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  • What Puts Men In The Doghouse

    What Puts Men In The Doghouse

    Imagine you’re in a relationship, and things are going great. But then, suddenly, the man in your life starts acting weird. He’s distant and moody – just not himself. So what could be the problem? Let’s explore the three main reasons that men end up in the doghouse!

    Reason #1: Society and emotions

    Men are told not to have or express emotions, and if they do open up, other men will shame them. This is because society tells men that feelings are bad. While this perception is starting to change a little bit, it’s a belief that has been ingrained in the culture for decades, which means the change isn’t an easy one.

    Example

    An example of this can be seen with NFL player Odell Beckham Jr., who was going through a difficult period. In one clip, he can be seen freaking out on the sidelines – throwing a fit, pouting, crying, and acting in an overall childish manner. However, we know that someone acting like a child does so because they’re in pain. Although his behavior was very erratic and unprofessional, it was telling of a bigger problem he was experiencing.

    Hall-of-Famer, Ray Lewis, commented on the clip, saying that it was perfectly okay for Odell to lose his temper and get angry, but the tears were unacceptable. He chastised and belittled Odell Beckham Jr. for the tears but not for the anger. In fact, he celebrated the anger.

    Toxic masculinity

    When we think about the term “toxic masculinity,” we often associate it with What Puts Men In The Doghouse However, the birthplace of this toxicity is how men treat other men. Tears and emotion are the essences of life; it’s human nature. As men are raised to believe that emotion is bad, they pass it on to other men, perpetuating the same incorrect ideals. It’s these men who are then treating women in a similarly hurtful way.

    It is perfectly okay to experience and display emotion when we are going through traumatic and challenging periods in our life. However, the essential feeling for this – beyond anger and fits – is tears and sadness.

     

    Reason #2: How men are raised.

    Young boys are taught that they cannot express their thoughts or feelings, and they can’t ask for their needs or wants to be met. They are meant to be independent with no need for anyone else.

    As boys grow up, they face difficulties when they try and stand up for their needs because it’s now ingrained in everyone’s mind that this is unacceptable. Society has skewed what personifies healthy male emotions.

     

    Reason #3: Fear in men

    Men fear that they will be rejected or reprimanded for sharing what they feel. This stems from personal experiences of speaking one’s mind in the past. As a result, men are often met with ridicule or have their thoughts and feelings dismissed. Therefore, men have to walk a fine line between being labeled ‘toxic’ or a ‘wimp,’ so it becomes easier and less dangerous to remain silent and avoid judgment altogether.

    So, how do we heal this problem?

    Men, ask yourselves this: has that old model of masculinity worked? Being forced to be the strong, independent man of the past means that you’re unable to open up and receive intimacy. When you’re unwilling to open up to a woman, they’re unlikely to feel a connection, which means time in the bedroom is often sacrificed. So, is that false version of ‘masculinity’ paying off?

    If it’s not, and you’re ready to face the false narrative that labels you as a ‘wimp,’ you can start creating connection and intimacy, achieving a true vision of what a man is. A man can navigate both sides of the dynamic. He can be strong and ask for his needs and wants without being demanding or abusive. On the other hand, getting in touch emotionally from a place of inner security is incredibly attractive to women.

    Exercise

    Ladies, if you’re trying to help your partner get in touch with his feelings, you can start with an exercise that asks him to share three feelings he’s experienced that day. The emotions don’t have to be detailed and profound, but they do have to be honest. For example, maybe he felt insecure because his boss asked him to take on a new project?

    Although it may be demanding, ladies don’t give feedback. Don’t try to fix it. Your goal is to create a sense of safety for their vulnerability, and providing any feedback will hinder that progress. Just listen and thank them for sharing; ask them if there’s any more. Please give them the space and safety to start learning that healthy way of sharing themselves.

    Women make sure you don’t get upset when they open up, even if it isn’t what you want to hear. As soon as you jump in and try to correct what he’s saying or punish him for what he’s saying, guess what’s going to happen? He’ll close right up again because you will have proven to him that when he opens up, he immediately gets an adverse reaction.

    Reacting negatively includes chastising him for keeping his emotions bottled up or not letting you know how he felt earlier. That will just encourage him to withdraw and be more hesitant about sharing things in the future.

    Instead of giving any feedback, turn everything you want to say into a question: For instance,

    1-What do you think made you feel insecure?

    2-Have you ever done anything like this before?

    3-Why do you think your boss did that?

    4-What did your coworkers say?

    5-What do you think you’re going to do?

    Remember, the goal is to get to know your partner and create a safe place that fosters your partner to feel empowered to act and open up to you again later on down the line.

    Enjoy The Journey ??

    To learn more, watch the video here:

  • What Is Healthy Shame?

    What Is Healthy Shame?

    When someone begins to heal from their codependency and trauma, they are bound to feel moments of shame. Whether that’s about past behavior or past experiences, most people will view shame negatively. However, there is a dysfunctional shame, which impedes progress, and healthy shame, which helps us. So today, I am going to be talking about how shame can be beneficial.

    Shame can help us move forward for three simple reasons:

    1- It clarifies our morals and values.

    2- It helps us make amends.

    3- It spurs us into action.

    It is essential to understand the differences between healthy and dysfunctional shame to move forward feeling empowered.

    How healthy shame clarifies our morals and values

    When we find ourselves feeling shame after acting in a certain way, we’re telling ourselves what we value and what we see as moral. That sense of shame we feel for going against our morals and values helps us reconnect with our authentic selves.

    When we can clarify our morals and values through healthy shame, we can think of and act on plans to rectify that feeling so that it doesn’t happen again. Without healthy shame, we wouldn’t be able to see things this clearly.

    How healthy shame helps us make amends

    Shame triggers empathy. It helps us recognize how our imperfections affect others as well as ourselves.

    Everybody has imperfections – we’re all perfectly imperfect because we’re all human. Healthy shame provides us with an opportunity to accept this humanity and the imperfections that come along with it and act on this knowledge by making amends with ourselves or those that we have harmed.

    Healthy shame provides us with a sense of forgiveness and love for ourselves. When we act imperfectly and make amends to whoever was impacted, we establish a favorable opinion of ourselves, turning that pain into self-respect, self-care, and self-love.

    How healthy shame spurs us into action

    When we do something against our defined morals and values, it can be hard to experience that shame as a positive. However, think about where you would be without it? Adverse action without shame leads to more negative action. With shame, we’re inspired to change and repair the relationships that may have been affected.

    When experiencing healthy shame, we’re more likely to initiate a plan to fix the wrong that we are responsible for. As a result, we tend to double down on doing what we can to improve ourselves.

    What to do when the shame comes back?

    On your road to recovery, you are going to be faced with what is happily referred to as ‘shame burps.’ These are the moments you feel good about yourself and your recovery when a shameful memory suddenly accosts you. It only lasts a moment but can affect you with a full-body reaction and make you feel like you’re regressing. Most likely, you’re not.

    These ‘shame burps’ are temporary. They are not an opportunity for you to re-victimize or belittle yourself. Instead, it’s in these moments that your self-respect, self-care, self-love, and acceptance of your perfect imperfections must come in. This is why the ‘shame burp’ is showing up; it’s an opportunity for you to realize that, yes, you’re imperfect, but now you need to forgive yourself.

    When healthy shame turns dysfunctional

    Re-victimizing yourself following a ‘shame burp’ is an easy way to allow the shame you feel to become dysfunctional. When you keep beating yourself up over past mistakes that you have already reconciled and moved on from, you keep the shame alive.

    People often make the mistake of labeling themselves as humble for refusing to forgive themselves. However, we learn that we can be forgiven for our mistakes in almost all spiritual teachings, so why would we elevate ourselves into a God-like position to say that we cannot be forgiven? Doing this is grandiose, covertly arrogant, and incredibly destructive to our progress.

    We are human, and we make mistakes. We can all be forgiven, and we all deserve forgiveness, but we need to start by forgiving ourselves.

    Enjoy The Journey ??

    To learn more, watch the video here:

  • Why It’s better To Be Liked Than Loved

    Why It’s better To Be Liked Than Loved

    Have you ever considered that it’s better to be liked than loved? Although this sounds a bit counterintuitive, it will start to make sense when we understand the difference between the two.

    Understanding what it means to be loved

    When you think about what you want in a partner, what are the first things that come to your mind? Someone who looks a certain way, acts a certain way, enjoys the same things as you, works in a particular type of career, wants or doesn’t want children? Usually, people will list qualities like these when explaining who might interest them. However, a quality they will rarely list is being liked. This concept rarely occurs to anyone.

    If you think about love and what we’ve all been taught, our perception of our ideal partner gets split into what would make them perfect – being kind, athletic, adventurous, etc. – and what would make them imperfect – dull, annoying, lazy, etc. We are all about welcoming those perfections and shaming those imperfections. Love then turns into this notion that you will love a person despite how horrible they are.

    Love starts to only reside in those expected perfections; it has to have that magical feeling. Considering love as perfection is unreasonable. You’re essentially saying, ‘if you loved me, you would never be those negative things.’ This is a perfectionist attitude and suggests that loving that person is conditional and based on being the ideal version of themselves.

    These high expectations may seem like a way to value yourself in a relationship. However, what it’s really saying is you’re insecure and creates a power dynamic of someone being less than you. So, what do we do? We hide our imperfections from each other. Because for us to seek out love, everything has to be perfect.

    ‘Perfect’ is an unattainable standard, and focusing on achieving perfection is rarely going to lead to happiness. Therefore, it’s better to find someone who likes you for you and not solely for the perfect qualities you possess.

    Understanding what it means to be liked

    If you take the example of a best friend, they likely know all about your imperfections – your quirky habits, your relationship troubles, your poor career, and all of your other downfalls. They have likely seen you at your worst and experienced parts of your personality that strangers probably haven’t. But despite ALL of the imperfections they witness in you, they still like you. Isn’t that amazing? They accept your perfect imperfections. Liking someone means encompassing the whole picture – the perfections and the imperfections.

    Love demands intensity and is super-charged with emotion. When that feeling is gone, usually, so is the relationship. Liking someone, on the other hand, is quiet. We can enjoy that calm emotional state and still enjoy their presence without the need for performance or perfection.

    Liking is also more accepting. It forgives and has no demands. We give so much more grace to those we like than we do to those we love. And in return, someone who likes us is accepting of us. They know that we are not perfect and get that. Some may say that is what love is, but how many people can honestly say they live that love?

    If you love without liking, you’ll find that it’s much more difficult to find it within yourself to provide patience, honesty, vulnerability, and transparency.

    These things are why it is essential to reexamine the idea of being liked versus being loved.

    Enjoy The Journey

    To learn more, check out the video here:

  • How to Recognize and Respond to a Narcissist

    How to Recognize and Respond to a Narcissist

    How to Recognize and Respond to a Narcissist

     

    It can be challenging to identify a narcissist at first glance. Narcissism often comes across as confidence or enthusiasm, but when you know what to look for, you will be able to recognize the signs. To learn more, make sure you subscribe to my Youtube channel and check out my Narcissism playlist to learn more.

    The signs below define the characteristics of a narcissist. The first twelve are about the narcissists themselves, while the final three are about the kind of people attracted to them.

    Recognize the signs

     

    1. They lack empathy

     

    When you speak to someone and they seem to be listening to what you are saying, but they don’t hear what you have said, this could be a lack of empathy. This might look like someone failing to react to what you have said. They may claim they were listening, but their reaction doesn’t mesh with the information you shared.

    Now, this doesn’t mean that a person failing to listen is a narcissist. Sometimes our attention is not where it should be. However, if the behavior is consistent or the empathy seems fake or forced, the person is exhibiting narcissistic behavior. They do not feel remorse because they are incapable of it.

     

    2. They feel entitled to special treatment

     

    When you go out with someone, are they constantly looking for ways to receive special treatment from the employees? Whether in a restaurant, from a mechanic, or any store, this entitlement signifies narcissism. Things like receiving the wrong order at a restaurant will set a narcissist off. They will constantly feel they have the right to be elevated above everyone else.

    Someone who advocates for themselves and speaks up against mistreatment calmly and leveled way is not a narcissist. On the other hand, responding to mistakes and perceived mistreatments in a violent or abusive way because they feel entitled to perfection makes someone narcissistic.

     

    3. They have grandiose fantasies

     

    Everyone has an idea of what they want to achieve and do in life, but a narcissist is rarely realistic. They will often claim they are going to do something huge but fail to deliver. Or they will claim they have skills that they don’t. These aren’t lies but rather delusional beliefs. This is grandiosity and can set unrealistic expectations in a relationship.

     

    4. They put appearance above everything else

     

    A narcissist’s appearance matters to them more than anything else. The term itself comes from Greek mythology’s Narcissus, who was obsessed with his reflection. Even the appearance of those they associate with is paramount to them – they want those around them to be beautiful because they equate beauty to power.

    Obsession with social media comments and likes is a form of narcissism. It is prevalent for narcissists to compare their appearances and social standings, and success to others. It becomes obsessive for them to be externally validated as better than everyone else.

     

    5. They only associate with the powerful

     

    Narcissists are invested in social connections and how they can climb the social ladder. This is common in social media as well. They need to be around powerful, attractive, famous people because they see themselves as the same.

    They will make snap judgments about people based on external factors such as social standing, appearance, popularity, or any number of other superficial things. A narcissist will tear down anything they don’t view as worthy.

     

    6. They are incapable of regulating their emotions

     

    Narcissists are easily angered and will often throw tantrums if they are upset. However, they are so skilled at manipulation that they can appear to be keeping it together.

    Psychologist and narcissist specialist Dr. Ramani Durvasula uses the analogy of a rubber band. If you stretch out a rubber band far enough, it will eventually snap; that is the temper tantrum and anger. They can never sustain their deception and will always bounce back to who they are.

     

    7. They are highly sensitive to criticism

     

    Narcissists do not like to be critiqued or criticized but will have no problem being highly critical of you and everybody else. They view themselves as infallible; suggesting otherwise is an insult to their carefully curated perception of themselves. If they feel like they are being criticized, they will lash out.

     

    8. They don’t think they need to change

     

    A suggestion that they may need help or may need to learn more – than the problem somehow resides in them – will shut them down immediately. Their lack of empathy comes into play here as they refuse to listen to anything more than you have to say. All their dysfunctions, including rage, will come out to protect that sense of grandiosity.

     

    9. They tend to be extremely jealous

     

    They tend to be jealous of anyone you interact with – from a simple conversation to time spent. People of higher statuses than them are also a great source of jealousy for a narcissist. The idea that there is someone out there who might be better than them threatens their image of themselves.

    Everyone gets envious now and then, but narcissists tend to be driven by jealousy, which triggers that rubber band and causes them to snap. Their jealousy consumes them.

     

    10. They gaslight people

     

    When you start to feel like you must record your conversations with a narcissist, you are likely being gaslighted. You begin to question yourself and think negatively about yourself because of their effect on you.

    If you start a conversation with a critique, suggestion, or request aimed at a narcissist, they will find a way to turn it around on you so that, by the end of the conversation, you are the one apologizing because you were so wrong and out of place. It’s tough to protect yourself against a narcissist who is gaslighting you.

     

    11. They are disloyal

     

    A narcissist will leave you. Always. At any opportunity for higher status or anything advantageous to them, they are out the door. They will never put anyone before themselves, including you.

     

    12. They get pleasure from others’ misery

     

    When they cause you discomfort, anger, or pain, they will feel joy. For them, it feels like receiving that one Christmas gift they’ve been eyeing all year. If a narcissist does something to hurt you, you will generally understand that they are enjoying seeing that hurt in you. This is when you know it is time to get out.

     

    The part we play

     

    We always must take ownership of who we allow into our lives. We need to understand that we are not innocent bystanders in a relationship with a narcissist; we have a say about who can influence our lives.

    Refusing to take ownership of all aspects of our lives is inherently narcissistic in and of itself. The following three behaviors inside us are part of the reason we are in a relationship with a narcissist to start with:

     

    1. We think we can love them out of it

     

    When they feign weakness or hurt, we start rationalizing what we can do to make it better. We may think that dressing or acting a certain way or changing some other part of ourselves is how we will get them to love us.

     

    2. We think that we’re not good enough

     

    With this mindset, we fall into the trap of thinking things like “if I were better looking” or “if I were thinner” or “if I wasn’t so needy” or “if I had more money” to rationalize away their behavior. This is based on low self-worth and a sense of shame, which makes gaslighting so easy for a narcissist. We internalize their behavior and blame ourselves.

     

    3. We look for ways to change

     

    A key indicator that we’re with a narcissist is researching, reading, and resourcing everything we can, not to learn how to save ourselves, but to figure out the narcissist and how we can get them to like us.

    So, essentially, a person attracted to a narcissist is putting 90% of their energy into the relationship instead of themselves.

     

    So, how do you respond?

     

    If you have realized that you’re in a relationship with a narcissist, there are two options for how you can respond:

     

    1. Get out

     

    The chances of a narcissist ever doing work and healing are slim to none. But, just like that rubber band effect, they might do some of it, but they don’t see an advantage to it and are likely to snap or bounce back to who they indeed are.

    Your situation may be complicated; marriage, kids, religion, finances, etc., can make it difficult for you to get out. But, in that case, you must.

     

    2. Lower your expectations

     

    Realize that 90% of the time, you will get nothing from them. So, you need to cope in other ways and practice massive self-care. Instead of making your whole life about them, you need to make most of your life about you.

    The only person you have control of is yourself. So, practice self-care by creating friendships, joining groups, and getting into therapy; you need to see how your childhood trained you to spend so much of your energy putting others ahead of yourself. You’re replaying behavior learned as a child, and you need to know how to heal from this.

    Learn to meet your needs and stop trying to get them to do that for you. At this point, you have been with this behavior for years and know it isn’t going to change, so don’t fight it. Instead, embrace yourself and discover how to find happiness in meeting your needs by yourself.

     

    Are you looking for more solutions? Pick the one that suits your needs best!

     

    1- My Book, Your Journey To Success
    2- My Complete Emotional Authenticity Method
    3- My Perfectly Imperfect Private Group
    4- My Private Coaching

     

    Enjoy The Journey ??

     

    To learn more, check out the video here:

     

  • What Are We So Stressed About? It’s Just Fear!

    What Are We So Stressed About? It’s Just Fear!

    Estimates from the AMA and the CDC conclude that stress accounts for between 70-95% of all illnesses and diseases and our daily suffering. However, I believe the problem persists partly because helping professionals are not accurately communicating what a person experiences when “stressed.”

    Therefore, the solutions we promote and provide are ineffective in alleviating the growing epidemic of stress.

    Stress

    “Conventionally, stress is defined as a transactional process arising from real or perceived environmental demands that can be appraised as threatening or benign, depending on the availability of adaptive coping resources to an individual.” (1) emphasis added.

    “When we’re startled or acutely stressed, the “fear center” of the brain, called the amygdala, activates our central stress response system.” (2) emphasis added.

    In the amygdala’s view, a threat can be a person holding a gun to our head to a memory of something that has frightened us in the past, to even experiencing something new. Whether a threat is real or perceived does not matter to the amygdala. That is why it also relies on the hippocampus to draw on previous emotional memories stored physically in our body and brain cells.

    How we communicate and attempt to alleviate stress?

    Can you see the problem with how we communicate and attempt to alleviate stress? We are not telling people that when they feel “stress,”.

    They are actually experiencing the fear reaction and, many times, just reliving adaptive coping responses from previous unprocessed hurtful emotions.

    Therefore people are not getting the proper solution because we haven’t told them they lack the required Emotional Authenticity skills to navigate their past unhealed emotional pain and stress/fear responses.

    Adding to the problem is how the helping community advocates talking about stress. Because practitioners call it “stress” instead of fear, it leaves the individual with the impression that stress randomly happens to them, and they are powerless to stop it without medication.

    That has led to something even worse. By not using the correct term to define what a person is actually experiencing. The public infers that they are stressed because we are all super-achievers. Ask yourself what you assume when your friend opines they are “stressed?”

    The universal implication is that they work 50-70 hours a week, take their partner out on five romantic dates a week, volunteer at their child’s school three hours a week, and oh, by the way, they must meditate, workout and donate time to their favorite charity.

    In other words, They are stressed because they are accomplishing so much and probably more than we are.

    Self-deception and false empowerment

    By not calling stress what it is, we are advocating self-deception and false empowerment.

    As practitioners, we are responsible for creating this false narrative of stress and robbing people of health and well-being by not removing fear’s stigma.

    Instead, we are perpetuating the myth that to be afraid is to be weak. And where did we first learn to be invalidated as weak? Childhood! In Dr. Gabor Mate’s book, Scattered Minds, he shares this.

    “Even the most benign parenting,” writes Allan Schore, the seminal psychological researcher, and therapist, “involves some use of mild shaming procedures to influence behavior.” (3)

    In nearly every instance, the stress/fear response replicates and repeats the perfectly imperfect hurtful moments from childhood.

    As professionals, we are not making them aware of this, and by not doing so, we impede the healing they deserve. Why are we so afraid to tell the public the truth that everyone is frightened all day, every day?

    Today I propose addressing that shame by giving the public the accurate terminology and solutions they deserve to heal the primary source of stress; fear initiated by unhealed childhood pain that persists due to a lack of Emotional Authenticity.

    It has been my experience that all stress/fears get expressed in one of three ways:

     

    1- The fear of rejection

    2- The fear of inadequacy

    3- The fear of powerlessness

     

    To help you remember these fears, just think R.I.P. Rest In Peace!

    Rejection

    The fear of rejection is one of our deepest fears. Feeling rejected sabotages our desire to belong. If you’ve ever applied for a job that you were counting on and were not hired or had your romantic interest rebuffed.

    you know that feeling all too well. When we feel rejected, we feel unlovable, alone, or worth less. These feelings were first learned in childhood.

    The CDC lists “early adverse life conditions” (4) as the number one source of all mental health conditions. As perfectly imperfect parents, we all had moments when we could not be there for our children.

    That is not a sign of bad parenting; it is just a testament to how complicated life is for us all. But, those wounds carry on into our adult lives, and our brain seeks to repeat them if left unhealed.

    If you are unaware that you experienced pain in childhood, I offer one question to bring clarity.

    “Do you have any secrets from your primary caregivers? Anything you have felt, thought, said, done, or believe and don’t want them to know about?”

    We all do. This is significant because, as a species, we will literally die if we don’t physically and emotionally attach to another human being. Do you see how that question informs us about our childhood?

    The two people that we should be able to count on to accept us unconditionally won’t. The internal thought we have all adapted goes something like this:

    “I can’t tell my parents this! if they knew what I actually thought, felt, believed, or have done, if they really knew who I am, I feel certain they would reject me.”

    What could be more fearful than that?

     

    Inadequacy

    The fear of inadequacy is about feeling like we don’t have the knowledge, skills, or tools to accomplish something. It is an underlying sense that we may not be capable or good enough?

    Let’s say you did get that job you wanted. But, arriving on the first day, you don’t know if you possess the knowledge, skills, or tools to get the job done? And what about office politics?

    Who do you need to align with or avoid? Can you see now why stress is so out of control? By not calling stress what it really is, as professionals, we have left everyone inadequate to address their fears.

    Nearly every individual lacks the knowledge, skills, and tools to become an expert in healing their painful childhood and emotions.

     

    Powerlessness

    The fear of powerlessness is about anything we do not control, and our sense of safety is gone. Think of powerlessness as an I can’t statement.

    For example, “I can’t get someone to hear me, understand me, like me, love me, give me a raise, or recognize what I do.” How many times did we feel those feelings in childhood? Powerlessness is probably the most devastating of all the fear reactions.

    Since we are an organism looking to survive, feeling powerless is primal and can leave us in a constant state of hyperarousal. The chemical cocktail of that prolonged arousal is the primary source that leads a brain and body to become diseased.

    Now that we have a more transparent framework for the stress/fears we are experiencing, I offer some knowledge, skills, and tools to address these fears.

    To conquer rejection

    To conquer rejection, we need a new understanding that at no time are we ever rejected. A person may say they prefer blonde over brunette, steak over fish, republican over democrat, short over tall, less experience over more experience.

    Whatever it may be, their decision has nothing to do with us. Do you see in every instance, they are just choosing what is best for them.

    Even when they try to blame us, it has nothing to do with us. That person has just decided they would prefer something or someone else.

    Therefore, if we choose to believe we have been rejected, we have lost containment of our inner feeling reality and placed the decision on whether we have inherent worth into another person’s hands. To conquer the fear of rejection, we need Emotional Authenticity over our childhood pain and codependence recovery in self-esteem and boundaries.

    Conquering inadequacy

    Conquering inadequacy is the most straightforward fear to overcome. All that is required is to become an expert and gain the knowledge, practice, and develop the resulting skills until they become familiar and valuable tools.

    For instance, If you were leaving home, heading to college, and worried you’ll be lost on campus, arrive early, walk the buildings, and become familiar with the layout.

    Most relationship failures fall into this category. I find it fascinating that a person must have a license to cut our hair, something that will grow back perfectly on its own no matter how bad it gets butchered.

    But, we don’t take a single class on being a parent or having a relationship. The single most important and “stressful” adventures of our lives, we are lacking the necessary knowledge, skills, and tools. As my mom used to say, “we just wing it.”

    When it comes to redefining stress more accurately, we might consider a new way to look at the existing knowledge and contemplate it (skills) until our brain becomes acquainted (tools) and accepts the unique proposition.

     

    The solution to powerlessness is the most involved because there are many ways we need to address what creates our feeling of a loss of control.

    The main contributors for our loss of control are:

     

    1- Focusing on what we can’t control vs. what we can control

    2- The inability to say no

    3- The inability to trust the process of life.

    Focusing on what we can control

    When my client is stuck obsessively ruminating on all of the things they can’t control, I suggest that they grab a piece of paper. On one side, list all people, places, and things they have no control over. On the other, using the same categories, list all that they can control.

    For instance, there is absolutely nothing we can control in another person. But, we do have control over our thoughts, feelings, choices, and behaviors.

    So, when we feel powerless over others, all we have to do is focus on what we can control, our thoughts, feelings, choices, and behaviors.

    Learning to say no is one of the most empowering experiences we can have. I provide all of my clients with these simple criteria to ask themselves before saying yes to anyone or anything.

    I remind them that if saying yes violates any of these, it would be best to say no. If not, they are choosing to “give” themselves away and create their powerlessness.

    Therefore, they must own any result from saying yes and never blame or place responsibility on the other person.

     

    No Is the most loving word we can say to anyone formula:

    • Does this request go against my morals, values, needs, wants, negotiable’s or non-negotiable’s

    • If I say yes, will I feel resentful now or in the future?
    •  I feel they owe me, or will I keep score?
    •  I throw it back in their face that I did this for them?
    • Do I have the reserves to say yes?

     

    You see, if any of these conditions surface now or in the future, it lets us know that we were only saying yes because we were hoping to control the other person in the future.

    We did not do it freely. We may have done it for recognition or wanted something in return, or we went against ourselves? In some cases.

    We may have been too tired, but we did it anyway. In other words, we said yes when we wanted to say no, we created our powerlessness, and we are trying to take the anger at ourselves out on the other person.

    Anger in any form and at any time is fear, and most often, the fear of powerlessness.

     

    Not Trusting The Process of Life

    By nature, much of life is just unpredictable and out of our control. Many times in life, there is not an immediate solution. It requires something else to happen first.

    For instance, I had spent over 20 years reading, researching, and working with counselors to heal my addictions and childhood pain.

    It wasn’t until the divorce from my second narcissistic wife that all the pieces fell into place. As we all do, I picked a similar person to one of my parents to relive my unhealed trauma.

    I needed to experience the intense grief tied to my childhood, which could only come from my experience with her. She was the gift that created my freedom.

    I owe my life to her. Therefore, If you find you have taken action on everything possible but still find yourself in a powerless place, I suggest this five-step process.

     

    From Powerless To Powerful Formula

    1. Gather information
    2. If information is not definitive, wait for a life experience to bring clarity.
    3. While waiting, take action on what you can control
    4. Re-evaluate after each life experience
    5. Make empowered choice

     

    As helping professionals, If we want to help others conquer their stress, it might require addressing our fears of rejection, inadequacy, and powerlessness by providing the public with misleading and innocuous terminology.

    And, prescribing pills instead of giving them the knowledge, skills, and tools to gain Emotional Authenticity and heal their childhood pain?

     

    After all, fear is just an emotion. Why are we so afraid of it?

     

    * Disclaimer-

    The information provided is introductory only. In no way does this reflect the complete explanation of the fear process.

    Nor does it provide the complete process required to heal childhood pain, achieve Emotional Authenticity, or successfully navigate all the subtleties of the fear response.

  • How neurofeedback achieves what medication and therapy cannot!

    How neurofeedback achieves what medication and therapy cannot!

    I was reading in the preface of Sebern Fisher’s book Neurofeedback and the Treatment of Developmental Trauma: Calming the Fear Driven Brain comments made by her friend and mentor Bessel A. Van der Kolk, MD. Just a little background on me and Dr. Van der Kolk.

    I have been involved in the field of trauma almost from the beginning of my clinical career, which began over forty years ago. Before Dr. Van der Kolk had published books

    .I discovered papers he had written on PTSD and trauma resolution. The one that comes to mind is The compulsion to repeat the trauma: Re-enactment, revictimization, and masochism (1989). Dr. Van der Kolk may be the foremost expert in the world.

    on trauma, its effects, and its resolution. So it caught my eye that he was writing the Foreword to this humble clinician’s book. In the Foreword, he makes this comment:

    “Neurofeedback training has been shown to improve cognitive flexibility, creativity, athletic control, and inner awareness. I do not know of any other psychiatric treatment that can do this.” (Emphasis is by me).

    What astounds me about this statement is that Van der Kolk is a psychiatrist. I naturally assumed he would say that psychiatrists are trained to treat an individual’s disorders with medication.

    The context of this statement was describing peak performance for athletes using brain training with neurofeedback.

    However, the larger context was developmental trauma and how it handicaps its victims from interaction with the world and creates debilitating fear in its victims. He defines this all-encompassing fear as being

    “…usually the result of severe childhood abuse and neglect- otherwise known as developmental trauma- in which lack of synchronicity in the primary caregiver relationship leads to abnormal rhythms of the brain, mind, and body.”

    My astonishment subsided when I remembered reading in the early 1990s Van der Kolk encouraging his fellow professionals by saying,

    “don’t medicate your clients. Instead, learn and do EMDR.”

    This created vast waves of criticism from his peers. This was before he went to neurofeedback.

    For those who do not know what EMDR is, it stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, and Dr. Francine Shapiro discovered it in the 1980s.

    I was working with a population of clients crushed by childhood trauma and was looking for any way to help them more effectively.

    I was amazed at how quickly these damaged individuals began to respond and become better equipped in their lives. It was faster and easier on them than the prevalent theories of trauma therapy of the day. It is now considered a standard and effective treatment for treating trauma.

    I’m getting off track, but suffice it to say, I have great respect for the courage of Dr. Van der Kolk for continuing to pursue different and effective modalities of treatment for those who have been harmed the most by life’s events.

    Effective treatment than EMDR

    In 1998 I was challenged to pray for even more effective treatment than EMDR for not only trauma-related disorders like PTSD, depression, and anxiety but for anyone who walked into my door.

    So I prayed every day for something better. Then about ten years ago, it walked into my door.

    A former client came to see me. I had known this individual for about ten years.

    He was an elite athlete but had suffered from childhood trauma. When he sat down, he began to unfold the story of great sadness and disappointment. What was different was how balanced and emotionally regulated he was. He was so different that I finally asked him why.

    He went on to tell me another story of meeting an individual on the golf course, a cart girl, who told him about neurofeedback. Since I knew where he played, I had an inkling of who that young woman was. He thought I was a psychic because I was correct. He went on to tell me that he went to the clinic where she was a neurofeedback tech and started the process.

    My only exposure to neurofeedback was that young lady’s experience years before. She just happened to be the daughter of a dear friend who was also a clinician.

    Psychotic Break

    When she was a teen, she had her first psychotic break. I had known her father since I was a teen, and I knew his brother suffered from the same issue- manic, psychotic breaks, then deep dark depression.

    I called my friend and asked him how his daughter was. He told me they sent her for neurofeedback treatments. She came back well, had never been on medications, and had never suffered a reoccurrence of the disorder.

    I was dumbstruck. I asked myself, “Is that even possible?” To make a long story short, I called the clinician who trained my client’s brain with LORETA Z-Score neurofeedback.

    I spent several hours with this remarkable clinician. I even had a neurofeedback session.

    Finally, I decided to go all in. Was it possible that this could be the answer to my prayer and longing for something better to help the people who walked into my office?

    I think after ten years of clinically treating people with neurofeedback, the answer is “yes.”

    One more piece of background about me.

    I am a clinician’s clinician. Although I do a ton of research, I am not a researcher. I have never published a study, although I have read thousands.

    I believe I am built to help others heal. Although I am interested in the theoretical, I am much more interested in what works to heal people and help them be transformed into the people they were meant to be. I believe that is who I am called to be.

    Before I began practicing neurofeedback, I saw my patients heal substantially. They were less depressed, less anxious, and more engaged in the present in their life’s pursuit.

    Their relationships, and their families. They were better parents, better employees, and better spouses; however, if they had depression, it was more likely than not that they would spend the rest of their lives on medication.

    I believe that psychiatric medication is a stop-gap treatment that may help individuals get back on the horse if they have fallen off. Still, it does not cure or resolve the underlying issues which are under treatment.

    Medication

    Sometimes, however, individuals temporarily need the help medication provides. Psychiatric medication is not like a cancer therapy that successfully treats cancer and allows people to return to their pre-cancer lives.

    Can you imagine being forty and being told you have cancer, and then being told you will have to be on chemotherapy for the next 30 years? Yet, this is often what patients with depression are expected to do.

    And that was what my patients also experienced when they came in with depression. I would send them off to a psychiatrist or doctor. They must tell medication and still be on it and probably, even more, ten years later.

    I would counsel them and help them heal, but they would still be assigned a life where they would take a pill in order to live their lives, often with side effects from those pills. That is until I began treating people with neurofeedback

    Neurofeedback.

    When I began treating my patients with neurofeedback, they came in with complaints, and after treatment, they no longer had those complaints.

    They left emotionally regulated. We taught them how to literally change their brains so that they could control how they felt, how they thought, and even how to regulate different issues in their bodies. As a result, their lives can change.

    I’ll give you some examples of the powerful transformations I have witnessed since I began treating clients with neurofeedback. I had one client who had been a talk therapy client for several years.

    He had been sexually abused as a child, and besides suffering from PTSD with horrendous intrusive memories, he also had been on antidepressants for about twenty years for dark depression.

    Even on medication, he would have periods of debilitating depression. I offered him the opportunity to try neurofeedback.

    Unfortunately, he had to move away for personal reasons and did not complete our protocol, but we stayed in contact. He would tell me that he has no depression.

    I can’t get out of bed depression, to short episodes of what he called low-grade depression and anxiety. Finally, he came back. After the subsequent ten sessions, he called me up and said,

    “It’s gone! I am not in depresion at all, and I have no anxiety!”

    We finished his training with another ten sessions to ensure the brain had learned to continue regulating itself. But, again, it has never come back, which is consistent with the longitudinal studies on neurofeedback.

    I will give you another example. We had a young woman come in who was on the autistic spectrum. She was a computer scientist and a wiz at her job.

    However, she suffered from acute anxiety and panic attacks. We treated her for these issues, and she improved dramatically.

    We had a significant software update that allowed us to see how 8000 connections and 450 different metrics in the brain were communicating.

    Since autism is partially due to poor connectivity between the left and right hemispheres (autistic people are very left hemispheric dominant, which makes them great at repetitive factual detail.

    But makes them poor at gathering new and novel information), I asked her if she wanted to train the autistic network and see if we could create a new dialogue in her brain between the right and left brains.

    She said, “yes”! What happened after five sessions were totally different for us both. She wrote me this text that said something like this.

    “I am so excited. I feel like a whole new wonderful world has opened up to me. Besides being even calmer internally, I can see, hear, and feel things I have never experienced before! This is amazing!”

    She wanted to write a case study on her experience and present it for publication. She has also decided to consider going back to school and seeking a degree in neuropsychology.

    In my initial paragraph, I quoted the most prominent researcher in the world of PTSD.

    “Neurofeedback training is able to improve cognitive flexibility, creativity, athletic control, and inner awareness. I do not know of any other psychiatric treatment that can do this.”

    I have been a clinician for over 40 years. It offers individuals a new lease on life- free of emotional turmoil, life-long medication with side effects.

    About The Author Mike Pinkston:

    Mike received his Master’s degree in 1980 from Denver Seminary and has done extensive post-graduate work. He was certified as a Licensed Professional Counselor in 1995 in the state of Texas and in Colorado in 1998.

    Most of his practice throughout the years has been centered on helping individuals through complex trauma issues- Including sexual trauma, violent mental, and physical abuse to sexual addiction and sexual criminal behavior.

    As a member of the Tarrant Counsel on Sexual Abuse.

    Mike chaired a multi-modal committee of doctors, lawyers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and child protective services to create a screening and treatment protocol adopted by the state of Texas for the treatment of adolescent sex offenders.

    But that is not all, Mike also has expertise in PTSD and Dissociative Disorders, Codependence, Love addiction and love avoidance, parenting, and marriage and family structures.

    He has advanced certification in EMDR and clinical hypnosis. Mike has also spent over 25 years supervising and mentoring other clinicians.

    Mike changed the emphasis

    In 2012, Mike changed the emphasis of his practice from clinical counseling to clinical neurofeedback.

    After seeing the great benefits of teaching individuals how to change their brain functioning to overcome psychological and learning disorders, he jumped into this field with both feet.

    He has trained extensively with the top leaders in this field including Dr. Joel Lubar, Dr. Robert Thatcher, Dr. John Demos, Dr. Stephen Stockdale, and Jay Gunkelman.

    His primary expertise is in the quantitative assessment of an individual’s brain activity (QEEG), and retraining the brain back into normalcy using LORETA Z-Score Neurofeedback.

    He is board certified by the International QEEG Certification Board as a QEEG-Diplomate and is now an executive member of the IQCB.

    He is also a member of other professional societies like the International Society of Neurofeedback Research (ISNR) and the Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics. He’s also mentors medical professionals, psychologists,  psychiatrists, and other clinicians in learning how to accurately assess patients using QEEG, and then applying the assessments to practical treatment using neurofeedback.

    If you are looking for more information about neurofeedback or want to contact Mike for an appointment, contact at:

    mike@theheartmatters.org

    719-257-3488

    www.theheartmatters.org

    I am fortunate to have called Mike my counselor, and now my friend and colleague. I’m forever indebted for how he helped me save my life.

    I am also the client Mike is referring to in this article who walked into his office so drastically different which led him to become an expert in neurofeedback.

  • 10 Do’s and Dont’s For a Great Relationship

    10 Do’s and Dont’s For a Great Relationship

    Welcome back! Today I want to share the 10 Do’s and Don’ts to have a successful and loving relationship.

    something we all want in our lives. I’ll give you 10 Do’s, 10 Don’ts, then break down what’s causing the 10 Don’ts. Unless we deal with the core problem, we won’t be able to stop the Don’ts!

    Let’s get started with the Do’s – those in a great relationship have the following traits:

    1. They recognize it’s never their partner’s job to meet their needs and wants. It’s wonderful when they do.
    2. But they don’t expect it. They recognize it’s their own responsibility, so they put a plan in place to meet their needs and wants themselves.
    3. They don’t fear their partner will betray them. They aren’t snooping, controlling, or spying on their partner.
    4. They have general security that their partner is invested in them and cares about them.
    5. They see the world as basically decent – that people, in general, are decent.
    6. Sure, there are less-than-perfect people out there, but their general worldview is positive rather than negative.
    7. They see themselves as lovable and worthy of love. They recognize their great qualities and their perfect imperfections.
    8. They’re open to the possibility that someone else out there has the same feelings about themselves and is willing to accept those perfect imperfections.

      Don’t allow harmful behaviors.

    1. They don’t make excuses for them, and they don’t condone them.
    2. They recognize harmful behaviors as intolerable. They say no to them immediately.
    3. They don’t abandon themselves to be loved. They don’t give up their friends, family, hobby, or career to be loved.
    4. They keep attached to what matters to them, and if someone asks them to give those up, they won’t. That makes them available for a healthy relationship.
    5. They know their morals, values, needs, wants, negotiable’s, and non-negotiable’s.
    6. They know how to communicate with them openly. They aren’t afraid to ask their partner for help, and they don’t expect their partner to read their mind. They constantly communicate from this place of inherent worth.
    7. They believe in setting boundaries and that saying no is loving. They don’t see this as cold or problematic.
    8. Saying no means love because it removes the possibility of saying yes to things expecting something in return which is manipulative.

     See that boundaries create safety and love.

    1. They never enable, rescue, or play the parent with their partner. They know their partner will struggle, and they have faith that they’ll figure it out.
    2. They don’t try to gain false power or esteem over their partner by fixing it for them.
    3. Instead, they pick partners who can do it on their own.
    4. They embrace the fact that relationships are difficult. They don’t pull away or run away or quit.
    5. Instead, they stay engaged and recognize the difficulties are what create long-lasting intimacy and connection.
    6. They’ll use difficulties to learn about each other and gain deeper trust and understanding in each other.

    That is the foundation for people in healthy relationships. This is what they believe about themselves, and they always go back to that base. This is where they originate relationships.

    Don’ts

    Now let’s get into the Don’ts – the polar opposite of the Dos. You see these in almost every movie or TV show. What we’ve had modeled for us is very unhealthy.

    These things are not OK in a relationship. If you find yourself on this list, that doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.

    Don’t beat yourself up – you can’t be blamed for doing things you were taught to do. If this is the first time you hear these, that means this is the first day you have a choice.

    You can choose to learn new information to gain the knowledge, skills, and tools to have the relationship you deserve – that’s what matters.

    Own the past but don’t blame yourself. You can sit down with your partner and use this as a springboard to strengthen your relationship.

    1. They believe the partner should meet their needs and wants at all times. Even worse, that their partner should know what they are and that they never have to request them to be met.
    2. In almost every relationship, clients tell me they’ve told their partner what they want a thousand times, that they should know. I remind them that while that would be ideal.
    3. it’s important to you but maybe not to them. That doesn’t make them bad people. It’s not their job – their life is filled with their own needs and wants.
    4. Our partners are human, so yes, they’re going to forget. In a poor relationship, there is this constant demand that our partner is focused on us at all times.
    5. That belief is codependent, manipulative, destructive, and unhealthy. It’s never our partner’s job to meet our needs and wants. It’s wonderful when they do, but if they don’t – it’s not about them, it’s about us.
    6. Instead, we will want to look at ourselves and ask why we picked a partner who doesn’t meet our needs and wants as much as we would like?
    7. No trust. We need to control, spy, and snoop. We constantly put the latches on our partners because of our own fears, insecurities, and abandonment issues.

    A lack of trust in others is hiding a lack of trust in ourselves for our previous choices. That’s not about them, though they may have been perfectly imperfect.

     

    1. Ultimately it means we have a trust issue with ourselves.
    2. We then project our lack of trust in ourselves outward and might think everyone is inherently bad or deceptive – that everyone is a problem, everything is a danger.
    3. A basic belief that we’re unlovable or unworthy of love. This shows up in the first 2 traits. If we do the previous things, it’s because we think something’s defective in us.
    4. Instead of learning to love ourselves, we become controlling and hypervigilant to make sure the other person loves us.
    5. Oftentimes we are detached from these deeper feelings and don’t recognize our behaviors.
    6. Again, not because we are bad, but movies and TV have taught us always to play the victim and live in the fantasy that it is the other person’s job to adore us at all times.
    7. No one will love us unless we put up with this bad behavior. You may wonder why people stay in abusive relationships? I have a client who calls me every week, telling me she’s broken up with her boyfriend for the last time.
    8. The next session starts with how they got back together, and she laments about how he is still doing and saying hurtful things.

    violence in the relationship

    1. The violence in the relationship only escalates, yet she keeps going back. The going back is a product of the lack of love for herself.
    2. Like so many others, she is minimizing the bad behaviors.
    3. A need for constant approval and affirmation. This shows up in the inability to take criticism or be wrong. It is a belief that our partner will constantly have to have our back in any disagreements.
    4. There is a demand for constant support. I call this the Kardashian model of love. They speak about this often. I use this very extreme example to show how absurd that belief is because it brings home the point.
    5. if we believe our partner is supposed to meet our needs constantly and support us, have our backs, never go against us. it opens a door.
    6. What if your partner came to you saying they’re bored in life, so to spice things up, they will become a serial killer.
    7. If we were always to support them and have their back.we would have to be OK with that! If you believe your partner needs to support you constantly, this is.

     in essence, what you’re advocating for.

    1. Everyone is perfectly imperfect, and everyone has behaviors that shouldn’t be supported.
    2. It’s loving for a partner to confront and kindly show us we didn’t have a great moment.
    3. Sacrificing everything for the partner. You see this all the time – people giving up friends, hobbies, careers.
    4. I did this in my first marriage – in fact, I did everything on this list. I went about 10 years without seeing my family because it was what she wanted.
    5. All I knew were the messages from movies, media, and TV and if I loved her I had to sacrifice everything for her.
    6. We don’t know our morals, values, needs, wants, negotiable’s, and non-negotiable’s. Again, this was me in my first marriage.
    7. I remember laying on my bed as a kid, wondering who would marry me: if she’d be nice or pretty. I had no idea I could decide my morals, values, needs, wants, negotiable’s, and non-negotiable’s.
    8. I spent years waiting for someone to pick me up. It’s the biggest pitfall I see in relationships: we never sit down and ask ourselves these questions.
    9. Every area of my life didn’t line up with my first wife because I never sat down and mapped these things out – that’s on me. How could she meet my needs and wants if our morals and values were opposite?
    10. No boundaries and the inability to say no.

    Why do relationships break up?

    1. You hear people exclaiming, I did this and that for the other person, and how the other person wouldn’t do something for them.
    2. That means we did all those things in the hopes of getting those things in return. That is manipulation. It shows we didn’t want to do them.
    3. They went against our morals and values. The proof is we are throwing it in their face, keeping score, and resenting them. That’s why “no” is the most loving word a partner can tell us.
    4. We inherently know they won’t throw it in our face or beat us up in the future. For instance, My first wife loved to go to garage sales, and I hated them.
    5. But, under the guidelines of self-sacrifice, I would go, spending hours in the car on the weekends. Then at night, I’d be passive-aggressive, make snotty comments, and take it out on her.
    6. Where is the love in that? If you hear yourself in this, don’t shame yourself.

    Recognize you did the best you could, and you’re here, learning now

    1. Recognize you did the best you could, and you’re here, learning now. Commit to loving yourself, love your partner, by starting to say no.
    2. We feel a sense of recognition, power, and joy from rescuing, enabling, and saving our partners. This was me, again. My ex was a pill addict.
    3. I’d drive all across the state, going to her friends’ house, lying to pharmacies and doctors, trying to get more pills. I was totally enabling her addiction but thinking I was rescuing her from being hurt.
    4. I thought if I did this, maybe she’d have sex with me. It was all a manipulation. When people give themselves away to do for others, it’s a false power dynamic.
    5. They can harbor and sit in the resentment, never having to face their manipulation. I used to say I quit pro hockey, I gave up my family, I gave up sex, I changed careers, I changed my whole life for her:
    6. And she wouldn’t sleep with me. She wouldn’t stop hitting me.  I’m not condoning any of her behaviors, but I was never taught about the Do’s, boundaries, or a healthy relationship: I was manipulative and responsible. We have to take ownership of our part to change it.

    Relationships are avoided.

    1. These are the people that say, “Oh, I’m done with relationships! Men/women are all liars and cheaters.” If they are in a relationship, they won’t open up to their partner or be vulnerable.
    2. Instead, because of the lack of knowledge, skills, and tools, they stay stuck in their pain, avoid relationships and project the problem onto others.

    Finally, we get down to what causes all of this: most people live in the Don’ts because of their poor attachment with their parents in childhood.

    We want it to be about the partner, but even if they start doing everything we want, we have no shot if we don’t go back and heal our trauma.

    The 10 Don’ts are false coping skills we developed because of our parents’ perfect imperfections and the false models we have seen on TV, in movies, and the media.

    We adopted the Don’ts to survive.

    This played out recently. I was on a podcast where the interviewer told me how she wanted to become a lawyer because it was her parent’s dream for her.

    Luckily she realized it and stopped but her mom is still running her life, podcast, and business.

    She’s still trying to please her parents. I found out later her mother was upset with me after I explained this to her – the mom didn’t want to take ownership of her perfect imperfections.

    I find that so sad that parents have such a hard time owning their imperfections.

    I know it’s uncomfortable to admit these things about our parents or as parents to admit them to ourselves, and I’m not always the best at communicating it, but I’m not trying to blame parents.

    I do believe it is loving to hold them accountable but not blamed. My goal is to break the wall of denial down, and my heart is to do it lovingly.

    Every scientific process out there shows all of our perfect imperfections are a result of our childhood.

    If we’re not addressing childhood trauma, we’re not addressing the core problem.

    I’ll leave you with this: if you decide to face the pain from the past, I have yet to see one person whose life didn’t explode with joy, peace, and contentment.

    If that’s what you really want, this is the only way I have found that always works.

    Please share your comments – I love seeing what you have to say. Please share this message with those who may need it – so we can all get the relationship and love we deserve.

    Enjoy The Journey??

    CLICK THE IMAGE TO LEARN MORE

    You Deserve to Have a Deeply Committed, Loving Relationship.

    The five core elements of having your dreams’ a deeply committed, loving relationship free from codependence, are here waiting for you.

    This class teaches you how to create deep emotional connections that bring you and your partner closer together than ever before. While also teaching you how to heal pain from the past, so your relationship is free from codependence.

    First, we remove the intensity and fear of commitment by building intimacy, love, support, understanding, and appreciation. mutual respect instead of disconnection or distance between each other.

    Then learn a simple, straightforward process to apologize and forgive your partner. So that they can feel safe again in their relationship with you. Finally, it’s time for something new! A better life awaits if only we take action now!

    We have everything you need right here at our fingertips.

    All it takes is just one click! So join us today and start your journey towards creating more meaningful relationships through learning how to fight fair together as partners in crime who will always be there when needed most!

    This is not about being perfect but rather about being real. which means taking responsibility when things go wrong without blaming or shaming each other to move forward together into a brighter future filled with happiness & joy!

    Sign up today and create the lasting love and connection of your dreams!

    How To Create lasting Love And Connection
  • How to Fight Fair and Save Your Relationship

    How to Fight Fair and Save Your Relationship

    Today we’re talking about how to fight fair and save your relationship.

    We’re covering three main topics: reality arguments (the source of every fight).

    The basic ground rules for a fight, and a detailed confrontational model that will literally save your relationship. You will learn to love fighting – it will give you deep intimacy and connection.

    As a bonus, I put all of this together in a free pamphlet on my website. Be sure to check that out. You’ll want a guide to follow, and this lays it out simply and easily.

    I want to help you develop intimacy and save your relationship. So many are falling apart because we’ve never been taught how to fight. Let’s change that.

    We have to start with the reality argument – this destroys all relationships. A reality argument is based on me having a view of the world that’s different from yours.

    What gets couples in trouble is demanding the other person accept their reality. If I hold up a Coke can and ask if you want a sip of water, you’d think I was crazy. Think about the fights you’ve had with your partner.

    what have they been about?

    You see a Coke can, and they see water, different realities. We can never change a person’s reality, and our desire to change the other person’s reality is about us, not them.

    Each person has different views, memories, and interpretations of what’s been said and done. When we demand the other side accept our reality. That’s the problem.

    The other person doesn’t have to accept our reality; they get to keep their own. When I demand you see the world, as I see it, I’ve lost containment, and I am now exercising something called negative control.

    In addition, we have just made that person our higher power. We have given our personal power to them, and they now own us because our well-being is predicated on them accepting our reality.

    I know you’re sitting there thinking,

    “But it’s the truth; they have to see the truth!” I would agree with you completely. It’s true to you. But, they have their own truth. When we demand someone to accept our reality, it means they can demand that of us.

    Flip the table. If someone demanded that of you, you wouldn’t accept it.

    So how do we resolve having different realities?

    First, both sides need to layout their morals, values, needs, wants, negotiable’s and non-negotiable in every area of their lives. Basically, sharing how each of you views the world.

    Then, listen and see if your realities line up on these topics – see if it’s negotiable. Finally, with this new information, we get to decide if their reality goes against our morals, values, needs, wants, negotiable’s, and non-negotiable’s.

    If they do, we may want to think about leaving the relationship.

    You may go through these exercises and realize you and your partner have a lot in common – it’s just your recollection of events that don’t line up.

    This is where we move to the second phase: the ground rules for the speaker and listener in a disagreement. This is the first step in turning the fights from confrontation into connection.

    Using these ground rules will help us break free from the prison of the reality argument and start creating intimacy and connection.

    You’ll find that when you use this process. After that, fights aren’t so scary.

    1- The first ground rule for the person speaking is to moderate their emotions. So many times, we go into these arguments with our emotions on fire. It’s our responsibility to contain ourselves.

    2- When we share any aspect of what we’re talking about, we commit no shaming, accusing, blaming, judging, yelling, screaming, or giving the other person advice.

    3- Our goal isn’t to be right or to change their reality but to be known. We want someone to know who we are: that’s the goal as a speaker.

    4- We never tell them what they should think or feel. Doing so would create a real argument. They get to think and feel what they want.

    5- We never try to guess their emotions or read their minds. We want to refrain from making judgments about their actions or habits. Instead, we need to gather more information to understand what they’re really thinking or feeling.

    6- The sixth step is critical: no one ever makes us feel anything – we always have the choice about what we feel about something.

    A comment could make you laugh one day and make you really upset the next. We decide how to think and feel about something.

    It’s critical to recognize whenever we say “you made me feel,” we aren’t taking responsibility for ourselves. We are demanding the other person take responsibility for us, and that’s not their job – that’s codependence. Love cannot exist with codependence.

    7- We always use “I” statements.

    The Seven ground rules for listening are:

    1- We never interrupt, and we don’t take their blame. When someone loses containment, they may blame. We never take that on. Don’t accept it as truth, just as their feelings. Don’t interrupt to correct them. Listen to know them, not to be right or wrong.

    2-We are responsible for our feelings and the words we are using. We need boundaries to achieve this. We also need boundaries to know if we should take a break from the conversation.

    3- We listen to learn about the other person’s reality and view, not to form a defense. Defense is the first act of war. Instead, listen to learn about them.

    4- If we’re ever unsure about their reality, ask for information. It’s our job to gather that information and clarity. Always try to do this in four sentences or less. Don’t try to sneak in your thoughts and feelings.

    5- Own the truth. If the information they’re sharing is true, own it immediately. Remember, our goal as the listener is to learn more about them and take ownership of our side of the street.

    6- If what they’re sharing is not your reality, detach yourself from the emotions. Listen without judgment and accept their reality is different. Don’t try to change it. You’re learning about your partner.

    7- If necessary, after you’ve done the first six steps, negotiate a solution.

    Now let’s move on to the confrontation model. I’m going to warn you: initially this will feel very uncomfortable, dry, and clinical. But, I can not express how important it is to learn and stick with.

    As I shared in my book, my second marriage died the day we stopped using this process. We had used this confrontation model throughout our relationship, and our relationship was incredible.

    One day we disagreed about something and were using the confrontation model.

    My wife at the time was cooking at the stove while we were discussing a disagreement, and she turned to me and said, “Kenny, could you just stop all this and just tell me what you really think and feel.

    Quit being so boundaries.” I’ll never forget it: I looked up at the popcorn texture on the ceiling and thought, “Don’t do it. She’s just scared.

    You need to be strong for both of us.” Then I heard that too familiar voice, telling me that if I really loved her.

    I am supposed to give her what she wants. Sadly, that is a harmful codependent message we have all been taught, and it is not loving, kind, or authentic.

    I gave in to that destructive messaging and dropped my boundaries, spewing all my thoughts, feelings, and accusations. I went against all I laid out above. That one little yes where I gave myself away slowly crept in and killed our marriage.

    It has been my experience that this same dynamic is at the heart of every relationship difficulty. Using the confrontation model will save your relationship – every couple I have worked with that uses this process has a flourishing relationship.

    • The first step in the confrontation model is to share what you observed: just facts, no blame. Use “I” statements and avoid judging statements.
    • Second, share how you chose to make yourself feel about what you observe.
    • Third, ask for more information.
    • Fourth, request a change by saying, “would you be willing.”
    • Next, celebrate their no. Our goal is to make a request, not to get what we want. It’s not their responsibility to meet our needs and wants. We celebrate when they say no because we recognize it frees us and is loving.

    Think about how most relationships end? Each person exclaims how they did A, B,  and C for the other person and never received X. That means both parties said yes to things they wanted to say no to. They were manipulating and bribing their partner to get what they want. That is why the most loving thing we can hear our partner say is no.

    Some of those “no’s” may go against your morals and values, so step six is to share what you’ve decided to do for yourself about the situation.

    Step seven: we meet the need ourselves. Before we confront, we have a backup plan in place if our partner refuses to meet the change or request we make.

    Again, it is wonderful when our partner’s needs and wants match ours, but it is always our responsibility to meet them ourselves.

    How would this look in practice? I’ll give an example: a common fight is about intimacy.

    Here’s how you’d start: you’d request to have a discussion about the intimacy in the relationship and ask if it’s something you could schedule. You negotiate a time. Say you’ve both negotiated, shown up, and are present for the conversation.

    Here’s how the conversation would go:

    “It’s been my observation that, over the last three months.when I’ve tried to be intimate, I recollect that I hear no. About that, I make myself feel sad, rejected, insignificant, ugly, unwanted. So I was wondering if you’d be willing to give me more information as to why we’re not intimate.”

    Do you notice that there were no “you” statements, only a sharing of my reality and a request for information.

    They may have said something like,

    “What do you mean? We were intimate two weeks ago.”

    Obviously, they didn’t use the confrontation model. If they had, the response would’ve been,

    “I really appreciate you sharing. What I think I hear you saying is over the last three months.

    you have no recollection of us being intimate at all. About that, you feel sad, rejected, unwanted, ugly, and a couple of other feelings that I can’t recall. Do I hear you correctly?”

    The model is to give back what we heard and show that we’ve listened. They would then follow with,

    “You asked for more information. Are you ready to hear that right now?”

    You would say yes, and they would say something like,

    “My recollection is, two weeks ago, when we went over to Bob and Suzy’s for their dinner party,

    we both had a drink or two, and I remember coming home and us doing A, B, C that led to intimacy. Do you have any recollection of that happening at all?”

    Do you see the difference in that? The former reply was defensive, and the speaker would’ve never felt cared about or heard.

    Instead, the listener made sure to empathize with them and see if they heard the other person correctly and shared their reality maturely and moderately.

    Let’s say neither could agree on the reality. Then the speaker could request a change.

    I’ve heard that our realities aren’t the same. I’ve recently realised that I require more intimacy in our relationship. I was wondering whether you’d be willing to commit to weekly intimacy. Does that suit you?”

    Let’s assume the other person says no, coming back with making sure they heard them right, but saying it doesn’t work and once a month is enough intimacy for them.

    Then the speaker says they have to go off and think about it and let them know what they decide – they’ll see if it can fit their needs and wants.

    The example I gave is tough to meet the need ourselves – we all deserve physical intimacy. Therefore, it could create a problem for some people, and they may have to consider the relationship as a whole.

    I hope this helped you – I again urge you to print out the free PDF for you and your partner.

    I guarantee that if you get past the uncomfortableness, it becomes very normal and connecting and will save your relationship, and that is ultimately what I want for you.

    Enjoy The Journey ??

    CLICK THE IMAGE TO LEARN MORE

    Are You Tired of Being Taken Advantage of?

    Do you feel like people are always taking and never giving back to you? Have you ever felt guilty for setting boundaries with someone who doesn’t respect them? Are these codependent patterns robbing you of the relationship you crave?

     

    If so, this course is for you. It will teach how to set healthy boundaries in every situation and overcome the guilt or fear that comes with it.

    Setting boundaries is one of the most important things we can do for ourselves. It’s not selfish. It’s self-care!

    When we don’t set healthy boundaries, we end up feeling drained and resentful and our relationships are filled with codependency.

    But when we take care of ourselves by setting limits on what others can do or say to us, our relationships improve, and so does our mental health.

    You deserve a life where you feel safe and loved – let this course show you how to conquer codependence and break the fear of setting boundaries.

    It doesn’t matter if you’re dealing with difficult family members, friends, partners, or co-workers – this course will teach you how to handle any difficult situation with grace and confidence.

    And it also includes real-life examples, so you know exactly what works in different situations!

    Get started on your journey to your best life today by signing up for our online masterclass,

    “How To Set And Negotiate Healthy Boundaries.”

    Develop The knowledge, skills, and tools to set and negotiate healthy boundaries to create lasting love and connection.

     

  • Understanding Morals and Values | Codependence Recovery

    Understanding Morals and Values | Codependence Recovery

    If you’re recovering from Codependency and are searching for a way to improve your relationships, finances, or general mental health recovery.

    It’s vital that You:

    1. Understand your morals and values
    2. Ask for your needs and wants
    3. Determine your negotiable’s and non-negotiable’s

    Recovery from Codependency is not easy, but it is possible. In today’s article, we will cover the first step, understanding our personal morals and values.

    What is the difference between a moral and a value?

    A value is our deepest belief about what is right and what is wrong. Our values guide our decisions. On the other hand, a moral is our thoughts about those core values.

    Whether they are good or bad. Once we decide something is good or bad, it becomes our moral.

    Examples:

    • One value could be honesty. If a person puts a high value on honesty, they may believe that stealing is morally wrong. However, a person who values honesty less may believe that theft is morally right or okay in certain situations.

     

    • Another value could be professional success. If a person puts a high value on professional success, they may believe that working eighty hours a week is morally good.
    • However, a person who values professional success less may believe that working eighty hours a week is morally wrong. These people may value something like relationships more highly.

    Your values shape what you see as moral, which is why your morals will be different from someone else’s . your values may not align precisely with those around you.

    While you may think you know what yours are in the grand scheme of things.

    Have you ever actually sat down and considered them in-depth?

    When we begin defining our morals and values, we discover they are usually based on our parents’ or society’s views rather than independently determined ones.

    Taking a moment to consider your ideals allows you to evaluate why your life may not be where you want it to be.

    Look at your life story.

    Are the relationships in your past healthy and positive?

    Or are they filled with chaos and unhappiness? Are your finances where you want them to be? How about your health? Your career?

    If any of these things are causing you stress, unhappiness, or worry, this is proof that your current morals and values are not working.

    you don’t have a North Star guiding your path.

    However, if you’re ready to discover your morals and values, you need to ask yourself seven questions:

    1. Is my current set of principles and values assisting or hindering me?
    2. Are my principles and values influenced by power?
    3. Are my morals and values based on the desire for reward or the avoidance of punishment (particularly from my parents)?
    4. Do my beliefs and values stem from a sense of duty?
    5. Are my beliefs and values based on conformity and acceptance seeking?
    6. Am I willing to face punishment or rejection, casting off duty and conformity, to claim my own beliefs?
    7. What would my morals and values be if I thought for myself and pursued the greater good?

    Why does this matter in codependency recovery?

    Answering these seven questions helps us determine where we are in our recovery journey and how our morals and values may be hindering our success. Famed psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg developed a three-level theory on moral development that helps inform these questions.

    Level 1: Preconventional Morality

    This type of morality generally occurs between the ages of three and seven when we think only of what will benefit us. So we look for power, and we do what we can to avoid punishment. This is the fundamental essence of a child.

    If we seek power and are afraid of punishment, we live in the past and pre-conventional morality.

    Level 2: Conventional Morality

    From the ages of eight to thirteen, we see morals as a duty and a way to seek approval. A significant marker of a codependent is their desire to conform and do everything for others.

    Their esteem comes from outside sources. If we are only doing things for praise and to fit in with society’s values.

    we become stuck in codependence.

    Everyone has some level of conforming tendencies – nobody is immune – which is why this is a ‘conventional’ type of morality.

    Level 3: Post-conventional Morality

    Only 10-15% of people will ever achieve true post-conventional morality, meaning they will reach adult maturity. This research-backed statistic proves that most of us are stuck in Codependency.

    Unfortunately, this Codependency is very prevalent in our society; it is responsible for nearly all social unrest, trouble within our relationships, finances, and health.

    For the minority that does manage to make it to this third level, it means they are willing to cast off duty and conformity.

    They are ready to take unpopular stances and have unpopular beliefs (even if it means punishment and rejection) because it is the right thing to do and is for the greater good.

    What can we take from this?

    Codependents and most of society are stuck in level one or two of Kohlberg’s theory. And that’s why their lives are in disarray.

    If you have the morals of a child, those are the same morals you learned from your parents, not ones you formed from your own set of values as you grew.

    People with the morals of a child are not ready to take an unpopular stance. They’re afraid of punishment and rejection.

    Because they are unaware of the three levels of morality, most people may think they are pursuing the greater good when they aren’t. Instead.

    They seek power, achievement, and reward while avoiding punishment, which only serves to keep them in that first or second level.

    Those seven questions are essential in defining our morals and values because they help us identify where we are in our moral development.

    Therefore, becoming aware of your position is the first step in determining morals and values, which will help direct you towards the life you want to lead.

    If you would like to learn more, check out the video:

  • How To Create Unconditional Love

    How To Create Unconditional Love

    What’s always confused me about the concept of unconditional love are the buzzwords people use to define it?

    Words like kindness, support, and trust, but what do any of those really mean?  What is kindness, and how do you know when someone is kind? The same questions apply to all of the common buzzwords.  No one ever talks about this . They dump the words and exclaim, do those things, and you will create unconditional love.

    But how do you actually display each one? That’s what this article is about: the how.

    There is a process to create unconditional love – it’s something we have to learn.

    For me, the single most important aspect is safety, and not in the way most people think. Most people think about their partner being safe.

    I don’t see it this way. In my experience, the only way we get safety is to have it within ourselves.

    Until I’m safe, how can I bring unconditional love into me, express it, and accept it?

    Then the question becomes: how do I become safe? In all fairness, this article could be a book. So, I’ve picked the most significant keystones to create safety that fosters unconditional love.

    The first aspect in generating personal safety is that we have to know our morals, values, needs, wants, negotiable’s, and non-negotiable’s.

    Most people will immediately say they know these, but have you ever sat down and written these out in every area of your life? Your relationship, career, friends, hobbies, parenting, spirituality, politics, and all the rest?

    I see this in clients all the time, and it was true for me. Unfortunately, I was never taught this exercise, so I ended up married to someone with the exact opposite political, intimacy, hobby, and child-rearing beliefs.

    More focused

    Most people get into a relationship because they are more focused on feeling a spark and a sense of physical chemistry. Then, years later, they break up and lament how many morals, values, needs, and wants they did not have in common.

    Even the simple little things: do you need a clean house, or are you OK with it messy? That’s a need and a want. Now, is it negotiable or non-negotiable for you?

    After doing this exercise

    I discussed this exact topic with my second wife – we could find a tolerable level for both of us. If I know exactly what works for me, I know what to communicate to you about what works and doesn’t work. That’s safety.

    This is a major contributing factor to divorce: people haven’t laid these out and end up in a relationship with someone who has non-negotiable traits.

    Keep in mind that all of these will change throughout your life: you might pick up a new hobby, change careers, or even change political parties.

    Therefore, it would be best to keep this as a living document, updating it yearly.

    Second aspect

    The second aspect is boundaries. Most importantly, the ability to say no. We’ve been taught a lie to do and be everything for our partners.

    Always supporting them and being on their side. What if your partner decides to be a serial killer? You won’t support them and say yes then.

    Saying yes is the most contributing factor that ends a relationship because it is conditional and not truly loving. Looking back at your past relationships:

    why did you break up? In my experience, when describing the end of the relationship. Every person exclaims what they did for the other person and laments how they did not get certain things in return.

    That means they said yes to their partner only to manipulate and get something in return. It wasn’t unconditional! It had a price tag. We keep score and become resentful. Before we ever say yes.

    we want to ask ourselves three simple questions.

    1- Will I keep score that I did this for them?

    2- Will I bring it up in the future and throw it back in their face?

    3- Will I have resentment if I get nothing in return?

    You can see all three questions are basically the same thing, but we all classify them differently. So if we think we might have any of those reactions.

    we have to say no if we want to be trusted. A partner who says no to you also means they are kind because they will not hit you over the head with the “yes” at a later date.

    That’s safety. The ability to say no must be present to create unconditional love. As I always say:

    The most loving thing we can ever say to anyone is “No.”

    The next tool a couple needs to create safety that results in unconditional love is a confrontation model: a way to fight.

    A way to express themselves that doesn’t destroy the other person.

    Sadly, I’ve found that virtually no couple has one. If you would like to learn a confrontation model that makes fighting one of your favorite experiences and turns every fight into a deeper connection.

    I suggest watching my YouTube video titled “How To Fight Fair & Save Your Relationship” for the full process.

    The last piece is something most people don’t want to hear, talk about or face. but it’s impossible to create unconditional love unless both people are committed to doing trauma work on their childhood.

    Unfortunately, the level of denial in society about childhood and the wounds we all carry is the single greatest reason the world and relationships are in their current state.

    To believe our childhood was perfect means we aren’t in reality.

    We are all human – none of us were raised by a perfect God.  Bear in mind: the first psychology book was written in the 1870s, but it wasn’t until the 1970s, with the advent of TV talk shows.

    That we really started to talk and research what healthy parenting looks like openly. Studies also show that 70% of all childhood messaging was negative, disempowering, and self-sabotaging.

    No matter how great our family and childhood were, those messages are what are logged in our subconscious.

    Studies also show that 95% of our daily lives are just reliving the subconscious pattern we learned in childhood as adults. I know we think that we’re an adult and making our own decisions.

    But unless we’ve done massive amounts of work, we’re not and even worse, we don’t recognize that this is true for us all. Instead, we will deny it and shrug it off.

    This is not meant to disparage parents because each parent was taught by the parent before, so where would the blame end? There would be no reconciliation.

    Instead, it’s about reality and responsibility. Admitting the truth that we all experience childhood pain and are still reliving it brings us all together: it’s a shared experience.

    We have to own it as a society and see it as a joiner, not a separator. There’s love, trust, and truth in that without malice and hatred. It has empathy.

    Healing our childhood trauma is essential to creating unconditional love.

    There is an even deeper, more profound benefit created by healing our childhood trauma. Childhood trauma creates an emotional chemical addiction that our brain and bodies seek to repeat until we heal it.

    Can you see what this means about every fight and disagreement? Since we are all reliving our childhoods and stuck in our subconscious.

    All fights are just an attempt to reconcile the unhealed pain from the past. It actually has nothing to do with the other person. They are just a proxy we have chosen to teach us that we need to face our pain.

    When we know that truth, we recognize we picked this person because they remind us of our trauma.  Therefore, when we get angry or frustrated,

    we can ask ourselves why we wanted this in our life – after all, we picked this person!

    I’ll give you an example of what this looks like in action. My first wife was physically and verbally abusive. I would never condone that, but I adore her now, and here is why.

    Once I did the work, I saw she was my teacher. I had a family member who was verbally and physically abusive in my childhood .

    I was reliving the trauma I had never healed. I’m not condoning what she did, but it shows me that she was all I was capable of picking at the time because my brain and body.

    And subconscious had not been healed.  When I discovered this and did the healing work, I was free and had total forgiveness.

    I see now that she loved me perfectly for who I was at the time. The healing process allows us to recognize everything I hate about you is everything I haven’t healed in me. That creates a connection and ends the disconnection.

    There are two more things to recognize:

    the first is unconditional love takes time. It’s not immediate. Because of our imperfect childhood, our parents placed many conditions on us.

    We have to go learn how to do this unconditionally, and that takes time. Whether we’re 20 or 60, since we are all stuck in our childhood subconscious, a relationship consists of two children.

    A huge maturation process needs to occur, and we get to choose to do that together. I know this sounds demeaning, but it is not my intent. I want to bring light as to why we can’t find unconditional love.

    Finally, there’s one last piece to the puzzle. Everyone goes into relationships not wanting to lose the other person.

    They want to guarantee that person will be there for the rest of their life. That’s ideal but many times impossible. Furthermore, that’s a child’s fantasy.

    Unconditional love can’t happen from that place, and here is why. Our morals and values are living documents. If you’re 40 years old, think of how much your morals and values have changed in your life.

    Therefore, unconditional love is the recognition that the best I can ever do and expect is that today, I love you. I can only guarantee today because I am ever-evolving, changing, and growing.

    My morals and values shifting is not a rejection of you; it’s an empowerment of me by pursuing the best version of myself. If I’m pursuing the best version of myself, that’s safe for the other person.

    They can evaluate if I still align with them. And if I don’t, they’ll love me enough to say no and not try to change me or have resentment towards me.

    So then, I won’t see it as a rejection of me – it’s not about me.

    Their facing the pain from their past, telling me no, and expressing their morals and values gave me safety every single day.

    I am grateful for one hour or a hundred years of unconditional love if that’s all we are aligned for.

    The best we can ever give anyone is today. Nothing more. When that becomes our view of unconditional love, we’ve arrived. Now we’re safe, not only for ourselves but for others.

    Enjoy The Journey??

    You Deserve to Have a Deeply Committed, Loving Relationship.

    The five core elements of having your dreams’ a deeply committed, loving relationship free from codependence, are here waiting for you.

    This class teaches you how to create deep emotional connections that bring you and your partner closer together than ever before.

    While also teaching you how to heal pain from the past, so your relationship is free from codependence.

    First, we remove the intensity and fear of commitment by building intimacy, love, support, understanding, appreciation, and mutual respect instead of disconnection or distance between each other.

     

    Then learn a simple, straightforward process to apologize and forgive your partner so that they can feel safe again in their relationship with you.

    Finally, it’s time for something new! A better life awaits if only we take action now!

    We have everything you need right here at our fingertips .

    All it takes is just one click! So join us today and start your journey towards creating more meaningful relationships through learning how to fight fair together as partners in crime who will always be there when needed most!

    This is not about being perfect but rather about being real – which means taking responsibility when things go wrong without blaming or shaming each other to move forward together into a brighter future filled with happiness & joy!

     

    Sign up today and create the lasting love and connection of your dreams!

    How To Create lasting Love And Connection