Are your relationships making you crazy? Do attempts at calm and effective communication with loved ones quickly escalate into screaming matches? Do you find yourself losing your cool way too often due to issues with your family?
There is nothing quite as challenging as trying to cultivate peaceful relationships with those around us. Partners, friends, family and neighbors present a wide range of personalities which can make it difficult to live in harmony.
There is compelling and mounting evidence that relationships are the most important thing in life. Current research reflects that the quality of our personal relationships correlates very strongly with our overall level of satisfaction in life. Often, when people on their deathbeds are asked what they would do differently in life, they express regret at not giving more time and attention to relationships with people that were important to them. So, in essence, relationships with those around us are what indeed matter most.
Despite the undeniable importance of relationships, the vast majority of us have never been trained on the skills that make a relationship last. There is no class in school that teaches us how to best relate to others in the most loving and considerate manner. Most of us just do what was ingrained in us while growing up in our family of origin without giving it much thought. Relationship counseling gives us an opportunity to learn these valuable skills. Relationships (particularly intimate relationships) are fertile ground for enormous personal growth. Intimate relationships give us an opportunity to tend to our deepest wounds, which frequently rise to the surface when attempting to blend our life with the life of our significant other.