To Love Big, Think Small Everyday

Sustained repair and recovery takes little steps

It does not come in titanic waves, it is the small steady current that determines where the stream flows.

A full relationship recovery  is a quieter process. Relationships require a steady investment of time and emotional energy.

The way to sustain an emerging connection while repairing your relationship is to implement small changes into daily life.

I ask my couples at the beginning of every session what they have done to contribute to their relationship between sessions.

Couples that are on the road to restoring connection will be able to list the loving behaviours they have consciously done for the relationship. Small, thoughtful and touching gestures seem to make the biggest impact. These gestures may appear trivial and inconsequential from the outside, but will have deep meaning and resonance for the couple.

This week, one client remarked that he changed a light bulb without having to be asked. This had a tremendous impact on his wife and deep symbolic meaning for both of them, a powerful shift had occurred for them as a result of this loving, highly targeted behaviour change. The key now is to sustain this change. Remember keep doing what works!

In answer to my question about personal contribution I sometimes hear, “Well, I came to this counselling session, that’s something. Isn’t it?!”

Good start but it is not going to take you where you want to go, that is if your goal is really to connect and repair.

Love is a Verb. Action is required.

An experiment to try:

Pay attention to the way you say hello and goodbye on a daily basis. Stop what you are doing and make a point of welcoming the other home or sending them on their way.

This is an attachment ritual that is fundamental to the security of the relationship.

This may be the last thing that you feel like doing when you are hurt, disappointed or locked into a power struggle. If you are committed to turning the relationship around you will need to do uncomfortable, counter-intuitive behaviours.

Tags: Counselling, Love, Relationship

This entry was posted on Monday, October 18th, 2010 at 8:00 AM and is filed under IMAGO and Relationships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.