Too many people ignore the alarms in their relationship and within themselves and end up heading for the rocks. With the right focus this can be avoided but whatever you do, doing nothing is not a good choice and i’ll explain why…
Your mind and body is constantly working to ensure your survival. The problem is most people see the alarm as the problems and try to shut them down.
This is why individuals and couples find themselves in so much trouble.
For example: Arguments: The arguments are the signal (alarm) that something has to change, we can work together to stop the arguments, but the real issue that created the alarm will still be there.
This is why couples end up going round in circles.
Whatever your presenting problem, or alarm you can be 99% sure that that is not the real problem.
Example: I remember being told about advice a counsellor gave to one of my clients. The husband had complained about his wife dramatically over reacting and arguing with him. So the diagnosis was she had anger management issues, his wife believed the diagnosis and became depressed because she had to suppress her true feelings.
When I saw the couple I discovered that her anger was her passion and frustration at the fact she had to be the man in the relationship. This was driven historically by a overly controlling mother to him. He saw the female as the masculine strength and became weak every time she became emotional so he ran away or ignored her. His behaviours resulted in her escalating the fear within her and so she became furious at his lack of care for her and how she was feeling.
Their arguments were simply the warning signals that they had problems which were deep routed long before they met.
Don’t ingnore the alarms…
This goes for any signal you might get, it could be waking at night, stomach churning, constant talking to yourself, heavy heart, tight shoulders, inability to concentrate, feeling agitated in fact any signal that does not feel good especially the ones that persist.
Whatever signal you are getting from your body, or in your relationship that doesn’t feel right, don’t ignore the feelings they are asking for you to make a change.
Misread the signals and you could loose a relationship, or bring on stress, depression anxiety.
Once the alarm is heard the goal is to create the focus on the behaviours your body wants you to do this is where most people get stuck.
Only when you give your mind and body what it needs will it stop giving you the messages that change is required.
The first step is to understand your goal:
Remember the goal is not to stop the arguments the goal is to discover why they are there.
If you are depressed the goal is not to manage the depression it is to understand it and remove it.
If your life is not happy, or the way it should be the goal is to understand what goal is going to make the difference.
If you have been unhappy for a while you can be sure that the goal you have is clearly the wrong one.