love tagged posts

October 21, 2021,  Family, Life, Love, Relationship, Script  No comments

As I now understand it as an adult, one of my script beliefs came to be that my needs are not important. I felt that I was only as good as the cog in the wheel that drove the machine that was our family business.

The interesting thing to note here is that it was fairly likely that my parents never actually intended for me to acquire this belief, let alone having it be one that I would grow up with and take into my own adult relationships. My perception of my life as I was growing up created my script beliefs, regardless of my parents’ intentions.

And, of course, this belief did go with me into my adult relationships and into my fi...

June 15, 2021,  Family, Life, Love, Relationship, Script  No comments

We learn about our sexuality—acting male or female—from the parent of our own sex, but we learn about our sensuality—being feminine or masculine—in our relationship with our parent of the opposite sex.

Let me add what is actually an inconsistency in this theory. That is that while my siblings, male and female, were exposed to the same qualities in our parents, what they decided for themselves regarding their roles as adults, and how they would be sexually with their own partners, may actually have been quite different from me. This is where genetics actually plays more than just a small part in forming who we become as adults.

As I’ve noted, your own personality will impact on how you actually turn out, but as a general rule, if you are a female you are more than likely ...

May 20, 2021,  Family, Life, Love, Relationship, Script, Sex  No comments

Let’s apply this notion to the concept of being a couple. Your script for life, which influences your values, beliefs, and attitudes (and consequently, what you think, feel, say, and do), also contains rules, or guidelines, about being a couple in a relationship.

Because your script (and therefore your rules for being a couple) was first given to you by your family, you will most likely grow up and live out their relationship rules accordingly.

The relationship rules in your script tell you how to communicate with your partner, how to express love to each other, and how to interact with each other sexually.

So, if your parents showed you that it was OK to put each other down, then you will have that in your scripting as well – either as the person who puts others down or as...

September 24, 2020,  Family, Fundamental Human Needs, Life, Love, Relationship  No comments

The fulfillment of this need offers you peace of mind in the knowledge that you are not alone and that the struggle of life is not yours alone to bear. You are one of many. You are a member of your immediate family, your extended family, your community, and all the nations of the world.

Every one of you, from the day your parents first dropped you off at child care or preschool to the day you became an adult and left home to make a life of your own, are learning to fit into a social group and do so even when it is uncomfortable. The reason for this is simply that you have a need to love and belong.

Therefore, for you as an adult, your love and belonging needs have to do with all the things that bring other people into your life, together with the shared enjoyment of that...

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...

February 24, 2020,  Counselling, Family, Games People Play, Life, Love, Relationship  No comments

I would like to say something about the title of my book Love, Lies, and the Games Couples Play. Put simply, love, and all that it embodies for us, is what each of us seeks in life above all else. It is the main reason we enter into relationships in the first place because it gives us a place to belong and to feel connected to others.

The “lies” in the title refers to the mistaken attitudes and beliefs that we hold about ourselves and about others. These are most likely based on someone else’s thinking which in the first instance were probably our parent’s. And as these beliefs were presented to us at a time when we were not able to make well-considered decisions for ourselves, they are not necessarily reflective of our current subjective truth.

Those beliefs, and the w...

December 23, 2019,  Counselling, Exercise, Family, Life, Love, Relationship, Relationship Tips  No comments

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...

November 25, 2019,  Life, Relationship, Relationship Tips, Script  No comments

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...

March 13, 2019,  Counselling, Exercise, Life, Love, Relationship, Relationship Tips  No comments

I use the acronym TOUCH to remember the five ways of funding my love bank.

T is for Time

Relationships aren’t part-time arrangements. And, if your relationship is fed on left-over time (the time you have after everything else has been done), your love bank will very quickly be depleted.

Your relationship must take priority over everything else (other than yourself). You come first, your partner comes second. Your family is third, your work is next, and finally there are your extended family and other friendships beyond that.

This is not to say that you can’t work because you must always be with your family. It just means that you must always keep your family’s needs in mind if you are doing something of lower priority (like working)...

January 24, 2019,  Life, Love, Relationship, Relationship Tips  No comments

Theoretically, the more money you invest, the greater the return. And if you’re a patient investor, you can even double or triple the return. Similarly, the unconditional love you give to your partner is a very wise investment.

And just as you build a money bank by depositing funds you make deposits into your “love bank” when you help meet your partner’s five fundamental needs—physical, safety, feeling, love and belonging, and spiritual—and also when you use the sexual enhancers discussed earlier.

You also make deposits by speaking your partner’s love language at every opportunity.

However, just like a bank, if you fail to make deposits into your love bank, your account is in danger of being depleted by fees and charges...