The Relationship Maze

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Do you feel completely exhausted a lot of the time and do you struggle with low motivation and a sense of hopelessness? In today's episode we are looking at the symptoms of burnout, a term that was coined  by the psychologist Herbert Freudenberger in the 1970s. Burnout is not a medical term but describes a cluster of symptoms that are experienced on a physical, emotional and behavioural level.

Burnout is not the same as stress; it is usually the end result of too much stress. While stress usually involves having too much of something (work, tasks, demands), burnt out often presents as  having too little: too little motivation, hope, energy or care.

You may well be experiencing burnout when you display any of the following physical symptoms: feeling exhausted and drained, getting ill a lot - having a compromised immune system, struggling to sleep, over- or under- eating or you are getting frequent headaches, stomach pain or muscle ache.

Emotional signs that you are in the grip of burnout may include: experiencing low self esteem and high self doubt, feeling lonely in the world, feeling helpless and hopeless, having a negative view point most of the time and experiencing little joy or feeling quite detached from the world.

In terms of behaviour you may be withdrawing from people, start to use alcohol or drugs to cope, having lower tolerance for others, getting irritable or skipping work.

The first step to manage burnout is to notice the lead up to it. You need to recognise it, reverse it by learning to manage stress more effectively and to build more resilience to stress by taking care of yourself.

Burnout will inevitably affect your relationship. When burnt out you struggle with connection.

The Relationship Maze courses:
What is your argument style? Find out in our short quiz.

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. 

Contact us for information about individual counselling/psychotherapy, couples therapy, clinical supervision or CPD training.
Tom's website
Angela's website

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively and addressing common relationship problems in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. We look at common causes of relationship problems and offer solutions. Learn how to address relationship problems and questions without breaking up.

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In episode 79 of The Relationship Maze we talk about the importance of gratitude and appreciation. How often do you actively stop and notice the things in life that make you feel good - a friendly exchange with the postwoman, fresh green leaves on the trees outside your house or a hug by your partner? How often do you let others, including your partner, know that you like what they said or did for you? 

Feeling gratitude and expressing appreciation are important in relationships as well as other walks of live. Research shows that focusing on those aspects of life that fill you with gratitude improves your overall wellbeing as well as your mental health. 

We are hard wired with a bias towards negative experiences.  Therefore focusing on positive experiences or those that we consider to be pleasurable requires some practice. People who regularly and continuously count their blessings are shown to lead happier lives and are less likely to experience depression.

While we do not want to diminish or belittle the challenges that you might face in your present life or that still echo from your past, we would like to highlight that in parallel to addressing these difficulties (e.g. through counselling), there is room to focus specifically on the little things in life that provide you with pleasurable experiences.

Equally, if you have had pleasurable experiences with your partner do you let them know? How often do you tell your partner or other people in your life that you appreciate their presence, support, love or kindness?

Both, gratitude and appreciation, contribute significantly to building and maintaining a health relationship where both partners feel noticed, appreciated and valued. 

Contact us for information about individual counselling/psychotherapy, couples therapy, clinical supervision or CPD training.
Tom's website
Angela's website

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively and addressing common relationship problems in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. We look at common causes of relationship problems and offer solutions. Learn how to address relationship problems and questions without breaking up.

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In today's episode we discuss the concept of mentalising: our ability to understand what goes on in our own and another person's state of mind. 
Mentalising is something that we learn when growing up. The better our primary caretakers are at tuning in and paying attention to our physical and emotional needs as a child, the better we are as adults to reflect on our own thoughts, feelings and behaviours as well as those of others. 
Mentalising means that we can step outside of our self and look in: what am I feeling/thinking/doing and why? And why is my partner responding in this way? What's going on for them?
Mentalising is a skill we learned as well as an attitude. Those who are good at mentalising are good at emphathising and in this process they also learn something about themselves. Good mentalisers are interested and curious in other people and what makes them tick.
Couples in distress usually struggle with their mentalising capacities. They are often not in tune with their own states of mind and they struggle to engage with their partner's inner landscape. 
Stress is the enemy of mentalisation. Our brain goes offline and we are simply acting in survival mode losing connection to others.

Contact us for information about individual counselling/psychotherapy, couples therapy, clinical supervision or CPD training.
Tom's website
Angela's website

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively and addressing common relationship problems in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. We look at common causes of relationship problems and offer solutions. Learn how to address relationship problems and questions without breaking up.

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Today we discuss the top relationship problems that affect couples the most. We look at ways in which these problems manifest and at possible ways of addressing them. We discuss 10 items plus one bonus one.

1. Arguments: disagreements in any relationship are entirely to be expected. However, if the relationship is dominated by endless and repetitive arguments, then you may want to stop and consider what the typical contentious issues are in your relationship and to also think about the underlying causes. We are currently developing a mini course on effective arguing. Watch this space. -
2. Lack of connection: When you never find time to sit down and find out about your partner's experiences, then there is little engagement with your partner, the relationship will be suffering in the long run. Connections needs to be paid attention to and actively nurtured. -
3. Stress: Too much stress is the enemy of connection. When we are stressed we are too wrapped up in our own 'survival' and therefore cannot connect well with others. If chronically stressed then there won't be much room to empathise and understand your partner. -
4. Boredom: Many couples struggle to move on from the exciting hay days of the honeymoon period in their relationship. You start to see your partner in a more realistic light and might find it difficult to adjust to the more mundane daily routine of your life together. -
5. Children: As lovely as they are, children are frequently a stressor in relationships because of different views that partner's have of parenting and the competing demands of childcare, work and time for your partner. Couples with children often play out old relationship and family patterns from their family of origin which need to be brought into awareness. -
6. The wider family: You may struggle to get on with your partner's parents or siblings, finding them too interfering for example and/or your partner may not be keen on yours. The relationship with partners' wider family can frequently cause very serious difficulties in relationships. -
7. Trauma: When one or both partner's have experienced relational or developmental trauma in their lives, this is likely to impact the current relationship (unless the trauma has largely been worked through). -
8. Fidelity: If one or both partners have cheated and the understanding is that you are in a relationship where this is not acceptable, you will need to make a decision whether your relationship can survive this breach of trust or whether it's unforgivable. Affairs cause serious hurt and may take a long time to get over. Most affairs don't just happen spontaneously; if you decide to stay together there will need to be understanding on both sides whether there were any underlying issues that need addressing in order to move forward. -
9. Communication: Without the ability to talk effectively to each other, you are likely to struggle in your relationship in addressing challenges you face. A key to successful communication is the capacity to listen. -
10. Sex: A frequent difficulty for couples is the disparate desires for sexual contact in couples; one partner may want more contact, the other less. Many couples have relationships where sex died a long time ago. Often it is too painful and scary to address this topic openly and the couple remain silent for year. Desire and sexual contact can be re-established with exercises such as Sensate Focus. -
11. Money: Couples get into difficulties over money if they money has a very different symbolic value for each partner. Money may stand for security or control for example, depending on your associations with it. -

To build a strong, long lasting and satisfying relationship, sign up for our course The Relationship Maze, where we explore all of the above topics in much more detail.

Contact us for information about individual counselling/psychotherapy, couples therapy, clinical supervision or CPD training.
Tom's website
Angela's website

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively and addressing common relationship problems in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. We look at common causes of relationship problems and offer solutions. Learn how to address relationship problems and questions without breaking up.

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In today's episode we discuss the ending of a relationship and the heart ache that follows. We are all familiar with the metaphor of the broken heart.  Many songs have been sung about the experience of being left by a loved one. There actually is such a thing as broken heart syndrome at the extreme end of the emotional and physiological pain that relationship breakups can cause. 

Breaking up in a relationship is a life event that we have all experienced. It is a ‘common’ experience like moving house, leaving school, growing up and yet it can be one of the most devastating and destructive experiences one has. In particular, the breakup of a long term relationship can be traumatic and give rise to a range of very strong (conflicting) feelings including rage, despair, resentment, relief, pain and an overwhelming sense of sadness. Each partner’s future feels very delicate and uncertain.

The end of a relationship has frequently been described in similar terms to those losing a loved person to death. When losing a partner – particularly a long term partner - you go through various stages of grief and through a cycle of very intense emotions. In her ground breaking book on Death and Dying (1969), Elizabeth Kübler-Ross describes the stages a grieving partner goes through in their experience of losing a person they loved. Kübler-Ross’ description closely matches the emotions experienced when losing a partner:

1. Denial - there is a sense of disbelief that the breakup is actually happening. You are still postponing your grief as you still hold out hope that things will work out eventually.

2. Anger - the reality of what is happening has now set in. You may ask yourself why this terrible thing is happening to you. You are angry with your ex-partner for having ruined the relationship and you are angry with yourself for letting this pain happen to you. You may also be angry with others for not helping enough.

3. Bargaining - at this point you may negotiate a different kind of relationship with your ex-partner, e.g. being friends from now on. Bargaining in the grief model referred to negotiating with a higher power for the situation to be different.

4. Depression - you have now begun to acknowledge the reality of the situation. Feelings of sadness, regret or fear of the future may arise.

5. Acceptance - at this stage there is more of an emotional detachment from the initial rawness; there is less of a sense of shock. You may slowly start to move forward in your life.

The length of each these stages varies as does the order of each. Grief is not a linear process. Acceptance may be the predominant feeling, but there can still be days filled with anger or depressive feelings.

Contact us for information about individual counselling/psychotherapy, couples therapy, clinical supervision or CPD training.
Tom's website
Angela's website

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively and addressing common relationship problems in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. We look at common causes of relationship problems and offer solutions. Learn how to address relationship problems and questions without breaking up.

Send us Fan Mail

Today Tom is talking about the importance of setting goals in your relationship, or if you are single just how important it is to set goals if you want to find a fulfilling relationship.

Setting goals helps you become proactive in your life rather than reactive. Taking time to reflect on what you want and taking small regular actions is crucial in order to find and create more fulfilling relationships.

One model that can help with taking positive action in your life and relationships is the GROW model. The GROW model was created by Sir John Whitmore and his colleagues in the late 1980s.

GROW stands for:

G - Goal

Here you want to consider what it is you want to work on and what you would like as a result of taking action. It is useful to create specific goals, that can also be measured, so that you can monitor your progress towards achieving them.

R - Reality

Consider where you are now. In order to monitor progress and use feedback effectively, it is crucial to know where you are starting from.

You may consider many different elements in your current situation, including what actions you have taken so far, what your current motivation is and also any things holding you back from getting the results you want.

O - Options

Here you want to brainstorm lots of different options regarding how to achieve your goal.
It can really help to make sure when you come up with options to avoid judging them, just write them down.

After you've created lots of options, then you can start to consider the advantages and disadvantages of the different options.

W - Will

Here you basically commit to action. Choose the options that you will act on and decide when you will start. You can rate the different options according to your level of commitment.

Taking action as soon as possible is always best and making sure that the steps you take action on are not too big. Small steps that are achievable lead to huge results over time.

After this podcast, take time to reflect on what goals you want to set and take action on in the area of relationships.

If you want to explore in more detail how you function in relationships, head over to our comprehensive course, The Relationship Maze. We help you understand yourself and your partner, improve your communication skills  and work on building a long lasting, loving relationship.

Here's what one of our subscribers had to say about the course: 'I found the strategies suggested enabled me to see myself differently and explain why repeated approaches to relationships always had the same outcome. A real “light bulb” moment for me. There is a great wealth of material available on this site - such great value for money. I highly recommend The Relationship Maze'

If you want more information related to a specific podcast episode check out The Relationship Maze podcast page. 

Contact us for information about individual counselling/psychotherapy, couples therapy, clinical supervision or CPD training.
Tom's website
Angela's website

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively and addressing common relationship problems in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. We look at common causes of relationship problems and offer solutions. Learn how to address relationship problems and questions without breaking up.

Send us Fan Mail

In today's episode we talk about blaming others and being at the receiving end of blame. Do you often blame our partner or other people you go on a date with?

Couples often blame their partner for things that go wrong in their life. Often one partner criticises the other aggressively and the other partner defends or withdraws. The more one defends or withdraws, the more the other protests and continues blaming. This cycle can go on for some time. Research by John Gottman shows that couples who get into a toxic blaming/defence pattern in the first few years of marriage have more than an 80% chance of getting divorced within the first 5 years of their relationship.

Do you notice that you tend to point the finger at your partner or the other person when you feel frustrated, irritated, anxious or distressed? Or do you notice that you always defend? Constant defensiveness can be an underhand way of blaming the other person too.

When we blame the other, we usually discharge some form of pain. Often the blaming partner does not feel heard, understood or cared for. Sometimes we pass on unpleasant feelings that we cannot tolerate ourselves to our partner. 

For the person who is always at the receiving end of blame by their partner managing this can be extremely hard if their self esteem or confidence is low to begin with. Being constantly blamed is undermining and contributes to a lack of trust in oneself as well as the relationship. 

Frequent blame in the relationship is a sign of disconnection. 

The opposite of blaming is taking responsibility of your own actions and being accountable. You can let your partner know how their actions impact on you. Rather than attacking, you can say "I feel..." or "when ......, I don't feel connected to you", or "I would love it if...."

Contact us for information about individual counselling/psychotherapy, couples therapy, clinical supervision or CPD training.
Tom's website
Angela's website

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively and addressing common relationship problems in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. We look at common causes of relationship problems and offer solutions. Learn how to address relationship problems and questions without breaking up.

Send us Fan Mail

In today's episode Angela is in conversation with Dr Marni Feuerman. Dr. Marni Feuerman is a licensed psychotherapist in private practice in South Florida. She is a nationally recognized relationship and marriage expert with specialized training in couples therapy. Dr. Marni is a frequently quoted expert in the media and content contributor. She has written for HuffPo, VeryWell.com, Dr. Oz’s ShareCare and The Gottman Institute among others. Her popular self-help book for women who struggle with repeated unhealthy relationship patterns is titled, Ghosted & Breadcrumbed: Stop Falling for Unavailable Men and Get Smart about Healthy Relationships.

In this episode Dr Marni looks in more detail at underlying work that needs to be done when couples say they need to improve their communication.

Dr Marni highlights what a healthy relationship looks like. For example, in a healthy relationships couples are able to be emotionally open and vulnerable with each other. Partners are curious about their own as well as their partner's experiences. They want to learn what's going on for their partner.

The starting point in any relationship is knowing yourself. When you are self aware, you have the capacity to notice your triggers points: what makes you feel angry, disappointed, sad or frustrated? How does your partner elicit this response from you? What do you need to feel better? What can you do for yourself/what can your partner do for you?

Dr Marni highlights ways of responding that enable you to get the support that you need from your partner and to learn to tune into your partner's needs.

What kind of checklist should you have when looking for a partner? Dr Marni highlights the four As that can serve as red flags in a new relationship: Agenda, alignment of values, addiction, abuse.

Do you want to explore the issues discussed in today's episode in more detail? Do you want to gain a better understanding of your way of being in relationships? Do you want to learn  how to build an emotionally fulfilling relationship? All of these questions get addressed in great detail in our self paced online course, The Relationship Maze. Find lots of instructional videos and plenty of activities that help you gain more understanding of your needs and those of your partner.

Contact us for information about individual counselling/psychotherapy, couples therapy, clinical supervision or CPD training.
Tom's website
Angela's website

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively and addressing common relationship problems in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. We look at common causes of relationship problems and offer solutions. Learn how to address relationship problems and questions without breaking up.

Send us Fan Mail

Social anxiety affects large numbers in society. Judging by current trends it is on the rise and affects in particular but not exclusively people in  their 20s.  Social anxiety is the persistent and troublesome fear that other people will judge you (negatively), that you won't be able to engage with others or that you will say or do something that will leave you humiliated or ashamed.

Social anxiety is much more than just feelings of shyness; it is 'shyness on steroids'.  Also, people who are introverted don't necessarily struggle with social anxiety. Introversion is a personality trait but not a mental health condition.

Because of the intensity of the fear those struggling with social anxiety will often attempt to avoid the very situation that causes the fear in the first place. This creates difficulties if you are looking to meet a partner and are highly fearful of being exposed in a dating situation.

We briefly talk about the brain science behind anxiety, in particular the role of the amygdala, the small almond shaped region in your brain that controls fear responses. In people with social anxiety there is a significant  increase in amygdala responses.

The only way to address social anxiety is to create experiences that show you that your underlying assumptions about a social situation may not be true. The more you lean into situations that are scary for you, the more you will eventually lose the fear of these situations.  In therapy, anxieties are usually addressed through gradual 'exposure' to the very situation that you invest with so many negative associations.

Often socially anxious people are fearful of not having anything to talk about when going on a date. As a conversation starter you may want to look at the New York Times The 36 Questions that Lead to Love - some of the questions are quite intimate, others are great for exploration and to initiate a discussion that may be quite interesting.

If you want to explore in more detail how you function in relationships, head over to our comprehensive course, The Relationship Maze. We help you understand yourself and your partner, improve your communication skills  and work on building a long lasting, loving relationship.

Here's what one of our subscribers had to say about the course: 'I found the strategies suggested enabled me to see myself differently and explain why repeated approaches to relationships always had the same outcome. A real “light bulb” moment for me. There is a great wealth of material available on this site - such great value for money. I highly recommend The Relationship Maze'

If you want more information related to a specific podcast episode check out The Relationship Maze podcast page. 

Contact us for information about individual counselling/psychotherapy, couples therapy, clinical supervision or CPD training.
Tom's website
Angela's website

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively and addressing common relationship problems in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. We look at common causes of relationship problems and offer solutions. Learn how to address relationship problems and questions without breaking up.

Send us Fan Mail

Are you or your partner affected by trauma in your life? Trauma has a profound effect on our overall wellbeing and in this episode we explore some of the ways in which trauma may impact you. The term 'trauma' often gets used in colloquial language to indicate high levels of stress. While it is true that all traumatic events are stressful, we cannot say that all stressful events are to do with trauma. 

The impact of trauma can often manifest many years later. We distinguish between single event trauma, e.g. a car accident, an operation, war, loss in the family, witnessing a horrific crime, a natural disaster and developmental/complex trauma which happens over a period of time and is recurring, e.g. abuse, abandonment or neglect.

Early symptoms of trauma can include flashbacks, hypervigilance, intrusive images, nightmares, shame and lack of self worth, mood swings, high sensitivity to sounds and light, hyperactivity, abrupt mood swings or feeling stressed most of the time.

Later presentations of trauma may include panic attacks, avoidant behaviour, addiction, being attracted to dangerous situations, hyper sexual activity, self harm, struggle with memory and often a difficulty to connect with other people. In this episode we briefly talk about ways of enabling you to stay within your 'Window of Tolerance' (Daniel Siegel), i.e. the mental and physical state where you are feeling calm, relaxed and well.

Trauma is experienced in your body.  The body holds our memories of trauma. It often manifests in a number of physical symptoms like chronic pain, stomach problems, fatigue, lowered immune system, skin disorders and many other presentations.

Trauma affects the way that you relate to other people. With early developmental trauma you may not remember exactly what happened to you but you may have learned for example that the people close to you are not trustworthy or reliable. This implicit memory will then  still play out in your current relationship.  Paradoxically, we are often drawn to situations that replicate the original trauma.

If you or your partner have experienced trauma, we recommend that you find a trauma focused therapist. Effective trauma therapy works with body and mind.

If you would like to create greater connection with your partner or would like to create a strong and solid relationship, we invite you to our comprehensive online relationship course. 

The course draws on our years of experience as therapists working with individual clients and couples. 

Contact us for information about individual counselling/psychotherapy, couples therapy, clinical supervision or CPD training.
Tom's website
Angela's website

Struggling with a lot of conflict and arguments in your relationship? Learn about communicating effectively and addressing common relationship problems in our Stop Arguing, Start Loving mini course.

Learn everything you always wanted to know about building and maintaining  loving relationships in our comprehensive course The Relationship Maze, starting with understanding yourself in relationships to understanding your partner and understanding what makes for a successful relationship. We look at common causes of relationship problems and offer solutions. Learn how to address relationship problems and questions without breaking up.