If you enjoyed reading about what to do when your partner has a tantrum, you will love watching this video enactment of what is actually happening when the tantrum strikes.

How many times have you and your partner or spouse been in a conversation, it gets heated, and all of a sudden, one or the other of you is throwing a tantrum?

It seems to arise as though out of nowhere and before you know it, the whole conversation can turn into a knock out, drag down brawl.

I imagine most of you don’t feel good about treating your partner that way. This article will help you learn how to avoid getting into the ring or battlefield to begin with.

In a previous blog we shared about the date night that went sour…here’s the flip side of the story:

“It’s been a long time since my wife and I have gone out. She hasn’t gotten dressed up and put on makeup for me in a long time. Not that that’s important, she’s beautiful without it, it’s just nice to have that extra special little something. I know she feels better when she puts on the makeup and gets dressed up, too; I notice a little extra pep in her step. I’m really looking forward to going out on the town with her tonight,” he thinks as he smiles to himself and settles into the couch to watch some football.

“She usually takes a while to get ready, so I’ll just watch some football and when she’s done, she can have a nice glass of wine and relax while I get cleaned up real fast. I don’t take nearly as long as she does.”

A little while later his wife comes out into the living room all dolled up and ready to go, first with a smile and within nanoseconds, her smile turns into a frown and she’s yelling at him.

If you and your partner have ever had a date night go sour, you will want to watch this video. In it, our lead couples therapist explains what might have happened and how we can help.

It’s Saturday evening and you are getting ready to go out. You and your partner had agreed to go out to your favorite restaurant for dinner because it’s been a long time since you had been out on a date together. Your relationship was starting to get routine and the two of you remembered how much fun you used to have, so you have been looking forward to this all week long. You take a nice long shower, shave your legs, put on makeup, put on a flattering dress, spray your favorite perfume, and slip into some nice heels. You are all dolled up and ready to go…

If you’ve been in a romantic relationship for any length of time you are probably familiar with the feeling of shifting from being lovey-dovey with your partner to thinking he or she is completely out to get you—and that shift can sometimes happen in a split second.  

If you’ve ever had this experience, you’re not alone.  

Almost everyone who has ever been in a romantic relationship has experienced this at some point in their relationship. When it happens, it’s usually related to the some issue you’ve had before:
Your partner didn’t put the cup in the sink, again!
Your partner left their socks in the middle of the room, again!
Your partner didn’t take the trash out to the street, again!
Your partner was out with their friends all night long, again!
Your partner’s mother invited herself over without letting you know, again!

One of the reasons we love working with relationships here at the Center for Soulful Relationships is because life is all about relationships. 

Relationships have the power to lift us up and bring us great joy. And, they also have the power to bring us down into the depths of despair. 

Our intimate romantic partnerships, especially, is where all the magic happens. 

If you feel like your relationship started off filled with love, you had an instant connection with your partner, the sparks flew, and it felt like you had known one another for years, the reality is: You probably have. 

As you prepare to celebrate the 4th of July, celebrating our independence as a nation, your heart might be feeling the balance between the celebration and the heaviness of how can we allow ourselves to celebrate when our country is in such deep turmoil?

Children are still being torn from their parents and detained in detention facilities reminiscent of concentration camps and internment camps... Roe v Wade might be overturned... California might separate into two different states... race relations continue to be slow in improving and divisiveness continues to prevail. 

That's why today I want to share with you this video about what you can do to make the changes our country and our world so badly need right now. 

In my almost 15 years of working with clients one thing has become very clear to me: most people today experience deep grief about losses unseen.

When most people think of grief, they think of a physical death: A family member or friend died and then a grief process begins.

Most people don’t realize grief is a process that arises from more than just death.

Death is simply the most tangible way we can conceptualize grief. When a person dies, they are no longer with us in body, and therefore, we believe we have experienced a loss. There is a direct, tangible, and measureable loss.

However, our lives are a constant series of losses:
Loss of a dream
Loss of a desire
Loss of our innocence
Loss of our hopes
Loss of our health
Loss of our child’s health
Loss of who we used to be
The list can go on and on.

As you watch the news, read headlines in the papers, and scroll through your Facebook feed, you might be feeling sad, hopeless, and angry and afraid at what is happening in our country today.

Children are being separated from their families, sometimes taken from their parents arms, and placed in modern day internment camps. Children and families are being traumatized. Families are being torn apart. Innocents are being hurt, both in the short and long term.

If you feel sad, angry, hopeless, and afraid, you are feeling the emotions which are appropriate for a terrible situation such as this.

 And while there is external work in the world to be done, I want to invite you to consider the internal work that needs to also be done within each one of us as well.