Archives for attention

Being Thankful: How It Creates Happiness

December 12, 2011 by admin in Giving Thanks | Leave a comment

During difficult times, it’s easy to lose sight of the positive aspects of our lives and focus solely on what’s going wrong.  This can be because what’s going wrong is right in our face, demanding our attention.  There is, however, a great deal to be gained from paying attention to what is good in our lives, especially during more difficult times.

Focusing on the things we are thankful for is important since the things we pay attention to grow in importance.  When we spend time thinking about what we are grateful for, we’ll notice these things appearing more frequently in our lives.  Noticing things that make you happy will automatically increase your feelings of pleasure and appreciation. Read More

Giving Thanks, Gaining Happiness

November 10, 2010 by admin in Giving Thanks | Leave a comment

Grateful children giving their father a kiss

Is everything going wrong?  Are you feeling frustrated, stuck, unhappy, or overwhelmed?  It’s easy to get bogged down and feeling bad when it seems like nothing is going your way.  During these difficult times, we often lose sight of what’s good in our lives and focus solely on what’s wrong.  It’s easy to lose perspective when the things that aren’t going well are right in our face, demanding our attention.  We forget about all the things that are good, allowing them to fade into the background and take a backseat to our powerful negative feelings.  There is, however, a great deal to be gained from paying attention to what is good in our lives, especially during more difficult times. Read More

Defining Imago: What It Is and How It Can Improve Your Relationship

July 7, 2010 by admin in Relationships | Leave a comment

Welcome to the Power Struggle.  This is a normal stage of marriage, but it certainly doesn’t feel normal.  In fact, it feels awful.

Improve Your RelationshipAll of us want love and attention.  When we received these things from our spouse early in the relationship it felt wonderful.  Now we find ourselves feeling hurt and angry.  In response, we do what we used to do as children to get love and attention: yell, scream, withdraw, and pout.  The power struggle is a cry for connection.  It occurs, in part, because we are doing what we know how to do in order to get love and attention.  Ironically, doing these things gets us the opposite of what we want.  Although we long for connection, we are unconsciously sabotaging ourselves from getting it.

As adults, we need to find new ways to get the love, attention, and connection we desire.  Imago Relationship Therapy helps us accomplish this by teaching couples to use language as a tool of connection and by helping couples reconnect in fun and meaningful ways. Read More