INTRODUCTORY MATERIALS FOR LIFE COACHES
INTRODUCTORY MATERIALS FOR LIFE COACHES
The Prerequisites for Becoming a Holistic Harmony Life Coach
If we really want to help people regardless of our credentials whether as a psychologist, counselor, life coach, doctor or friend we will need to as much as possible embody the following (we are using the word subject in the place of the words patient or client):
1. Care for the other and sincerely desire to help him or her. The subject will feel if we really care or not.
2. Accept whatever we hear and have an open mind. We must be able to hear that the other has murdered someone without judging him. The degree to which the other can open himself is dependent on how accepting he perceives us.
3. See what others call ΪevilΜ as weakness and ignorance and fear rather than as evil. Ignorance and misinterpretation of our true nature leads to a wide variety of ego-centered and often destructive behaviors.
4. Study and understand the functioning of the mind by observing ourselves and others and by studying what already has been discovered by the sciences of psychology, sociology, philosophy and religion.
5. Keep clearly in mind that our work is to reconnect him/her with inner strength and guidance, not make him/her dependent on us.
6. Be open to the unique ways in which each individual grows and heals himself. Do not be so caught up in systems or labels or specific procedures or in what you know, so that you cannot respond to this unique individual in his/her own specific way.
7. Employ only the techniques that you yourself have experienced a number of times. Only then can you really understand this technique and know when to use it and how to handle any crises which may be provoked by it.
8. Practice what you teach. Although this role does not allow us to teach, we occasionally do so through our behavior or attitudes, or by making suggestions or expressing perceptions or life philosophies. We, ourselves should live these ideals that we are expressing.
9. Be simple, honest, humble and admit when you do not know the answer, or feel confused or cannot help.
10. Be ready to give time and energy even without payment when necessary. Supporting another human being who is in need is not a product to be sold.
11. Learn to be sensitive as to when to push the subject towards discovering or breaking through and when to give him space to prepare himself/herself, or live in his/her illusory security. This sensitivity must also be learned in relationship to our own personal process.
12. Keep up your own evolutionary self-knowledge process in ways which suit you.
13. Become very proficient in active listening as this is the backbone of this whole system.
14. Know all the techniques well, or do not use them.
15. Refer the client to others when you cannot help, either because you do not have enough time to help properly, or you cannot be objective with this person, or when the problem is beyond your ability to help.
16. Never interfere in the person?s private life, suggesting that he/she should get divorced or leave his/her family or get an abortion. Just support him/her in choosing from his/her own options, without projecting your own needs or feelings.
17. Keep total confidentiality – secrecy concerning whatever others share with you.
18. Those who are spiritually oriented may want to pray for guidance in every word and action, so that our every move shall be for the other?s benefit and not for our affirmation or security.
Perhaps you would like to add other prerequisites that come to your mind and send them to us.
HOW OUR PERSONAL REALITY IS CREATED
CHAPTER 1 (From the book The Psychology of Happiness by Robert Elias Najemy)
This chapter is given in order to enable you to understand more clearly the basic premises behind our Holistic Harmony Life Coach approach.
A Change in Attitude
I was sitting on a bench in the National Park in the center of Athens, Greece while three children played nearby. They were playing “basketball”, trying to throw a ball into a garbage can. The older boy, about seven years old, had thrown the ball in four times, and his young girlfriend had thrown it in twice. His little sister, however, who looked to be about five years old, had not been able to make even a single basket. The game continued with great earnestness, with exciting joys and devastating disappointments. Every time they tossed the ball into the can, they immediately looked over to see if I had been watching. I became very emotionally involved without saying a word, but was rather worried about the attitude of the youngest girl, who still hadn’t managed to put the ball in. The score was now 6 to 5 to 0.
I noticed she was more concerned about the fact that she wasn’t getting the ball in the can and the disappointment involved, than she was in concentrating on the aim of her toss. She had come to believe that she couldn’t do it, and didn’t even take the time to seriously look at the basket she was shooting for. Instead, she was already prepared to show her disappointment, which usually consisted of jumping up and down two or three times with both feet, and banging herself on the head. Sometimes she spun around in a circle (which, by the way, was similar to the way her brother acted when he was successful, only his hands would be raised in the air in triumph).
The little girl was becoming more and more desperate, even resorting to kicking the ball away, so the others would have to chase after it. That made them angry and they retaliated by telling her how bad she was at the game. At other times, she would grab the ball and run away with it, making her brother chase after her and forcibly snatch the ball away from her.
I was practically in tears by now, although not one word had passed between us. I then closed my eyes and focussed my thoughts on the little girl, mentally communicating to her that she must concentrate and think positively. I continued doing this for about three minutes. Then I opened my eyes and kept this idea in my mind and my eyes on her. Her next try was another failure, but she didn’t seem quite so upset.
The very next time she did something completely different. She took the ball in her hands, and looked at it closely, and began to talk to it with conviction and authority, telling it that it MUST go into the basket and that if it didn’t, it would be punished. Then she looked lovingly at the ball and kissed it, turned toward the basket and threw it directly in.
I was so happy for her that I could hardly remain seated. I actually started to cry. The little girl continued with this more positive technique for the rest of the game, and the final score was 10 to 8 to 6. My little friend had 8.
Now, it is not difficult to understand the point. The little girl lacked confidence and concentration, and because of this, she set herself up for failure. When she failed, she became even more convinced of her inability, and set herself up physically and psychologically for each successive failure. She stopped making a serious effort. She simply went up to the line with failure in mind and threw the ball without trying.
Perhaps my concentration and prayers were picked up by her subconscious. Perhaps they weren?t. Then, for some reason, she changed her behavior and employed more concentration and optimism. She told the ball what it had to do and she became very sure of herself. The ball went directly in, guided by her positive and convinced state of mind.
When the ball went into the can, the little girl?s opinion of herself completely changed; now she was a success. Her entire physical reality changed, and she made more baskets in the remaining time than the other two children combined.
Children can alter their reality relativity easily through a change of attitude and behavior because of their less rigid belief system. For us adults, who have many more years of conditioning, such a change might take more time. But it can be done and more importantly, in many cases, it must be done, if we are to enjoy a life of happiness, success and growth.
Many of us set ourselves up for failure because of our habitual negative thinking and basic beliefs concerning our impotency. In the following pages, we will discuss the techniques by which we may recondition our thought processes and change our reality
WE CREATE OUR REALITY
Most of us would like a happier, healthier, more harmonious reality. In order to improve our reality, we must understand the mechanisms of its creation. Most of us feel that “things simply happen in our lives” or that we just feel ?this way? or ?that way.” Few of us actually investigate how our reality is created.
We might say that our reality is constructed of two basic factors:
1. What is happening or has happened.
2. What we believe, and consequently how we feel about ourselves, in relationship to what has happened, is happening or will happen.
This belief system or programming, which creates our subjective perception of reality, is a result of our past experience.
A description of how elephants are trained will help us understand the relationship between our past, our beliefs and our reality.
SELF LIMITING ELEPHANTS
Elephants born in captivity are restrained by a chain that attaches one leg to a metal spike driven into the ground. This prevents them from roaming. They become accustomed to the fact that, as long as the chain and spike are next to them, they are unable to move.
As they grow older, their minds become programmed. When they see the spike and chain, they “believe” and accept that they will not be able to move. They become so conditioned that when their owners place a small rope and wooden peg next to them, they make no efforts to step away from it, because they “believe” they are unable to.
In truth, their actual power as adults is so great that they could easily pull up a chain and spike of any size. Their programming or “belief,” however, allows this tiny rope and wooden peg to limit their movement.
We are all very much like these elephants. We allow the weaknesses, fears and rejection we experienced as children to program us into a life in which we lack power, peace, love and happiness. We become controlled by false childhood assumptions we have made about our ability, strength and self worth.
We can move away from these “pegs” of self-limitation, but we must chose to do so.
This is a very simple description of an extremely complicated and intricate process, which we will analyze in greater details throughout this book.
THE STIMULUS
The first factor in the creation of our reality is called the stimulus. This is an event that we observe or perhaps even fanaticize or project.
1. Some external stimuli include events such as the following: We receive love, admiration, attention, gifts, money or success at some effort, or we are rejected, falsely accused, suffer a loss of someone or something important to us, or experience failure at some endeavor.
2. We might also be affected by internal stimuli, such as thoughts about the past or future.
3. Our emotions or thoughts may become stimuli for other emotions, such as when we feel anger or self-rejection when we observe that we have allowed ourselves to become aggressive or fearful.
4. Other more subtle stimuli might be the state of our hormones, chemical balance or energy state. We have all experienced days when we were more emotionally vulnerable, perhaps due to low energy. This is especially but not exclusively so for women, because of hormonal changes.
THE EVALUATION OF THE STIMULUS
As these stimuli pass into the mind, it evaluates them seeking to determine whether they are supportive of or endangering to our basic needs. 1. If our subconscious programming determines them to be supportive, we feel relaxed, happy and loving.
2. If we conclude that they are endangering, we experience fear as well as and a wide variety of other emotions, such as pain, disillusionment, bitterness, injustice, depression, jealousy, envy, anger, hate, etc.
Our emotional state constitutes the greater portion of our subjective personal reality. It is not so much what happens in our life that creates our reality but how we perceive and react to what happens or to what we imagine is happening or will happen.
This is the first basic premise of what we might call the “Psychology of Happiness” or the Psychology of Evolution or of Transformation. We create our own reality by the way we interpret and react to the events and other stimuli mentioned above. Many might think of situations in which this might seem false or difficult to perceive, however, deep examination of this concept will prove that it is true in all cases. Our belief system creates our reality.
AUTOMATIC PROGRAMMING
If we want to be happy, we need to transcend our automatic, mechanical emotional reactions. We need to understand why we automatically react in certain ways, such as with fear or anger, and how we can begin to free ourselves from undesirable emotional responses. Otherwise we are not free. We are under the control of the programming of our childhood, our past, our lack of clarity, and our lack of awareness. We are ?asleep? to our real personal nature, and the true nature of the reality surrounding us. This book is intended to serve as a ?wake-up call?.
We are in a state of evolution from our animal nature through our human nature to our divine nature. In reality, our essential being is beyond this temporary body and mind. We are aspects of Divine Creation, and thus we embody love, knowledge and power. Mistaken conditioning has caused us to lose contact with this inner nature.
THE LION CUB
The story about the lion cub more graphically describes this process. Once there was a great lioness who went hunting with her newborn cub. While chasing and attacking a flock of sheep, the she-lion made a wrong move, fell off a cliff and died. The cub was left without a mother and grew up in the midst of the sheep. As the years passed, the cub became a full-grown lion, but it was instinctually conditioned to behave as a sheep. It ate grass, made a bleating sound, and developed a fear of all other animals, just like the sheep.
One day, another lion attacked the flock, and in the chase, was shocked to see the ridiculous sight of a full grown lion running away with the sheep bleating “bah bah” in fear.
He caught up to the sheepish lion, and asked, ?What are you doing? Why are you acting in this ridiculous way? You a great, powerful lion acting like a lowly powerless sheep? What has come over you? You should be ashamed of yourself.?
The sheepish lion explained that he was a sheep, and that the flock had taught him to fear and bleat and run in horror from the powerful lions.
The adult lion took the sheepish lion down to the river and asked him to look at the reflection of his own face. He saw that he was like the lion and not like the sheep. The lion then woke up from his ignorance and discovered his previously ignored inner courage, strength and majesty.
We are like the sheepish lion. The sheep represent our human nature, our personality, which moans, fears, complains and worries. The Lion is the spiritual aspect of our being, which is a source of great power, wisdom, creativity, goodness and love. Great spiritual teachers have appeared throughout history with the same message of our ?LION NATURE?, the untapped spiritual power and greatness that dwells within us.
OUR MISTAKEN IDENTITY
All our problems are simply the result of our mistaken identity. We have learned to suppress what is naturally good within us. We have learned to mistrust others and compete against them, rather than cooperate and share with them. We have learned to be neurotic and fearful of new persons and situations. We have lost the ability to be open and loving, as we were when we were children. We have been taught that we must fight for what we need even at the others? expense.
Such beliefs have been instilled into us, as a way of ?being smart?, or ?being successful.? Many of us who have followed this philosophy find ourselves isolated, secluded and lonely. We may have everything that society programmed our minds to believe was important, but do we have love, health, peace of mind, self-understanding, harmonious relationships or happiness?
One natural disaster, such as an accident, fire, earthquake, war, or death of a loved one, can destroy our happiness instantaneously when it is based on external factors.
EFFORT WITHOUT ATTACHMENT
This in no way means we should not seek to create the reality we desire for ourselves, our loved ones and our community. It means we need to make our best effort towards a better life, but without attachment to the results of our endeavor. This requires a delicate balance. Some of us make very little effort to improve our selves or our lives, and thus we obtain limited results. Others try extremely hard, but are so greatly attached to the result that they experience anxiety, fear and stress.
Attachment to some particular source of happiness is often our main obstacle toward the happiness we seek. In this book, we shall learn to understand which attachments limit our happiness and how we can transform them into preferences.
Chapter from the book
The Psychology of Happiness by Robert Elias Najemy
We remind you that sample life lessons are given in order to enable you to understand more clearly the concept of life lessons which is an extremely important aspect of life coaching.
Our main question for each is Ϊwhat do I need to learn here in order to feel better or solve my problem or become more effective in creating what I really want in my life?
This is the greatest gift we can give our selves, our clients or friends.
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You can view 52 of these in the Psychology of Happiness and Relationships of Conscious Love by Robert.
Life Story no. 2
ANXIETY ABOUT GRADES
John and Barbara have three children in junior and senior high school. Their house is the site of frequent battles concerning how much the children need to study and what grades are acceptable. The main battle is with their youngest child, Peter, who refuses to study. The more they pressure him, the more rebellious he becomes. He now perceives them to be his enemies, and a great power struggle takes place between them.
Peter lacks self-confidence and self-acceptance, and is tired of being compared to his older sisters. He would like to have good grades, but the fear of trying and not succeeding is unbearable for him, and thus, he prefers not to try at all.
He would much rather play at the computer or search the net than study subjects he feels have nothing to do with life. He prefers to partake in activities he can control and succeed at, rather than those which hold the risk of failure and create anxiety.
John and Barbara attach great deal of importance to grades, success, economic status, and most of all, to how they and their children compare to other families and what others think of them.
They find it difficult to decide how much responsibility they have for Peter’s future, and whether it is their duty to pressure him. Still, what creates even more anxiety for them is the fact that they are programmed to believe his “failure” is their “failure.” They measure their self worth as persons and parents by their children?s grades and accomplishments.
They are ashamed to admit to others that Peter is not doing well. They feel lessened in other’s eyes.
Peter realizes this and is hurt by the fact that they are allowing what other people think to be more important than how he feels. He feels misunderstood, rejected, and unloved. His parents feel the same.
He needs to be accepted and loved for the person he is, regardless of his grades. His parents do love him, but their fears concerning his future, their own self worth as parents, and what others think of them, prevent them from expressing their love without inhibitions.
Peter would like to make them happy, but his fear of failure and need to protect his freedom and self worth by rebelling against their pressure, become obstacles in his ability to do so.
They all need to analyze and free themselves from the beliefs and attachments preventing them from experiencing and expressing the love they have for each other.
Belief Analysis
Their beliefs cause them to be caught up in this situation.
John and Barbara might be limited by some of the following beliefs:
1. Our child is our creation. We are totally responsible for what he becomes.
2. Our self worth depends on how he turns out: his grades, his health, his success, his behavior, etc.
3. Others will judge us according to our children?s success or failure.
4. Our self worth is dependent upon what others think and say about us.
5. Our child will be able to succeed and be happy only of he obtains high grades and a university degree.
6. This is a difficult world and we must protect and prepare our child for it.
7. Later in life, our child might hold us accountable for the fact that we didn’t push him enough.
Peter might be limited by some of the following beliefs:
1. I am not smart; I cannot succeed at school.
2. My self worth is dependent upon my grades.
3. My self worth is dependent upon how I measure up to my sisters and others.
4. My parents will love me more if I have high grades and less if I do not.
5. I will probably not be happy or successful in life if I don?t get good grades.
6. I am a failure and no one loves me.
7. I am living in a prison and have no freedom to live my life I as I chose.
8. My parents want to control me in order to satisfy their own needs.
By adjusting their belief system, this family could solve many of their problems.
John and Barbara might find peace in some of the following beliefs:
1. Our child is God’s creation and has within him the blueprints of his life. We are here to aid him in his search for himself.
2. Our child is like a seed that knows what it needs to become. We are here simply to water the seed and nourish it, not to tell him how to live his life.
3. Our self worth depends solely on our motives and effort to help our child, not on the result.
4. We are worthy of love and respect regardless of our children?s grades.
5. We are worthy of love and respect regardless of what others think or say.
6. Our child has the ability and inner guidance to create success and happiness regardless of his education.
7. Life gives us and our children exactly what each of us needs for his/her growth.
8. We offer love, guidance and support to our child, but allow him to make his own choices and grow through living the consequences of those choices.
9. We understand and respect our child?s fears and seek to help him believe in himself.
Peter might be helped by some of the following beliefs:
1. I am intelligent and totally capable of succeeding in school and life.
2. I deserve love and respect regardless of my grade level.
3. I am special and unique from my sisters and all others.
4. I will create success and happiness in my life.
5. I am worthy of love and respect exactly as I am.
6. I understand my parents? anxiety and need to pressure me to study, and feel their love behind those actions.
7. I understand their fears and accept them as they are.
8. Real freedom is the freedom to intelligently direct my energy in ways that benefit my life and future.
9. My parents love me and are trying to help me in their own way.
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The Flow of Transformation
In this introductory text we are sharing with you a general plan we use in supporting others in their self-healing or self-actualization process. Let us distinguish between the two, although they are often simultaneous and overlapping.
We call this process self-healing when we are seeking to solve problem.
We call it self-actualization when we simply want to increase our effectiveness, productivity creativity or our ability to manifest goals.
1. We begin with Active Listening where our goal is to determine and clarify the purpose for which we are meeting with this person. We are seeking to enable the client to clarify goals, needs, desires, options and beliefs so that he or she can make conscious and more enlightened decisions.
Optional: 2. The next stage is one which we will not be able to teach you totally over the Internet, but which you can study it in your local area through any Yoga Teachers? training program or other program for self-healing.
What we do at this stage is create a stress releasing and revitalization program. We help the person with exercises, breathing techniques, relaxation, cleansing techniques, massage, healthy nutrition, vitamins, fasting, spiritual therapy, herbs, Bach remedies and creative activities.
This is a process allows him/her to rebuild the nervous system, mind and energy without requiring deep psychological introspection. We help him /her find inner strength, without touching the subconscious. It is a parallel process.
3. The next stage is Analysis. We employ a wide variety of analysis techniques including: Active listening, keeping a diary, questionnaires, a work book, written affirmations, inner research techniques, writing letters or the history of childhood experiences as well as other methods. Here we seek to identify the emotions and beliefs which are obstructing one?s health, happiness, achievement or growth.
4. We can then employ Energy Psychology techniques such as EFT, TAT, TFT, EMDR in order to heal the emotional energy field of disturbances and negative emotions.
5. The next step is to proceed to positive re-programming. We teach the person Positive Projection Techniques. We might suggest books or cassettes for more positive thinking. We can create a personal cassette for him /her in which we place messages and affirmations, specific to his/her needs.
We also have prerecorded cassettes for Self-confidence, Self-Acceptance, Light Healing etc.
6. After this, if the person?s balance allows and if it is necessary, we proceed deeper by applying relaxations and other investigative techniques that effect the subconscious.
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Life Story no. 4
ALCOHOLIC FATHER AND HUSBAND
Mary?s father was an abusive alcoholic. Her husband Tony is following in his footsteps. As is quite common, Mary has selected a husband who is simply a continuation of her father. When Tony is not drunk, he is self-demeaning and quiet. He prefers to be at home and avoids contact with others. When he is drunk, he becomes aggressive, violent and threatening. He is verbally abusive toward her and the children, and has on a few occasions, become physically violent.
Tony does not love himself, so he naturally feels that Mary and the children do not love him either. His parents were abusive to him and he is unconsciously carrying on the tradition. He does love his wife and children, and feels tremendous remorse for his behavior, although he denies it to others. It is too painful for him to see himself. He is self-destructive and in denial.
Mary feels hurt, disappointed, abused, humiliated and angry. She is also very much into the roles of the “savior” and the “victim”. She is a “savior” because she knew Tony had this behavioral problem and thought she could save him. She is a “victim” because she feels unjustly abused by him and life. She also wonders at times if God is punishing her for something she has done.
Mary has not been able to communicate with Tony. When he is sober, he denies the problem, although, occasionally, he will ask forgiveness. When he is intoxicated, he is blind and deaf with anger.
Mary feels responsible for healing Tony and feels that she has failed. Both of them and also the children are suffering in this situation.
What might Mary?s lessons be in this situation?
POSSIBLE LESSONS:
1. To realize she deserves respect and love.
2. To free herself from childhood experiences in which she was conditioned in some way to believe she is not worthy of love, and affection, happiness or freedom.
3. To learn to love and accept Tony despite his weakness and negativity.
4. To see that he is suffering and to seek to help him without losing her self-respect, and without indulging him, thus, allowing him to be responsible for his own therapy.
5. To free herself from the idea that she is responsible for creating his reality or finding his cure.
6. To allow him to maintain total responsibility for both his unhappiness and his therapy.
7. To realize she has the right to be happy even if he is not.
8. Not to take what he does personally, to realize that her self worth is not diminished by his actions, and to understand that the problem is his.
9. To search for what she may not be giving him, which he may need, such as love, acceptance and affection.
10. To relieve herself of the role of the parent or savior.
11. To learn to express her needs and rights clearly, lovingly and assertively.
12. To overcome any shame she feels toward others because of his problem. To free herself from worrying about how others perceive her and her family.
13. To behave assertively (not threateningly) so as to inspire respect from him and others.
14. To work on her relationship with her father so as to forgive him and find her own self-respect and inner strength.
The following beliefs which night help them out of this situation
Maria may be helped by some of the following beliefs:
1. I love and accept others and help them while allowing them to retain total responsibility for their reality.
2. I help others more with my happiness, than with my pain.
3. I am worthy of love, affection and respect exactly as I am.
4. Life gives me exactly what I need every moment for my evolutionary process.
5. I assertively and lovingly protect my rights and needs.
6. I am worthy of love and respect regardless of others? behavior.
Tony:
1. I am a creation of the Divine.
2. I deserve love and respect exactly as I am.
3. I accept and love myself as I am.
4. I deserve and create a happy and harmonious reality.
5. I love my family, want them to be happy and will behave accordingly.
6. I am an expression of divine energy on earth. I am good and lovable being.
7. I recognize and admit my problems as I simultaneously seek to solve them.
Of course, Tony will probably also need to participate in a detoxification and group support program such as Alcoholics Anonymous.
This is the last life lesson we will be giving in this introduction.
You can view 52 of these in the Psychology of Happiness and Relationships of Conscious Love by Robert.
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The Prerequisites to Change
The following is a simplified description of a process which can be employed on ourselves and or others in order to facilitate happiness, harmony, growth and improved relationships.
a) The first step is to accept ourselves as were are. This is important for us as individual and even more as life coaches because we cannot impart this to others if we do not embody it in ourselves. If we start with the attitude of ?I will kill my Ego, I will uproot itΜ, we will start a war with ourselves which we will never win. We will start with ourselves a war that we will never win.
b) The second is to analyze ourselves so as to understand the mental and emotional mechanisms obstructing our happiness and effectiveness on the personal, family, social, and professional levels.
We want to break down our emotional reactions into the parts they are made of; such emotions, reactions, beliefs and programmings as well as childhood, or other, experiences. In this way, we can clearly see how our emotional reality is created.
c) When we will have accomplished this, the next step is to ask, ΪDo I want to keep feeling and reacting in this way and perceiving myself, others and life in this way?Μ Do I want to maintain this mechanism, or do I want to change it?? This is the question that we must always put in active listening.
We must not consider this a given, that the other wants to transform a belief or an emotion. There are many forms of secondary or subconscious benefits that we gain by not being well and happy.
d) Once we have made up our minds that we want to change, we start the process of metamorphosis and then follow a series of techniques mentioned in the previous text.
The prerequisites to change are:
1. Acceptance of ourselves and of our physical, emotional and mental situation as it is.
2. Acceptance to change and move beyond whatever is obstructing our happiness, health or harmonious relationships.
3. Making the effort towards the desired change and dealing with the inner obstacles we might encounter.
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Life Story no. 3
FEAR THAT HE IS HAVING AN AFFAIR
Wendy is sure that her husband Mark is having an affair. She has no concrete proof but she just knows it in her heart. She is afraid, deeply hurt and disappointed. She feels rejected, demeaned, betrayed, and quite insecure, not to mention angry.
Mark is not actually having an affair yet, but is interested in another woman. Until now, they have had long conversations, but both are very hesitant to make that step of coming together physically. Mark wants to continue to see Marsha without Wendy. He does not even want her to know about this “contact.” He wants to be with someone who “understands” him.
Wendy frequently complains to Mark about family problems and how she is the victim of this situation in which she is sacrificing her time and her professional satisfaction to be with the children.
She feels hurt that Mark does not appreciate her sacrifice and needs him to show her more love and affection.
Ever since the children were born, it has been difficult for Mark to see Wendy sexually, and she is not receiving the affirmation she needs from him as a woman. She feels used. Also, her incessant nagging makes her even less inviting to him. Now he avoids her, physically and emotionally.
She perceives this as rejection, and now that she suspects he is seeing someone else, her need for affirmation is even greater. She has become increasingly critical, accusing and demanding.
The further she pressures him for attention and love, the more he feels the need to avoid her. The more he avoids her, the more rejected and betrayed she feels.
In her own way, she is pushing him away from her. By not giving her what she needs, he is augmenting her negativity, which then bounces back at him. They are growing further apart and no longer enjoy each other’s company.
Belief Analysis
Both need to look at and transform their belief systems in order to create a more lively and truthful relationship. Each needs to take responsibility for his and her reality. They can help each other create happiness.
Wendy may be limited by some of the following beliefs:
1. My self worth is dependent upon being loved exclusively by my husband.
2. I am not enough for my husband.
3. I am the victim in this situation.
4. A wife should sacrifice her career for her husband.
5. I have lost something important in life by leaving my professional life. I am a victim of social programming.
6. My husband does not love me.
7. If my husband does not love me, I am not worthy
8. I am not safe in the world by myself and especially with the children.
9. I am in danger of being alone.
10. I need my husband in order to feel safe and worthy.
Mark may be limited by some of the following beliefs:
1. My wife doesn?t understand or accept me.
2. When she complains, she is rejecting me and I am demeaned.
3. I cannot feel my self worth when she is rejecting me.
4. My freedom is in danger.
5. I might be happier with someone else.
6. I need someone who accepts me as I am and doesn?t complain.
7. I cannot be happy when suppressed by this family situation.
8. I cannot feel sexual with my wife when she is trying to control me.
9. I cannot see my wife sexually when I think of her as the mother of my children.
Some beliefs which each could develop in order to free up their love and solve the problem:
Wendy might benefit from some of the following beliefs:
1. I am worthy of love and respect regardless of my husband?s interests or behavior.
2. I am a vital and interesting woman, enough for any man.
3. I create my reality and life gives me exactly what I need to learn my next lesson in my growth process.
4. My husband and I have equal rights and responsibilities toward work and the family.
5. Whatever I do with love cannot be a loss. I have lost nothing by giving myself to my children. The highest profession on the planet is that of the mother: our future depends upon it.
6. My husband loves me, but is controlled by inner obstacles towards expressing that love.
7. I am worthy of love and respect regardless of my husband?s feelings or behavior.
8. I am safe in the world as I am.
9. There are millions of beings with whom I can connect if I feel the need.
10. I am safe and worthy in my self.
Mark might benefit from some of the following beliefs:
1. I want to understand and respond lovingly to my wife’s insecurities at this time.
2. I recognize her complaints as an expression of her unfulfilled needs and seek to fulfill them as much as possible.
3. I am worthy of love and respect regardless of my wife?s satisfaction or behavior.
4. I am a free soul.
5. Happiness exists within me and does not come from an outside source.
6. I accept and love myself as I am.
7. I love my family and gladly surrender my other needs for their welfare.
8. When I focus on my wife, I perceive the being I originally loved on all levels, even physically.
9. I love my wife. I want her to be happy and I behave accordingly.
One more life lesson is coming.
You can view 52 of these in the Psychology of Happiness and Relationships of Conscious Love by Robert.
