communicating in the clearest way. You can learn how to reflect on your own communication and become more aware of how you can learn to be more clear about your needs and desires, too.

It can help you really hear what your partner is trying to say?

Marriage: Impossible?

We’ve all heard commentary about marriage and divorce rates. Even if it’s not technically true, people generally hold the widespread belief that about half of all marriages end in divorce. Commentators have made the case that this indicates a deeper moral decline: individuals today are less driven by values and more by their own impulses; people are selfish and are afraid to commit and settle down. It’s common for such comments to lament that people are rejecting long-held Judeo-Christian beliefs about marriage.

What about you, though? What does any of this matter when you’re in a relationship that feels overwhelming more often than not? Do you care about any of this commentary when you’re trying to make your marriage work while simultaneously making sure the kids are getting to all of their activities, the finances are solvent, you’re having the right amount of sex, you’re working hard for your next promotion, and you’re keeping up the appearance of having it all together for the Joneses across the street?

I take issue with a lot of the commentary about marriage that gains the most publicity. My biggest concern is that it locates the major source of the problem with marriage as inside the married individuals themselves. When people are the problem, marriages fail because people fail. Maybe we mess up. Maybe we give up. Maybe we simply stop caring. Either way, the reason these commentators would have us believe that marriages fail has something to do with a lack of effort. We aren’t strong enough to withstand the pressures of marriage. If we could only give more, or commit more, or do more, then our relationships would start to thrive. Instead, it would seem that a full half of the population chose partners poorly or decide that they couldn’t care less about their vows and would rather move on to the next adventure.

This seems ludicrous to me.

What if framing the high divorce rates as a problem with individual people is, in fact, part of the problem itself? What is the divorce rate has far less to do with anything going on inside of us as individuals than we’ve been told? What would that mean? First, it would probably mean that people could be freed from the sense of guilt and failure that often co-occurs with the decision to divorce. It means that there would be less blame to be used as ammunition. It would also mean that we would need to come up with a new, more complex explanation as to what’s happening. We might even have to admit that marriage as we have designed it, is nearly impossible.

The Modern American Marriage

Margaret Mead may have given us the most accurate portrayal of marriage in the west. She said, “The American marriage is one of the most difficult marriage forms that we have ever attempted.” It’s not exactly an optimistic view but it is full of realism. Wherever it exists in the world, marriage emerges from a complex cultural context. Whatever surfaces in your mind when you read the word marriage today, you can be sure that these ideas didn’t simply arise from a vacuum. As a concept, modern marriage is the continuation of a story in the process of being written for thousands of years. The expectations that we hold about marriage today are not simply our own but are the product of generations of relationships, commentary, and conversations with in-laws.

It is true that many of these expectations, at least in the West, flow directly from specific faith influences. Some of the most prevalent interpretations of the Christian Bible assert that the formula for marriage involves the life-long commitment of one man to one woman. This interpretation is best exemplified in one of the two Christian creation stories. Eve was said to be crafted from Adam’s rib bone to be a companion for him. With this story as the starting point, we’ve since deduced that all romantic relationships are governed by a sense of destiny – that a divine being has arranged a soulmate for all of us and that part of our time here on earth is about discovering that person. We use phrases like meant to be, and the one. It can feel as if we don’t even have a choice.

On top of that foundation, we’ve added all sorts of other constructs. Decades of rigid gender roles have influenced the tasks typically assigned to men versus women. Society, as a whole, places these expectations on men and women as individuals and they’re reinforced in traditional view of marriage. Even with significant progress towards gender equality, it was essentially a generation ago that these more rigid roles were dominant in how we thought about relationships. I hope we never go back to those days but it’s important to point out that this legacy has been formative on our view of marriage and how it is supposed to work. The fact that same-sex marriage was legally prohibited until very recently in American history underscores the idea that our cultural ideas about marriage are about more than the love that two people have for one another.

Today, marriage is loaded down with overwhelming expectations. Partners are expected to fall madly in love with their soulmate. Engagement (with a ring that will cost two months of salary) is soon followed by a wedding (that will cost you a kidney, a leg, and part of your soul). Both partners are expected to work and to climb their respective corporate ladders. How long should you wait to have children? According to your parents, probably mere days. You should buy a house. You shouldn’t have much debt but you also really should have nice things. When the kids are old enough, you need to make sure you’re living in the best school district. When was the last time you took a family vacation? Make sure that you make time for your friends and for play dates and for date nights.

We could go on.

With all of these expectations, doesn’t it sometimes feel like we’re living Marriage: Impossible? Think about the political clichés about how the family is the cornerstone of civilization. Think about how difficult it is to have a single-income household today while still living up to the expectations of broader society. Then there are those movies that portray true love in a way that causes our hearts to flutter for ninety minutes and sends us out wanting to find the person to whom we can say, “You complete me!” Those movies are literally the worst.  The pressure is immense. These are the expectations to which we should aspire. Notice that, to this point, we’ve only really discussed the ideas that we adopt from society at large. We haven’t even begun talking about what we want from our relationships as individual human beings.

Can you see how absurd this whole thing seems to be?

You Don’t Complete Me

As much as I don’t want to, let’s go back to that god-awful phrase from Jerry McGuire. I don’t blame Jerry for saying “You complete me!” I get that the script was written by people who seem to think that marriage is about two broken people coming together to find wholeness in a special someone. As a couples therapist, that quote represents how messed up our view of marriage actually is. On top of all of the cultural expectations that we’ve already talked about, so many of us enter a relationship with this sentiment in mind. The person that we are pursuing has something that we are missing from our own lives. That person has characteristics and capacities to give us something that we are unable to give ourselves. In addition to the overwhelming experience that is American life in 2018, we ask our partners to give us even more. I like to say that we ask them to be superhuman – literally to be more than a single human being – because that’s what we have always been told that our partner will be for us. We ask them, with as little effort as possible, to meet the wide-ranging societal demands of being an excited lover, a pragmatic parent, provider, and project manager, who is adept at keeping our homes intact. We ask them to listen like a therapist and provide support in every-which-way we can imagine while being for us the things that we’ve never believed we could be for ourselves.

If they could be in shape, that would be great too.

And then we ask them to be the things that we are not. Be the calm to my anxiety. Be the joy to my sadness. Be the direction to my wandering.

Be superhuman.

When I hear couples describe this dynamic, I immediately think of at least two responses individuals tend to have when met with an impossible task. The first is the idea of learned helplessness. Realizing what they have been asked to do is impossible and sensing no other alternative, the individual resigns themselves to be tossed about by circumstance, accepting everything that comes with it as the new normal. This is a life-sapping condition that no one would ever want to find themselves in: forever discontent with no hope in sight. The second response people exhibit when recognizing the implausibility of a task at hand is to cut their losses and to divert their energies into something more productive and rewarding. There is no point in continuing on the current path so let’s start to develop plan B. They abandon plan A, learn from the situation as best they can, and move on to whatever is next.

With the bar for marriage set so unattainably high, it is no surprise that these relationships are ending: they’ve been set up to fail from the beginning. Here is where the problem of seeing divorce as an isolated relational event contained within an individual couple becomes clear. From this perspective, when my partner can’t be everything that I need her to be, I see that primarily as a failure on her part instead of the excess of expectation that the world and I put on her. Maybe it is I who failed by not weighing all of the social pressures for her to be superhuman. Maybe I have demonstrated a tacit acceptance of these demands. Regardless, since she cannot be all of the things that I’ve been told she should be, I become disenchanted with her. Our relationship suffers and because I believe that she is no longer completes me in a way that is complementary to my needs.

Honestly, she never could.

This is why, even as a couples therapist, I find myself advocating for the end of the modern American marriage. Yes, it is time for marriages like this to end. I believe that the apparently tepid faithfulness that we have shown as a society to the institution of marriage is less about the slipping away of some long-standing value set and more about a rejection of the absurdity of the expectations we have put on the institution itself. We are no less drawn to the ideas of love and fidelity than our parents were. We have simply gotten to the point where we no longer see the value of adhering to such a list of irrational demands. We no longer want to be complicit with a structure that has been used to impose particular expectations about which relationships are valid and which aren’t. We are deconstructing and truly interrogating our relationships. We are not interested in making extreme demands that require more from our partners than they are humanly able to provide.

I am not saying that divorce is the answer. Ending a relationship with the hopes of starting fresh is pointless if there aren’t changes we pursue in ourselves. Instead, I am saying that there is the opportunity to reframe the issues that we have in our relationships and to see them with a fresh perspective. Are you relying on your partner to be something for you that you’re unable or unwilling to be for yourself? How often are you or your partner having to play the role of superhuman and when do you get to be your unassuming alter ego? Where are the areas in our lives where we are expecting more than our partners can give? Are those problems with our partner's ability to meet the expectations or a problem with the expectations themselves?

If I were being pushed beyond my limits every single day, I would want to reject that reality, too. We all would. Maybe the problem is not with my inability to keep up. Maybe the problem is that keeping up is simply impossible.

Three Thoughts That Might Help

I believe that there are at least three ideas that could be helpful in adjusting to this emergent view of marriage. First, it’s OK to not like how things currently are. Whether in your own relationship or across society as a whole, I want to validate and normalize your instinct that there is something wrong here. There is something wrong here. That something is probably not you. It’s also probably not your partner. If you’re feeling overwhelmed and that the marriage you find yourself is not the marriage you signed up for, it makes sense and it’s OK to feel that way. Marriages can never deliver on the expectations we seem to have for it.

If that describes you, maybe it’s time to reject the idea of marriage in its current form within your own relationship. Being frustrated with your marriage may require your to tear it down and to rebuild on a reasonable foundation of things that are, for one, humanly possible. Rejecting marriage in this way doesn’t require a divorce. On the contrary, if you both agree that you want to fight these expectations together, you might need your partner more than ever. You’ll need to know how to communicate well and provide feedback. You begin to see each other teammates in this scenario, united against the common rival that is the impossible marriage, rather than each other.

We are taught that doubt is bad in relationships. We are taught that apprehension is poison for marriages. Shouldn’t we be in love all the time? It’s important to know that doubt and apprehension are absolutely normal. They’re not symptoms of the impending end of your relationship. They’re clues that something may be wrong. But, that something may be fixable if we think about it in the right way. Doubt is OK. Apprehension is OK. These are not things to avoid but things to lean into and to learn from.

The second thought can get a little more personal. If all we had to do was to figure out how to team up with each other to reset the expectations about our marriage, the process would be relatively easy. When we recognize that there is a problem with the way that marriage has been packaged and sold, though, moving towards a stronger relationship requires us to figure out a different way to accomplish what we had hoped marriage would accomplish for us. In other words, now that we’re releasing our partner from the expectation to be superhuman and meet our personal needs, we need to find a way to meet those needs for ourselves. We can’t expect them to be responsible for our anxieties. We can’t expect them to be the one to cheer us up when we’re feeling down. They cannot be an endless salve for wounds from other parts of our lives. Building a new foundation of marriage will require us to heal our wounds for ourselves.

The title of a book by Dr. Richard Schwartz captures the idea here: You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting for. Rather than putting the burden of meeting those needs on someone else, Schwartz makes the compelling case that we have the innate capacity of managing and mastering our internal world where parts of us can be simultaneous drawn to and distanced from our partner. We are multidimensional and complex. When we commit to understanding and responding to our internal world, when we understand our impulses, we can better address our own hurting parts and not need someone else to be that for us. Then, we get to interact with our partner in a way that is less demanding and more inviting. When we take on the responsibility of managing our internal world ourselves, we need so much less from our partner and they can come to us without the pressure to perform or to meet some unspoken expectation. Rather than beg them for help, we can invite them to enjoy.

After teaming up with one another and developing your own ability to meet your unspoken needs, you’re ready for the third idea: to name and reject the expectations in your relationship that are causing problems and to collaborate on what you want your new marriage to look like. You can choose a marriage that celebrates each others’ individuality rather than attempting to form them into a crude implement to shore up those places in your own life where you feel less secure. We can invite our partners into a relationship that we co-create and that honors who we are as individuals and as a couple. In such a relationship, we no longer need our partner to be a missing piece or the treatment for a deep wound. We get to choose to turn towards our partner rather than feel as though we must desperately cling to them.  Instead of spinning our wheels trying to meet someone else’s expectations, we can decide for ourselves those things to which we aspire for our relationship. We can move more deliberately towards them.

This third idea can’t easily be summed up in a single paragraph. It’s not something that can easily be framed with an expected timeline applied. The process is lifelong; it’s never-ending. It requires ongoing self-awareness and checking in with each other to monitor the condition of the relationship, too. It might require working with a couples therapist to support you both as you move towards what you want marriage to be. What I hope you’ll find is that this third idea emerges naturally when you activate the first two.

To say that you don’t like your marriage is not to make an indictment of your partner. It is absolutely acceptable to not like the current state of your marriage and thinking that does not require you to blame yourself or your spouse.

We all have those hurting elements within us that can become surprisingly energized when our partner says or does something that feels similar to the source of our wounds. This is normal. Our partner may be able to temporarily play the role of superhuman to meet our needs in addition to their own but this is not sustainable. We are the ones that we’ve been waiting for and we must be the ones to relieve those parts of ourselves.

We can be free to collaboratively construct how we want our relationships to be. When we commit to monitoring and managing our internal world on our own, we can be more authentic in the relationship with the person we love. We aren’t bringing conditions to the table that must first be met. Instead, we’re coming with more energy to dream and reflect and to move forward.

It’s true that overcoming Marriage: Impossible will require energy. It will require both partners to commit to understanding and taking leadership of their interior world. It requires time and dedication. Unlike the poorly-set expectations around marriage, there are no guarantees. But, it may be possible to reconstruct a relationship that is life-giving and rewarding. It can be something that you choose to enjoy forever.

The Child Inside

Sometimes, we just feel silly. If you're reading this, chances are your a fully (or mostly) grown adult, but we often find ourselves giggling or feeling playful. We might crack up at some low-brow humor. And silliness can show up in other ways, too. We might try to figure out why we got so upset at something that is so seemingly insignificant. Why is whatever happened such a big deal to us? Whether we're getting irrationally upset or we just feel like dancing, it can feel like there's a younger part of us that temporarily takes over. 

One of the things that I often say to my clients is that we can't control our emotions. We don't have the power to choose which feelings we experience at any given moment. It's simply not how we are wired. Our emotions emerge from a combination of experiences and norms and biological processes. It can be hard for us to recognize this and there is something about it that doesn't feel mature. Maybe we have a sense that we shouldn't be sad about something that has happened. It can be tempting to label that sadness as juvenile which can carry a negative sentiment. It's as if to be an adult means that we have to put away childish things – things like feeling sad or dancing or having hurt feelings. We seem to think that being an adult is somehow above being a child.

I don't believe that's true. I think that we all have inner children who can help us feel more fully whole if we truly allow them to find their voice. In an idyllic sense, we have a notion that to be a child is to be unencumbered by the pressures of the adult world. They aren't concerned about the judgments of other people. They express their inner feelings more directly without all of the extra layers of rationale and comportment and others' expectations to get hung up on. 

Childhood is usually a time of freedom and seeing the world from a positive perspective. It's life at its most authentic. We live out what we feel inside. When we're excited and energized, we run. When we're upset, we cry. When we're overjoyed, our emotions spill out as laughter and dancing. What an incredible spirit! At some point, though, our spirit can become obstructed. This obstruction shows up as messages that our emotions are inappropriate or unwelcome. They aren't proper. We're told that there is a set of expectations that we should be trying to live up to. Mature people don't dance when they're happy, after all.

"You're having too much fun."

"Real men don't cry."

"Why are getting so angry?"

It's important to point out that others of us experience this obstruction in more drastic ways. We learn that our emotions are dangerous because they seem to evoke corrosive power in other people who have influence over us. These are wounds and they can be intense in their power. We learn that we need to suppress the things that we feel – to make sure that they don't spill out – as an act of self-protection. 

In all of these cases, our inner child can get grounded – sent to their room indefinitely. Some of the most profound healing that I've had the opportunity to witness so far has been the result of people choosing to end the punishment. When we stop penalizing these parts of themselves and begin to see them and care for them as we would any child, amazing things can happen. We realize that joy or sadness or anger that we felt as children were OK; it wasn't something to be ashamed or embarrassed about. These inner children are actually cute and exuberant. They simply want to be free and live in the moment the only way they know how. They inject our lives with joy and a refreshing simplicity that we all too easily forget.

How unfortunate that we've been told these precious children – our younger selves – are liabilities instead of treasures! All these inner children need is someone to take care of them and to love them for who they are. They just need someone to reassure them that they are OK.

Maybe that someone is you.

I love helping people do the kind of work that connects them with these younger versions of themselves. I love when an individual is able to look back and see that inner child – that inner representation of themselves – as good and whole and important. When we hear the inner child and can respond to their unmet needs, we can unleash a joy and an excitement that can powerfully impact our lives and our relationships. When we are curious about them, we get the privilege of seeing our world in ways that we had otherwise forgotten.

Our inner children are not liabilities. They are not inconveniences. Perhaps, we need to replace the idea of being juvenile with being free, or more child-like, or being unconcerned with how others see us. To be free is to be unaware of the short-comings that people place on us. Maybe there is value in celebrating our inner child.

Just maybe, when we feel joy, we should invite our inner child to dance.

The Heart of the Matter

What is the most ridiculous argument that you’ve ever had with your partner? Maybe it was a discussion about whether you should get the blue chair or the brown chair to go with the desk in the upstairs office that turned into an all-out clash. It could have been a debate about some inconsequential fact about where Bon Jovi’s early career. If you’re like a lot of couples, it can be something as simple as attempting to figure out what to have for dinner that leads to an unexpected shouting match. 

It’s the kind of argument that, when you’ve cooled off, you can’t believe you got so angry so quickly about something so unimportant. How on earth could you have gotten into a fight about that?

Chances are you didn’t. 

If we were just arguing about chairs or facts or dinner selections, we would never get to the point of raising our voices. When we argue with this kind of intensity, there is a very good prospect that we’re actually trying to make a point about something much deeper but we fail to get past the superficial level. 

Emotions. They are a wonderful part of what it means to be human. They give us energy and drive and help us connect with the people we love. We don’t fall in love because of facts and figures. We fall in love because we share something deeper – something beyond what we can put into words. Falling in love is an emotional, not a rational, experience. 

We can go as far to say that emotions are not rational. It’s true. They exist on a level of our brain that is below our rational abilities. Emotions are more fundamental to what it means to be human that our ability to reason. 

One the problems we often run into (especially when we get into these kinds of disagreements) is that we generally aren’t very good at being connected to our emotions. We aren’t good at describing them or talking about how they show up in our experiences. We’re not very good at labeling them and seeing them as valid parts of what it means to be human in ourselves or the people we love. Instead, we minimize them by saying things like, “You’re just being emotional!” Sometimes, we explain them away by thinking, “Oh, he’s just letting his emotions get the better of him.” When we think about emotions like this, it’s easy to understand why people try and avoid them. 

We don’t choose our emotions. Our emotions emerge from our experiences. Everything that has made us who we are determines how our bodies respond physiologically and emotionally to any given situation. Until we learn to get in touch with this aspect of our humanity, it’s going to seem like we’re arguing about not wanting chicken for dinner when we’re really trying to express that it hurts when our wants are dismissed. Maybe adamantly insisting on the blue chair over the brown is more about alleviating our fears about the shortfall in this month’s budget than a preference for décor. 
In my work with couples, I often find that the problem is not the problem. In other words, when a couple tells me that they argue incessantly about inconsequential things, that isn’t really what they’re concerned about. Usually, they just don’t know how to communicate in ways that let their partner in on their own emotional experiences. They don’t know how to or they don’t feel comfortable sharing their fear or embarrassment or anxiety. Talking about our emotions in this kind of way can feel vulnerable. It can seem volatile, especially if we’re not used to moving beyond the superficial layer to the emotional depth underneath.

But connection is not rational. To grow that connection even stronger it is going to require something other than rationale. To get there, we need to do the hard work of learning to put our feelings into words. For many of us, it might mean that we have to learn a new vocabulary or how to monitor exactly what it is that we’re feeling. We need to learn how to speak about our emotions as experiences that emerge from our internal world rather than blaming our partner for doing something that makes us feel mad. We also need to learn to accept the emotions of our loved ones and see them as valid. Remember, emotions don’t rely on rationality. Your partner’s emotions don’t have to make sense to you to be real and valid and important. 

All of this can feel overwhelming. Maybe that’s why we spend so much time on the frustrating but known surface layer. If it’s overwhelming for you in your relationship, it can be helpful to find a therapist who understands how and why couples fight in this way. Therapists like this can help you learn new, effective ways of communicating that move past the surface to the deeper layers where conflict actually lives. It can move you into the emotional center where the real opportunity for connection exists. 

The truth is that every seemingly insignificant argument is an opportunity to move towards your partner. Every argument, underneath the surface, is an emotional experience that your partner is inviting you to see and to understand. It’s risky and scary and requires vulnerability. But the payoff is an ever-increasing sense of love and the satisfaction of getting to the heart of the matter. 

The Importance of Premarital Counseling

Getting to Know Your Partner While You Get to Know Yourself

When I was a graduate student, I had a professor who would often remind us of a very important phrase: "How you start determines how you finish." Her purpose was to help us plan our work with clients – to be conscious of how we as therapists brought others into the therapy process to help them work toward their goals. It also had the added effect of helping me think about the couples that would come to therapy at the end of their ropes with each other. They had moved beyond any desire to heal their relationship pains, opting instead to use the therapy room as a battleground.

I wondered how these couples started. 

If the premise that how you start is how you finish is true, then what was the origin story of these couples? While we can't change history, is it possible to work backwards from the end and determine if there was a better way to begin? When we make the decision to commit long-term to a relationship with another person, we want it to work out. These sorts of relationships are important to us and to our well-being. In order to give ourselves the best shot at seeing this through, it's important that we make an effort to start well.

I believe that premarital counseling gives us the opportunity to start well. It allows us to learn about our partners and each other in a safe, nurturing environment while learning the fundamental skills that we need in order to handle the more difficult conversations that are bound to come up. Working with a skilled premarital counselor, you can learn how to communicate in a way that is true to your own experience but also honors that your partner has a different set of expectations than you do. It will help you see the areas where you're strong as a team as well as the areas where you will need to be a little more intentional.

There are a lot of conversations where skills like these will become important. How are we going to raise our children? What role will faith play in our family? What are our expectations about sex? What are our financial goals? What is appropriate when it comes to nurturing friendships outside of our relationship?

If we don't start by having these conversations well, how do you think they'll finish?

There are a few things that we all do very well but that can challenge our ability to have healthy conversation. For example, we're all going to make assumptions and jump to conclusions in our relationships. We humans do this naturally and frequently because there are parts of our brains that are tuned to provide us with exactly those services. Since the brain's job is to keep us alive, it wants to have a complete picture of our surroundings. If there happen to be pieces of information missing, our brain will search through its own collection of memories and ideas in order to fill in the blanks. This worked really well when we lived in the jungle and had to determine if the stick breaking in the trees meant a threat was on the way. However, those same skills can get in the way when a simple text that reads "What would you like to do for dinner?" turns into a day-long silent treatment.

The idea that we make assumptions is not all bad. In fact, an important part of love is our basic acceptance of certain things, like that our partner loves us and wants to be on our team.  But we need to be able to make these assumptions well. We need to make sure that what we understand about our partner is actually what our partner understands about themselves. We also need to make sure that we frequently and actively check in to update these ideas about our partner's world to make sure that our information is in sync with theirs.  Without these kinds of assumptions, our attempts to have meaningful conversation would look less like a love note and more like a legal document. 

We want love notes. Legal documents too often mean the end of something good. 

It's important to start our relationships on a foundation of understanding. Understanding flows from a place of interest and curiosity. If you've ever said about your partner that you know everything there is to know about them, then it's time to take a step back. People are fluid and dynamic and ever-changing. When we say things like this, it often means we've got blinders on and are at risk of missing something important. Premarital counseling helps you become curious about each other and to avoid these sorts of dangers in your relationship. 

By staying curious, we avoid the complacency that can set in when couples stop learning about each other. Maybe they were never taught to keep this part of their relationship alive and thriving. Maybe they genuinely think that they know everything there is to know. On the other hand, maybe there is an opportunity to wake up to the infinite depth of your loved one's soul.

Now, that would be a great way to start.

Ready to start premarital counseling? We would love to hear from you. Desmond is a certified facilitator with Prepare/Enrich and both he and Kristy enjoy working with couples early their their relationship. Contact Us Today for more information.

Of Two Minds

An Introduction to Internal Family Systems

When I was growing up, there was an expression I would often hear people in my family use to describe their experience of wavering back and forth on a decision that had to be made. The situation usually wasn’t anything significant, but they at least weren’t super settled on what they actually wanted to do. When that was the case, someone would often say, “I’m of two minds about that.” I’ve realized, of course, it’s one of those regional idioms that might vary from place to place – I’ve heard the of replaced with in or on depending on where a speaker might be from. Either way, it speaks to the inner conflict that we all often feel at some point or another. Maybe you picture the classic cartoon scene of a character with an angel speaking in one ear and a devil speaking in the other.

Two voices. Two perspectives. Two motivations.

Who wins?

As a therapist, I find inner conflict incredibly interesting. This is partly true because I often practice a type of therapy that isn’t very far removed from this very idea. No, we don’t speak about angels and demons on your shoulders, but we do recognize that we often have these inner dialogues and debates. Even if you’ve never said, “I’m on two minds” about something, you might have recognized that “There’s a part of me that wants to say yes, and another that wants to say no.” What are these parts? Why are they so conflicted? How can we get them to come to a resolution? When you can’t come to a resolution, which part wins?

This approach to therapy (called Internal Family Systems Therapy, or IFS) embraces the idea that these parts represent aspects of ourselves. Noticing these tendencies in himself and his clients, Dick Schwartz founded and developed IFS into a truly effective approach to working with clients. You’ve probably recognized that your thoughts and behavior is contextual. Depending on the particular situation, it can feel as though a different version of yourself shows up. For example, it might feel like you’re generally a happy, friendly person who enjoys having fun and getting to know people. But what happens when you have to sit in a meeting with that annoying coworker? You become cold. You give curt answers. You might even be mean to her. It is as though a different person is sitting in your chair.

In the language of IFS, we all have a unique collection of these parts of ourselves. Different parts assume internal leadership roles based on past experiences and other factors. This leadership is as much about managing your internal, emotional state as it is navigating how to deal with the annoying coworker. In our example, it’s most often the friendly part of you that is in the manager’s chair. The presence of your coworker requires a colder, vindictive part to take control.

Another phrase that I love within the therapy room is that “Everything communicates” and the fact that this leadership role shifts in the presence of a particular means there is probably something worth listening for. Why does the vindictive part come out when this person shows up? If this vindictive part could talk, what would it say? Everyone’s situation is different, of course, but for the sake of our example, let’s imagine some scenarios. This part might say that your coworker reminds them of someone similar from your past who got the promotion that you wanted. It might say that there is something about the way that she talks or smiles that reminds you of the bully from middle school. Or, maybe you were vulnerable with someone who used flattery and friendliness and who then used that information to manipulate or take advantage of you. A vindictive part in this situation might list any of these scenarios, but what they have in common is that it is about protecting you from getting hurt again.

Of course, from a distance, we can recognize that a vindictive approach may not be the healthiest, but it does have the effect of keeping the other person – and the associated negative memories – at bay. IFS is about listening to what these parts have to say and exploring the implications. Like people, parts often just want to be heard and noticed.

For people that engage in this kind of work, it’s not uncommon to begin to uncover all kinds of parts. There are parts that are loving and kind. There are parts that focused on helping others or about finding definitive answers to questions. There are parts that may be spiteful, or full of pride, sadness, or shame. Some parts seem to have a temper and don’t seem to care who might get offended. At the core, all of these parts want to ensure our physical and emotional safety, but sometimes, we get into unhealthy patterns and let parts take on more of a leadership role than they actually should.

There are many different ways to understand ourselves more deeply and to improve the quality of our relationships. One of those ways is to get more acquainted with these members of our internal family. These parts have so much to teach us about how we see the world and our place in it. When you engage with a therapist in this kind of way, they can help you identify the parts of yourself that lead and the parts that have been forgotten or pushed aside. It is about honoring the complexities of who you, about helping you learn from your past experiences, and about integrating your parts in order that you can lead yourself through the world in a brand new way.

Photo Credit: "Tin soldiers standing at attention" by Nic McPhee is licensed by CC BY-SA 2.0.

Messages that Hurt

“Every hour that we are awake, we are told twenty-two times that we are not rich, thin, young, beautiful, ripped, or stylish enough.”

When I first came across this quote in the book Healing Spiritual Wounds, I had one of those Wait! What? moments. There was something altogether unbelievable about what I had just read. The idea that we are riddled with advertising and messages in an attempt to get us to buy another product wasn’t new - if anything, twenty-two messages seemed a little low. My pause for reflection was about what those messages say to us about us.

You’re not good enough.
You’re worthless.
You don’t matter.

How overwhelming!
How discouraging!
How damaging!

Even if this number is remotely true, it’s no wonder that so many people struggle with shame and unhealthy ideas about themselves. We are constantly being told that we are not enough. Maybe we resist for a while but for many of us a sense of learned helplessness can set in. It can feel futile to resist. Worse still, the incessant repetition of these messages means that these harmful ideas have a way of wedging themselves into the deep-down circuitry of our brain – the place where assumptions come from. A place that can be incredibly difficult to change.

Once these messages lay down their deep, spindly roots, they begin to reproduce. Negative notions of ourselves have a way of coloring the way that we interact with our partners or loved ones. If our own childhood was blanketed by an ever-present shame, our default may be to replicate that shame in the lives of our own children. What is meant as a simple complaint from our spouse about something we do at home, can devolve into an all-out war triggered by deeply-rooted messages from some other time in our lives. Though they’re often the loudest and boldest, it would clearly be unfair to ascribe all of the blame for these ideas to advertisers and their ulterior motives.

One of the sources of shaming messages that I often see in my practice is a person’s faith community. It doesn’t much matter if that faith community is an active part of an individual’s life or if it is represented by internalized messages from the past. A structure that insists that there is a god who demands that people comply with strict codes of belief or behavior or face eternal punishment is often the birthplace of many damaging messages. Do right or be punished. You’re only accepted if you believe or do as we say. Women are second-class citizens and have to be sure never to cause a man to stumble by wearing too much makeup or clothes that are overly revealing. Sexuality is sinful and shouldn’t be thought about.

For so many of us, the faith community is the place where we find a sense of identity. We share our lives with those who believe like us and approach life as we do ourselves. It is important, though, to know that this identity is not always healthy. Complicating things is that we’re taught that faith communities are good and have our best interests in mind. Often, the belief is that God called these communities into existence to do some sort of sacred work on earth. But what happens when we hear these messages over and over?

God loves you when you do good.
You do not deserve God’s love.
You are weak, but God is strong.

These messages are just like any other negative message that we might hear. When they settle in and we rehearse them over and over, they become our truth. Along with doctrines of the universe and eternity,  we can adopt the tangential beliefs that we are frail, dependent, not-good-enoughs. Despite our communities’ best efforts, we can come to accept devastating ideas about ourselves and our value as human beings.

As a therapist, I am constantly listening for the messages about ourselves and others that have become deeply embedded in our brains. What are the ideas about what it means to be you that you carry with you every single day? I am weak. I am not worthy. I am not a good person. My value is conditional. These are not messages that are helpful or healthy. These are messages that are limiting, controlling, and worthless.

What is is like to recite these ideas about yourself?

I am valuable.
I am loved just as I am.
I am enough.

What surfaces for you as you say these words? Do they resonate? Even if it feels awkward, is there some part of you that wants these things to be true? Do you feel a sense of warmth or a sense of emptiness?

How you experience these questions will say something about what you believe about yourself. If you’re able, make rehearsing these phrases a part of your daily routine. The only way to extract the negativity permanently is to replace it is positive, healthy messages. If you’re not able to say these things about yourself – if it feels untrue or inauthentic – maybe it’s time to find a trusted confidant, a friend, or a therapist to begin processing the difficulties and working towards fostering a deeper sense of self-compassion.

If the beliefs about yourself and others were reinforced by a spiritual community, maybe it’s time to reconstruct your ideas about God. As the author of Healing Spiritual Wounds asked, “What’s the point of religion if it doesn’t bring you hope?” Questions like these may be disruptive but, when they’re processed in a place of safety, they can open up new ways of seeing the world, others, and ourselves that can help us believe in ourselves again.

How to Heal from Spiritual Trauma

Faith is an important element of many people’s story. Whether you were raised in attending church or in a home that was more secular, our histories often contain elements of faith or spirituality, even if those definitions vary wildly from family to family. For some, spirituality speaks to the sense that we are all connected and that there is an energy – some would say a divine energy – that flows through all of the natural world. For others, the idea of faith evokes images of an old man in the sky character who is wholly responsible for creation and punishes those that would defy him.

Being a part of a faith community can have many positive benefits. We are inherently social beings and joining with others who share our beliefs can be enriching. It can increase our social bonds. We form relationships with others who can come alongside us when we need help. Knowing that there are those who share a similar outlook on the world as our own can help to validate our experiences. Awe and wonder, as is experienced in the worship of God or when we engage in a set of contemplative practices, have been shown to make important contributions to our overall sense of well-being.

It’s important to know that not all communities are healthy, safe spaces. In their unhealthy state,  communities like these can become oppressive or damaging. Depending on how a community interprets and practices a particular set of beliefs, a person may be exposed to harmful guilt and shame. People may be told that they’re not good enough in their current state and need to repent or risk burning in hell. Research has shown that if we believe in a god that is angry and frightening, our stance toward the world will likely be one of anger and fear. In the unhealthiest of faith communities, those in power might even take advantage of others for their own gain, justifying the experience with belief or scripture.

In the clinical world, trauma is not a word that is used lightly. However, when it comes to experiences like these, we can certainly become traumatized. When painful or frightening situations are intense, and outside of our control, our bodies have evolved techniques essential to our survival. These are most widely known as our fight or flight responses, however, that doesn’t capture the whole story. Without our awareness, we go through a sequence of responses that increase in intensity. The first is a social response. In times of fear, maybe we scream or yell. We engage in some social interaction as our first attempt to stop the situation. If that doesn’t work, our bodies move into preparations for fighting or running away - this is the classic fight or flight that you may have heard of. Adrenaline, cortisol, and other chemicals are released and surge through our bodies. If we cannot fight or flee from the problem, our final response is to freeze. It is in this final phase that we often hear about people who dissociate from reality and have an experience of observing themselves and whatever is happening to them. At each level of response, our brains process information differently. We store memories in a way that is optimized for identifying potentially similar threats more quickly in the future. Sometimes, this even means that the memories are incomplete. The particular characteristics of these memories are often what we think about when we think about trauma. Smells, sounds, or objects associated with a traumatizing event can trigger our body’s response sequence as if we were experiencing the event all over again. In these situations, our brains have filed some component of the memory away as being a threat all on its own.

Our bodies are sensitive to threats of any form. This sort of survival response and the subsequent potential for trauma can result from a psychological threat or a threat to our membership in a community in the same way as it would for a physical threat. Trauma is the experience of being in danger and unable to get away.

Spiritual trauma occurs when we have one of these experiences within a spiritual community. One example is from members of the LGBTQ community who are raised in the church. Commonly, they are told that their attractions, their sexual identity, is wrong and sinful. They receive the messages that God must have made a mistake when God created them. Now,  in order to stay within a community that has been an important part of their lives, they have to displace a core part of who they are. When a person is constantly invalidated like this, it can become traumatizing.

Another unfortunate but common example is when people are the victims of physical abuse that becomes justified with beliefs and biblical references. Most often, this takes the form of a father or husband justifying his role as the head of the household and exerting power to ensure that all other family members are submissive to him.

These and dozens of other experiences can be traumatizing in and of themselves. However, many people add that their interior space often does not feel safe either. For those that believe in God, if God knows their heart and mind, then it might also be sinful to question the correctness of what is happening. There is always someone watching. Many people who experience this kind of spiritual trauma do not know what it means to have a place of safety, even in their internal world. When everything is judgment, it can feel like a part of you has to die in order to protect yourself as a whole.

HOW TO HEAL
It can feel cliché but healing begins with recognizing that you have experienced some sort of trauma. Ultimately, healing is about the integration of those internal parts of your that had to be exiled in order to keep you safe. It is about allowing the disintegrated memories to be relieved of their traumatizing power. So much of your story has to be deconstructed and reconstructed in a way that brings life rather than fear and anxiety.

As good as this might sound, it can feel disruptive. For many people, learning to see the world through a different faith-lens can feel scary, especially if you have been told that you must believe a certain way or risk eternal punishment. This is why safety is critical to this work. Finding a therapist who can help you hold your difficult questions and experiences in a way that allows you to grow is essential.  This person should help equip you with tools to manage the trauma response when you feel it arising as well as helping you to reprocess the experience. It might also mean evaluating what it means to leave a spiritual community and a therapist can help you navigate the anxiety that might arise when a decision like this is the right one to make.

Healing takes time and effort. But we can heal from traumatic wounds, even spiritual ones. We can learn to see the divine in an entirely new way.
 

Three of the Best Apps for Your Relationship

“Before technology allowed us to be anywhere anytime, conversation with other people was a big part of how we satisfied our brains’ need for stimulation.”
Sherry Turkle

This is a big year for for smartphones. It’s the tenth anniversary of the iPhone.  Everyone knew that Apple would do something big to mark the occasion. Google has been involved too and has released their new Pixel phone. It stores all of your photos in the cloud so you’ll never run out of room.

For all of their features, though, most people would likely say that their apps are what really make their phones worth using. Without the apps that we love to use, our phones would just be fancy slabs of glass and aluminum that send really gorgeous text messages. Apps open up the ability for me to make FaceTime calls, or do my banking online, or track my mountain biking, or write this blog post.

As a couples therapist, I often have couples that tell me how much their phones are interfering with their lives and their relationship. When they reunite after a day at work, couples say that their phones serve as an all-too-easy distraction that reduces the quality of their time together. It can keep them from having important conversation. It can keep their mind partially at the office instead of being fully present at home. It’s a real problem – we’ve talked about it a previous blog post, too.

In her book, Reclaiming Conversation, researcher Sherry Turkle talks specifically about the impact that phones are having on the quality of our relationships. She enjoys technology and all the benefits it brings – and I do too! – but she knows that it’s important for us to realize the cost it has for our relationships. From parenting to physical intimacy, the type of relationship we have with our phone impacts the relationship we have with the humans we love.

Are there apps that can help? Maybe, but I’m not sure they’re the downloadable kind. Instead, there are three apps that might be helpful in keeping a positive perspective on the device that you have in your hand.

1. Be Approachable

Your phone might enable new, dynamic forms of digital conversation but it can be a barrier to the intimate and in-person. Turkle’s research shows that that the mere presence of a phone, even if it is turned off and laying face down on a table, can change what people talk about. It’s a powerful social and even physiological cue. Knowing that a person is within an arm’s reach of their phone signals that they are only partially or temporarily available to us. Why would we begin to have a conversation about the things that matter to us when we might get interrupted at any moment?

Being approachable is really about putting the phone down and being available to others. In-person conversation allows emotional connections that are simply unavailable in digital form. As Turkle puts it, “When we invest in conversation, we get a payoff in self-knowledge, empathy, and the experience of community.”

It might be worth installing this app right away!

2. Apologize In Person

If you’re investing time and energy into building a relationship with someone you love, at some point, you will say or do something that offends them. They will be angry with you. A conversation that involves making amends and owning up to the mistakes that we make – especially if we’ve hurt someone else – is a difficult conversation to have. It is so much easier to send a text that says “I’m sorry.” Include a few heart emoji and it can feel like we’ve done what we needed to do.

People don’t generally like having difficult conversations. Turkle, however makes the point that the difficulty inherent in these conversations actually makes us healthier, more empathetic human beings. The guilty person is able to see the pain in the face of the person that he hurt; these cues become a reinforcer to keep the same thing from happening again. But the person receiving the apology also gets to see and assess the genuineness of the regret in the apologizer’s face and actions.  In Turkle’s words, “It is this realization that triggers the beginning of forgiveness.”

When you realize that you’ve done something that has hurt a person that you love, move towards them. Put down the phone and use this app to start you on the road to restoration.

In Turkle’s words, “Conversation cures.”

3. Appreciate the Present Moment

You can go anywhere. Sure, the virtual experience may not be as good as the real thing. With your device in hand, though, you can literally escape to any destination, real or imagined. You can experience what it is like to walk on the surface of the moon or you can get lost in the fictional worlds of your favorite characters. Today, you can even augment the reality of what is around you by summoning objects that appear to be sitting on your coffee table but only when you interact with them through your phone. You can share time and space with someone but yet be immersed in a completely different world.

You don’t need to wear augmented reality glasses or be lost in a Kindle book to escape the present moment. The dozens of notifications you get each day to your phone or the visceral buzzing of a smartwatch can take you away to another place. It can change your frame of reference to another relationship or work engagement. It can take you from a place of boredom to a place of excitement or a place of anxiety to a place of calm.

It can keep you from appreciating the value of the present moment.

Turkle says that we now have the opportunity “To avoid life’s challenges and boring bits.” She goes on to make the case, however, that it is in these moments – when we stay engaged with boredom or anxiety –  we have opportunity to grow. Both, in fact, are signs that we are moving towards something that can help us to develop or to see the world in a different way. When we disengage from these things, we are forfeiting amazing potential.

And that’s just for ourselves.

When it comes to our relationships, being present is essential. It’s critical that we make eye contact or that we reach out and touch our partner. It’s not enough to occupy the same physical space. We need to learn what it is like to share our emotional space with our partner as well. Empathy helps us to understand the things that frustrate or frighten the people that we love. Having a new experience of someone can be anxiety provoking, but we have to stay engaged if we really want to move to the deepest levels of connection. We can’t bail out. We can’t escape to another place. We have to be present for the good times as well as the challenging times.

Appreciating the present moment might be the most important app you ever install.

I want to let Sherry Turkle wrap things up with one more quote from Reclaiming Conversation.

“Every time you check your phone in company, what you gain is a hit of stimulation, a neurochemical shot, and what you lose is what a friend, teacher, parent, lover, or co-worker just said, meant, felt.”

Don’t neglect the people that you love. Install these three apps in your relationship today.

Recommendation: Reclaiming Conversation is a fantastic book to help you get an idea of the power of conversation. Highly recommended.

Photo Credit: "apps" by Sean MacEntee is licensed by CC BY 2.0