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Stop Tearing Down and Start Building:

5 Ways to Enrich your Relationship Today

Frustrated by the way your relationships are going? Feeling like you’re always at odds with someone at home or at work? Here are a handful of tips you can use to revitalize your relationships and improve your interactions with others.

1. Look for the positives and focus on the other person’s strengths. For example, you might start by noticing how well your spouse manages his or her job, commitments at home, balance between free time and family time, or anything else. As you observe him or her, begin commenting about what you’ve seen like this: “You do a really good job with __________” or “I’m impressed that you were able to accomplish _________ today.” Dr. John Gottman says the magic ratio is 5 positive interactions for every 1 that is negative. In order to compensate for the inevitable bumps along the way, make a concerted effort to recognize the positive qualities of those around you each and every day.

2. Employ active listening skills. Active listening initially includes paying attention, withholding judgment and reflecting the other person’s words by repeating them back to him or her. This is especially important—and challenging—when there is conflict. As you take the time to slow down and focus on your co-worker’s point of view, you may find yourself less focused on making your case and more willing to reach a mutually beneficial solution. If you want additional information on this topic, look here: https://www.ccl.org/multimedia/podcast/the-big-6-an-active-listening-skill-set/

3. Take care of yourself. As you are able, focus on eating well, getting enough sleep, drinking water throughout the day, exercising, and managing your stress. This will have a positive impact on yourself and everyone around you. If you need help remembering to do these things, enlist some support partners. You might also use an app like Wunderlist to organize your goals and set reminders.

4. Look for common interests and seek to engage in those whenever possible. When you think of your relationships, consider whether there are any favorite activities, interests, or even favorite foods that could bring you and the people you love together. For example, you might consider setting up weekly, bi-weekly or monthly dates to spend time with each of your children. Enlist their help to come up with ideas of things they’d like to do or explore with you, and work your way through the list you compose.

5. Before you speak, consider the things you often say. If you are frequently at odds with someone in your life, think about the phrases you find yourself repeating to that person. Perhaps you need to change what you are saying so your family member can really hear the message. For example, if you find that you are constantly telling your dad that he’s embarrassing you in some way, maybe you could tell him some things you appreciate about him (see #1) and then give him a few tips about what he could say or do when he’s around your friends.

These five tips may seem simple, but will require a concerted effort on your part. If it seems overwhelming to implement all five at once, start with the one that seems the most likely to create positive change and work your way through the rest as you are able. Though you may encounter resistance at first, you will soon notice small differences in the relational atmosphere. If you or someone in your life would benefit from the help of a psychologist as you work to improve your relationships, please call our office at 215.491.1119.

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Rejuvenate your Relationships:

Applying the Gottman Method, by Emily Israel, M.S.

Relationships can provide us with comfort, security, enjoyment, pleasure, love, companionship, support, safety, and care. However, we can feel very distressed when our relationships lack these positive experiences. Most of us have experienced challenges in relationships with a partner or loved one at some point. There are ways to support the development of healthy relationships, as well as ways to help a relationship that has become more conflictual become healthy once again.

John Gottman, Ph.D., and his wife Julie Gottman, Ph.D. spent many years researching aspects that support healthy couple relationships and found tools that can benefit both couples and other relationships.

Ways to support a healthy relationship according to Gottman Research: 

  • Get to know the other person’s needs, values, past experiences, priorities, and stresses.
  • Experience and express love to those with whom you share a relationship (more specific to romantic partners but can apply to other loved ones). 
  • Turn towards your loved one and respond when they engage you. Create opportunities to spend time together to support the building of connection.
  • Try to view the person from a positive perspective.
  • Management of Conflict
    • Engage in active listening skills to develop empathy: listen intently to the person’s feelings and acknowledge them by validating and summarizing what you heard them say. 
    • Avoid defensiveness: Take accountability and create an improvement plan. Acknowledge your role in an argument and pick one way you might make it better.
    • Avoid attacking the other person’s character or criticizing them: Start with “I feel” and describe what created the feeling without attacking without directing at them and share what you need to feel better.
    • Resist Stonewalling: Stonewalling is when we become frustrated in a conflict and we walk away from our significant other or withdraw. When you are tempted to tune out a loved one, consider engaging in self-soothing techniques and taking a timed break to give yourself time to calm down instead. This break should be no more than 24 hours and is meant to bring down each person’s heart rate so that you can re-engage effectively.  
  • Discuss future dreams and understand each other’s goals to create shared meaning.
  • When one person is stressed about something such as an incident at work, unrelated to the relationship, join in on how they feel and support their position on the issue.
  • Demonstrate trust and commitment to one another.

If you would like to develop these skills further and rejuvenate any of your relationships, please contact us at the Center.

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