Family Relationships

Healthy Family Relationships

YES it is possible to have good, healthy family relationships with ALL your family members!

Your relationships with your husband, daughter, son, siblings, parents are all dependent on one thing …. you, and your relationship with yourself.

And that’s the good news!

Let me explain by asking you a question. When you think about your most challenging family relationship, have you tried getting them to change? Yes, of course you have because that is the first thing we ALL try! After all it is really them and not us that is the problem right? Unfortunately it never really works.

I know. I tried it with my 8 year old daughter when we were having major issues. I tried sending her off to art therapy. She loved it but it did absolutely nothing for our relationship.

Think about it. Do you like it when some one tries to change you? No one does.

“Much Better than Therapy”

Fortunately there is a better way. A MUCH better way – and it actually works! As one of my clients said “Much better than therapy”

You see, healthy family relationships are primarily a product of your own relationship with yourself. Have you ever noticed that when you are feeling happy, everything in your life seems just that much better? Your health, work, play and your relationships are ALL better when you are happy.

That is what happened for me with my daughter. Once I realized that trying to change her wasn’t going to work, I started looking at myself. At that time I was not happy and she was able to unerringly push my buttons. She would get angry at me and I would get angry right back at her. But as I began shifting my relationship with myself, the energy went out of those buttons and I stopped reacting as much.

That is when the magic happened. As I stopped reacting to her anger, she stopped getting angry!

That was just the beginning of my work with clients in helping them to massively improe their relationships. More recently I started doing women’s groups and I was amazed at how quickly and easily they started to see results with their husbands, daughters, siblings and other miscellaneous family members. They were amazed that what had seemed impossible situations could change so quickly.

She could hardly believe the change in her husband …

After just a couple of weeks one woman in the group reported an amazing change in her husband (who didn’t even know she was doing the group program). She told us that he never liked to sit outside at a restaurant even when the weather was perfect. The previous week they had gone out to eat and duly sat inside. Then he looks at his wife and says “Shall we sit outside?” She could hardly believe her ears! She hadn’t said anything to him but he ‘got’ her shift in energy and responded without having any clue why.

I was telling this story to my own coach shortly afterwards and she says “I want to do your program. Can you get my husband to do what I want him to?” We had a good laugh! Of course it isn’t that he did what she wanted but rather that she shifted her energy that gave him the space to ‘move towards her’. When we are trying to change them it has the opposite effect – they seem to ‘move away’.

Healthy Family Relationships is a win-win

So having healthy family relationships is really about being happier yourself and then the people around you are usually happier too! A win-win situation!