ENHANCING YOUR RELATIONSHIPS:

Ideas For Daily Living

Relationships are truly the spices that flavor our lives. They enhance the quality of our existence and our families in profound ways. Starting at birth, we are constantly in the process of forming, transforming and negotiating these relationships. Our first learning about relationships occurs in our families of origin. This is the place where much of the development of our identity and relationship modeling starts. The community, schools, and later work provide people whom we use as relationship models.
With all the time and energy we put into developing and nurturing relationships, it's truly amazing we have time to do much else. The majority of the people who come to therapy seek help for problems they're having with one or more relationships. Encountering problems in any of our relationships - family, parent-child, spouse, supervisor - can be very distracting and frustrating. It is sometimes difficult to leave all our concerns and preoccupation's about loved ones at the door when we go to or come home from work. Sometimes people need professional assistance to resolve these problems before they cause serious negative effects in their lives. It's really important to know when to seek help. It's better, though, to do preventative relationship maintenance to keep issues from becoming real problems.
First lets talk about when to seek help. If it's been a few months and things do not appear to be getting any better despite your best efforts or other stressors are complicating things, it's time to get help. Or if you don't know how to effectively deal with a problem, say your adolescent is abusing substances or continues to appear depressed, seek help immediately. If you're uncertain, play it safe and call Family Health Counseling Services for information and guidance.
When it comes to preventative relationship maintenance it's important to stay tuned to the other person, nurture and be nurtured, and spend real time together doing things or just being together.
* In order to stay tuned we must focus on fully and actively listening to each other. It requires good eye contact and no distractions. Listening also requires respecting each other and also paying attention to non-verbal cues.
* Nurturing is basically any stroking the other. Hugging, soft stroking of hair, appropriate touching, telling of your joy that the other person is in your life and just being actively loving all fit the bill.
* All relationships need time to blossom, flower and maintain. Time is the most valuable thing we give to each other. We need to present it joyfully and find ways to make our time together special.