life decisions tagged posts

The Games People Play

The life that you ultimately come to live, and all that you think, feel, say, and do in it, is for the most part lived out subconsciously through the psychological games you play, and which are especially evident in your relationships.

Games are subconsciously created, subconsciously driven, and subconsciously played out. They are the outward expression, played out in your relationships, of the inwardly held set of beliefs that define your script.

Eric Berne, the same person who developed script theory, proposed that we play these psychological games for one reason only: as a way to find confirmation or validation for our deeply held values and beliefs about ourselves and about others: our life script.

To clarify this further, let’s refer back to the life positions Victor, Vi...

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The Five Secrets to a Successful Relationship – Part 2

The Five Secrets to a Successful Relationship – Part 2

Love – A Never-Ending Story

While I ended this story with “She lived happily ever after,” in truth, the “ever after” has not come to be yet.

The story is really never ending. Every day offers my partner and me new lessons to learn about ourselves and each other and new challenges, which, as we open ourselves to each other in love, provides us with even greater possibilities for ourselves and our relationship into the future.

This is not to say that we never have arguments or disagreements, but because we love and care deeply for each other, we attempt to find a resolution in a way that demonstrates that love and care and which is good for both of us.

Nor does this mean that disagreements are always solved there and then...

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The Five Secrets to a Successful Relationship – Part 1

A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, there was a young girl who, wide-eyed and full of dreams, left her hometown by the coast and followed her knight in shining armor to the city.

Their wedding was a spectacular affair befitting a princess and her prince, and they came to live in a castle overlooking the sea.

Years passed, and it seemed that they had everything they could want, including a lavish lifestyle with all the trimmings. They were a young family of standing in their community, with four beautiful children.

But, fourteen years later, this young girl, now grown and much wiser, looked for more from her relationship than it seemed her prince was able to give.

Through much turmoil and heartache, she ended the relationship and created a life as a single mom...

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To Forgive or To Forget

To Forgive or To ForgetSome 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...

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Couples Counselling Without a Couple

Couples Counselling Without a CouplePeople often wonder whether Couples Counselling works when one partner isn’t present at the counselling session. Absolutely, yes, it works. If one of the partners change, then the other will respond to the changes. Of course, this does not guarantee positive change or that the relationship will work out, but it does start changing the situation from its current, unsatisfying state.

Breaking the zone of comfort is stepping away from a zone of a relationship that is going nowhere and achieving nothing. Staying in what seems to be the comfort zone, you may be surprised to hear, is hard to maintain as it is not comfortable at all. Holding the decisions taken to move away from what is familiar and comfortable can be even harder...

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Is The Life You Have Good Enough?

Is The Life You Have Good Enough?

Limiting Feelings, Limiting Beliefs and Limiting Behaviours

There are various ways to relieve yourself from a script and a game your mind is used to playing. Many of these are therapeutic which includes many different techniques and practices. In the USA there are about 450 registered associations that offer different help for limiting beliefs, behaviours, and feelings. These three combine to create the scripts we live our lives by.

“Limiting” here means something that holds you back, restricting you from living a truly happy life. It refers to an old way of being that is no longer useful in your life. Feelings, beliefs, and behaviours based on negative past experiences can all be limiting if held onto.

In therapy, you get an opportunity to review those limitations and make changes so tha...

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Detecting Games in the Relationship

Detecting Games in the Relationship - The Story of Lyn and JamesThe Story of Lyn and James

“Lyn” and “James” have been married for ten years and have three children. When they first met, Lyn had just left school. James was fifteen years older and had already been in the workforce for some time.

At the time they met Lyn still lived at home, while James had his own place. Lyn looked up to James for support and guidance and he was able to be that at a time when Lyn was still new to adult relationships and adulthood generally.

Lyn was still somewhat naïve, so she allowed James to advise her in exactly how she was to act as his wife and even what she should be like as a person.

Then things changed.

Lyn grew up and started to have opinions of her own. But whenever she attempted to express them they had a disagreement...

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Are You Relationship Prepared?

Click on the flyer to see it in full size.
If you would like to attend the seminar please ring 02 99978518 or email admin@northernbeachescounselling.com.au with the words: “Yes I would like to attend the seminar”.

 

Are You Relationship Prepared?

 

Some excerpts from my workshops.

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Ask the Relationship Guru

Click on the flyer to see it in full size.
If you would like to attend the seminar please ring 02 99978518 or email admin@northernbeachescounselling.com.au with the words: “Yes I would like to attend the seminar”.

 

Ask the Relationship Guru

 

Some excerpts from my workshops.

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Stage 5: Happily Ever After

Happily Ever After

What do we really know about the power of two people who become a couple? Can we describe it with words, numbers or a vision? If for me the power of a strong relationship is expressed through my own experience and work with dozens of families, then for others it might even be expressed in the power of the family integrity expressed through much more than a life time next to one another.

I will share with you a story that moved both me and thousands of people around the world. This is a story about the power of the human spirit separately and as a part of a couple like a quadratic equation that gives the answer to the question that is Step 5 of the development of interpersonal relationships.

An inspiring example of a powerful couple

A story that keeps coming up in my local community is tha...

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