WeConcile - The world's first relationship restoration application

The Real Relationship: Working it Out

July 18, 2019July 21, 2019Jennifer Lehr, MFT

Originally published July 17th, 2019 in A Few Words. https://medium.com/afwp/the-real-relationship-working-it-out-39916079dba5

The real relationship happened last night. I had been struggling, feeling stuck, pushing myself in ways that were leaving me frustrated, angry, and sad. My husband was mad at me for this. He pulled away and let me struggle. Finally, I said, “Why aren’t you helping me? Why have you left me alone in this?”

“I cannot help you with the project you are working on,” he said. “I don’t mean that,” I said. “Why aren’t you helping me emotionally — don’t you see I am stuck? I am confused. I don’t know how to get out of this state of being.” We talked. We argued. We hashed it out. He said, “You remind me of my mother when she was stuck, and it hurts too much. I feel helpless and upset, and I don’t know how to help you. So, I get angry and pull away.”

Why couldn’t you have just said that? I think to myself. But I know the answer. He doesn’t know how. He doesn’t even know what he is feeling until we talk it out.

I get caught in my struggle — fighting myself, fighting my life, instead of knowing how to be, how to let go, how to flow. He sees me, and he gets caught in his battle of what to do with someone who is momentarily lost. “I need support,” I insist. “I need someone to help me break through my panic, my frustration, confusion — my craziness. I need you to help me.” “Okay,” he says. “Okay. I didn’t know.”

We have connected again. We feel close again. I don’t feel abandoned, and my husband doesn’t feel helpless. But there is no way to learn to reach towards each other, without the ‘fall’ from grace into the hell of conflict and hurt feelings, followed by the hashing it out and then the move back into connection. That is the only way. Learning to reconnect is iterative. We do it over and over again. This process is part of building a connected relationship.

The real relationship isn’t necessarily happening when we are on cruise control, but when the events of our lives force us to tackle something. It happens when we struggle; when we are forced to look at ourselves and the emotional issues that we need to address to bridge the gap between us.

This process is how we learn about ourselves and each other and how to be there for each other. This is how we repair old wounds, heal, and grow.

One more knot has been smoothed in each of us, and between us. This is how it is. This is how we learn to love. Working it out is the real relationship.

For some relationship inspirational quotes – https://www.instagram.com/weconcile/

If you want to learn more about courage – https://blog.weconcile.com/2019/07/12/what-stops-you-from-your-courage/

Relationship help and healthy relationships

When the Journey is Abundance

July 15, 2019August 6, 2019Jennifer Lehr, MFT

The Journey to a Healthy Relationship

Originally published in Thrive Global on June 27th, 2019 https://thriveglobal.com/stories/when-the-journey-is-abundance/

After years of struggle and a slow spiral into death, at the age of 46, I gave up on my first marriage. From those ashes of grief, new life emerged. I wrote a relationship education program. Would it help me in my next true love relationship? Could I create a healthy relationship?

Relationships had been my Achilles heel, at least relationships with people. I was fine with dogs, cats, horses, goats, ducks, and cows. Good with rabbits, and guinea pigs too. I loved them. They were safe. But people….

I was a sad and lonely child with no close friends. No hugs or I love you’s in my family. Mom was on the Asperger continuum. Dad caught in his own demons, was dangerously explosive. Both were capable of inflicting severe emotional abuse. I saw people as dangerous and hurtful.

Not fully formed, I couldn’t say no to others, stand to disappoint, nor ask for what I wanted. In my teens, I ran from interested others. When I was 22, I began my first romantic relationship. Starving for love, I wasn’t the best judge. He became obsessed with me. I was his everything. But on a quest to find my purpose and career, I wasn’t ready to settle down. Eventually, feeling caged in, I ended it.

I was living in a world where consciously, I valued my career, but unconsciously, I was desperately seeking human connection. It was a conundrum and required me to shift before I could balance both.

After I failed at a few more relationships with addicts, alcoholics, and others who, despite their beauty, couldn’t fully participate, I realized I had some serious issues. I fell in love, but when our differences emerged, when the “in love” feeling left, I would become captivated with a new special person and end the previous and now colorless relationship. I was addicted to the “in love” neurochemicals. Knowing tenacity, courage and empathy were essential in a love that could make the long haul, was not part of my awareness. Still, I knew I needed to stick it out with somebody and not give up when the dopamine waned. Overcompensating, I swung to the other side of the pendulum, staying in the next two relationships much longer than I should have.

The first, a passionate man with addictions to crack, sex, alcohol, cheating, a man in and out of rehabs, with me desperately trying to fix, help, save – this relationship put me on the self-growth path that became my life. The second was the man who would become my first husband. When I met him, I knew I could marry him. He felt Solid. Dependable. Serious. It was a thorny bond. We triggered each other constantly. Yet, we expanded each other. I encouraged him to follow his dreams (my strength), and he supported me financially (his strength) through graduate school. Early in our relationship, after he humiliated me for struggling when hiking in ill-fitting old boots he had loaned me, I gave him an ultimatum. Couples therapy or I can’t do this.

He chose therapy, reluctantly. I stayed. We struggled. I fought for us, fought for him to look inside as I was. The uncovering of lost memories and feelings. The seeking to understand how we continually upset each other. If he would just do this. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to look at the hurt and shame he had suffered as a child and covered up with his angry acting out. He resented me. I didn’t yet know I needed and deserved a cooperative partner. I was used to doing all of the work myself.

Despite the vast distance that had grown between us, I was finding myself. I was changing. After years of self-help and workshops, of individual therapy and couples therapy, of graduate school and training, of working with individuals and couples, I finally gave up on my first marriage of eleven years. By then I was a licensed marriage and family therapist. I was immersed in self-transformation and helping others find the ground under them. This was my gift, where I excelled.

The One

Eventually, I found ‘the one.’ We fell head over heels. We were pretty fantastic together. But, as one can expect, issues began to arise. Like the time he picked me up to go to a party, but he had left the cat door closed, and my cat Hank, was locked out of the house. I had visions of cat murders by coyotes. He thought I went nuts when I freaked out. I thought he was insensitive and obtuse. What we didn’t understand about each other; the pain he’d been caused by crazy people. And the pain I had experienced from traumatic events with pets and people who didn’t care. We didn’t know how to get underneath our fight to these deep stories. We each recoiled into our respective corners and suffered alone, unable to bridge the gap between us, our hearts wounded and closed.

In my work, I saw how mired couples often were, how they reacted to each other, how little space they had to listen to each other, how much they each needed me to see their side. They wanted a healthy relationship but didn’t know how to create one. I experienced how difficult it was to slow them down, to delicately peel the layers to the hurt and needs under their reactions, to build understanding, empathy, and vulnerability within and between them. I saw how few tools they had, and how despite claims of ‘good’ childhoods, they hadn’t seen, realized or metabolized the gaps between the nurturing they needed and the nurturing they received. I was steeped in their pain and struggles.

WeConcile® is Born

From a lonely fragmented girl, I moved into my empowered self, with a desire to alleviate some of the relational pain that had also been mine. I glimpsed something new. Something that had never been done before shimmered at the edges of my vision. Can more couples get the relationship help they need? Could an e-learning system teach couples what I had learned and applied to my life, as I took training after training, year after year? I breathed, dreamed and wrestled with the question, “How do I create a learnable journey so relationships can bloom – even without a therapist?” “Could it even be done?”

I moved into action. We were a team now, with a third coding partner. I developed content to teach couples skills they would build on as they traversed through a process of learning, looking within, and communicating: creating an openhearted, more connected and less conflictual relationship. I wrote and organized. My husband-to-be became my editor. We talked, haggled, discussed. I explained, insisted, argued. With every deep discussion, whether about the project or our lives, our relationship got better. We began to delve more deeply into what happened between us. Why did his stomach ache after we fought? Why did I feel paralyzed, as if I was lost in a dark cave, all alone, with no ability to reach towards him and bridge the gap? I learned from the outside as a therapist, and from the inside as a vulnerable member of a couple. By the end of 4 years, I finished the content. It was amazing. Our relationship was better, fights shorter, recovery quicker.

We taught each other. Me, with my nose to the grindstone. Him, with his trust of the universe, uncannily knowing whatever he needed would appear. He was happier than me. I was more astute about relationships with brilliant aha’s. He learned to show up more fully, to listen and learn. I learned to play more and grab onto more joy.

We were ready to get our project out into the world. Did I believe in myself enough? Just as my husband and I opened each other up to growth and a stronger we, so my relationship with this project insisted I grow. I had to learn to ask for help, to decide I was worth helping. My cry became “help me.” Not once, not twice, but over and over. I reached. I demanded. I confronted beliefs. Beliefs that said, “why you?” Beliefs that did not support me saying, “I can do this.”

I said to my husband (we married in the middle of this process), “help me do this.”

I uncovered my inner bag lady. I had seen hints of her before, an aspect of me that felt I wasn’t safe, would never have enough, who believed I could die homeless and alone on a street. I explained to her, we weren’t going to hide in the dark alone. We were coming out to join with the great energy circulating the planet, enlivening, enlightening. We would trust being part of the world. She would merge into me, instead of keeping me hidden, disconnected and not trusting. I would release the part of me desiring a monastic and isolated life. I knew this was not my path, would not bring me to my greatest empowerment. I knew I had to step into my magic and ask for what I wanted. The asking itself was the alchemy that would allow me to be fully empowered.

The Process is the Gold

The gold wasn’t the project, but the process – who each of us turned into, how our relationship grew and how we each grew as individuals. How we learned to support and nourish each other, to turn towards each other. How our deep friendship allowed us to continue to look at places where our connection would rupture, where other loyalties sometimes intruded. How we learned to share our tender hearts.

I taught my husband to look at himself, to deepen, to explore. I showed him relationships included listening, tending, paying attention. I saw relational patterns clearly. This was my talent and gift. He taught me to trust, to play more and to know life is an abundant exchange of energy between each of us and our world. This was his gift. In our work together and in our creation of a connected and beautiful life together, we called each other to our greatest selves and our greatest relationship.

If you are not in a relationship but would like to get ready, check out “The Magic Cake: The Seven Ingredients of a Relationship Ready Person.” https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Cake-Ingredients-Relationship-Ready-Person/dp/0996386009

To learn about our emotional strategies in relationships, check out “Toughing It Out.” https://blog.weconcile.com/2014/02/03/toughing-it-out/

What Stops You From Your Courage?

July 12, 2019July 21, 2019Jennifer Lehr, MFT

Originally published in Live Your Life On Purpose June 22nd, 2019 https://medium.com/live-your-life-on-purpose/what-stops-you-from-your-courage-ebe689d583a4

I was listening to a YouTube by Sadhguru the other day and he asked, “What are you doing with your one precious life?”

It is a great question. Sometimes we get stuck in something, whether a job, a relationship or a mindset or attitude. We may have given up fighting the situation. Or we may hold onto a bad attitude. Or we may be pushing down our real feelings because we feel sad about thinking we are powerless or trapped and want to avoid those feelings.

If we truly value ourselves and our life, we have to tackle whatever we feel stuck in.

In order to do this, we must find our courage. With courage we can make the possibility of what we want a reality; we can begin a journey that will take us from where we are, to where we wish to be. Without courage, we will stay stuck.

What stops people from finding their courage?

· I don’t believe change is possible.

· I don’t believe I deserve what I want.

· I don’t believe I have the capacity to do what is needed.

· I am not supposed to rock the boat.

· I feel safer staying in what is familiar.

· Discomfort and vulnerability scare me, so I don’t persevere.

Despite my parent’s limitations, my father always told me to follow my heart and do what I loved. And life created circumstances that pushed me to look at myself. As I learned about how I would get myself stuck (I’ve been stuck many times) and began to look at and change those parts of myself, I slowly unhooked from beliefs that stopped me.

I still get curve balls thrown at me. I still fall into emotionality at times. But I know I am free to choose what I want my life to be. I know change is possible. I do not accept limitations. I am willing to sit in discomfort. I focus on making the journey itself engaging instead of grasping at an outcome.

Who are you? Where do you get stuck? What stops you from your courage?

Courage will help you get unstuck.

Untangling Love

July 12, 2019July 21, 2019Jennifer Lehr, MFT

Originally published in Hopes and Dreams for Our Future on July 9th 2019

https://medium.com/hopes-and-dreams-for-our-future/untangling-love-f9ce9a959e80

This story is about love. It comes out of my realizing how I am changing. It comes out of my desire for a new world. It is about my belief that we are all beings of love and healing includes a journey into the darker parts of ourselves to exhume, tend and ultimately to heal and transform into love.

How did your family of origin influence your ability to love?

In my family, love was hidden under other agendas. It just wasn’t the focus. My father was obsessed with his artistic vision. He struggled with depression and rage. My mother was emotionally cut off. Her focus was on the practical. Had we cleaned our rooms? Were our chores completed? Affirmation was rare. Although my father could be playful, both parents were often stressed and were critical of others. Between these two people, there were four children. I was one of those children, and my childhood impacted my ability to love.

Learning how to truly love (both self and others) has been a life path for me. I survived my childhood because I found love with the animals that surrounded me. They accepted me. They had time for me. I felt safe with them. They expressed love towards me and I towards them. I also knew there were realities other than the one I felt trapped in because I read. I read voraciously. I read to escape my life and be in another place. I read to find comfort. I read to find a place in which I could reside.

Over the years, living from the guidelines my parents indoctrinated in me, I learned that my focus on productivity often shortchanged my ability to love, to be loving, to honor my partner. Luckily, life created some relational disasters for me and caused me to begin to look at myself, to start the task of sorting through the aspects of myself that simply did not work for all of me.

Untangling as a growth choice

I have been on a growth path for many years, I am slowly correcting my deficits and growing my positive qualities. Real love is one of the true joys of this world. If we do not learn to create it, we shall have robbed ourselves and those we are blessed to share our lives with. Each moment is precious. In each moment there is always a choice. The choice is usually between what is life-affirming and what is not. Sometimes we choose the less life-affirming path. That is important because we get to experience what does not work, what does not fill us with joy. And in the next moment, we again have another choice. At any point, our choices may change. What and how we choose becomes our path. Sometimes we are caught. We don’t know which way to go, what to choose, or even how to choose. That is when working on ‘untangling’ becomes the most productive choice. This has been my destiny and my path, and doing so has become a massive force in my life.

I want a world of beauty, where people are not afraid of their emotions, or of connecting. Where we don’t have to put others down to feel okay about ourselves. Where we don’t have to deny others because we only feel okay if we have more or because we are scared that there isn’t enough. Because of the kind of world that I want, I must look at every part of myself that is not that. For those parts need support and love if they are to transform.

We innately resonate with that which is beautiful

photo by Jennifer Lehr

I believe that we are more than the material realm, more than matter. We are more than the horrors we see on the news and in our lives. We are more than the greed that impacts us every day. We resonate with qualities that are beautiful. We resonate with the experience of truth and love. We resonate with peace and appreciation.

I once worked with a young teenager who came from a family of gang members and was part of that gang culture himself. As a child, he had seen his father murder a member of another gang. His brother was in jail. That was what he knew. But one day walking to the therapy office with me, he stopped in front of a poster of trees. He said that he liked how it made him feel. He said he wished he could be there, in those trees, in that sense of peace.

Looking more deeply

I believe that we are all part of the divine, on a journey to allow that which is divine to fully manifest, for ourselves and for all others with whom we relate — and if we are all free and honored, with whom we can dance. Our journey into the light is equally a journey down into the depths. If you position yourself as a being of love, meaning a part of the divine spark of life, then you have to look at the components of yourself that are not about love. This cannot be done by pushing away the dark parts of yourself.

I refuse to allow myself to not be a part of the flow of consciousness that is about increasing love and decreasing suffering on this planet. I refuse to accept that suffering that is created by ignorance or heartlessness is okay.

For me, the journey starts inside myself. It starts with learning how to honor myself and others. And it includes trusting that I can work with what I have been given and make it meaningful and purposeful.

As we open into painful feelings, we begin a process of remembering ourselves. It is as if we live out of one part of ourselves, and have put the others, the parts that hold complicated feelings, away. These aspects sometimes jump out unbidden, but we do not really know them. We live out of a fragment of ourselves instead of a cohesive whole. We are a segregated being. And as the microcosm, so is the macrocosm. We contribute to a world where certain things are not accepted or are pushed away, whether it is a feeling or somebody else’s rights.

I have an advantage here. I am naturally a digger and a burrower. I instinctively root out and explore the dark parts of myself. I cannot imagine doing otherwise. I am grateful for this ability. I am thankful for the gifts this talent has given me. For those of you who avoid stepping into and looking at your more tormented parts, you may find this idea uncomfortable. And yet, if you can stick with it, you will learn that these feelings are temporary and transformable.

How does one do this without overwhelm? Or being repulsed and pushing away? I think of a couple who I had worked with. As the male partner began to allow himself more vulnerability (which was necessary), the female partner began to feel disgusted. Although she wanted him more attuned to her, to feelings, to connection, she could not tolerate the very ingredient that would get him there. Her work would be to look at her fear of a ‘soft’ man. She would need to unpack many experiences she had around her father and around her ideas of being protected by the masculine element and let down by softness. Deep issues will not heal on their own. But beginning the journey of looking more deeply at ourselves can be overwhelming and confusing. We often don’t know where to start.

Help is available

The task of looking at and sorting through our profound and often overwhelming issues can be helped by looking at the myth of Psyche and Eros and Psyche’s interactions with Aphrodite. Psyche was a beautiful woman. The Goddess Aphrodite was jealous of Psyche and gave her many impossible tasks. The first was for Psyche to sort through a vast granary filled with many different kinds of seeds. Psyche was instructed to sort through them by sundown. Psyche was beside herself, crying and completely overwhelmed. As she cries, an army of ants arrives, and they began to sort the seeds. By nightfall, the task was complete. Psyche was not able to sort the seeds herself. She needed assistance, and because she had a clear intention with integrity, help arrived.

There is help for relationships and personal development. One only need to pick a path to follow or several. Some include:

12-step programs
Therapy
A relational, educational process like WeConcile®
Workshops
Youtubes by various teachers, gurus, and healers

As we become more integrated and step more fully into the process of reclaiming our whole selves, we begin to be lighter. We begin to be more whole. What is dead comes to life and has an opportunity to engage consciously. A dialogue ensues. We become happier. We begin to love all of ourselves. The quality of our connections become filled with more love. Our life and life itself becomes fuller.

You can read our WeConcile FAQ here: https://www.weconcile.com/faq.html

It became my life’s mission – to help others escape what I had escaped; the pain of the past, the pain of wounded relationships and broken dreams.

I Didn’t Use To Be Good At Relationships

July 11, 2019August 5, 2019Jennifer Lehr, MFT

I remember as a kid being upset and walking away from our home. Thoughts swirled around in my head. Never get married, never have kids. Never get married, never have kids. Over and over like a mantra. I don’t remember the incident, but ours was a violent household where fighting was frequent, and empathy rare. I was a sad and depressed child.

When I eventually grew up, I began to realize I didn’t know how to have a functioning relationship. A pattern developed. Fall in love. Have a great six months. Problems emerged. Struggle for a while. A new love interest arose. Break up the old relationship and start over. Falling in love was easy but working through the difficulties that emerged in all those relationships were not.

I did get married in my mid 30’s, after a series of relationships. It was a difficult marriage. Fortunately, we never had children. After years of both individual and couples therapy, it ended in a divorce.

In the meantime, I became a psychotherapist. I had to unravel so much of my trauma, meaning making and psyche. I came to understand emotionally the imprints left on me by my parents. No longer was I in an unconscious relationship with them, compensating for their deficits. No longer was the imprint of being a caretaker to an angry father deforming my ability to speak up for myself. I reformed and reclaimed myself. The wrinkles of my life smoothed out. I studied psychology and relationships and participated in training after training. I lived and breathed self-understanding and therapeutic process. I found I loved sitting with a person or a couple and seeing the patterns of their lives. I loved seeing the images of how they interacted. I loved helping them untangle the knots of their lives.

For me, there has been a long journey between those two places – beginning with despair and hopelessness, evolving to appreciation, wonder, and joy.

I’m in a fantastic marriage now. One I could never have envisioned in my youth. I found ‘the one,’ my soulmate. A concept I never believed in, and certainly never thought would happen in my life. Today, I am married to a man I adore. Sure, we get into arguments sometimes. But 10 minutes later, we’ve figured out what triggered us and moved back into our safe connection. Gone are days of long-lasting hurt and a confused distance between us.

Part of that journey is my creating WeConcile® – an online, DIY, experiential learning program for couples. I started writing WeConcile in 2009. And while I was writing it, my now husband and I lived it. It seeped into our flesh, migrated into the very cells of our bones. The spaces within both our psyches that had been filled with trauma, doubt, and misunderstandings, slowly became infused with understanding, healing, and trust. We became different people. We became humans capable of listening to each other. We changed our behaviors. We reacted less.

I didn’t know that as over the years I created this program, I would also be living it. I only knew it became my life’s mission – to help others escape what I had escaped; the pain of the past, the pain of wounded relationships and broken dreams.

We all have our unique abilities and talents. Mine has been living at the interface of unwinding trauma and healing, of crossing the bridge of unrelating to relating, of being a writer and a healer, a student and a teacher. If you had asked me as a kid, what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would never have said, help people understand themselves, help people relate in healthy happy ways. In my youth I would have said, I want to save the planet, help the animals (and I still do). But life had other ideas for me on how I would contribute to this world. I have been guided. The fertile roots of my life have reached downward and anchored me in this particular journey of teaching others how they can better relate, how they can make their relationships beautiful.

Check out my more detailed article on my relational journey here:

https://thriveglobal.com/stories/when-the-journey-is-abundance/

My book, The Magic Cake: The Seven Ingredients of a Relationship-Ready Person,” helps you understand how to become a person who can attract in a great relationship, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TBMWQX2.

The Journey of Improving Our Relationships

July 5, 2019August 6, 2019Jennifer Lehr, MFT

How does having a significant illness relate to being in a relationship that doesn’t work? How do we take that understanding and apply it to improve our relationships? How do we reach our relationship goals?

In 2016, when I was struggling with Lyme disease, in desperation, I went to an alternative treatment center. The treatments included shots, IV’s and fevers which could get out of control, body temperatures moving to unsafe levels. The needles pushing through tender skin, hurting despite the icing of the area previously. The weight of the IV needle in the vein hindering easy movement. There was no way to escape the discomfort of the treatments that went on from morning into the night for several months or the exhaustion from both the illness and the remedy. I found the treatment to be stressful, traumatic and at times painful. But I knew I needed to get better and I was willing to suffer to find my health again.

You might ask how this situation relates to being in a relationship that isn’t as good as it could be, or where a couple is struggling. These two journeys are somewhat different, but parallels exist. In both cases, we are in a state of dis-ease and we are looking for healing or wholeness.

My Mantra

When I was at that clinic, I created a mantra, which I used to focus my intentions and attitudes.

Please help me find health.

Please help me be safe.

Please help me have courage.

Please help me hear the guidance of my higher self.

I silently repeated this mantra over and over. When I was getting a painful shot or sitting in a bathtub full of ice and ice water in an attempt to keep my fever from getting dangerously high, I would say this mantra to myself. I used it to ground myself. I used it to keep my focus clear. I used it to reassure and soothe myself.

A person in a failing relationship can easily get overwhelmed with distress, with feeling unsafe emotionally, with not knowing if they can get through the difficulties, with lacking clarity and not knowing which way to turn or how to navigate through the disruptions between themselves and their partner. Like my Lyme journey, a relational journey also requires courage, reassurance, guidance, safety and the desire for the relationship to return to health or wholeness.

I was lucky to have mostly kind staff and nurses, and the patients were silly and playful with each other. We created the support we needed amongst ourselves. Connection is another part of what gets us through difficult times. In a relationship that works, we have a connection that supports us through life’s challenges. But in a relationship that doesn’t work, often we do not have that safe connection with our partner.

It is painful when we fight, when we don’t know if our relationship will survive. It is painful to feel confused and not know which way to turn, or how to get an argument to turn into a more productive conversation.

How do we reach our relationship goals?

Yet our desires for a better relationship are achievable. We can learn how to create healthy emotional and relational selves. We can create safety in our relationship. We can find our courage if we have guidance. And we can learn to ‘hear’ the right way to go.

But without new information coming into our ‘system’, we often don’t know how to proceed.

WeConcile is a do-it-yourself online relationship course designed to teach you how to change your relationship and reach your relationship goals. It teaches you how to make your relationship safe and healthy. You can find your courage and become a full team with your partner. You will learn new ways of being that will open up new connections in your relationship. And unlike dealing with a major illness, you can enjoy the process of gaining more contact with, and understanding of your partner.

Recovering from Lyme disease is a long journey. Some of the people I went to that clinic with have passed. They were not able to defeat the disease. Others are still struggling. Some, like myself, are more or less, better. I never gave up. I sought to recover, to find new knowledge, new tools. It took many treatments, a clear focus on what I wanted, and continued courage and persistence. I was one of the lucky ones who found what I needed.

You are on your own journey. But a journey is just that – moving through terrain, from one location to another. Your journey can lead you to a place where you have the love you have always desired. Don’t give up on your dreams. It is completely doable to create a nourishing and peaceful relationship and the process of doing so is no longer a mystery. A science of love exists with the tools you need. You only need to choose to begin the journey of healing your relationship.

Our blog is filled with informative posts. This one gives a glimpse into a couple’s process of working out their relationship. https://blog.weconcile.com/2019/07/18/the-real-relationship-working-it-out/

I Feel Lonely in My Marriage. What Can I Do?

June 24, 2019August 6, 2019Jennifer Lehr, MFT

If you feel lonely in your marriage, often it is because you and your partner are not connecting emotionally.

Ask yourself:

Have you and your partner moved into a distant relationship to avoid fighting or is something else going on?
What am I avoiding talking about?
What am I avoiding asking for?
Do I acknowledge my need for emotional connection or just try to make do with what is?
Where have each of you put your attention and energy instead of towards each other?
Does one of you have a problem with vulnerable emotions?
Did something happen that caused you to pull away from your partner?
Have you avoided asking for your needs to be met in the past, and been disappointed by your partner not knowing what you needed?

Once you explore what you think is occurring, then you can take an action:

Set up a time to talk with your partner and bring up the hard stuff, your desire for more emotional connection, or events that have caused you or your partner to pull away from each other.
Tell your partner that you are feeling lonely (unhappy, etc.)
Be vulnerable, not accusing

Sometimes a partner will not be able to have this conversation or is not able to tolerate the emotions of sadness or grief. If this happens:

Make an appointment with a therapist
Take a relationship building course or workshop

As you tackle your relational issues, instead of feeling lonely in your relationship, it can become connected and alive.

Remember, if there is abuse occurring, get professional help. Do not try to talk it out without the help of a therapist.

Another post that might interest you is Learning To Reconnect. https://blog.weconcile.com/2013/04/01/learning-to-reconnect/

In addition to the WeConcile blog, You can also read more posts on relationships here: jenniferlehrmft.com and https://medium.com/search?q=jennifer%20lehr

Saying No to Someone You Love

June 18, 2019June 18, 2019Jennifer Lehr, MFT

Sometimes, from deep inside us, it emerges, almost unexpected – NO. No, I will not do that. No, what you are doing is not okay. No, I will not participate. No, I will stop myself from behaving that way.

When we find our ‘No,’ claim it and own it without anger, we are well on the way to being able to take care of ourselves emotionally

I remember years ago being someone who could not say no. As I learned to be able to say no, I had to have a reason. No, I cannot go with you tonight because I have plans. No, I cannot help you because I am already booked.

But saying “No, I am not interested in doing that, but thanks for asking,” was not yet in my vocabulary.

For some of us, saying no is easy. And for others, it is something that needs to be developed. Part of being in a functional relationship means that we can honor our own needs and wishes. If we cannot hold our own, we may end up feeling resentful, which can poison a relationship.

Perhaps the other person will get angry? Yes, that is possible, and that will undoubtedly have to be worked out. But ultimately, kindly saying no, is one of our rights and a necessary component of being able to work out a relationship. We are all different. We don’t always see things eye to eye. We have to be able to stand on our own two feet while also relating to another.

How are you with saying no? Can you say no without feeling angry or guilty? Can your partner (or family member or friend) hear your no?

What kind of support or relationship help do you need to be able to honor your own wishes? WeConcile Level 18 specifically focuses on boundaries.

Have a look at our WeConcile Testimonial Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=sHNHRWbU5gw

Finding Our Rainbow: A Great Relationship

May 30, 2019May 30, 2019Jennifer Lehr, MFT

I have an image of a rainbow arching across the horizon. Like the Star card in a tarot deck, it indicates to me, grace, blessings, and fulfillment. This can include having a great relationship.

How do we find the rainbow in our lives?

Maybe you already have?

We find our rainbow by focusing on beauty and truth. We find it by desiring it. We find it by keeping ourselves out of negative and dark thought habits. Often this means we have to tackle something in our lives. Like a job or relationship that isn’t nourishing. Sometimes we have to bridge two worlds, staying in something that is uncomfortable, as we learn to work with it and make it better – like molding a lump of clay into something with form, function and beauty. Other times we have to find a different attitude, like looking for what does work and what this situation does offer us. And still other times we have to leave that situation, job or relationship.

Often, we have to decide that finding our rainbow is more important than anything else. That means we make the journey to our rainbow our priority. That could mean any number of things including starting a meditation practice, reading books on relationships, getting into therapy, gaining a new skill, joining a gym, or beginning a hobby that nourishes us.

The experience of the rainbow comes from an internal place. So, we choose to grow. We choose to connect with our souls and own our stories. We choose to step into our courage and leave our fears behind. Finding our rainbow comes from having the courage to look at and love ourselves. It comes from making choices that show self-support. It means we look for support and solutions.

That doesn’t mean there won’t be difficult times. Sometimes we may feel as if we are a small tree in the middle of the forest reaching upward, trying to get to the light. But even though the sky is far above, we keep our eyes on the light.

Being human isn’t easy for anyone. Being in a relationship also isn’t always easy. But being in a relationship should be a source of support in your life. It can be part of your rainbow experience.

What do you have to do in your life to find your rainbow?

You can see the image of and read about the Star card here: https://labyrinthos.co/blogs/tarot-card-meanings-list/the-star-meaning-major-arcana-tarot-card-meanings

For another article on improving your relationship, check out “Toughing it Out” here: https://blog.weconcile.com/2014/02/03/toughing-it-out/

Embrace the Suck

May 22, 2019May 23, 2019Jennifer Lehr, MFT

I’m writing and will be presenting a Continuing Education course for therapists called Clinician Use of WeConcile® to Facilitate Couples Work. (You can find the course here: https://www.goodtherapy.org/clinician-use-weconcile-facilitate-couples-work-web-conference.html). Doing this work is making me think about what it takes to make a change in a relationship, and about the couples who choose to stay stuck instead of tackling this significant part of their lives. And it is making me again look at what actually happens in a person to allow the kind of change that transforms a relationship to something amazing. Yet, so many people are scared of this.

Precisely what is scary for them? I think it is simply having to experience painful feelings and begin to sort through them. An example of a problematic feeling could be feeling awkward or gross in front of someone else hence feeling a sense of shame. Of course, we have difficult feelings, regardless, but we aren’t consciously choosing to look at them. They just leap out and grab us when we get triggered. We react, and then those feelings subside, or we put them away. We create an outside reason – she made me mad. We aren’t looking deep at why we were triggered. How what she said made us feel unseen or less than. How what she said, triggered an echo of our feelings about how our father made us feel.

This is a quote from Sue Johnson, founder of EFT for couples. “Awareness of emotion is central to healthy functioning …. Since emotional responses orient the individual to his or her own needs and longings and prime the struggle to get those needs met.”

So, for example, suppose Joe had a very successful father, and nothing Joe does makes him feel as if he can match what his father did. So, underneath Joe is going to have some feelings of not being worthy, or not being good enough. Joe’s deep longing is to feel worthy. What does Joe do about this feeling? He pushes it away. He doesn’t feel it. He’s not even aware of this feeling. Instead, he puts his wife down. He takes his yucky feelings and gives them to her – and he’s not even aware of it. She is too controlling, too annoying, too this or that. And she, of course, has her own dynamics that interlock with his. So, they bicker a lot. Sure, they love each other, but they are both in their individual defensive places much of the time. Neither Joe nor his wife has that sense of leaning back into the soft cushion of their relationship because emotionally, they don’t feel fully safe. Who knows when a harsh word will come, or one will criticize the other.

And yet, the process of changing this dynamic is known. Opening up each partner’s inner emotional experience, with a focus on emotional engagement and corrective experiences will allow new ways of relating and new self-structure to emerge. We just don’t know how to do this. That is why therapy, workshops, and experiential educational systems can help.

What if Joe became able to realize and talk about how being raised by his very successful father impacted his feelings about himself. What if he realized that he was continually reacting to issues that triggered a deep shame he had around feeling as if he was not good enough. What if, as he talked about these feelings, his wife began to understand him better, and he began to understand himself better. What if she began to see how what she did triggered him, and she developed more empathy for him. What if he also came to see how he triggered her and what if in this process of exploration and reconnection Joe began to see her value, and he began to want to connect, rather than push her away. And what if in this process, he found his own worth. And because of all of these shifts, he no longer put his wife down. Because they are now connecting on a deeper level.

Each person has the enormous opportunity to expand and reorganize their inner experience, transforming their relationship.

This quote from Brene Brown encapsulates the way to change, “I believe that you have to walk through vulnerability to get to courage, therefore . . . embrace the suck. I try to be grateful every day, and my motto right now is ‘Courage over comfort.’”

Courage over comfort. That is the key. The primary vehicle for change in a relationship really is developing a better relationship with our own feelings and unpacking why we feel what we feel when we are having that feeling.

To learn how WeConcile protects your privacy go here: https://www.weconcile.com/privacy.html