Traditional Self Help is Limited – Part 2

Posted on June 24, 2011 by Dr. Bob Huizenga

Here are 4 more self help strategies:

  • You must get marriage counseling.

Please know that I’ve had a private practice as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist since 1981. Not all marriage counseling is equal. There are inherent contradictions that make it problematic. And, it may deflect from what truly will work best.

  • Date. Spend some intentional time together.

Sounds good. But, the time is often forced or contrived and the elephants in the room are still alive.

  • Take some time away for a romantic weekend. Be more romantic.

Please know that I think romance is highly misunderstood. Romance is much more than chocolate on Valentine’s days and staring into his/her eyes. I prefer not to use the word romance since it is so widely misunderstood and abused.

  • Get away to a retreat or weekend where you focus on the marriage.

This may be helpful, but often not necessary. The key is how you face the strains of each day individually and as individuals and as a couple.

Although these rebuilding strategies are commonly espoused, they are temporary fixes at best.

Most fail to address the underlying process of building a marriage or relationship of deep emotional investment. As well, they often fail to get at the core issues.

Creating a lasting and mutually satisfying emotional connection that you can trust and know will endure the test of time only occurs once the marital process is embraced and core issues are addressed.

As well these more traditional strategies tend to limit one’s personal power and freedom.
Your lives become enmeshed or wrapped around each other in ways that feel smothering and limiting. I will speak more on that at length later.

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Getting Him/Her to “Talk” Part 2

Posted on June 21, 2011 by Dr. Bob Huizenga

Getting Him/Her to TalkHere are some other points to consider when trying to engage or getting your spouse to “talk”:

  • A series of Engagements, each building positively on the other, create a framework for the possibility of warmth, acceptance, love and romance (if you want to use that word.)
  • Some formats of engagement may work better for one than another. Face-to-face, phone, texting and email are different platforms. A consideration of the platform used is important in the beginning shifts away from negativity and reactivity.
  • One typically initiates the engagement and the other responds with reluctance (see pursuer – distance process later.)
  • Engagements turn to negativity and reactivity when approached out of personal neediness.

Each engagement gives a wealth of information to enhance your personal power and voice.
Engaging your spouse means you need NOT “work on the relationship.” The relationship with its variations of intimacy emerges effortlessly as you bring and express your voice.

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Rebuilding Your Marriage: 8 Key Points on Creating Distinctions

Posted on June 18, 2011 by Dr. Bob Huizenga

rebuilding your marriage

From time to time, throughout my material, you will hear me refer to the process of making distinctions. Making distinctions is the process of discovering deeper and deeper meaning and understanding in a concept.

Take “love,” for example. What is “love?” Is love infatuation, romance, caring, compassion, sexual attraction? These are all distinctions of the word “love.”

Here are 8 key points on creating distinctions.

1. You can communicate much more powerfully and elegantly when you see the distinctions. You no longer ramble in generalities but see the truth and speak the truth. You see the world in its finer points. You put the world in a different frame, outside the frame of negativity and reactivity.

2. My material often helps you make distinctions. The distinctions build a bridge between the two of you and jump start the process of intimacy and warmth. For example, one feeling the hurt and pain may blurt out, “I want a divorce.” The one making finer distinctions may pinpoint the place of that hurt, the outcome of that hurt, the underlying dynamics of that hurt (i.e. my need for ___________ is not being met,) and talk instead about and begin describing how resolution can transpire.

3. You have much to offer when you have the gift of making distinctions. Others must and will listen to you. You speak about what is real. You offer hope. You are attractive. The evolution of love is the evolution of knowing and being known more fully and with depth.

4. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist or self help binge to do this. Creating the habit daily of being aware of the subtleties and distinctions in life put you on the path. As I’ve stated before, we make distinctions in other arenas of life. Making distinctions in our relationships or marriage is no different.

5. This process of making distinctions is never ending. It is infinite. There are ALWAYS more distinctions you can make. Your awareness of yourself is always limited. Your awareness of the other is always limited or finite. Love never ends. Love is infinite.

6. Making distinctions generates a tremendous feeling of freedom. There are no limitations to know, to love and be loved. The world is yours. Your marriage is yours to create what you truly want to create. You can explore. You can experiment. Marriage need not be dull, boring or characterized by the thought, “We have arrived, or we must arrive.”

7. Much of my work as a writer and coach is making distinctions for others. I help others see the myriad of underlying needs, fears, hopes, dreams and put those into words and craft powerful communication. This communication is powerful and comes from the heart and soul, from the essence of whom one is, not from one’s negativity and reactivity.

8. Making distinctions can be exceedingly fun and enjoyable. It appeals to a pragmatic man because it is concrete. I appeals to a woman because it speaks of depth and the heart. (Sorry about the gender generalities. Don’t take them seriously. I just want to make a point about the universal appeal of this process.

Check out another blog on making distinctions.


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Speaking Your “Voice” to Your Spouse

Posted on June 15, 2011 by Dr. Bob Huizenga

Your VoiceA core element of a healthy marriage is your capacity to express your personal power. Note, I did not say you must develop it. Your personal power is there! It may be covered at this moment. You may not believe me.

You may focus so extensively on the negative that you miss your power. But, your power is within you. Your power is YOU!

Your task is to embrace that power and to embrace you.

And, here’s the kicker: your spouse or significant other is given to you to create an environment in which that happens. Likewise you were given to him/her for that purpose as well.

Engagement by engagement you more fully embrace that power and disclose your power and your uniqueness with finer and finer distinctions.

Here are some key points on embracing your personal power and voice:

Your voice is what is uniquely you. I had a friend and prominent consultant (who worked with nationally renowned television and radio personalities) review my website. His comment: “You have a voice!” He meant that I express who I am powerfully so that most want listen and hear more. My website, how I write is an extension of me, is me! You want your voice to be strong as in uniquely you, so you spouse or significant other wants to hear.

When you have your voice, you have much to offer. People want to be around those who have much to offer. When you react and are negative, you offer nothing; nothing that will build and grow love. You are a noisy gong or clanging symbol, that’s it.

Having a voice means you are comfortable with you. You are comfortable in your skin. You are at ease in disclosing who you are.
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Traditional Self Help is Limited – Part 1

Posted on June 12, 2011 by Dr. Bob Huizenga

Self HelpI’ve been part of the self help and therapeutic endeavor since 1981. I’ve served on the state board for the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. My private practice in Marriage and Family Therapy continued since that time and I’ve sat with thousands who expressed their pain and were looking for something different, something more.

I’ve spent much time reflecting and noting what seemed to work and what seemed to fail.

I don’t always take the traditional route because I don’t believe it goes far enough or it misses underlying issues and assumptions.

Here’s what you hear and read from many that purportedly try to help create love and rekindle your relationship:

4 Commonly Suggested Methods for Reviving a Marriage or Relationship

  • Talk about feelings. Get at the nitty grity. Go over past hurts. Dig into family of origin issues.

Sounds foreboding, doesn’t it? And, usually not necessary, very subjective and can take much time.

I contend that NEVER are two fully committed to this process. One is always taking the lead with the other holding back somewhat, or a lot.

  • You must work to meet each other’s needs.

This may feel good at the beginning, but it is only a temporary fix at best. I will show you ways to move beyond your neediness.

Now, that sounds boring and rather plastic or contrived. I will teach you how to communicate better without focusing on the skills. I will teach you how to deal with infidelity.

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How To Get Him/Her To “Talk”

Posted on June 9, 2011 by Dr. Bob Huizenga

How to Get Him/Her to Talk
Engaging the other typically means, “We gotta talk.”

And, “talking” usually means “getting at issues” that are bothering one or the other. It means there is a problem, as in a lack of understanding or lack of intimacy or distance or something is terribly wrong.

Such encounters are often fraught with anxiety or fear. There’s the fear of rejection, of not being heard, of anger and in general a fear that the relational world will fall apart.

One wants a “deep” conversation whereby hurts or omissions of the past are aired, feelings are expressed and we “get it out.”

Or, there is a resignation that “talking” just won’t work and is a waste of time.

It is easy to see where these conversations will lead.

I want you to think of something different when you think of “Engaging” your spouse or significant other.

Consider these 3 points:

1. Engaging the other need not last long nor be a major event. “Talking it out” may be a futile attempt at creating closeness, especially when the expected outcome is unrealistic.

2. “Talking” is not always engagement. It may be empty clatter; attempts to manipulate will usually arise out of one’s personal neediness and will be fertile ground for negativity and reactivity.

3. Engaging may be non-verbal; a look, a touch or a sigh.

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Making Shifts Help Build A Love You Can Trust

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Dr. Bob Huizenga

Building TrustShifts happen.

An awareness of your personal shifts and the capacity to guide and create shifts are a core element of building a love you can trust.

Here are Key Points on shifts:

  • A shift is any movement or change you make in the way you think, act or feel. A different thought may lead to a different action or different feeling. Or a different action may lead to a different thought and/or feeling.
  • Shifts happen all the time. Change is constant. Change will never end.
  • You want to have an awareness of the change process so you can modify and control the shifts in your life. Making distinctions leads to shifts. The process of intentionally making shifts can be extremely freeing and exhilarating. Finally, I have my power. I have my voice.
  • Shifts can result from a conscious decision to initiate a change in the way you think or what you do.
  • Shifts can emerge serendipitously. The JUST happen and it’s difficult to pinpoint the cause. You can trust that an unconscious part of you is also redesigning, rearranging your life in ways you want!
  • Shifts can be dramatic and instantaneously life changing. Although this is rare, it does happen.
  • Shifts often happen more slowly and methodically. These are usually the shifts you can trust and have staying power.

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A Key Healing Skill To Use In A Marital Crisis

Posted on June 3, 2011 by Dr. Bob Huizenga

A Key Healing Skill To Use In A Marital Crisis

In therapy and change theory an overarching process to help in the healing is technically called meta cognition.

Meta-cognition is your capacity to enable a part of you to stand back and evaluate what you (or other parts of you) are doing, feeling and thinking. This is the beginning of change. This is the beginning of wisdom. This is the beginning of your ability to create your future. This is where you find your personal power and freedom.

Without the capacity to use this process we live an unreflective life, moving from one unsatisfying cycle of pain, emptiness and/or boredom to another.

And, when a crisis occurs even with those of us who make great decisions and live, for the most part, effectively, any sort of meta cognition often goes out the window.

We live with our feelings, obsessions, fears…over and over and over again, day after day.
We default to a position of powerlessness, loss of control, negativity and reactivity.

That’s why a marital crisis, where we have such a huge emotional investment is often a “crazy” time. We default to that which we have always thought would work, but in reality only perpetuates our helplessness, powerlessness, loss of control, negativity and reactivity.

And, to boot, we don’t truly have a clue what we are doing. We only know it’s painful beyond belief.

Develop your capacity to stand back and observe, if you can, when faced with a marital crisis.

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11 Things You Are Able To Do In A Healthy Marriage

Posted on May 31, 2011 by Dr. Bob Huizenga

Healthy Marriage

Following are eleven characteristics of a healthy relationship as it moves through marital crisis. In a healthy marriage, you will be able to:

1. Stand back and see the larger picture

2. View your crisis from different perspectives

3. Have much to offer (your spouse and others)

4. Make very clear and powerful distinctions that give you tremendous personal power when it comes to communication

5. Speak to the point and with power

6. Create the intimacy that fills your life with joy and delight

7. Both realize that a marriage in pain is a marriage that is not working and therefore want resolution as a couple

8. Want the impasse between the two of you resolved

9. Want to diminish your pain, your fear and your discomfort when around him/her.

10. Want the freedom to move on, hopefully with each other.

11. Hope that the resolution will lead to a lasting connection or love, but know there is no guarantee. It is your preference, not your demand.

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I Want You To Develop A Lasting Emotional Connection

Posted on May 28, 2011 by Dr. Bob Huizenga

I want to help you experience that lasting emotional connection and intimacy in your marriage or relationship of emotional investment that brings powerful moments of personal and mutual satisfaction and joy without losing your personal freedom and personal power.

I want you to experience the joy of having a relationship that is mutually satisfying, light and refreshing. It’s a relationship in which you can relax and be fully you. No games. No pretenses. No tension. No wondering. No affairs.

It’s a relationship you can trust. You have a firm belief rooted in your mind and in the pit of your stomach that this joy-filled relationship will never end.

To be more specific, here’s what I want for you:

  1. Eliminate your fear of being close
  2. Be intimate without losing your personal freedom
  3. Stop chasing
  4. Stop running away
  5. Lose your fear of being smothered
  6. Lose your fear of conflict
  7. Be powerfully heard
  8. Hear powerfully
  9. More personally productive and successful in other areas of your life because of your emotional connection
  10. Speak your mind and no longer hide
  11. No longer work so hard at pleasing
  12. Freedom from meeting his/her needs
  13. Throw the concept of compatibility out the window
  14. Discover that men are NOT from Mars
  15. Let your marriage give life and not be an emotional death sentence
  16. Feel extremely excited about each other (passion)

Yes, it is possible to create such a relationship. And, it’s not as difficult as you might think. However, the route I suggest is probably drastically different than you believe.

Make sure you sign up for my free information.

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