This is a true story, for the privacy of those involved I have changed names and blacked out their identity. Recently I offered a special: two free coaching sessions on one of the Facebook groups that I am a member of. Immediately a couple of interested people raised their hand and asked for more information. One of them, let’s call him Dave, posted the following: “Could you please talk to xxxx … I need your help to allow her to release her self worth again…” see below:
Here is my take on his request.
First of all as a relationship coach I only work with people who want to help themselves and who are open to coaching. How valuable can a coaching session be for someone who does not want to be there? The value is not existent – a waste of time for the participant and for me.
Secondly if you think your partner has a problem and that problem is so severe that it does not allow you to connect with your partner, please have a look at yourself first.
What is it that stops you from connecting with your partner? Is it really their issue? Or is their issue triggering a behaviour within you that stops you from being open, relaxed and connected?
In my experience it is always the latter, because we perceive the world as we are. We see every behaviour, event and experience through our own set of filters and past experiences. We see the world as we are.
So back to Dave and his girlfriend, fiancée or wife. How can he dare to impose on her to deal with whatever he thinks she needs to deal with? He’s seeing her behaviour through his values and beliefs and thinks that her behaviour is flawed. Is it really flawed?
Maybe her behaviour and view of the world is a completely different one, maybe she is happy in her skin. Maybe she can’t connect to Dave as he wants her to connect with him, because of his behaviour, because she filters his behaviour and communication through her eyes, her set of values and her beliefs.
I want to make one point very clear here: no one is at fault. And quoting Shakespeare: “There is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.”
In other words, you can only change yourself.
The typical human issue is that the moment we meet someone we make a mental picture of that person. And then we spend a lifetime to make sure that the person matches the picture, instead of accepting that our picture might be wrong and we need to adjust the picture, not the person.
Take a thorough look at your own life and relationship. Do you sometime think “if only she would be more ______ than I could love her even more”? Or do you ponder “the day he stops doing ______, that day will be the end of all our fighting…”?
Take a look at yourself.
Why do you react to your partner’s behaviour like that?
What kind of button are being pushed here?
Nobody is responsible for your happiness, but yourself.
Nobody can change you, but yourself!
And my response to Dave: You can only work on your issues, and not enforce her to work on hers…!
