Patterns, Maps and Finding Your Way In Relationships

Patterns, Maps and Finding Your Way In RelationshipsWe become who we are through relationships. Our early relationships shape and mold our internal maps of who we are, what we believe about other people and our expectations. These maps are largely unconscious until they begin to emerge in our important relationships.

Maps to guide us

These maps and the patterns they contain are acted out dramatically in our romantic relationships, but they also play out in less intense ways in all our relationships: with friends, with co-workers, even with children.

We are taught what love means in these early relationships. Those lessons become our “conditions for loving.” They come from how we were treated, how people talked to us, and how people talked about us in those early years.  They are the patterns necessary for us to feel loved.

These conditions will determine who we love and who we choose to be within relationships, both romantic and platonic. Everyone has conditions for loving

Continue reading

The Harsh Inner Critic Does Not Have to Win


The Harsh Inner Critic Does Not Have to WinHave you ever had a week, day or weekend like this: extra meetings, extra activities and a weekend trip to plan? You keep thinking you will get that piece of work that is due, done after you finish this one task. Unfortunately, “after” did not happen.

That is the kind of week I was having so I decided that I would write this week’s blog article during the weekend. As I was packing for my trip, I realized I had my computer but no power cord. I remained calm with myself and made a plan to stop by the office and get the cord on the way out-of-town. I picked up the cord the next day.

Saturday afternoon, between brunch and the evening’s event, I had time to write the article. I pulled the computer out and the cord was not in the case. I assume it was in another bag. After an exhaustive search of every bag and a trip outside to search the car, the cord was nowhere to be found.

Continue reading

5 Ways to Cope With Holiday Drama

5 ways to cope holidaysHolidays may be a great time to see family and friends.  They are also a time when we return to old patterns and behaviors.  When we go back “home,” we revert to the relationships we had growing up, instead of acting as the grownups that we now are.  These are the same relationships and patterns that formed our views of ourselves and our outlooks on life.  Along with this, unconscious conflicts may come to the surface, which will cause us to end up in a three-sided behavior pattern.

Continue reading

Station Eleven: “Survival is Insufficient.”

Station Eleven: Survival is InsufficientWe often read fiction as a form of escape, but I recently read a novel that was both entertaining and enlightening. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel speaks to choices we make in life and the impact they have.

The main character, Kirsten, was just a child when a deadly flu killed 99% of the world’s population in a matter of days. She survived by hiding in her home with her brother until the contagion had passed. When they finally ventured into the world, she carried with her a comic book and the memory of the famous actor who gave it to her. The object and the memory remained with her for decades, shaping her life. Continue reading