Relationship Toolkit: Quick Tidbits to Boost Your Communication

Relationship Toolkit: Here are some go-to reminders to strengthen your communication style.

Relationship Toolkit

The Four Horsemen – that will poison relationships

• 1. Criticism
• 2. Contempt
• 3. Defensiveness
• 4. Stonewalling

The 5 to 1 rule for successful relationships

• There are 5 good encounters for every 1 that is bad.

SO BREAK THE OLD PATTERNS – WHAT CAN YOU DO OR SAY OR THINK OR FEEL THAT WOULD BE DIFFERENT?

• If you want something you have never had, then you must do something you have never done.

Communication guidelines

• Be calm – and so have awareness and if needed, ask for time outs.
• Be specific – avoid generalizations.
• Avoid blame and who is right discussions.
• Acknowledge your partner’s feelings and point of view.
• Speak non-defensively by changing your mindset of your partner.
• Use your imagination to creatively put yourself in your partner’s place.
• Be accountable for the things you say and do.
• Stay with the recent past when you talk about your problems.
• Catch your partner doing something right and give them credit for it.
• Find pleasurable activities to do together.
• Practice Reflective Listening – repeating back what your partner has said before it is your turn.

And remember

• Men and women do have different thinking and feeling styles.
• Men are specific, solution orientated and get on with things or when aroused want to be alone.
• They worry more about status and are less comfortable with emotion.
• Women will talk more, enjoy equality in relationships, be more comfortable with emotions and can multitask better.
• What it was that attracted you to your partner.
• Recall and feel again those good times.

Ask yourself the tail end questions

• If my relationship improved, then the consequence for me would be . . .
• What am I afraid of if this relationship improved?
• What would I have to give up and what would I get?

It is so easy and a natural human trait to focus on what is wrong that we often forget or downplay what is good. So begin to open your mind to notice and acknowledge the good in both the past and present of your relationship. ~ adapted via Andrew Richardson

Relationship Toolkit:
Put the spark back in your relationship

Relationship Toolkit: What happens when the first flush of love passes

But after you've been together for a while, you start to notice that the overwhelming nature of your love seems to have waned. You still love your partner and are still committed but a sameness can creep in. Maybe you find those enchanting little 'quirks' starting to grate or the everyday grind and external pressures conspire to pull you out of your private little world of love. You begin to wonder where the spark has gone.

Relationship Toolkit: Cool times for once 'hot' relationships can be scary

It's easy to panic at this stage of a relationship. In the early heady days of first love, you feel like you and your partner can conquer anything with the power of your love. You feel as if you could never tire of each other's company. So when dull days dawn, and rows reverberate, and you wonder whatever happened to intimacy and sex, it can feel as if the world is falling. Have you made a dreadful mistake? Is it 'the end'?

Relationship Toolkit: Misplaced expectations about love lead to disappointment

Two major problems affect relationships.  The first is the unrealistic expectations we have of them. Some of that is natural to 'being in love'. It puts you on a high where you easily believe that you will always be able to keep the spark going in your relationship, because you love each other so much. But some of it comes from what we are fed about relationships by the romantic movies we watch or the books we read.

Relationship Toolkit: Good relationships need good 'gardeners' of love

The second difficulty in keeping relationships rewarding, satisfying and fun is that we often don't do enough 'gardening'.  We leave the relationship to 'take care of itself'. And any gardener will tell you that a garden left to itself will look lovely for a while and will then gradually deteriorate into a tangle of weeds and scrub. A place you wouldn't want to spend any time.

But just how do you set about 'cultivating' your relationship, ensuring that the flowers of love continue to bloom?

Relationship Toolkit: Hypnosis can help you put the spark back in your relationship

Put the spark back into your relationship is an audio hypnosis session for lovers. Using powerful hypnotic techniques and deploying the latest psychological understanding of what makes relationships 'sparkle', this deeply relaxing session will take you on a wonderful inner journey to the roots of your love.

As you, or you and your lover together, relax and enjoy listening to Put the spark back into your relationship, you will rediscover what really makes your relationship special. And as you go even deeper relaxed each time you listen, you will find yourself effortlessly becoming a true gardener of love - cherishing, nurturing, feeding, pruning and seeding the garden of your relationship - and reveling in the beautiful blooms of love.

Download Put the spark back into your relationship and enjoy those wonderful powerful feelings of attraction once again.

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