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 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.

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

Seeing Through Their Eyes

Intimacy is Everything

What is it that people need in order to have a fulfilling relationship? It’s a question that couples have been asking for almost as long as there have been couples! And, as with most questions about love, the answer isn’t always easy. Everyone has their own ideas about what being fulfilled means. Everyone has unique needs and wants so it might seem like a waste of time to try and come to a single conclusion.

Still, with what we have already learned in the Everything Matters series, we can lay a foundation for building a great relationship.

Before we get to that, let’s start by talking about intimacy. Usually, that word conjures up images of sexual intimacy. And that’s OK. The type of intimacy that we’re going to be talking about is about way more than sex but sex gives us a great metaphor for understanding where we are going with this conversation.

Just like with committed relationships, sex is not something that we share with everyone we meet. Sex is something that we reserve for a relatively small number of people. We have all sorts of reasons for choosing who we want to have sex with and to give this part of ourselves to but perhaps the most important is how emotionally risky it is. Sexual intimacy with someone else requires a high degree of vulnerability. Before you literally lay yourself bare on your lover’s bed, you have to feel safe, you have to trust them. Nothing is hidden.

Great vulnerability like this has the potential for great risk. But it also carries the potential for deep connection.

The same thing is true of emotional or relational intimacy. If you’re like me, you probably interact with a lot of people in the course of any given week. But I can also count on both hands the number of people who I feel close and safe enough with to be able to share my emotional vulnerabilities. Of all the people that I meet, there are just a few who I want to share everything with. These are the people that know me – that I’ve hidden very little from. These are the people that see parts of my life that I don’t feel safe sharing with anyone else.

In some ways, intimacy is a measure of how much someone know about you compared to how much you know about yourself.

When we are able to know ourselves deeply (like in part one), and when we learn to be aware of exactly what we are communicating (like we talked about in part two), we have the foundation we need to become more deeply connected to the people we love. We develop the skills to make our own needs known in our relationship but also to hear and understand the needs of our partner. We begin to understand that true intimacy is about the willing dance between what you need and what I need.

The same safety and trust that allows me to trust my partner with my body is required if I am to trust them with my emotional self, as well. When we lay our emotions, our wants and desires, bare before our partner, they will not be mocked or ridiculed or minimized. They will be celebrated, honored, and shared. This is incredibly risky but, when that connection is made, there is no more fulfilling feeling.

Let’s take this idea back to where we started this series: the brain. When you get to know some deeply and intimately, your brain literally changes. You begin to wire that person into the very fabric of who you are. Just like as you begin to sort through those things that formed you and colored the lenses through which you experience the world, and just as you understand that others have their own set of lenses, intimately knowing someone’s emotional world can help you interpret the world how they might interpret it. It’s like you gain a copy of their lenses and you are able to see things close to how your partner might see them.

And when that happens – when you’ve communicated and shared and loved and grown – the needs that they have can seem less like nagging and more like those needs are your very own. You can celebrate when they are happy, and not be jealous. You can hold them when they are sad and not feel the need to fix it or a sense of blame. You don’t just understand them intellectually, you can begin to see the world through their eyes and experience the world through their senses.

Intimacy like this is powerful because it unlocks the most basic secret to fulfilling relationships. When our own needs are understood as being a part of who we are, our partners willingness to meet them feels a lot like love. When our needs are rejected, it feels a lot like we, ourselves, are rejected too.

The foundation for a fulfilling relationship then? It’s an intimacy that allows us to be able to be present with the people we love, to truly listen, to fully understand, and to care without any ulterior motive getting in the way. It’s an intimacy that allows our partners to be the same for us.

Intimacy is the ability to see the world through your partners eyes – to experience what it must be like to be in their skin.

Intimacy provides the safety to share your own areas of vulnerability without fear of repercussion.

Intimacy is awareness of the things that lead our partners to feel happy, angry, sad, or wild with ecstasy.

Intimacy is everything.

And, it’s about coming to the realization that everything matters.

Everything Matters Webinar

This blog post is part of a series based on the Everything Matters Seminar that Desmond has created. There is now an online version of this seminar and you can learn more about it – or sign up for more information – today. Visit EverythingMattersSeminar.com.

Photo Credit: "Mini Me" by lindsayΔlachance is licensed by CC BY 2.0.

Do You Know What You're Saying?

This blog post is part two of our Everything Matters series where we explore how knowing your partner more deeply can lead to the best relationship possible. If you haven’t read it yet, check out part one here.

Everything communicates.

It’s one thing to being to come into a greater awareness of the beautiful complexity of who you are. It’s completely another thing to realize that there is an equally beautiful – and equally complex – person sitting across the table from you. How do you even begin to navigate the process of getting to really know one another? How can you let them know that you appreciate their depth? Can you learn to communicate more effectively?

If you ask any therapist who works with relationship issues, they will tell you that every single couple they see will say, at some point in the process, “We just need help communicating.” If you’ve ever thought that – or said it aloud – know that you are definitely not alone.

I have to admit, though, I think there is way more going on than just that. Yes, I am being a little technical here, but I happen to think that we are constantly communicating. Every word, every action, every eye roll and smirk, every time we raise our voice or cry or go outside to let off steam. Everything communicates. It’s not that we need help communicating as much as we need help to be more aware of the messages that we are sending and receiving.

If you’ve read part one, then you already have a head start. Refining your communication with your partner starts with developing a greater understanding of yourself – knowing what it is that you actually want to say requires knowing yourself on a deeper level.

And give yourself some grace before you start. When you begin to break it down, communication can become pretty complex. Take, for example, this list of actual phrases that we might use in our relationships:

• “I Love You.”
• “Please do the dishes.”
• “I have a headache.”
• “Don’t you ever listen to me?”

As you read these, you might be aware that some or all of them are causing a reaction in you. Maybe you have heard them before (Maybe you’ve heard them today!). Whatever you’re experiencing right now, it’s quite likely that you’re adding emotion to these statements that isn’t actually there, at least in their written form. Those kind of emotions are stimulated every time you hear these or other phrases from those you love and those emotions impact how your conversations go! Knowing how to deal with these ahead of time instantly improves your communication.

It’s also important to know that communication is a lot more than just the words we speak. In fact, some researchers would say that as much as 95% of our communication is non-verbal – the eye rolls, facial expressions, sighs, gentle touches. Most of these things are automatic responses that we don’t think about and all of them contribute significantly to what gets said communicated and what gets understood. Becoming more self-aware allows you greater control over everything that goes into communication.

Listen Up

Of course, sending messages is only one part of the equation. Receiving messages – listening – is just as important. As therapists, sometimes we consider ourselves professional listeners. It’s definitely a skill that can – and should! – be refined with practice. You can learn to listen like a therapist and, when you do, you have a few important roles.

First, approach listening with a sense of responsibility – in other words, it’s important to give the speaker your full attention. It’s also important that the speaker feel safe. Nothing will shut down communication as quickly as feeling ridiculed, judged, or on edge about what is going to happen. Belittling, cutting off, and minimizing the speaker’s words are all big no-nos. Third, when listeners reflect back to the speaker what is being heard, the speaker has an opportunity to correct anything that may have been misstated or miscommunicated. Sometimes, we react to things that were said in a less-than-ideal way instead of what is actually true. Finally, good listeners validate the speaker – listeners let the speaker know that they were heard and understood and what they said makes sense.

When your communication skills are developed, it opens the door to true intimacy - not just sexual intimacy, but a complete understanding of who your partner is. And, as it turns out, Intimacy is Everything.

More on that in part three!

Everything Matters Webinar

This blog post is part of a series based on the Everything Matters Seminar that Desmond has created. There is now an online version of this seminar and you can learn more about it – or sign up for more information – today. Visit EverythingMattersSeminar.com.

The Healing Power of Relationships

It’s a pretty recent development in human history that we have medical classifications for things like anxiety, depressions, and other concerns. We spend a lot of money researching and treating these issues and a lot more more developing medicines that can be used to help people feel better. The reasoning goes something like this: since these issues can be traced to chemical process in people’s brains, if we can adjust those chemical levels, we can eliminate the concerns.

Before we get too far, let me say that I’m not here to make an argument against medication. As a therapist, I fully affirm that medications are an important part of treating many of the concerns that people have. Medications are a tool and they have a role in a larger ecosystem of treatments to help people feel better.

We also have to understand that we live in a culture where we want our hamburgers in sixty seconds and we get annoyed when Netflix starts to buffer in the middle of a good binge. These ideas impact who we are and how we think about the world. It makes sense that we also want quick fixes for the things that are bothering us.

I don’t have time to be depressed.

When my anxiety keeps me up at night, sometimes I have to load up on caffeine the next day.

We don’t want to be held back or slowed down. In a world like that, medications can become the primary means for eliminating symptoms. But they don’t always fix the problem. It’s only part of the story.

I believe that true healing – not just symptom reduction – involves healthy, safe, and responsive relationships.

We know that drugs regulate the chemical levels in a person’s brain. There’s a lot more that we know about the brain too. We know that it’s impacted by the relationships we have with others. When we feel safe – not judged – and validated by another human, the parts of our brain that respond to threats and dangers and amp up our anxiety levels start to relax and free up resources for other parts. In the closest relationships, we have research that shows us that parts of our right hemispheres begin to synchronize. This is most prominent in babies who we believe use their caretaker’s sense of calmness to begin to regulate their own emotions. This circuitry never leaves us, so when we’re connecting with a friend over coffee or a partner over a romantic dinner we feel safe and calm and connected in a way that goes beyond anything we could consciously describe.

It feels like there is something electric between you because there is.

This is the foundation of empathy. Dr. Sue Johnson, a renowned couples researcher talks about how empathy helps at the most basic level by letting us know that our story and our emotions make sense to another human being.

Understanding and empathy are the keys to healing and growth. If you’ve been told for your entire life that you’re not good enough,  having a relationship with someone who provides you with support can be a healing and restorative  experience. If that person gets frustrated with your low self-esteem or your hesitancy to connect with others, it’s an indication that empathy isn’t really present.

Empathy is so important because, in part, it provides a person with an opportunity to feel like they are safe and understood. It allows the parts of our brain that are focused on survival to relax and the parts of our brain that make sense of the world to take the lead. In fact, I would argue that safe, empathic relational experiences are the natural way that humans experience healing and growth. These relationships quite literally begin to rewire our brains. They provide conditions for our dysregulated brains to readjust. They allow our inborn tendencies for resilience and growth to come to the surface.

Sadly, like home cooked meals and vacations, relationships often become a casualty to our fast-paced lifestyles. We come home from work or carting the kids around and we are mentally spent. It’s easier to connect to the TV than to connect with our partner about how their day went.

Incidentally, these ideas are the same concepts that makes therapy effective for helping people experience a greater sense of well being. Yes, therapists are highly trained in specific techniques and these are important. None of this would be effective, though, without an ability to create a safe, open, empathic environment. Therapy harnesses the power of empathy to mobilize the resources that are already inside you. In fact, when we have people that truly understand us, the effects are undeniable. Our relationships have the power to literally reshape our brain and transform who we are. They have the power to help us see the world in an entirely new way.

They have the power to heal.

Photo Credit:  "Heart" by Thomas Meier is licensed by CC BY-NC 2.0.

Desmond Smith is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist Associate. He and his wife, Kristy Yetman, run Yetman Counseling Services and provide therapy for individuals, couples, and families. 

The Lies of Valentine's Day

If you venture out into the world at all during this time of year, you will probably be overwhelmed by hearts and chocolates and silhouettes of Cupid. Don’t get me wrong; it is great to have a time on the calendar when we focus on love and romance. It can benefit every relationship to have seasons like these that encourage partners to express their love. Do it. Love it. Enjoy it.

But there’s a flip side too. If we’re honest, the pomp around Valentine’s Day can be frustrating or even discouraging for people. Maybe we are single on Valentine’s Day. Maybe our relationship isn’t as fulfilling as we want it to be. When every shelf in every department store is chock full of messages that are intended to be sweet, it can make us think that maybe there is something wrong with us.

The truth is, though, these messages of “love” can be damaging if we don’t think about what they’re saying. Chances are that there is nothing wrong with you at all. True love is not as simple as the messages on the store shelves and it’s certainly not “As seen on TV.”

That’s why I believe it’s important for us to call out the lies when we see them. It will help all of our relationships if we can start to think about love in a realistic way.

There are two in particular that I love to hate. I know they’re meant to be helpful and to express affection and deep love, but below the surface, they are the root of so many of the problems that we see in relationships.

The first one: “You make me happy!”

Yes, I know. It might seem pretty harmless. But beneath the surface layer of meaning here lies something that we really need to talk about. First, there’s the idea of happiness. To be happy is to experience an emotion. It’s the emotion that you experience when things are going well, when you’re surrounded by people that you love, or when you don’t have any particular stress. Obviously people want to be happy, but as an emotion, it passes; it’s not constant but instead it rises and falls in response to what’s happening around you. The fact that it passes is actually really important. No one is constantly happy. Sometimes you’re happy but then things happen and you experience sadness. Other things bring up feelings of anger. Emotions are constantly changing.

It doesn’t help that we tend to emphasize happiness and avoid other emotions like sadness or fear. But experiencing all of the emotions is an important part of what it means to be human. They are completely normal and should be embraced rather than avoided. There’s nothing inherently bad about feeling sad.

There is nothing or no one person that can make you happy. It is too much responsibility for anyone to assume. To put the responsibility of making you happy on your partner is to say that they’re somehow responsible for everything that happens to you. They have to manage the circumstances that you experience and, the insinuation is that, when you’re not happy, it’s also on them.

I get the sentiment, though. What we’re really trying to communicate when we say, “You make me happy” is “I feel happy that you are in my life.” This is more than just arguing over words though. The difference in the underlying meaning is profound. The words that we say and the phrases that we use have incredible power to create meaning in our lives.

So, own your happiness. Realize that happiness, sadness, anger, fear – all of the emotions – are normal. We experience them in waves that come and go. To put the responsibility for your happiness on your partner, though, is unfair to you and to them.

And that brings us to number two: “You complete me!”

If you’ve seen the movie Jerry Maguire then you already know about this one. The whole story culminates in this line that Jerry delivers to Dorothy. It is at about this time that most people reach for the box of tissues.

Me? I cry too but for a whole different reason.

For years, this phrase has gotten under my skin for the other layers of meaning –the things that it doesn’t say. For some reason, we seem to have lost touch with the idea that we can be whole human beings completely on our own. The parts of our lives where we feel lacking – where we feel broken – can be restored. When we spend time working on ourselves and exploring where these feelings come from we can learn to accept ourselves and love ourselves with our imperfections.

If we don’t do that work though, the feelings of deficiency can stick around. And – I get it – exploring some of the areas where you feel like you need to grow can be scary. Sometimes, it can be easier to look for ways to compensate for those feelings and one of the ways is to look to another person – our partners – to fill in those gaps. But this is a temporary fix; it’s not a solution.

If you find that special someone with whom you feel like you could spend the rest of your life with, it can feel like they complement you perfectly – that they are all of the things that you are not. It won’t take long though before they realize that they cannot be everything you need. To ask someone else to be the things that you are not is to ask them to do double duty and to assume responsibility for you both. This creates a sense of imbalance; it creates an unequal drain that sucks your partners energy to the point of exhaustion.

Instead, if we feel incomplete, the heathy approach, as intimidating as it may feel, is to move towards that feeling. What is about our lives that feel incomplete? Where are the areas that I’ve been wounded and who can help me make moves towards wholeness rather than distraction?

These are the lies of Valentine’s Day. The truth is that you can be whole, complete, and content just with the resources that you have at you disposal as an individual. You don’t need someone else to make you happy, or to complete you. And, the more that you move towards feeling whole the more that your relationship with your partner will enhance you life. When you refuse to burden your partner with the responsibility for your happiness and completeness, you allow them the freedom to love you unconditionally – to love you for who you really are.

Interested in exploring some new ideas about what it means to love and be in a fulfilling relationship? Reach out to us today.

After ten years in digital media and marketing, Desmond Smith recently graduated with a Master's in Marriage & Family Therapy from Pfeiffer University. He is currently working towards becoming licensed as a therapist in North Carolina. His wife, Kristy Yetman, is the owner of Yetman Counseling Services.

Desmond writes about relationships and life at his blog, PartSaintAndPartSinner.com.

"Heart shaped bokeh 19" by Iouri Goussev is licensed by CC BY-SA 2.0

3 Simple Tips to Improve Your Relationship

Regardless of what others might tell you, relationships are hard work. We live in a world that pressures us to believe that we will know we have found our soul mate when things just seem to work. But if it sounds too good to be true, it’s a pretty safe bet that it is too good to be true.

The reality is that relationships require an investment. There is nothing automatic. There are no gimmes. Both partners have to roll up their sleeves and commit to doing the hard work of relationship building. But, like any difficult task, it might be best to break it down into more manageable chunks.

Let’s look at three incredibly easy things you can start doing today to improve your relationship with your partner.

1. Ask New Questions

One of the things that we find couples do less and less is engage in meaningful conversation. Instead, we often choose to ask the same, repetitive questions: How was you day? What do you want for dinner? What do you want to watch tonight? Routines can be nice and having emotional conversations can be sometimes be draining. But, engaging in deeper conversation does a couple of important things for our relationship. We show our partner by our actions that we are interested in them and that they are important. We provide a safe space for them to share about the things that concern them.

One way to promote creative and helpful conversation is to start asking creative, open-ended questions. Take some time – maybe 20 minutes during dinner or before your favorite show begins – to simply talk. You can find lists of open-ended questions pretty easily online (here’s one to get you started). Try it for a week. You’ll be amazed at how much better your conversation flows throughout the entire day!

Give Them a Hug

This one seems too simple to be true. Give your partner a hug. You probably give your partner a hug every single day? How is this helpful?

Before we dismiss this, let me give you a little more information.

Research has found something remarkable about hugging. When you hold your partner in a close embrace, there is a hormone called oxytocin that is released into your blood stream. You might remember from biology class that oxytocin is the same hormone that is released when a mother is given birth and it helps to create a sense of connection.

The catch? You have to hug for at least twenty seconds. Try it. Hold your partner close in a tight embrace and set a timer if you need to. It's not about using a hug as a substitute for working though the problems you may be having. It is about creating a sense of connection. When you start to feel more connected, it gives you a great foundation on which to build.

3. Put Down the Phone

I know you love you phone. I love my phone too. There is so much to read, so many friends on Facebook to keep up with. So many texts that seem to want our immediate attention. It’s a never-ending stream of information. And this is precisely the issue.

The immediacy of information that our technology allows also creates a false sense of urgency – that we have to stay connected in case that important call or message comes in. But this is most often a lie. Truth be told, it’s more than reasonable for us to leave our phone in another room during dinner. In most cases, our world won’t come crashing down if we leave our phone face down and out of arm’s reach.

The same thing is true of laptops and tablets and video games. Put them away. At least put them away long enough to spend some significant time with the person you love. If you’ve not been together all day and, when you come home, you continue to be immersed in a virtual world, what will you partner think? It can be subtle or blatant but the message that is most often received is that “They would rather be somewhere else instead of here with me.”

Let’s make sure that this is not the message we are sending. Your challenge is to put the the phone down for an evening. Turn on the do not disturb setting. Leave it in another room. Initially, you might find yourself reaching for it, patting your pants pockets trying to locate it. Soon, though, you will find yourself reaching for your partner instead.

The work of improving your relationship is a life-long task. But it’s worth it. And it can start with just three simple steps.

DESMOND SMITH

After ten years in digital media and marketing, Desmond recently graduated with a Master's in Marriage & Family Therapy from Pfeiffer University. He is currently working towards becoming licensed as a therapist in North Carolina. His wife, Kristy Yetman, is the owner of Yetman Counseling Services.

Desmond writes about relationships and life at his blog, PartSaintAndPartSinner.com.

Photo Credit: "Traditional vs Technology" by Mister G.C. is licensed by CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Listen Like a Therapist

Listening Like a Therapist

Have you ever had a conversation with someone who really listened? It’s remarkable, isn’t it? Perhaps we go through most days with so many distractions and interruptions that we aren’t necessarily aware of all the things that compete for our attention. But when someone truly listens to us, we notice. There’s something affirming about knowing that you are being heard.

It’s also one of the common accusations that people in relationship often throw at each other: “You never listen to me!” Just as there is something affirming about being listened to, it can be maddening when you actually want someone to listen and they don’t.

Therapists see listening as a skill; it’s not something that just happens. It has to be developed and refined and worked at. So what does it mean to listen like a therapist? And, how can it impact your relationships?

Get Engaged

Listening is an activity. It’s a process. You can’t just let the sound of someone’s voice wash over you and say that you’ve been listening to them. It is a skill that requires attention and energy. It might seem minor to point out that listen is an active skill but it’s an important distinction. Too often we think that we can “just sit and listen.”

To listen well, prepare yourself to listen. Remove the distractions. Put the phone away. Turn off the television. Wait until the kids are in bed. Sit in a position where you can turn directly towards the person who will be speaking. You are about to do the important work and it’s important that you look the part!

Our energy has to be focused on a couple of things. First, and probably most obviously, we have to pay attention to the two ways that people use to communicate. We have to pay attention to the words that they say. These words have meaning and when we really listen we are noting the words that people use. But we also pay attention to the things that people don’t say. Every eye roll. Every tear. Every laugh. Every nervous smile. Every soft touch. All of these things convey meaning and our brains are really tuned into pickup up these cues. When we pay attention to both channels, we get a higher resolution picture of what our partner is trying to communicate.

The words “You’re such a great person” said with a soft touch on your arm has a very different meaning from the same words said with an eye roll and a snicker.

Both channels are important and both channels are necessary if you’re going to listen well.

But listening doesn’t stop there. The second focus of energy for therapists that are listening well is to paraphrase. Once the person has finished speaking, therapists will reflect back to the speaker what has been understood. “What I'm understanding is.... ” is a great sentence stem that therapists use when they’re paraphrasing. These reflections are offered without any kind of judgement and their purpose is to confirm that the speaker’s message has been heard. If the speaker feels like the therapist missed something, then the speaker should absolutely offer that up; the therapist might even ask, “Is that about right?” This back and forth continues until the speaker feels as though the listener has gotten it. At that point the conversation might continue with the next idea.

When people are able to incorporate just these two ideas into their conversations, communication will absolutely improve. Too often, we don’t make the effort to confirm that we really understand what the other person is saying. Than, in and of itself, is enough to cause problems. When we make that effort on the front-end of the conversation, can prevent a lot of misunderstandings. When we reflect what we understand it has the additional effect of helping the speaker feel validated. Dr. Sue Johnson, a noted couples researcher and therapist, often says that people just want to feel like their situation and their reaction isn’t out in left field. People don’t want to feel alone or odd. By conveying that we understand we also are sharing that another human being “gets” what’s happening; their situation makes sense.

The Hardest Part

There’s another source of potential problems though and this is often requires the most energy for therapists. Sometimes, as a listener, you may hear something that triggers some difficult emotion. Maybe you’re being accused of something that you feel like you didn’t do. Maybe the speaker is talking about a painful memory that reminds you of something from your own past. Emotions are really powerful and when they show up in intense ways, they can prevent us from being able to listen well.

Therapists have to learn that they can keep their own emotions under control; it’s essential. Imagine a session where a client talks about losing a loved one. Chances are that the therapist has lost someone important to them at some point too. However, if the therapists attention moves from truly hearing and understanding their client toward reliving their own painful memories then that client doesn’t get what they need. For all of us as listeners, if we become defensive when we feel accused then our energies move from listening toward mounting a defense. When you understand that these emotions that get triggered are important and you can place them aside in order to engage with them later, you are able to listen at a deeper level.

Listening is not just something that happens. It’s something that we do. It requires action, energy, and attention. It’s also a skill that we can learn and get better at with practice. And it can have a powerful impact! More often than not, we feel ignored, blown off, or unimportant. How amazing when someone comes along that is willing to put everything else on hold and pay attention to us and the things that matter to us? Whether you’re listening to a friend, loved one, or a coworker, these skills help people feel like they’re important and that you value them.

So why not give it a shot? Find a friend or a loved one and ask them to simply talk. They can talk about their day, about something they’ve been thinking about, or something that’s important to them. As they’re speaking, periodically interject. You can even start with “It sounds like…..” or the very therapeutic “What I hear you saying is…..” I think you'll find your conversations will be richer and more satisfying than ever!

Photo Credit: "Friday drinks at the office" by Mallix is licensed by CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Desmond Smith

After ten years in digital media and marketing, Desmond recently graduated with a Master's in Marriage & Family Therapy from Pfeiffer University. He is currently working towards becoming licensed as a therapist in North Carolina. His wife, Kristy Yetman, is the owner of Yetman Counseling Services.

Desmond writes about relationships and life at his blog, PartSaintAndPartSinner.com.