How can I overcome conflict, improve intimacy and create healthy relationships?
Has the spark gone out of your relationship? Do you feel stuck? Do you find yourself getting into the same arguments again and again? Are you looking for new ways to relate to each other?
The Voice Dialogue Online Program will give you practical tools to overcome conflicts, improve intimacy and create more vibrant, fulfilling healthy relationships.
Our Many Selves
Life would be so easy if you were always of one mind. The reality is that you are made up of many minds or “selves”. You can recognise this in such statements as: “A part of me really feels very attracted to him/her. Another part of me thinks I should be careful not to get too involved.” These selves develop as you grow up in your particular family, society and culture. A unique group of them (“primary selves”) tend to dominate your personality. They protect you and keep you safe by ensuring you get the attention, approval and affection you need from others.
Why Opposites Often Attract
In order to be identified with a particular set of primary selves you have to hide away their opposites (“disowned selves”). Although these disowned selves are buried in the shadows of your psyche they have not gone away. When you fall in love you see some of them on display in the other person and find them very attractive. Hence the common expression “opposites attract”. Your partner complements you and together you feel whole and complete.
The Dance of Selves in Relationship
Relationship is actually a dance of these different primary and disowned selves between two people - called a “bonding pattern”. The dance can be exciting, mesmerising and exhilarating when you feel safe and intimate with your partner - you are swept off your feet, high as a kite, on cloud nine! This idyllic state can last for some time, but sooner or later the stresses and strains of life intervene. When this happens, your primary selves step in to protect you. Looking at your partner through the eyes of these selves you now find him/her lacking. Your judgements lead to conflict, and intimacy is lost.
Maybe you make up or maybe you walk out and end the relationship. One thing is sure: if you don’t learn the lessons inherent in such conflicts you are doomed to repeat them again and again - either with the same partner or with a new one.
How to Overcome Conflict
Imagine you are signing up at a dating agency. List six of your qualities or attributes that would make you an attractive partner. These will represent the values of some of your primary selves.
For example:
- Caring
- Supportive
- Good listener
- Expressive
- Organised
- Sensitive
Now list six characteristics in a partner that would drive you crazy - being in a relationship with someone who has these traits would make your life a misery. They will probably be opposite to those in your primary list.
For example:
- Uncaring
- Selfish
- Poor listener
- Introverted
- Messy
- Insensitive
There is a saying that when you point the finger of judgement, blame or condemnation at another person there are three fingers pointing back to you. Hard as it may be to accept, the characteristics in this list are those of your own disowned selves seen through the eyes of your primary selves!
To stop the blame game, overcome conflict and improve intimacy you need to ask yourself, “What is it that I am judging in my partner that is actually a buried part of myself? What benefit would it be to me if I could bring a little bit of the energy of this buried self into my life?”
How to Improve Intimacy and Co-Create Healthy Relationships
On the Voice Dialogue Online Program you will discover:
- The source of all conflicts
- The form that all conflicts take
- The fuel that keeps them burning
This will help you understand and clarify the basic patterns of your relationships, improve intimacy by communicating your needs, hopes and fears in a more open and honest way, and co-create new choices for how you live and love together.
