Relationship Bridge Building

Take Charge of Your Life Book Review

Dr. William Glasser's latest book, Take Charge of Your Life, is a great book for people who want to take responsibility for their own happiness instead of waiting for others to change so they can be happy. I particularly liked that he went into great depth about drug and alcohol abuse. His points about conflict were very true, mainly that there are few true dilemmas. And his section about parenting was great. He talked about how as parents, we tend to do a lot to our children and for our children but very little with our children. He suggests we may want to turn that around so that we are doing much more with our children and very little to and for them. There are so many words of wisdom in this book from a great master. Don't miss it. Pick up a copy today.

Sexual Challenges in a Marriage

Question: We have been married 19 years, my hubby is paralyzed from the stomach down and sex has always been a major problem in our relationship. It has come to the point that I have to please myself and try and imagine him with me sexually. To be fair to him he takes lots of meds for pain makes him have NO sexual drive and I am in OVERDRIVE. We have only been with each other sexually approx. 8 times. I would love to be able to just pounce on my hubby when he doesn’t expect it but I only get rejected and laughed at.

I think having problems in the bedroom really deadens communication in the marriage. I pray for a romantic intimate filled marriage, but I am slowly dying inside. I have tried communicating with him my needs and he gets upset and complains that is always come down to this. And that I should realize that he doesn’t/can’t do it. I have tried doing devotional books with him to help build a marriage but no response. I have asked him to get his testosterone tested and see if he can take anything to counteract the meds he is taking, he seems to always forget and procrastinate it. Recently I tried emailing him so he could have some time to think about his answers but he never responded at all. He is a great husband and father to our kids and I would never leave him because I value the vows we took, but it is getting extremely more difficult. Do you have any suggestions for me? Things to try, say or do?

I am longing for companionship and intimacy with my hubby, but am slowly sinning as I am lusting at other peoples relationships and what i imagine goes on behind closed doors that doesn’t go on behind ours

Answer: First I want to thank you for writing and sharing your story with me. I can't really give you advice without having a back and forth conversation with you so I will simply list your options as I see them. I realize from your email that you may be religious or at least take your marriage vows very seriously. That being said, I may list some options you wouldn't consider based on your values but I want to list all the possible choices I can see and let you sift through them, perhaps add some of your own and then choose the best course of action for you. If you decide you might want to have a free 20-minute coaching session, then you can call or email to schedule one.

It sounds like you have done your best attempting to communicate your needs to your husband. When we want something from someone else and they don't want to or are not capable of complying, then it's best for our own sanity to try to adjust ourselves to better manage our partner's lack of cooperation. I do believe you have done everything you can think of to communicate your needs to your husband. One option you have is to "show" him rather than "tell" him. When you ask him for something he doesn't believe he is capable of, then he may perceive that as criticism and shut down. Perhaps you could try to reintroduce him to the joys of sexual intimacy by giving him pleasure without expecting anything in return. You may have to do this several times until your husband understands you are simply loving him without needing him to do anything in return. Gradually, you can "teach" him how to pleasure you in a way that can also be enjoyable to him. This is one suggestion.

Other suggestions are to pleasure yourself as you have been. You could have an affair, with or without your husband's blessing. You could leave your husband and start dating again. You could focus your attention on all the things you love about your husband and the wonderful things he does do for you and your children. When you do this with gratitude, it will be difficult to still have room for any kind of disappointment over what he doesn't do.

Another thing I want to mention is to debunk you beliefs about what goes on in other people's bedrooms. I am a relationship counselor and can tell you, sex is one of the biggest problems in relationships next to money. Your perception of others, may be causing you to be more disappointed than need be. One thing many women have difficulty with are husbands who have sexual relationships with other women. That is one of the things you can be thankful for in your relationship.

There are probably other things I can think of if we were to have a conversation but that's it for now. I hope this helps and that you can find satisfaction in your relationship and happiness in your life. Let me know if there is anything else I can do.

 

 

Knowing the Difference between Accommodation and Dysfunction

With the world mourning the loss of a phenomenal singer and entertainer in Whitney Houston, our attention has been directed toward drug use and abusive relationships. It’s impossible for us, the general public, to really know what happens in the personal lives of celebrities but I know abuse and addiction happen in the lives of “regular” people just like you and me. We sometimes lose ourselves in relationships that are important to us. How can you tell if you are simply engaging in healthy accommodation or if you have crossed the line into dysfunction?

To read more go to YourTango.com.

Kim Olver, Life and Executive Coaching

Kim Olver, MS., NCC., LCPC helps people get along better with the important people in their lives, including themselves, at home and at work. She is the award winning author of Secrets of Happy Couples: Loving Yourself, Your Partner, and Your Life, and has also contributed to Whole Living, Women’s World, Fitness Magazine, Law of Attraction Magazine and Counseling Today. She co-authored Leveraging Diversity at Work: How to Hire, Retain, and Inspire a Diverse Workforce for Peak Productivity and Performance with Sylvester Baugh and co-authored a book with Ken Blanchard, Les Brown, Mark Victor Hansen and Byron Katie, entitled 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life. She is an international speaker having worked in Europe, Australia and the continent of Africa, as well as all over the United States, who addresses schools, counselors, therapists, social workers, military veterans, coaches, couples, parents and businesses on her transformational ideas. She is a licensed clinical professional counselor, certified in Choice Theory and Reality Therapy. As a life coach, she founded the Academy of Choice and developed the process of InsideOut Empowerment, which she employs with her clients and teaches to fellow coaches. Olver lives in Chicago and invites people to email her at kim@kimolver.com.

Kim knew in 5^th grade she wanted to be a helping professional when she grew up. She studied psychology as an undergraduate and earned her Master’s in Counseling at the University of Scranton. She has spent her whole adult life helping people with their most important relationships. She held a fulltime job and maintained a private practice until 2004, when she decided she wanted to start her own coaching business.

Kim wanted grow and have the freedom owning her own business would provide. She had no idea if she would be successful but she knew she would prefer knowing she tried and failed, rather than playing it safe and not trying at all. So, she quit her job of 17 years, moved from Northeast Pennsylvania to Chicago, and opened a coaching practice. She had her master’s degree, her certification in Choice Theory, a line of credit and a stubborn determination to succeed.

She wanted to transition from counseling to the field of coaching where there are a greater number of individuals more highly motivated to make the changes they seek. She also wanted to escape the mounds of paperwork that had come to dominate the counseling profession. She felt as if she were spending more time writing about what she was doing than she spent actually doing it, generated by insurance companies and She also worked doing public speaking, training, and consulting. And she wanted to write a book.

In 2006, her colleague and friend, Sylvester Baugh, and Kim wrote the book, Leveraging Diversity at Work: How to Hire, Retain, and Inspire a Diverse Workforce for Peak Productivity and Performance. This book is a compilation of best practice in the field of diversity interspersed with many personal stories from interacting in each other’s environments that help illustrate the points in an entertaining way. They have done many diversity workshops, including a gig with the NBA.

In 2010, Kim began the Academy of Choice, a coaching program, where coaches can learn coaching skills based on Dr. Glasser’s Choice Theory and the InsideOut Empowerment Process. When the National Board of Certified Counselors decided certified counselors who also did coaching had to be certified from a Board Certified Coaching program, she decided she would apply. She was granted this status in 2012 and began teaching coaching skills to licensed helping professionals.

On February 1, 2010, Kim turned 50 and had the most amazing year of her life. She authored and launched her book, Secrets of Happy Couples: Loving Yourself, Your Partner, and Your Life. This made it to Amazon.com’s bestseller list and won three prestigious awards—Living Now Book Aware, Independent Publisher’s Book Award and Pinnacle Book Achievement Award.  

Kim is very excited about the Academy of Choice. She knows what it is to make the transition from counseling to coaching, has created the revolutionary InsideOut Empowerment process to help people escape their self-sabotage and accomplish their goals and dreams, and knows how to build a successful Internet coaching business. Let Kim and the other Academy of Choice coaches help you reach your goals and realize your dreams.

5 Steps to Loving Yourself Again

I’m sure you are all familiar with the concept of loving yourself first; if you don’t love yourself, how can you love someone else? You can’t give away what you don’t have. We all have love inside us. We all came from the Source, that Divine Spirit of Love. Love is who we are at the core. We really don’t need to learn to love ourselves; we simply must remember that we already do.

How do you go about that? The process begins with unlearning. We have learned things throughout our childhood and the rest of our lives so far about why we are not good enough. We have been criticized by well-meaning people who were hoping to make us better and some not-so-well-meaning people whose goal was to tear us down. Remember being told you are too loud, too shy, too messy, stupid, mean, lazy, too fat, too thin, too serious, unlovable and more?

The first step to remembering is learning to say “Thank you for sharing” whenever any of these misperceptions present themselves as facts in our minds. We remember the things people said that hurt us and believe they are true. This is because they were generally said by people we love and respect and they were said at a time before we were able to distinguish truth from lies. We just accepted the information as true. If it came from a respected source, it had to be true, right?

Wrong! All these are are our interpretation of someone else’s thoughts and words that were embedded into our subconscious that we have accepted as true. When one of them presents itself, recognize it for what it is and simply say, “Thank you for sharing.” Everyone has a right to their own opinion, even your subconscious and you have the right to accept it or not. Just saying, “Thank you for sharing" allows you to say, "I heard you" and I’m not giving you any more importance than you deserve.

Once you have learned to quiet the constant chatter that tends to flood your mind, then you can begin to remember what it must have been like to be a baby and then small child. Watch some babies to see how they are with themselves. They are constantly exploring their body. They love everything about themselves. They put their hands and feet in their mouth. They pull on their arms, legs and ears. They are enamored when they see themselves in a mirror. Babies are having sheer joy in the discovery of themselves. You loved yourself then. You may not remember, but you began life in love with youself.

Once you can at least intellectually grasp the concept that you love yourself, begin to take inventory of all the things you like about yourself. What are your innate talents, skills and abilities? What is your purpose here in this lifetime? What were you meant to do in service to others? What do you do better than most people you know? What do you lose time doing because you are so wrapped up in it? What would you do for free?

If you can’t think of anything, then ask people you trust what they like about you. The idea is to grow a list of at least 100 things, with the most important at the top. Begin an inventory of why you are loveable. Add to it every day and when you’ve reached 100 things, review your list at least one a day. Keep reminding yourself about what is great about you. It will be difficult to do this every day and not begin to like yourself more.

Pay attention to the voices in your head. (Yes, we all have voices in our heads.) This will be when that self-sabotage will kick in, trying to remind you why you are not good enough. Remember to say, “Thanks for sharing,” and focus back on your personal love fest.

Once this process begins, you will have renewed energy to discover even more things at which you can excel. You will try new things, expanding your horizons, learning more and more what you love about yourself. This process will never end.

Here are the steps in order:

1. Recognize self-sabotage for what it is.
2. Don’t fight it; just say, “Thanks for sharing.”
3. Remember how you used to love yourself as an infant and a child.
4. Start your inventory of all the things that are “good” about you.
5. Become open to exploring new experiences that can add to your list.

5 Tips to Strengthen Your Relationship

Today I was asked for five tips for improving the love between spouses but I would extend my answer to any loving, committed relationship.

1. Love as if this could be your partner's last day on earth.

If you always love your partner as if today could be his or her last day with you, you will love completely and tenderly. This is what our heart craves. And we all have expiration dates. You never know the exact day so wouldn't you want to love your partner that way every day, just in case?

2.Forgiveness/Acceptance

If your partner has done something that you perceived as harmful, forgive him/her. Have you ever heard the expression, holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die? That's what you do when you are holding some perceived wrong against your partner. Forgive. It can heal both of you. Along with forgiveness, comes acceptance. Everyone does things that annoy, and can even infuriate, others. If you can take the behavior or characteristic your spouse has that you don't like and accept it as a part of who he or she is, you will get to that place of serenity spoken about in the Serenity Prayer. I like to make an adjustment to that prayer that goes like this: God, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know that person is me.

3. Focus on the Positives

So many times when something bothers us that our partner does, it becomes magnified and takes on monumental importance in our lives, when in actuality it is only a very small thing in the overall scope of your relationship. Instead of focusing on the one or two things your partner does that you don't like, try making a list of all the things you appreciate about him or her. Even better if you share it with your partner.

4. Use the Platinum Rule

As children, our parents teach us the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." This might be helpful when you are a child but as you grow and mature, life becomes infinitely more complicated. Two people in a relationship usually don't want exactly the same things. Have you noticed? If we do for our partner what we would want in a similar situation, we are often missing the mark. I instead recommend using the Platinum Rule, which says, "Do unto others as they would have you do unto them." This requires you ask, listen, and understand what your partner wants and then, you give it to him or her instead of giving what you would want if you were in their shoes.

5. Change your Perception

Yiur mind is a very powerful tool. Your perception determines your reality. All day long, you tell yourself stories about what other people do and their motives for doing so. People frequently make up stories that create stress and misery for themselves. I'm suggesting that if you are going to make up a story anyway, why not make up a story that makes you happy instead of frustrated? So, for example, if your husband doesn't take out the garbage or your wife doesn't cook dinner, instead of telling yourself the story that s/he doesn't care about you and is only doing this to hurt and annoy you, tell yourself a story about how hard your spouse must have worked to be so tired to not do something he or she normally would. It will change your entire experience of situations. This is something that requires practice but if you put in the time learning to do this, I guarantee, it will change your life.

With Valentine's Day being tomorrow, which one are you willing to give your partner as a gift? Do it consciously for the entire day. If you do, please come back and tell me how it went.

Relationships at Work

assessment of your system, making written recommendations for change. We will then provide training to bring people up to speed on the new “Creating a Productive, Cooperative, Inclusive, Unbeatable Environment at Work”—Kim Olver

Do you love the work you do? Do you enjoy the people you do it with? Do you clearly understand the demands of your job and feel equipped to meet those expectations? Do you feel supported by management and the environment to always do your best work? If yes, congratulations! I’d love to hear from you what you think makes it so. If not, then The Relationship Center might be your answer.

Whenever there are difficulties in the work environment, W. Edwards Demming taught that most problems are systemic problems. So The Relationship Center does not look for individuals to shoulder the blame of what is happening at work. Rather we look together, with employees and management, at what problems might exist within the system and how together we can alter the system to create the environment that will foster a productive, cooperative, inclusive, unbeatable environment.

Let’s look at what some of those issues could be.

• You might be in charge of customer service, but never taught how to manage anger effectively.
• You could be a middle manager and not have the skills you need to supervise the people who used to be your peers.
• You may be a member of a minority who feels you must behave like the people in charge or you will not fit in or be considered for advancement.
• You may be a manager who believes the way to get your employees to do their best work is to manage through fear and intimidation. You may be an employee managed with fear and intimidation.
• Your workplace may be filled with gossip, oppression and back stabbing.
• Do you find yourself being punished, instead of encouraged, when you engage your creativity?
• Are you managed by people who are wonderful one day and Attila the Hun the next?
• Do you love the work you do but have difficulty doing it to your satisfaction?

If any of these situations exist in your workplace, then you have systemic challenges to overcome. The Relationship Center can help through training, consulting, and coaching. We will do a thorough assessment of your system, making written recommendations for change. We will then provide training to bring people up to speed on the new expectations and behavior. And following training, we will do coaching with the key people who will be responsible for sustaining these changes to help them stay on track.

The trainers and coaches at The Relationship Center understand the importance of coopertive, supportive relationships at work. We also know that people are motivated from the inside out to do quality work. Our job is to help you tap into your worker's internal motivation. We also have experts in diversity on our team. Kim Olver and Sylvester Baugh co-authored Leveraging Diversity at Work: How to Hire, Retain, and Inspire a Diverse Workforce for Peak Performance and Productivity. We have programs on Deescalating Anger, Goal Attainment, Empowered Leadership, Conflict Resolution, Supervision by Coaching, Teambuilding and Improving Morale. We also create training programs specifically for your needs.

We also have multiple ways of delivery the information, designed to fit every budget. We have tip sheets, eCourses, podcasts, on-site training, distance learning, keynote speeches for your event, and coaching, in-person, skype or telephone, individual or group.

Spend $4997 with us or more and you will recieve six-months of individual coaching, 30-minute sessions every week with one of our highly trained coaches free of charge. That's a $3,000 value. This coaching is highly recommended for the top person in the company, organization or school but it is transferrable to an employee of your choice.

It is not only possibly, but essential, for you to take an honest look at your work system, with all its strengths and flaws, so your business can improve or transform what you are already doing. Everything changes. If all you do is maintain the status quo, it won’t be long before many others will pass you by. What are you waiting for? Let’s get started today! To get a quote or estimate, please click here.

Your Relationship with Self

The most important relationships you will ever have is the one you have with yourself. This determines your self-esteem, your passions, your ability to go after what you want and your ability to connect with other people.

Do you like the person you are? Do you find yourself often criticizing yourself in your head? Have you been diagnosed or do you suffer from anxiety or depression? Do you have unexplained aches and pains in your head, back or joints? When you set goals for yourself, do you hear a little (or a big) voice in your head telling you, "Who do you think you are? You're never gonna do that!"? Do you set goals, do well for about a month and then fail to make any progress? Do you engage in self-descructive habits such as smoking, overeating, binge drinking, gambling, promiscuous sex, over working etc.? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you may be having challenges within your relationship with self.

At The Relationship Center we will teach you the revolutionary process of InsideOut Empowerment, so you can learn and practice where to place your focus. Too often we create our own misery because we put our energy into trying to change circumstances that can't be changed. We wish our past was different, we worry about our future and when we are present in the moment, we are trying to change the important people in our lives to be just the way we want them to be.

InsdieOut Empowerment will help you take a look at what you want. Then we'll look at your progress thus far. If you haven't been making the progress you want, then we will assess what exactly is getting in the way. We will help you undercover and change the subconscious sabotoge in which you engage.

Once you understand the self-sabotage, we will help you develop a plan to address the sabotage so you can be more successful at what you want to do.InsideOut Empowerment will help you get in touch with what's inside you and then, make whatever adjustments are necessary to move you toward your desires.

Your past has definitely contributed to who you are today but it does not define you. You don't have to be a victim. You can take control of your life and become bigger than anything that happens to you. The Relationship Center will show you the way.

Why You Aren't Happily Ever After Anymore

Did you think once you got married, it would be smooth sailing and now it's anything but?

People date, putting their best foot forward, to acquire the relationship they want. If you are married, you succeeded at the Compatibility Stage of Relationships, deciding you and your spouse had enough in common to make a lifetime commitment to each other. Congratulations! 

How many of you thought that was the hard part — that it would be relatively smooth sailing from there?

Read more at http://www.yourtango.com/experts/kim-olver/youre-married-now-why-isnt-it-happyily-ever-after.

What is Your Money Blueprint?

I just finished rereading Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth by T. Harv Eker. Why was I rereading it? Well, I liked it so much the first time and I was pretty certain I had missed some important information in the text so I thought I'd read it again. It was even better the second time.

I liked the book so much that I scheduled myself to go to Harv's Millionaire Mind Intensive weekend program. This was an amazing program, high energy and jammed packed with valuable information. Of course, if you were paying attention, you could see how the staff were preparing the audience for the upsell. And there were many.

Harv has something like 17 other programs, camps and training programs he offers, all centered around aquiring the skill and mindset for amassing wealth. I was impressed. I felt the rush to sign up for all the programs that were offered but I knew I couldn't afford that. Harv and his staff would argue that I couldn't afford not to but I stayed within my budget, chose wisely and scheduled myself to go to Harv's World's Greatest Marketing Seminar.

That was another major, intensive workshop. We started every day at 8 AM and worked until 9 or 10 PM each day, Monday through Friday. And we were bombarded with really great information.I learned so much from being there.

Perhaps the best thing that happened while I was there is that I met Kristi. Kristi and I hit it off immediately. We have very similar energy. When Harv's staff was attempting to sell their Reasons or Results coaching program, she and decided we would support each other by being accountability partners. We email each other daily and we have a one-hour phone call each Monday to plan our upcoming week.

One of my daily actions is to do the wealth conditioning procress that Harv recommends. I was telling Kristi today that I really think the conditioning process is working. There are four financial blue prints--spenders, savers, avoiders and money monks who think money is the root of all evil. I was an avoider. I didn't know how much money I had. I didn't know what was in my accounts, how my investments were doing, or how much money I was spending. 2012 is the year I change all that.

I also have a bit of the money monk belief going on that says having too much money is selfish. Whenever I would do my declarations or visualizations about how I wanted to be wealthy, I'd feel guilty and selfish. Just yesterday, when I said my declarations, I actually felt positive about wealth, thinking of all the wonderful things I will do with my money. I want to give my assistant a raise, maybe even offer health insurance. I'd like to hire more people and pay them based on results, rather than time.

I'm feeling so positive about my new financial blueprint. I will let you know how I make out with it. If this works for me, then I will become an ambassador for Harv's programs and you'll be hearing more about them from me.

So, what do you think your money blueprint is? Are you a saver? Are you a spender? An avoider? Or are you a money monk?