Gottman was studying how couples manage difference and how this is critical to the success of the marriage. There were a number of factors that he identified that could indicate the chances of a relationship failing.

He called these factors the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and he wrote a book called “Why marriages succeed or fail” based on his findings.

He noticed that in failing marriages there were certain patterns that appeared to be common indicators. He analysed these behaviours and grouped them into four categories; stonewalling, defensiveness, criticism and contempt.

Stonewalling is about avoidance; certain topics become off limits so we don’t talk about them.  This can be a mutual decision or one partner overtly refusing to discuss a “hot” topic.

Defensiveness is linked to apprehension; not taking responsibility and by implication wanting to blame someone else.  When we become overly defensive we may start seeing conflict where it doesn’t exist and give out hostile defensive vibes toward our partner.

Criticism is about antagonism; attacking the other party overtly. Critical behaviours can become habitual and reflexive. The trap of criticism explodes when we start to criticise even the smallest thing, for example how someone loads the dishwasher!

Defensiveness and criticism are usually two sides of the same coin, where one side wants to attack and the other side parries. This is a common pattern in relationships, often one partner adopts the critical role while the other is defensive. Sometimes there is a flip flop effect but more often roles are adopted.

Contempt is about aversion and is considered to be the worst and most poisonous horseman.  At this point affection and love have been dissolved by the acidity of contempt. To begin with this feeling may be experienced only now and then but each time it appears it strengthens. Over time contempt destroys love.

The most obvious non verbal cue of contempt according to Gottman is eyeball rolling. In some couples this has become a regular signal. A more subtle signal can be seen when examining micro-expressions such as the asymmetrical lip curl to demonstrate contempt.

Micro-expression last typically less than a twenty fifth of a second. You can learn to recognise micro-expressions by improving your visual acuity through disciplines such as NLP or courses run by Paul Ekman‘s associates.

Unconsciously we already recognise micro-expressions and if our partner is regualarly flashing contempt at us we will get that at an unconscious emotional level.

Something I have observed in couples behaviour is how in some cultures, particularly the British, criticism and contempt in relationship are culturally supported. I notice this most often when in a female only group when women talk about their partners.

Women often spend time criticising and putting down their partner in discussions with other women and using generalisations about men. Women who don’t join in often get cold shouldered by the group or the criticism turned on them.

This even happens in situations where the women don’t know each other. Last week I was in a women’s clothes shop and Joe was patiently waiting while I tried things on. As I went into the changing room I said something to him which he acknowledged while busily writing in a notebook. I was okay with that and also knew he was writing something in his ideas book which I appreciate the importance of. The shop assistant rolled her eyes and said something about “typical men.”

I chose not to respond and just noticed the invitation to play the game of kick men. Why did she do it? My guess is that she was trying to establish rapport with me, so the intention behind the behaviour was positive. In most instances the shopper would have joined in with her out of cultural habit and rapport would have been established.

Next week I will talk more about how we can counter  Gottman’s horsemen but for now notice your own behaviour and that of others. Where are the unhelpful habits? Keep track and start making some new decisions for yourself.

If you want to read more now check out the full article Joe and I wrote for Rapport magazine:

http://www.gwiztraining.com/Joe%20&%20Melody%20Cheal%20-%20Relationships2.pdf

GWiz News update

As you probably know we ran a workshop last month called “Your Brilliant You!” as a fundraiser for Marie Curie Cancer Charity. We raised over £1000! This event was so successful that we have decided to run another one. The next event will be in the Milton Keynes area on 21st April 2012.

Please help us help people to improve their self esteem and raise money for charity. Do pass this information on to anyone you know who might be interested. Here is the link;

http://www.gwiztraining.com/Events.htm

You will also find information about other workshops including NLP and coaching certified training courses.

Next week we will begin talking about how to counter the horsemen and how to keep your relationship where you want it to be.

Firstly for those of you not familiar with anchoring I would like to start by providing a definition of anchoring and how it works. Let’s start with a definition from Robert Dilts and Judith Delozier:

“In NLP, ‘anchoring’ refers to the process of associating an internal response with some environmental or mental trigger, so that the response may be quickly, and sometimes covertly, re-accessed.” (Dilts & Delozier, Encyclopedia of Systemic NLP, p29)

BTW I recommend you have a look at the Encyclodpedia if you are interested in NLP, here is the link:

http://nlpuniversitypress.com/

Now let’s break this definition down a little more. Anchoring is a naturally occurring phenomenon, it happens when two seemingly unrelated things become linked in the brain. The links can be something we see, hear, feel, smell or taste.

For example, many of us have songs that we associate with a relationship.  The song comes on the radio and suddenly we experience a feeling about that relationship. Hopefully that will be a warm fuzzy feeling however sometimes we have negative anchors. A negative anchor could be a song that reminds us of a painful breakup.

The stimulation of this feeling is automatic once in place. Positive  relationship anchors strengthen a relationship while negative ones weaken it.  Many of these anchors are outside of our conscious awareness so we may not realise the impact they are having.

Anthony Robbins talks about an example of a negative anchor on one his audio programmes. In this example he talks about what happens when a husband is experience problems at work.

Everyday he leaves work feeling angry and unhappy. While feeling this feeling he walks through the front door and the first thing he sees is his wife’s face. Unknowingly this creates an anchor because this experience is replicated day after day the anchor becomes very strong.

What happens next is where the problem really begins. Imagine the scene, the husband has a good day, he is feeling good and he walks through his front door. What happens? He sees his wife and then feels bad. He doesn’t know why.

Fast forward after repeated experiences of negative feelings being triggered by the sight of his wife the husband is now starting to think he might not love his wife anymore. What is so sad about this is the fact that the issue is not the marriage.

Consider how often this must happen in relationships, where people are having unpleasant experiences in their lives that accidentally get associated with their marriage.

So how do we counter this?

The most important step is self-awareness. We need to stay conscious of our emotions and what is causing them.  We need to own our feelings and manage our state before we engage with our partners.

This way  we can share our problems with our partners and avoid inappropriately  transferring the issue to our relationship. Our partner can then be, as Dr Phil McGraw, describes it “our soft place to fall.”

In addition to this make a point of creating positive anchors in our relationship, about our partner and our lives together. By creating strong positive anchors we are also putting in a safeguard.

This safeguard will automatically collapse negative anchors that we are less aware of. In NLP, collapsing an anchor occurs where one anchor is stronger than another. Both anchors are triggered at the same time and the stronger one wipes out the weaker one. If we naturally have strong positive anchors in our relationship we protect it.

For those of you wanting to find out how to set anchors and collapse negative ones join us in March for a 9 day intensive NLP Practitioner programme. You will be amazed at how much you transform if you give yourself the opportunity! Click on the link below for more information.

http://www.gwiztraining.com/NLPprac.htm

March 17th to 25th 2012

Our NLP Practitioner programme uses a humanistic and person centred approach. You will learn new skills and have the opportunity to let go of limiting beliefs and experience your own magnificence. We teach ethics and provided ongoing supervision and support to all our students.

We also have Master Practitioner in May and NLP Trainer’s Training in June, contact me for more details.

This morning I picked up my copy of Scientific American Mind because I knew there was an article I wanted to reference this week, called “the Partnership Paradox”. On the cover of this copy was a phrase “I love you, now change.”

So big apologies, my unconscious mind picked up the great idea and re-cycled it for my blog. The article by Joe Palca and Flora Lichtman was picking up on some other aspects of the issues that can often cloud relationships.

They were writing about a common observation that in relationship we often become most annoyed by the very thing that attracted us in the first place. Now this is similar to the ideas I was writing about two weeks ago however their explanation has some differences.

The explanations offered are connected to social exchange and equity theories. Equity theory suggests that social norms encourage a sense of fairness, we feel more comfortable if we are being treated equitably.

When the relationship starts to feel out of balance for any reason there is a sense of discomfort in the partner who feels the unfairness. This is likely to be an unconscious realisation that may manifest as just feeling we are being taken advantage of.

For example, imagine someone is attracted to a partner for their laid back and fun attitude to life. According to this model it is likely to be a trait we do not exhibit ourselves. In the early days this feels attractive and admirable.

As the relationship progresses beyond the honeymoon phase this trait starts to be perceived differently. Perhaps there is a sense that the partner is irresponsible, leaving all the hard decisions to you while having all the fun.

We might even still like or be comfortable with this trait in others but become annoyed with it in our partner.  Why would that be?

According to Palca and Lichtman the trait becomes an issue because we cannot escape it.
We can spend social time with another person like this but we get to go home. Our partner is still there day in, day out. The issue is over-exposure. Diane Felmlee, University of California calls this “disillusionment”.

Felmlee associates this with social exchange theory, according to her extreme traits have rewards but they also have costs especially for people in relationship. This is why the hardworker seems to transform into the workaholic. Their behaviour may not have changed, what has changed is the over exposure to this trait so that it now appears unattractive to their partner.

Unsurprisingly the solution begins with self-awareness, where a couple realise what is happening there is the opportunity to change their reactions. The steps are straightforward.

1. Recognise that what is annoying you is what first      attracted you to your partner.
2. Remind yourself why you were      attracted to this trait and re-frame your new reactions more positively.
3. Identify your own extreme      traits, understand how they may be perceived by your partner, or as      Felmlee suggests increase your awareness of your own flaws.
4. Share new experiences with      your partner regularly to give you counters to both of your habitual      behaviours.

These steps are certainly a great place to start, from my own perspective I think they are still not addressing the more in depth part of this process. Felmlee’s approach seems to be based mainly on learning to put up with the annoyance.

It seems to me that we could look at ways to extinguish the annoyance. In the coming weeks we will explore this a little further for now consider the following ideas.

• If we liked it at the beginning why can we not continue to like it?
• If we were to really communicate with each other what would happen?
• If we examine our own habitual behaviours and find them change worthy, why not just change them?
• Is it possible to be truly accepting of others?
• What would happen if we lived  our relationship in the present?

I will return to these questions over the next few weeks, do send me your thoughts about them first. I would love to hear what you have to say.

If you would like to read more about the article mentioned above see “Scientific American Mind”, Jan/Feb 2012 or go to their website

www.scientificamerican.com/mind

For those of you looking for personal development tools to help you with self-esteem, relationships and many other aspects of life consider joining us in March for a 9 day intensive NLP Practitioner programme. You will be amazed at how much you transform if you give yourself the opportunity! Click on the link below for more information.

 http://www.gwiztraining.com/NLPprac.htm

 March 17th to 25th 2012

Our NLP Practitioner programme uses a humanistic and person centred approach. You will learn new skills and have the opportunity to let go of limiting beliefs and experience your own magnificence. We teach ethics and provided ongoing supervision and support to all our students.

We also have Master Practitioner in May and NLP Trainer’s Training in June, contact me for more details.

In the early days of a relationship, we tend to experience a very rich and intense level of interaction, this is what I mean when I say the honeymoon phase. It can last for weeks, months or even a couple of years. This is a normal part of the process of relationship building, we are forging bonds that will last through the years.

This bonding  process is not just emotional and psychological, it is also chemical. The intensity of our interactions  releases hormones particularly oxytocin often called the “cuddle chemical”. Oxytocin is thought to promote trust, empathy and connection. Often couples withdraw into a unit, excluding others somewhat during this phase. They will want to spend time together rather than in larger social gatherings during the honeymoon phase.

Sustaining this level of intensity for any great length of time can be exhausting and may even create limitations in other parts of our experience. It is worth noting here that if the honeymoon phase is also full of a lot of pain and upset the chances are that pattern will continue beyond the honeymoon phase. If the honeymoon phase is not wonderful hear warning bells!

Some people have patterns where passion is defined as extreme jealousy, emotive argument and intensely physical making up. For some people this may even seem to work, however I would suggest that in a truly loving relationship disagreement can be handled differently. I will come back to this later in the series.

After the honeymoon phase as intensity levels drop sometimes a form of miscommunication builds up where one person in the couple or both begin to feel unloved. We can use NLP as a way to explore one possible explanation.

In NLP we talk about the idea of visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, olfactory and gustatory channels of communication (VAKOG). In the honeymoon phase we use all of these channels to express ourselves and demonstrate love.

For example, we might make an effort with our appearance to be attractive visually and also to make sure we smell good! This would be visual and olfactory. We might whisper sweet nothings to each other, give compliments and share an “our tune”. The quality of our voice is also likely to be particularly pleasing. This is auditory. We tend to be generally more tactile in the honeymoon phase, express our feelings of love and of course make love at a higher frequency than after the honeymoon phase. This is kinaesthetic. Gustatory might take the form of cooking for each other or sharing a delicious treats together.

There are a variety of other ways we might express our love using VAKOG beyond the examples I give here but I’m sure you understand what I mean. We are engaged in serious sensory overload and keeping that up for life could be considered challenging.

There are some people who are addicted to the honeymoon phase of the relationship. For them the fading of this phase results in them leaving the relationship and looking for someone new to get that buzz with all over again.

For those who move beyond that phase there is the potential to reap the rewards of a committed, trusting and rich relationship. As Dr. Phil McGraw describes it, knowing we have someone who will be our “soft place to fall” when life is tough.

So what happens with our sensory expression of love after the honeymoon phase?

The answer is simple we revert to our preferred style of expression. A little note here I do not believe we should label a person as visual or kinaesthetic etc as if that is all they do. We can have preferences and those preferences can be context specific.

In love relationships we have a kind of fall back position that we are comfortable with, it doesn’t mean we can’t or don’t do anything else. What it may mean is that we build up some beliefs that take the form of complex equivalent. A complex equivalent is a linguistic term we use in NLP.  This is where we make an assumption that “x=y” where that may or may not be the case. We are often making connections that are not really there.

For example,” you don’t hold my hand any more so you don’t love me” or “if you loved me you would know what I want”. The second one here is a great double bind too because even in the best relationships we can’t always know what our partner wants if the don’t tell us! If we guess and get it wrong we are in trouble, if we ask then we may be told we should know if we loved them really!

So to return to VAKOG, in our relationship article in the magazine “Rapport”, Joe and I gave the following example of how things change.

Each partner reverts to their own preferred love strategies based on their primary love representational systems and so they give out mostly what they want to receive. As Richard Bandler and John Grinder  suggest in Frogs into Princes, this doesn’t always work. For example, the primarily visual partner gives the other a gift. The other primarily auditory partner thinks: “You can’t buy my love, tell me that you love me.” Visual thinks: “Words are cheap, show me you care.

For those of you who want to avoid this problem there is a simple solution. Don’t work harder, work smarter! I know it’s a cliché however it is still true. Simply find out your partners preferred love style and express your love that way. As a couple actually discussing this stuff is the easiest way to do that!

In our article in “Rapport”, “how to engage after the honeymoon phase” you will find some other NLP concepts discussed with this in mind. To read this article and others click on the link below.

http://www.gwiztraining.com/ArticlesNLP.htm

Next week I will continue this series building on the themes already in play. Do let me know if there is a particular aspect of relationships that you would like me to discuss.

Before I sign off, for those of you who having been following my blog for a while I would like to take this opportunity to give you an update on our charity fund raise for the Marie Curie Cancer Charity held yesterday. We raised £1200 which we are told will pay for 60 hours of nursing care for people in their own homes.  The representative from Marie Curie was Jo Cashman who is also one of our Master Practitioners. She shared some moving anecdotes that allowed us to understand just how valuable their work is.

The fundraiser was a self-esteem workshop called “Your Brilliant You”. The people who attended gave some amazing feedback about their experiences, we will be posting this on our websites soon. The event was such a success in every way we will be running another one in April, details to follow!

For those of you looking for personal development tools to help you with self-esteem, relationships and many other aspects of life consider joining us in March for a 9 day intensive NLP Practitioner programme. You will be amazed at how much you transform if you give yourself the opportunity! Click on the link below for more information.

http://www.gwiztraining.com/NLPprac.htm

March 17th to 25th 2012

Our NLP Practitioner programme uses a humanistic and person centred approach. You will learn new skills and have the opportunity to let go of limiting beliefs and experience your own magnificence. We teach ethics and provided ongoing supervision and support to all our students.

We also have Master Practitioner in May and NLP Trainer’s Training in June, contact me for more details.

For example, the woman who is attracted to the strong, powerful side of her partner now wants him to be vulnerable and share his feelings. Maybe he liked her ability to chat to anyone and now he wants her to shut up!

These are stereo typical examples and there are many, many more that are far more specific. I use these examples because most people can relate to them.

In this weeks blog I am going to explore one possible reason for this behaviour, this weeks blog is about self awareness and identifying your personal “map of the world”. In later blogs I will talk about how we can challenge our own patterns.

Last week I wrote about how we model ourselves on our same sex parent (usually) and are attracted to people who in some way represent our opposite sex parent. This is just the beginning of the journey. Once in relationship we begin to look at things differently.

We are attracted to a person who fits our internal pattern or map of what an appropriate partner looks, sounds and feels like. Just because we are attracted to this pattern does not mean that we are happy and satisfied with that model.

Once in relationship we set about trying to change aspects of the relationship that are unsatisfying. We think we are in the here and now but we are deluding ourselves. What we are really trying to do is fix what was wrong with the relationship we had with our parent during our childhood.

We had no control over the dynamic of the relationship we had with our parents. As children we lack power and are in survival mode. In order to survive children have to develop strategies that will encourage our caregivers to keep us safe. We could not effectively challenge things we didn’t like.

This is not about good or bad parenting, all children have to do this and it is normal. Of course it is worth noting here that some children grow up in environments that are very dangerous physically, psychologically or emotionally. Children in this environment may have to develop more extreme strategies to survive.

In Transactional Analysis, we talk about “family of origin”. This is the idea that we develop a series of templates about people not just those we will want to have romantic relationships with. In adulthood we unconsciously seek people to fit all the roles from our family of origin. Once identified we then attempt to re-enact the patterns we had with the original family members.

We often see this in work teams, unconsciously we have people in our workplace who represent mum, dad, siblings etc. I often work with “dysfunctional” teams and observe this first hand. Often we have people who are re-enacting sibling rivalry and trying to get mum or dads approval.

Of course none of the people in the team are aware of this dynamic at the time, some may even doubt it. However when intervening with such teams there is often a point where the penny drops!

In NLP, we talk about maps of the world and internal models. These are the patterns we use to represent our experience of reality. Self awareness helps us to recognise what we need to address within ourselves rather than turning to others and trying to change them.

Bringing this back to our romantic relationships, the place to start in increasing your self awareness is to become aware of the patterns you are recreating with your choice of partner. If you have had a number of partners look for patterns and similarities. Even if you have only ever had one partner you can look for the similarities with your parent figure.

What specifically have you wanted to change about your partner or partners? What is the need within you that has not been met? How can you meet that need for yourself?

Sometimes we need to go back to the relationship we have with our parents and look at how we are interacting with them as adults. We may still be playing out these old patterns even now. I wonder how many of you experience a sense of regression when you spend time with your parents?

Addressing our original pattern is one of the most powerful ways to release yourself from repetitive and unsatisfying experiences. This is not about necessarily going to our parents and confronting them, in many cases that would be inappropriate. Our parents are not the same people they were when we were children.

So what do we need to do? There are many different approaches we can take. You could explore your family dynamics from a Transactional Analysis perspective.  You could identify your life script and the patterns you are recreating. You could use TA approaches to change how you interact with others. This is a very conscious approach and can be very effective.

Alternatively you could take an NLP approach. There are many interventions within NLP that are specifically designed to help you change limiting beliefs, automatic emotional responses and to edit your map of the world. This more unconscious approach can often bring relatively fast results, allowing us to make changes easily and effortlessly.

For instance, there is an NLP intervention called “change personal history” that allows us to reduce the power of old, negative automatic responses. We literally change how we think about life and the past. Old memories remain and anything we learnt from those experiences is preserved but the emotional impact is reduced. This frees us to make new choices and get new results.

There are also many other approaches out there that will work for you. Do share your experiences with me too.

It may not surprise you to realise that in order to have better relationships we need to start by looking at ourselves. As we move toward self actualisation we will naturally enjoy more fulfilling relationships!

Next week I will look at an NLP perspective on the “honeymoon phase” of relationships and why this phase so often seems to fade.

For those of you wanting to seek support in your own journeys please know that I would love to help and support you as you move forward. We have a one day workshop on 28th January in Bedfordshire, UK called Your Brilliant You! It is designed to help you reconnect with you own true nature and magnificence.

The workshop is based on my dissertation research into how NLP improves self-esteem. Self esteem is the first step toward a healthy relationship. Click on the link below for more information about the workshop and to download a free two hour MP3 of a previous workshop.

http://www.gwiztraining.com/

 For those of you ready to go even further consider joining us in March for a 9 day intensive NLP Practitioner programme. You will be amazed at how much you transform if you give yourself the opportunity! Click on the link below for more information.

http://www.gwiztraining.com/NLPprac.htm

March 17th to 25th 2012

Our NLP Practitioner programme uses a humanistic and person centred approach. You will learn new skills and have the opportunity to let go of limiting beliefs and experience your own magnificence. We teach ethics and provided ongoing supervision and support to all our students.

During the 1960′s Bowlby was interested in child development and in particular how children developed an attachment style with their parents. The style developed was related to the type of parenting the child received. In a nutshell he identified three well known labels for attachment, Secure, Ambivalent and Avoidant.

He believed there were four distinguishing characteristics of attachment;

• Proximity maintenance – the desire or drive to be near important care givers and attachment figures.
• Safe haven – the ability to return to the attachment figure when threatened or afraid for comfort and safety.
• Secure base – the attachment figure provides a safe base to venture out from to explore the surrounding environment.
• Separation distress – describes the type of anxiety that occurs in the absence of the attachment figure.

According to Bowlby attachment has an evolutionary component connected to our survival. The parenting style shapes the attachment style developed. Most developmental psychology books provide more information on this part of the theory if you want to know more. Below I have detailed the characteristics of each attachment style at the childhood stage:

Secure

• Confident and able to separate from parent.
•  Will seek comfort from parent when frightened
• Receives positive emotional responses from parent on return.
• Prefers parents to strangers

Ambivalent

• Often wary of strangers.
• Become very distressed when parent leaves.
• Do not appear to experience a sense of comfort from the parents return and may passively rejected the parent.

Avoidant

• May actively avoid their parents.
• Will not seek out much comfort or contact from the parents.
•  Shows little or even no preference between parents and strangers.

A fourth style has also been suggested that appears to be a mixture of ambivalent and avoidant called “disorganised attachment”. This may develop where the parenting style is inconsistent and the child may feel both comforted and frightened of the parent at the same time.

In 1987, the researchers Hazen and Shaver suggested that the attachment styles from childhood may form the basis of adult attachment styles in particular they noted that people with different attachment styles seemed to have specific patterns in their beliefs about love.

They noticed that securely attached adults were more likely to believe that romantic love was enduring while ambivalently attached adults reported falling in love often and avoidant types thought love was rare and/or temporary.

What I find interesting is the presence of such patterns, on the one hand we cannot say for sure that childhood attachment styles directly correlate with adult attachment styles but there does appear to be enough of a pattern to make this intriguing.

When we start to look at the characteristics of adult attachment styles some interesting things start to surface. If we look first at securely attached adults, they are more likely to have good self-esteem and trusting long term relationships. They will share feelings with friends and partners easily and comfortably. They will also feel comfortable seeking out social support.

They are most likely to be attracted to someone else who is also securely attached. These are the relationships that are most likely to be happy. From a psychological perspective, a happy relationship is a much higher experience of positive emotions than negative on a day to day basis.

There is some research that suggests that ambivalent attachment is relatively rare (e.g. 7 to 15% in infants), however when you read the characteristics I wonder is you like me will doubt that finding at least in adults.

This style could be described as “needy” and the individual may spend a lot of time worrying that their partner may not love them. They become extremely distraught with the break up of a relationship to a degree that could be described as obsessive.

Paradoxically they may also be reluctant to become close to others. So even though they fear their partner does not love them they may passively reject their partner. Descriptions of “clingy” and over-dependent are also given to this attachment style.

The avoidant style may have problems with intimacy and be reluctant or unable to share feelings and thoughts with others. They may invest little or no emotional coin in social and romantic relationships. They will avoid intimacy by making up excuses such as tiredness etc and may not be concerned when a relationship breaks up. They may appear to move on straight away. They may also be unsupportive of a partner who is experiencing stressful times.

One observation I have made is that ambivalent types often seem attracted to avoidant types and vice versa! This seems to provide a guarantee of dissatisfaction in the relationship but also familiarity!

Much less has been written about the disorganised attachment style in adults. One characteristic seen in children aged around six with this style is taking on a parental role either of their parents or siblings. They become caregivers of their parent. It could be speculated that this might manifest in an adult relationship as controlling behaviour.

My intention in re-visiting Bowlby today is to start looking at patterns and see where these are leading us in our understanding of adult love relationships. For me this is a journey of hope.

For those of us who were not fortunate enough to grow up in an environment that fostered secure attachment there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I recognise in myself aspects of the ambivalent attachment style and I can see the avoidant type in my early romantic partners. As I recovered a healthy level of self-esteem, learnt to put in boundaries and discovered that it is possible to be happy my attachment style changed. I now have a secure attachment style.

We have the ability to change our beliefs, patterns and emotional responses. Often we need the help and support of others, however ultimately we make these changes for ourselves. One of the NLP pre-suppositions reads:

“We have all the resources we need within us!”

I believe this is true, we have the ability to change and it is within each and every one of us. What needs to be added is the fact that as human beings we are social animals. We are meant to be in relationship not just romantic but also friendships and family. By freeing ourselves from unhealthy patterns we are allowing ourselves the opportunity to engage in healthy relationships with all the people we care about.

For those of you wanting to seek support in your own journeys please know that I would love to help and support you as you move forward. We have a one day workshop on 28th January in Bedfordshire, UK called Your Brilliant You! It is designed to help you reconnect with you own true nature and magnificence.

The workshop is based on my dissertation research into how NLP improves self-esteem. Self esteem is the first step toward a healthy relationship. Click on the link below for more information about the workshop and to download a free two hour MP3 of a previous workshop.

http://www.gwiztraining.com/

For those of you ready to go even further consider joining us in March for a 9 day intensive NLP Practitioner programme. You will be amazed at how much you transform if you give yourself the opportunity! Click on the link below for more information.

http://www.gwiztraining.com/NLPprac.htm

March 17th to 25th 2012

Our NLP Practitioner programme uses a humanistic and person centred approach. You will learn new skills and have the opportunity to let go of limiting beliefs and experience your own magnificence. We teach ethics and provided ongoing supervision and support to all our students.

Next week I will discuss another angle including why most people seem to want to change key aspects of their partner even if those aspects were what attracted them in the first place!

 http://www.gwiztraining.com/ArticlesNLP.htm

In this series of blogs I will be adding some additional thoughts, revisiting some of the themes from the articles and hopefully engaging with you in a dialogue about the nature of relationships.

I would like to start by acknowledging my own history when it comes to relationships.  I will then, over the next few weeks, move on to look at how and why relationships develop as they do and then progress into the personal development aspect of relationships.  How relationships help us grow?

So now for the back story. For the first thirty years of my life I was extremely unhappy in relationships. I had some very jaded beliefs about love, I suspected that love didn’t really exist! I thought it had been invented to sell books and films!

I looked  around myself and all I could see was people who seemed to have unsatisfying relationships where they did nothing but complain about their partners. Those people who “claimed” to be happy I didn’t believe!

I seemed to attract men who were consistent in one thing, their lack of respect for me and their ability to be emotionally and psychologically abusive. In my early twenties I got married to a man I do believe loved me in his way but was still abusive emotionally and at the end physically.

Around the age of twenty nine I got to a point where I said to myself “there must be more to life than this!” This is the point where I embarked on my own journey of personal development. This is the point where I started to realise that I was making choices about partners that led to my experience. I was only drawn to people who would treat me as I expected to be treated and I “filtered” out men who did not fit my expectations.

From an NLP perspective I am referring to my personal map of relationships, the filters and beliefs that supported that map and how I related to the world.

I discovered that by learning to love and like myself my expectations changed. I was no longer attracted to abusive men. I started to notice “good” men who had always been there, some I had even rejected because in my map they were “weak”.

I thought they were weak because my model of a man was that he should be aggressive, dominant, demanding, controlling and unlikely to share his feelings. The men I had overlooked were sensitive, respectful, assertive, had healthy self-esteem and shared their feelings because they wanted to.

I often still hear women in particular saying things like “there are no good men out there!” This is not true, what is more likely is that the women making this statement have blinkers on preventing them from noticing the great men right under their noses!

The great news is that by changing my map I was able to open myself up to a more healthy balanced relationship. One in which I behaved in a healthy way and the man I chose did the same. It was at that point that I met Joe. We have now been married for eighteen years. We are also business partners working together every day.

I will talk later in this series about how Joe and I sustain our relationship because the truth is, even a good, healthy relationship takes investment. For now I’d like to start by suggesting how we are drawn to certain people in the first place.

The ideas I am about to share are discussed in many different theories of psychology such as transactional analysis and NLP (to name but two).  They are also based on my personal experience and working with many people therapeutically over the last twenty years or so.

How do we know who to be attracted to?

It all comes back to patterns and modelling. As children we observe the world about us in order to make sense of it. We look to our mother (or female care giver) to show us what a woman is like and our father (or male care giver) to understand men.

Women will unconsciously model themselves on their mothers and be attracted to men who are similar in some way to their fathers. Men will do the same thing in reverse.

Some of you will now be saying, “ah but my partner is the exact opposite of my opposite sex parent!” Well that is also kind of the point. Sometimes we rebel and go for someone who is the complete opposite of our parent in a kind of rebellion.  We are still being motivated by the same model.

A note here, this seems to hold true whether you are heterosexual or gay. It is just the basis of our pattern, sometimes a gay person my develop their template from the opposite sex parent and build an attraction model on same the sex parent.

One gay friend of mine had a physically abusive father. When my friend started having long term relationships he was shocked to discover that he was modelling his father’s abusive behaviour and being violent with his partners. I’m pleased to say he has taken the steps necessary to change this pattern in himself and is now respectful with his life partner.

So returning to the theme of patterns, it is not uncommon for relationship patterns to be mirrored in generation after generation. For example there is much written about the likelihood of a child of an alcoholic growing up to either become an alcoholic or perhaps more puzzling marry one.

A great example of this is the author Robin Norwood. She was the daughter of an alcoholic and married two alcoholics in a row herself. I recommend you read her books “Women who love too much” and “Why me? Why this? Why now?” They were both written over twenty years ago but are still very relevant today.

Consider this, people who grow up with a healthy model of relationship are more likely to experience a healthy relationship themselves in adulthood. However some long term relationships might be considered unhealthy but still last.

Why do they last? They last because on some level it works for both the people involved. It doesn’t mean they are happy just that their expectations are fulfilled! I take the view that a relationship is only a problem if the people involved consider it a problem.  You need to evaluate your own relationship and if it works for you and your partner then it works.

Next week I am going to discuss how John Bowlby’s attachment theory in infants can be applied to our adult relationships. For those of you who want to read ahead, this will link to the article on our website called “The Relationship Dance”.

As it is the beginning of the year for those of you thinking about what do for your personal development this year I have included a list of our programme for the next six months belos.  BTW, we explore the nature of relationships as part of our NLP Master Practitioner course.

January 28th 2012 – Your Brilliant You!

A one day workshop aimed at improving self-esteem and confidence. This event is also a fundraiser for Marie Curie Cancer Charity.

http://www.gwiztraining.com/

February 20th to 22nd and April 24th to 26th 2012 – ILM accredited Diploma and Certificate in Executive Coaching and Leadership Mentoring (Level 7)

This course will qualify you to be an executive coach and is accredited by one of the leading UK accreditation bodies the Institute of Leadership and Management.

http://www.gwiztraining.com/ILMCoaching.htm

March 17th to 25th 2012 – NLP Practitioner

Our NLP Practitioner programme uses a humanistic and person centred approach. You will learn new skills and have the opportunity to let go of limiting beliefs and experience your own magnificence. We teach ethics and provided ongoing supervision and support to all our students.

http://www.gwiztraining.com/NLPprac.htm

May 12th to 20th 2012 – NLP Master Practitioner

This programme builds on Practitioner, developing elegant skills and providing even more opportunities to develop. The philosophy of how we fit in our own world and how we can truly feel good about ourselves is a key component of this workshop.

http://www.gwiztraining.com/NLPmaster.htm

June 16th to 30th 2012 – PSiNLP Trainer’s Training

This workshop is for those of you who are ready to complete the final part of the puzzle. You will learn how to run your own NLP training courses and receive accreditation from PSiNLP. You will also learn even more about yourself!

This course is co-trained with international Master Trainer Julie Silverthorn.

http://www.gwiztraining.com/NLPtrainer.htm

If you would like to join us for any of these programmes do contact us, we would love to meet you.

For my new topic over the next few weeks or months I will be exploring the often tricky subject of love relationships. Over the last six months I have spoken to many people going through challenging situations around their personal relationships. This has included family members, friends and clients. There have been so many people coming to me with relationship issues I thought I ought to listen to the prompt the universe is clearly giving me.

Joe and I have written a series of articles for Rapport magazine over the last year or so on this very subject. My intention in this new series is to add to and expand on some of these ideas. If you would like to read the Rapport articles please follow the link below to the ANLP site.

http://www.anlp.org/anlp-publications

I will get into the topic properly next week, so do please send me your questions and let me know what aspect you are particularly interested in.

melody@gwiztraining.com

For those of you setting your New Year goals do check out what we have planned for the coming year, we’d love to have you join us on one of our workshops.  Joe and I are NLP Master Trainers and have also worked as corporate business trainers for the last twenty years.

January 28th 2012 – Your Brilliant You!

 A one day workshop aimed at improving self-esteem and confidence. This event is also a fundraiser for Marie Curie Cancer Charity.

 http://www.gwiztraining.com/

February 20th to 22nd and April 24th to 26th 2012 - ILM accredited Diploma and Certificate in Executive Coaching and Leadership Mentoring (Level 7)

This course will qualify you to be an executive coach and is accredited by one of the leading UK accreditation bodies the Institute of Leadership and Management.

http://www.gwiztraining.com/ILMCoaching.htm

March 17th to 25th 2012 - NLP Practitioner

 Our NLP Practitioner programme uses a humanistic and person centred approach. You will learn new skills and have the opportunity to let go of limiting beliefs and experience your own magnificence. We teach ethics and provided ongoing supervision and support to all our students.

http://www.gwiztraining.com/NLPprac.htm

May 12th to 20th 2012 - NLP Master Practitioner

This programme builds on Practitioner, developing elegant skills and providing even more opportunities to develop. The philosophy of how we fit in our own world and how we can truly feel good about ourselves is a key component of this workshop.

http://www.gwiztraining.com/NLPmaster.htm

June 16th to 30th 2012 - PSiNLP Trainer’s Training

This workshop is for those of you who are ready to complete the final part of the puzzle. You will learn how to run your own NLP training courses and receive accreditation from PSiNLP. You will also learn even more about yourself!

This course is co-trained with international Master Trainer Julie Silverthorn.

http://www.gwiztraining.com/NLPtrainer.htm

If you would like to join us for any of these programmes do contact us, we would love to meet you.

There is a positive intention behind every present.

The meaning of your Christmas is in the effort you put into it.

We have all the Christmas Spirit we need.

Everyone lives in their own unique model of Christmas.

The wrapping is not the present.

It is better to give than to receive and by giving we receive more.

Our family are a perfect creation of the lessons we need to learn magnified by festive expectations (and alcohol).

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Magnificent New Year!

It was the perfect place to ponder the next PSiNLP pre-supposition:

“Our intrinsic nature is revealed in service to others as we support them in the exchange of energy and information leading to self actualisation.”

So here is the paradox, there I was alone apart from the dogs pondering how important it is for us to express ourselves through service to others.

We included this pre-supposition because it provides an essential balance for any of us on our personal development journey. So why?

For many people personal development begins with re-connecting with our own sense of self worth and value. This is appropriate and important however for many people this can create an ego-centric attitude to life. It is almost as if this is necessary in order to re-connect with our own magnificence.

I confess this did happen to me and I was very focused on my own outcomes for a while not realising how I was disregarding others without meaning too. I got so caught up in needing to express myself that I didn’t always listen to others.

The PSiNLP pre-supposition provides the counter balance:

“Our intrinsic nature is revealed in service to others as we support them in the exchange of energy and information leading to self actualisation.”

We need to recognise how service to others helps us to redefine our relationship with the universe. We need to understand that it is possible to value ourselves, maintain healthy boundaries and be there for others.

Being of service to others can mean providing a gentle listening ear, forgiving people who behave unkindly or actively giving support to another person.

Does this mean we allow others to mistreat us? No, not at all however we do not need to be drawn into unhealthy dramas and conflicts. We can put in boundaries and be clear about what is okay and what is not. This can be a form of service.

Even more challenging can be to become a mirror for another person. This can involve in being clear about not supporting someone who is stuck in a victim role to stay there for instance.

When people are experiencing painful  events in their lives they sometimes get stuck in a cycle of distress. They go over the story endlessly, creating layer after layer of pain. Friends and relatives often find themselves listening to this endless stream of pain because to do anything else could seem heartless.

Paradoxically it can often be far kinder to interrupt the pattern of story telling, to help that individual to gain a new perspective on how they are keeping themselves trapped.

It is important to emphasise here that it is inappropriate to tell someone who has just experienced a major loss or tragedy to cheer up! There is a healthy process, we all need to experience our feelings. So to be of service to others through hard times we need to learn to recognise when to provide listening and when to introduce challenge.

The above is merely an introduction on how we can be of service to others, there are many other ways. What is important about service for you?

As we approach the Festive Season I invite you to consider the final PSiNLP pre-supposition for yourself:

“Everything we desire we already have, just perhaps not in the form we think we want.”

 Merry Anchors to you all!