Category: Communication
Criticism, defined as the expression of disapproval or disappointment, can take many forms and can range from constructive feedback to harsh or attacking statements. In this article, criticism is defined as language that blames, shames, or belittles your partner. Regardless of the form it takes, excessive criticism can be harmful to the health of a […]
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A Love Letter to the Expat in Me My childhood as an expat in high-risk countries has greatly shaped who I am today. As a child I lived in four different continents, changed schools seven times, and resided in my home country for seven inconsecutive years. Ambiguity, regular uprooting, or living in the outskirts of […]
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I imagine, we all know the difference between a genuine warm welcome and a half-hearted, reluctant gesture that is meant to pass for welcoming. We know this deeply in our nervous systems, well before our brains assign meaning to the feelings that arise from a lack of genuine engagement. Our amazing and brilliant survival system is generally excellent at gathering data and sorting it into safe or not-safe buckets. It knows the difference between warm and welcoming and fake hospitality.
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Boundaries are the root of self-care and are necessary for creating a healthy life. They are limits we create for ourselves to have the life we want and deserve as unique human beings. They are not the rules and limits that we have internalized from our childhood or by comparison with others. It’s a tricky […]
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Every Monday morning, the staff of the Imago Center gathers to share our professional successes, concerns, and questions. Yesterday, I brought a question to the group: I’m currently working with a couple who do not share the same language of origin. They sometimes struggle to communicate because they ascribe a different meaning to different words. […]
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I Am a Proponent of Connection I have always been more of an observer than a talker, yet I have been having some difficult conversations lately on the topic of COVID-19 and vaccinations, with the people I care about, because I need my relationships now more than ever with friends, family, and colleagues. If I […]
READ ARTICLEWould you like to get a cup of coffee? That moment when he first walked over to me, my heart was pounding. I can still see myself all of these years later. I think I may have blushed. He leaned forward and asked if I would like to get a cup of coffee. We had […]
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Just mean or “no filter?” Has someone ever said something incredibly insulting to you and when you became offended, they (or someone else), said that person was either “blunt,” “a straight shooter,” or “tells it like it is”? While there are people that seemingly have what is referred to as “no filter,” there is also […]
READ ARTICLE“Expectations are agreements we never made.” Unmet expectations are one of the great banes of intimate relationships. Any two people can have such different understandings about what constitutes a request that it’s no wonder the couples counseling business is booming. When I was a management consultant, I once asked a roomful of executives and their […]
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Do you know how to apologize meaningfully when you have made a mistake or hurt someone — intentionally or unintentionally? Most of us growing up did not see good models of healthy apologies to repair ruptures and restore relational trust and safety. Some of us were forced to say we were sorry when we weren’t. […]
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