Revitalize Your Relationship Coaching

I am not telling many people about this, but I decided to work with a handful of couples who are 100 % committed to making their relationship healthier and happier. But let me be clear.

It's been an uphill climb. You have read all the self-help books, figured out each other's "Love Language", tried the practice of "Radical Honesty", did a relationship course, had a few sessions with a marriage counsellor, you shared your needs, listened to theirs promised over and over again to "do better". And yet, the fighting persisted, normal discussions turned to hurt feelings and days of not talking.

Trust is key to a relationship that works.  Whether its between you and your partner or you and your co-workers, if you don't trust each other, it is hard to make magic happen. But have you ever considered how "trust" really is built?

 As a Life Coach, I have become an expert on dealing with what I call “Cockroach Thoughts and Emotions”. In fact I just released an entire episode on the topic here. I know it isn't a pretty image but there is a reason for that. These are the sneaky, persistent thoughts and feelings that come up when the lights are off and seem to survive in spite of all the cleaning, growth and personal development you do. You may have spotted one of these "Thought Cockroaches" running from the light of your self-awareness. And once you have seen it, you JUST know there are others. These are thoughts like: “He doesn’t love me anymore.” “Our marriage is falling apart.” “I’m not good enough.”

Happy New Year Lovers!  If you have been paying attention over the last week or two you have probably been offered every single diet, new planner or calendar, workout and wellness program the world has to offer. The thing I find strange is that regardless of all this focus placed on well-being in January, rarely is any of it connected to romantic relationships. What I have realized over the last year with my clients who have hired me to help them stop fighting and improving their marriages is this; You can set a personal goal or a resolution to make you feel better, but if you aren't intentionally improving your marriage there may not be anyone to celebrate losing the weight, changing the bad habit or learning the new skill with at the end of the year. Don't confuse what I am saying here. I think self-care and putting your well-being first should be the MOST important thing in your life. But if your relationship feels a bit stale, or you are constantly bickering or having a lot of "talks" about who did what wrong day in and day out, then you should reconsider your goals and give yourself the gift of a better marriage instead. I recently updated my free mini-course End the Argument Before It Starts and it will help you get on the path to a healthier and more beautiful relationship this year. One final thing. Taking care of your relationship is self-care of the deepest kind, because you deserve to feel love, support and enjoy the life you are creating with your spouse. So tend to that garden, Lovers! I hope this is the best year yet.  

One of my long-time podcast listeners reached out to me for a free coaching session last week. In our session she told me she has been struggling in her relationship for a long time and wants 2019 to be different. She is ready to change her relationship and has decided to give both her and her partner a perfect gift, one of the spaces in my six week Revitalize Your Relationship program. If you are interested in doing something other than cluttering your home with more stuff you don't need (and probably don't want), why not make a commitment to a healthier, more fulfilling relationship and join my January program as well? If your relationship isn't feeling as warm and loving as you would like it too and you have tried over and over to improve it without success, you need to check out this course. A recent graduate of the program told me that the tools she learned during this course are not only helping to strengthen her romantic relationship, but are helping in all her relationships (with coworkers, family & friends etc.). Give it to your partner, take the course for yourself or do it together as a gift to you both, it's up to you!

Some dub it Mommy Brain, others call hormone reconfiguration or chalk it up to sleep deprivation, but there are more and more studies that show big changes to your brain during pregnancy and after having children.  When I had my daughter, I noticed that I felt "different". My personal experience with with both my children was that the pregnancy felt generally rough with brief moments of relief and then something resembling elation after they were born. I remember both times, moments after giving birth, feeling exhausted and marvelling at the beautiful baby in may arms, thinking that now I would finally start to feel "normal" again. But the truth is that I was forever changed. And the gift I have been able to give myself and the one I want to give to you since realizing it is to completely let go of the idea that you or I will ever get back to the pre-pregnancy versions of ourselves.  To a new mother, at first, that realization can feel very disempowering. 

  I love my children with all my heart. They are beautiful little beings and most of the time they are a joy to be around. But there are some days and some phases of their growth, when I wonder if one or both of them will ever stop crying/screaming/doing the exact opposite of what I am asking them to do. Those days feel rough and often when Steve comes home, I am just done. All I want to do is go sit in the bathtub with a few candles and a book alone for a few hours. As much as I try to remember that my kids are doing exactly what learning, growing, healthy children do it takes effort not to feel like I am failing as a parent. Those days are hard as every parent knows, but while many of us focus and worry about how our relationship is going with our children, it is easy to hit pause on your relationship with your partner. I get it. You feel exhausted and after singing the same five songs or answering the same five questions all day, you might want to veg out instead of have a meaningful conversation. You might lie down with your kids and bedtime and routinely fall asleep for hours. Or maybe, you feel the seeds of resentment and spend all your time together going back and forth with your spouse complaining about why your day was more difficult than theirs. How Can You Change This?

Relationships often start as one thing and transform into something else entirely. For some couples, their bond strengthens and grows with time. But for others the bond becomes thin and they grow apart. Many of my clients come to me and tell me the main problem in their life is "stress and overwhelm" and as we dig a little deeper through the challenges of navigating things like their career or parenthood many of them tell me that their marriage is struggling too.

A few months ago I completed an incredible training to up-level the work I am able to do with my clients and students. Teaching yoga has been a powerful tool, but for many people it opens the door to a physical and spiritual awakening that we may not have the support to investigate further. For many people yoga is a way to "tune in" to what they are thinking and feeling and meet a whole different part of themselves. Not bad for just unrolling your mat right?! I wanted to be able to meet more of my students in that space through my work as a Life Coach because self-inquiry is another transformational branch on the tree of Yoga. And since opening up more space in my day to work with people I have noticed that many of my clients are saying the same things. The new mother who doesn't want to put her health, happiness and big goals on the back-burner for the next 20 years while she raises her kids. The entrepreneur who is juggling the pursuit of her passion, her relationship and trying to maintain an intensive spiritual/ yoga practice. The manager who can't seem to figure out how to close his computer and leave his work at work. Their lives look different, but they all tell me the same thing. "There just isn't enough time in the day." With a business of my own, two kids under three, a partner I love spending time with and a daily spiritual practice you might imagine I would be nodding along in agreement with my clients. But I am not, because an unexpected thing happened when I had kids.