human nature tagged posts

July 16, 2020,  Family, Fundamental Human Needs, Life, Love, Relationship  No comments

As a child grows and has its physical needs met, there is also a fundamental need to feel safe from harm – bodily and emotionally. As with all of these fundamental needs, this need remains the same throughout life.

“Safety” here means the knowledge that someone—your parents when you were a child, and your partner when you are in an adult relationship—will always be there for you. You need to feel that this person will always be a “soft place” on whom to fall when you need someone the most, but also in good times as well as in times of distress.

For Beth and Roger, it’s about knowing that they are always there for each other, whether as someone offering greetings as the other comes home late from a day’s outing, or someone to be a d...

May 1, 2020,  Fundamental Human Needs  No comments

As a new-born baby, your very existence depended on your parents touching you in a loving way. It might surprise you to know that this was just as important as the food they gave you.

In the first few days after a baby is born, and before the mother’s milk “comes in,” the baby discovers the mother through touch. The baby may suck from the breast not for food, but for the pleasure of the physical closeness that activity gives the baby.

The colostrum that the mother produces during this time is simply for boosting the baby’s immune system. It has very little food value, which is why in the first few days after birth, most babies tend to lose weight before they start putting it on.

Mutual bonding is also important for the mother at this time...

March 20, 2020,  Fundamental Human Needs  No comments

These fundamental needs tend to form a ladder such that if the lower rung needs are not met, then the higher-rung needs cannot be met...

September 17, 2018,  Family, Life, Love, Relationship, Sex  No comments

“How often is normal?” is a perennial question.

There is really no answer, because what is normal for one couple may be quite different for another.

But what is normal for them depends on how they both respond to a whole array of things that reflect the state of the couple at any given moment.

Note, too, that some couples prefer frequent sex, and some do not. In fact, some couples have a very happy relationship without any sex at all. Let me qualify any misconception here by saying that the use of the term “sex” in this discussion refers to the physical act of intercourse. For many though, for whatever reason, intercourse is not possible, but this does not preclude these people’s capacity for closeness in a very intimate or even sexual way by some other definition of the term.

T...

August 9, 2018,  Love, Relationship, Sex  No comments

Although it is not always the case, men tend to be turned on sexually more easily than women. Men may also be turned on more easily by sexual stimuli, including fantasy. In addition, sexual tension in a healthy male begins to build again immediately after ejaculation, so men can be ready for sex again quite quickly, although this response slows down with age or health issues. Men can also most often complete the full sexual response cycle sooner.

Men and Sex

Ejaculation can occur on penetration, or even before, but this isn’t always accompanied by orgasm. That takes longer and requires a man to learn to control ejaculation if he is to explore the full range of pleasure he can experience...

May 7, 2018,  Love, Relationship, Sex  No comments

Sex doesn’t always mean love, but love is very much linked to sex. It is the one very special way you can express your love with your partner, at your most vulnerable.

We all know that for a relationship to remain healthy it requires open communication; exposing yourself honestly and emotionally to another person. It’s the same with sex. It’s just another way of having a conversation with your most loved. Most importantly, this should be the place in your relationship where you are most safe to have the freedom to express yourself in an open and honest way.

It’s seems to be a fairly common belief that being sexual and achieving sexual satisfaction are automatic responses that just click in out of nowhere if the right buttons are pressed and if the “recipe” is followed correctly...

May 1, 2018,  Counselling, Games People Play, Life, Love, Relationship, Script  No comments

Many years ago, people believed that a healthy relationship looked like this: two complementary halves making a whole. Now we understand that a relationship that looks like this is far from complementary and where generally one person in the couple dominates the other.

People need first to be whole within themselves in order to be happy with another person.

If we look at this issue from a Transactional Analysis perspective, according to that theory, we all have a mixture of personalities; we don’t just have one way of being. Instead, in different places with different people, we can actually relate quite differently as well. Berne described these different personality styles as “ego states...

February 26, 2018,  Family, Fundamental Human Needs, Life, Love, Relationship, Script  No comments

Please speak my language

In general, if you aren’t showed love the exact way you imagined love looks, it doesn’t at all mean that you aren’t loved. It has nothing to do with lack of love, but with the fact that we all of us have been scripted not only to value ourselves and others in particular ways, but also in the way we prefer to be shown love. We tend to create a picture of how we see love and this turns into the language of love that we speak with our partner.

Although you experience the expression of love from another in many ways they broadly group together according to the five senses. In the early stage of falling in love our senses become extra sensitive when we’re close to someone...

January 30, 2018,  Counselling, Exercise, Life, Relationship, Relationship Tips  No comments

Some people say that forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past. Ironically, the future and the present are caused by the past, and thereby the past becomes our future and the present defines our past. And the causes and the effects mix to such a level that it is hard to even understand where it all started in the first place and where it will lead.

For me, besides gratitude, forgiveness is the single most powerful way to create lasting change for the better in relationships.

The story of a young man perfectly describes the effect of “cause and the effect” – he arrived home from work to find that his partner of ten years had left. A note on the kitchen table said that she didn’t love him anymore and she’d had enough of his abuse...

December 30, 2017,  Exercise, Life, Relationship, Relationship Tips  No comments

Which Scenario Best Fits Your Relationship?

You wake up in the morning and lean over to your partner for a good morning kiss and hug or you grab your mobile, ignoring the person beside you, as you roll out of your bed to go for a coffee and/or a cigarette?

There are numerous ways to approach your partner when you want to encourage certain behaviours and numerous ways to fail in it.

We can so easily overcomplicate things, believing that there is only one way to get what we want and that is having ignored our partner we then get angry and demand, often through put-downs, what we want.

The smarter approach though is usually the simplest suggestion – to show you are grateful that he or she is there not just when you want something but all the time...