Tag Archives: Healthy Living

Top 7 signs your love relationship is struggling

RelationshipSo 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.

 

Body Image and Breathing

by Renee Lindstrom, GCFP @ Inside Awareness, Living in Natures Love Blog & Renee Lindstrom Live

PrintExplore Feldenkrais in 2 ways:
  1. Group Glasses & Workshops called:  Awareness through Movement or ATM (Classes below)
  2. Individual Sessions called:  Functional Integration (for increasing available movement for conditions, injuries, athletes, musicians, dancers and development

Cultivating Awareness through ATM focused upon Breathing


First Movement Awareness Workshop in a Series of Three called,  Breathe Easier 

The focus of our recent workshop was our spine and the relationship between the spine and breathing.  Yes, the spine!  Consider a moment if you have ever connected to the flexibility of your spine to the quality of breathing you are experiencing.   To begin integrating the vertebrate and spine into breathing, we began with a  picture demonstrating the curvature of the spine.  The intention was to start releasing a rigid posture into a more relaxed one through use of our imagination.  How many times to you visualize your spine in a day?

Learning then shifted focus as we went  into experiencing some simple movements.  Steps were added to increase the experience as we went along.  The awareness came through the changes class members began to notice in themselves.

For their benefit, here are some reminders for the week ahead.  Each one can be done separately during the day or in combination by adding the steps in progression.  REMEMBER:  The quality of your movement matters.  Slow it down, make it same and learn to cut your effort.  Do only 20 percent of your big movements!  Learning matters and it only happens when you slow down and pay attention.

Breathing Logo

CHEST & BELLY

  • Soften upper chest area to allow expansion and retraction with in and out breaths
  • Remember there are no lungs in the belly.  Belly breathing is specific to an activity like singing, dance – it is NOT the only way to breathe
  • Begin to pull belly in when breathing in and notice where the air goes.
  • Begin to push out breath in to belly and notice the chest sink.
  • Practice this for a few rotations during the day, perhaps when waking and before going to bed and let the practice go and simply notice any differences.

ROCKING YOUR SPINE

  • Spend time sitting on the front edge of your chair and notice if you can sense your sit bones.
  • Feet flat on floor under your knees.
  • Knees and legs in alignment to your hips, so, hip width apart.
  • Relax your back so that you can sense any slight adjustments
  • Notice your head on top of your spine and that it is  opposite your pelvis.
  • Unlock your neck and as you breath in bring your weight forward on your sit bones.
  • Let the movement come from your pelvis and continue to relax your upper body.
  • After following your in breathe several times begin following your out breath
  • As you breath out let your weight shift back on your sit bones. 
  • Continue to soften upper chest and neck.
  • Begin to alternation and notice when your lower back arches forward and when it rounds back.

SLIDING SHOULDER BLADES

  • Hands resting on your thighs.
  • A few times as you breath in bring your shoulder blades closer to your spine.
  • Then switch and as you exhale widen the space between your shoulder blades.
  • Alternate for a few breaths and then stop and notice any changes.

TIPPING HEAD

  • With an in breath let eyes, nose and chin travel up so that your chin moves away from your chest.
  • After a few in breaths stop and follow your outward breath.
  • When you exhale let you chin drop slightly towards your chest.
  • After some time begin to alternate with your cycle of breathing.
  • Stop and notice where your attention goes.

EYES

  • Soften your eyes.
  • Begin to let your eyes travel up to the ceiling as you breath in and bring them back to the horizon in front of you as you exhale.
  • After some time begin to let your nose and chin travel up after your eyes start the movement.
  • Notice if you see everything in between the two points or do your eye jump.  What do you need to do to slow your eye movement to see everything?
  • Stop, wait a moment and notice.
  • Now take your eyes down towards the floor a few times with your outward breathe.
  • Add the movement of the chin and nose letting your eyes lead.
  • Stop, notice for a few breaths and then begin to alternate between the two.
  • Stop and notice.

As mentioned above, benefits can be achieved by practicing each of the above separately or doing one movement for a short time and then adding the next area to it increasing it.  REMEMBER  it is to be done slow, easy with many stops for noticing changes.  It’s not in the effort, it in learning to cut your effort.

See you all at the second in our series.   I look forward to seeing how you have integrated the changes and if your movements reflect your own image of what you are going.  Sometimes we think we are doing something and it is not what is actually happening.  One of the benefits of being coached is a coach can see the outcome more clearly!


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Renee Lindstrom, GCFP,
Feldenkrais® Practitioner since 2007, Value-Based Communication & Empathy Coach since 2004, Art of Placement  since 2000, Founder of Greater Victoria Peace & Intercultural Celebrations since 2010 & Greater Victoria Labyrinths since 2012, #yyj Peace Week Calendar Founder – 2014 & 2015

7 PROGRAM EVALUATIONS – AWAKING RELATIONSHIPS FOR COUPLES

Here are the results of seven evaluation forms filled out at the ending of a  Spring, 2013  4 workshop series on relationships for couples hosted by Renee Lindstrom, Inside Awareness – getting InTouch programs:

Program – 6/7 Exceeded expectations

Notes on Instructor:

  • Instructor was informative, gave excellent practical tips and tools!
  • I attended at first with a very vague idea of the philosophy.  I came away with a great explanation and much info to work with from this point on.
  • I learned a lot of useful skills and information.  It has dramatically improved our relationship.
  • It helped me instantly
  • There was a lot of information and understanding that came about over the 4 classes.

What do you like best about this centre?

2/7 This class! 5/7 didn’t fill out

Scale of 1 -5 (5-excellent) on the following qualities:

Organization                                                                      5, 3, 5, 4, 5, 5, 5

Enthusiasm                                                                        5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5

Personality and Professionalism                              5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5

Ability to convey their knowledge to you            5, 4, 5, 5, 5, 4, 5

Additional comments:

  • Instructor was able to provide structured information and still be flexible in adapting to the class.
  • Excellent Teaching

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Have you set yourself up for failure or success in writing out your goals?

Goals are action requests of yourself!  You are longing for change in an area of your life and the goal you create is the challenge you make to jump-start and motivate this change.

How you word this goal sets you up for failure or for success, so take a moment and review how you have stated your goal.  Have you made a clear action request of yourself or have you made a generalized statement.  Lets use a popular goal of loosing weight.  If you have stated that your goal is to go on a diet, it is too general and not an achievable and doable action request.  Your setting yourself up to fail.  However, you could re-frame this by stating  your resolution is to lose x number of pounds per week/month or by a set date.  This request is now something that you can  now plan to achieve.

By Renee Lindstrom, January 1, 2013

‘Exercises to notice rotational mobility’

From the Feldenkrais Center Newsletter – Toronto

Simple turning exercises like the one below will help maintain rotational mobility.
Try this:

*Please note this exercise should be done slowly and gently
either standing or sitting in a straight-backed chair.

1. Turn your upper body and head to look to the right. Return to front, pause. Observe how far right you were able to see.

2. While keeping eyes still, and focused straight ahead, turn the head and upper body to the right. Return to front.
Notice any restrictions in turning while eyes are fixed and stationary.

3. This time turn the shoulders and upper body to the right while the head and eyes face forward. Return to front, pause

4. Repeat step 1. Notice how far back you can see now & the improved quality of turning.

*Repeat steps (1-4), this time turning to the left.
Do this exercise 3-4 times on both sides.

The Feldenkrais Center Newsletter