Communication in Relationships
Relationships are all about how one person communicates with another and how that person responds in return. By continuing to relate and respond between you, you form a relationship.
It follows then that if the communication between you is unclear, one person may not hear what the other is saying, or may not understand what is being said. In some cases this leads to communication breaking down altogether. In his latest book 'Lovebirds' Trevor Silvester of The Quest Institute says that most people who break up, do so because they can no longer communicate well with each other and cannot get along; not because they don't care for each other anymore.
Behaviour in Relationships
You can even influence other people directly by how you behave. So if you want to work on a relationship with someone who cannot or will not come along to therapy sessions, you can still make huge changes by coming along yourself.
By gaining a new perspective on your relationship, you can go back in, ready to make important changes and improvements.
Learning to Improve Your Relationships
If your relationship has lost direction, or is not 'how it used to be', I can help you to take a step back and work towards improving your communication and the quality of your relationship.
A Mother - Daughter Relationship - A Case Study
A Case study
I worked with a client some time ago, who wanted to talk about the life-long difficulties she had in communicating with her mother. Although they were close in many ways, the woman felt that her mother had always been controlling, especially when she was a child. The client was desperately upset about it and had almost resigned herself to the idea that this would go on forever.
There was no way she could talk to her mother about her feelings, because her mother would immediately deny any knowledge of it, and would disregard her feelings with flippant remarks. The first challenge for me was to help the client understand that even if her mother did not come to sessions, talk about their relationship or engage in the process, there were still changes she could make which would improve the situation.
We explored the dynamics of the relationship and I challenged the idea that it would be this way forever - the woman realised she could take control - and she created new boundaries in their relationship This is what was lacking, because for years she would just give in, and allow her mother to dictate how things would be.
With her new found confidence, the woman continued to talk to her mother and engage, but this time on a different, more equal level. When her mother lost her temper and tried to overtake the conversation - she would stop talking and only converse when there was a mutual level of respect. In effect she was retraining both of them in how they related to one another.
They now have a happier relationship, and it seems the mother has new-found respect for the daughter. It turns out that she had just been responding in the way she had been spoken to by her own parents.
One Client Said:
Zeenat has enabled me to recognise and use the resources I have to lessen the stress I felt and fix the fractured relationships that I am in. I went to her because of my over eating and we quickly released that that the tip of the iceberg. We have now dealt with the underlying problems and I can truly say with hand on heart I feel a lot better. I have a bounce in my step I have a sparkle in my eyes and I am happier then I have been in years. My family see the change and they are happier for it. I now have the tools to deal with stressful situations whether at home or elsewhere. I would say to anyone if you really really want to get help then try Zeenat. She rescued me from becoming the embittered and desperately sad person I was becoming, bringing the sadness to my family. Thank you Zeenat.
Heal Your Relationship with Yourself
Much of the work I do with clients is about helping them improve their relationship with themselves.
It is much easier to navigate relationships with other people when you understand your own needs and motivators. This way, you are able to understand and communicate what you need in order to be content, and are more able to empathise and support the other person.
When you work work with me, some of our work will be going into finding out what you really want out of life. That helps us to get you to a place of alignment, where you are as content as you can be. We do this work alongside the work on your relationship(s), so that there is growth all round.
If you would like to know more about how I can help you, please book your free consultation here.
