Sun Infused Water
Life Area: Survival
Biologically speaking, water is critical for the proliferation of life. All known forms of life depend on water. How connected are you to your water source? This week notice the amount of water that is a part of your day by drinking, washing and watering. A few times this week reflect upon not having easy access to this resource. What needs of yours would not be met if you didn’t have a supply of water ?
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged getting InTouch with Values, Value Awareness, Values, Water
Preparing for fall workshops in the community I was invited to a meeting to discuss what the school Counselors would like me to present in my Parenting and Teacher getting Intouch Workshops. In this meeting I learned many possibilities for supporting parents who are getting their little one’s off to school for the first time.
Sitting now at this end of the parenting years (17 and 19 years old) and looking back I remembered how lost my children and I where entering the first time. We didn’t know we were lost!
I would like to say the first time was kindergarten yet we discovered each year and each teacher is a first time experience. Sorry parents. There are the milestones of being in elementary, moving to middle school and then up to high school. Each time is a new experience.
Lets go back to kindergarten. Even after a few years of pre-school immersion and early child focused classes, school was a huge adjustment and learning curve for all of us. Besides being able to cut, color, draw, paint and create little projects children that are attending kindergarten are now expected to be able to:
for description of each point – go to link
Wow! My mother was a stay at home mom and these learning goals she left to the teacher. This was before kindergarten and pre-school! Wanting to be better prepared myself I did have my children in a part-time pre-school and filled their time with other learning activities like early childhood music and many socialization opportunities. We also had a full schedule of our own activities and play learning. Yet, when it came to school, we lacked the preparedness level expected of them. I discovered that I had focused upon a different set of skills and apparently so did the pre-schools!
The first ugly thing to rear its head that became a huge distraction for us was behavior. Yes parents in kindergarten. A wake up call. As a fresh new mom with beautiful and innocent children this was a nightmare and the last thing I expected. We ran into bully kids, bully parents, bully teachers, bully secretaries, bully school principals. No discrimination here! Yet they all had one thing in common. Each one was trying the best way they knew how to get their needs met.
I want to support kids in the best way I know how and that is through supporting parents, teachers and schools in finding new ways of integrating behavior awareness, that with practice, makes life easier and more fulfilling. Therefore after the requests of the above mentioned meeting and to support my current classes I have begun this series of supportive tips.
My goal focus is to present material to parents that would include the educators needs yet still include the parents perspective. As I was hearing the needs expressed from the members of the school administration I was able to discriminate my parenting needs without judgement either way. Unique, yes and it will allow a rounded outlook that includes more equality.
Parents stay in touch and find concrete solutions for supporting your children through tips and fall workshops.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Behavior, Children, Education, Kindergarten, Parents, Preparedness, Schools, Teachers
Life Area: Safety
Shelter is one of the basic human needs along with food and water. It is a structure that protects you from the elements and gives you a place to live. Notice your living space this week as though seeing it for the first time. Walk through first with the intention of identifying what features bring you (or not) a sense of safety. Walk through a second time and notice what features bring you peace (or not). Walk through a third time and reflect on what you would like to change.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged getting InTouch Values, Shelter, Values, Values Awareness
So much of your time in being a twosome is spend taking care of things and being busy. You both have schedules of your own and one with your partner and children if you have any. You know when family chores have to be done, when bills need to be paid and when anyone is unwell or sick. You strive to have a healthy home and family. But in these efforts to live a family life, you often overlook the glue that holds your family together. The intimacy in your relationship that makes you a couple. Everything around you may be nice but your relationship is suffering and needs tending and care. What are the telltale signs that your relationship is struggling?
1. Fear & Resentment
You know there are things you should be doing to help your relationship thrive, but you avoid them because they make you uncomfortable. Maybe they don’t seem interesting or naturally compelling or you believe in “following your joy”. You feel less confident about speaking up about issues that are important to you and put them on the back burner. You may choose the path of least resistance, least risk and least learning or effort until it is a crisis. With the added pressure and stress of a crisis, it is hard to do anything effectively or authentically when driven by fear. It’s a vicious cycle and waste of time and peace of mind.
2. Avoiding Issues in Your Relationship
Your relationship with your partner is unpredictable and wearing thin. You don’t have a clear sense of what is expected of you or what you expect yourself in each moment. You love your home, your children, your community, but at times you put your head in the sand when it comes to really knowing “where things are at” between you and your partner. You don’t know how to develop intimacy in your relationship. You have had more than your share of lost opportunities to be valued by your partner or to value them. The ego loves ambiguity and uses it to create stress and worry, robbing you of joy in your relationship.
3. When Meaning is Missing from Your Relationship
When you have put aside your faith or life philosophy for the relationship and if it is not the inner source for your actions it creates a compartmentalized life. Cut off from intention and source of what motivates you, your relationship can start to feel devoid of inspiration and purpose, resulting in depressed daily functions. This is often when partners say they feel alone in their relationship, with heavy burdens on their shoulders, contributing to relationships burnout.
4. Walking in the Disconnected Relationship
This is when relationships feels like work and as though there is no purpose. Your marriage can feel like there is no mutuality and that there is no point of connection. It is not easy and you feel like it takes huge effort just to get the smallest thing done. You feel resentment when considering how much effort, time and energy your relationship requires. You may secretly wish you could cancel your marriage. You have lost the memory of the positive aspects of what you once loved in being a couple. This is relationship burnout.
5. You Feel Abandoned and Alone
You don’t know where to turn or how to start. You feel frustrated at putting effort into this, or the efforts you are making are not yielding results. You feel discomfort, concern or fear when you and your partner move farther apart or disagree. In the absence of a thriving relationship in your marriage you begin to feel like anyone else would be a better match for you. You have lost track of you and the integrity of your commitment. You secretly hope that a new partner will have the qualities that you feel are lacking in your current relationship. You believe you should be enough and that you deserve to be loved and feel the affection that has been lost and that you will find this in a new partner. Sadly, we know that is not the case.
6. Current Communication Sucks
You are angry and hurt that your partner is not fulfilling your needs and that your relationship does not show your true self. You don’t care if your partner is getting their needs met in your relationships or not, yet you do care about what they are doing. You may begin to control everything to try and find the support you need without considering what they need or even to consider if they want to take part. Physical intimacy is a source of guilt and anxiety. If you haven’t had successful moments of intimacy in your communication experiences you may have become restrictive with your affection towards one another. Things are beginning to fall apart and you can’t keep on top of it. You may come up with ideas to fix things, such as replacing furniture, changing your address, increasing your family in some way, seeking therapy all the while hoping it will work this time! You may feel like circumstances are working against you more than they are working for you. Good news is, this is a pretty easy fix if you are ready, willing and committed.
7. Bad Communication
You tend to seek help when you realize that you are about to separate, maybe become divorced and lose everything you have worked for. Your goals have only ever considered your financial future and where you want to be financially in the future, where you will live, where your children will go to college and your retirement. You have never had clear relationships goals and no planning has gone into what make your relationship harmonious and one that equally values each person. There are no clearly established agreements that support what is meaningful for each partner. Somewhere an unspoken assumption is that one partner has to do what the other wants and give up their dream as we have been taught there is a winner and a looser. We have never experienced two winners in a relationship before so how would we know how to create this in our own relationships? Without the skills to create a relationship that each partner equally matters, you feel frustrated at the reality that learning how to do this is actually an ongoing process of building trust so that you can experience intimacy and rapport. It will need constant nurturing and attention for most of the life of your relationship.
As a fellow human being who loves being in relationships, I have had times in my life when I have experienced relationships when they were not in balance, resulted in separation and divorce. On a daily basis, clients come for support to regain wellness and balance. Most times it is the end of their relationship and not at the beginning or middle when it would be time to seek support to create wellness in the relationships now for future sustainability. If your marriage is in the spirit of who you are, what you do is the relationship. You need wellness in both to create thriving intimate relationship.
At getting Intouch Coaching, I specialize in helping partners in relationships move into healthy balance to create thriving and intimate relationships mentally, emotionally and physically. Connect with me at Inside Awareness for Healthy Living to find out how to increase the vitality in your relationship. Isn’t now the time to begin to take the steps and make the effort where it really matters? In the center point from which all your experiences start from? Contact info is renee (at) insideawareness (dot) com or two,five,zero-three,six,one-seven,five,zero,eight.
Intimacy in relationships begins with an experience! Intimacy begins with tenderness in our skill of listening and ability for reflecting back. It is our willingness to hear and not to only be heard.
I believe it is more important to create an experience of intimate connection in conversation first before mastering the correctness of how to speak to each other. Ever coach a couple only to hear one partner tell the other how it’s done? Intimacy maker? No! If you forget how it should be done and have the experience of intimate connection you are more apt to take chances, be creative and develop your courage to tell each other what really matters. This is when I experience couples commit to keep trying to hear what is meaningful in what the other person is trying to share. If you have to learn how to do it and get it right first, before the connection, it tells me that you are feeling frightened and need the safety of being right and getting your way at the expense of your partner.
Therefore with couples the primary focus is to walk them through a dialogue dance that isn’t focused on how to do it. It is focused on doing it and accepting whatever arises so that it is easy for them to feel heard and understood. This is when they feel safe to share important issues.
Each partner is being coached to make the dialogue about themselves to translate each story they bring up into being about themselves and never staying in the habit of making it about the other person. Talk is slowed down so that each partner can reflect and that the dialogue is never one-sided. It means pausing to connect to what is being said before bringing up other issues so that both have a say.
It definitely isn’t for the faint hearted. It is for couples wanting to work on their intimacy, vulnerability and grow their relationships to bring warm loving kindness and spiciness back into the experience.
This week I had an opportunity to stand beside and guide couples into their vulnerability to the point the veil of self protection fell away. From this place of deep meaning it is one of the most tender sweet spots to find oneself in. By standers included! You are where it really matters. When couples commit to continue coming back to try and express in a way they both can be heard, isolated behavior and fear looses its power, humor develops and it becomes easier. This is when it becomes about the relationship and not about winning.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Behavior, Couples, getting InTouch, Intimacy, leadership, Love, Loving Kindness in Relationships, Partners, Relationships, Vulnerability
Inside Awareness Center for Integrative Somatic Learning 