Oh, to be young again!

I’m a relationship coach and I’ve been teaching the principles of a healthy relationship in a high school for over a year.

There has been a considerable amount of data and insights that have come out of being in the school day in and day out. The teaching process forces you to be creative and in a way that comes alive when you see the faces of teenagers who you hope will not have to go through the web of confusion and struggle that has shadowed so many of our lives.

I have been emphasizing that we are in the midst of a hyper speed of change. Many of us are aware of this, but we haven’t had the specific details to make clear choices about where to go with it.  I am putting the work into a context that stimulates people to think about finding the answers that really lie within themselves.  I emphasize education.  We spent 12 years in school preparing for a good job.  How much time was spent on preparing for a good relationship, the other major factor in what determines our quality of life?  Work and relationship need to be the primary subjects as we get our education..

Of course teenagers have this pressure to fit in, but so do adults and that’s what many of us have done our whole lives is sought the approval of society. After all we sought the approval of mom and dad in our early years and if we didn’t get it, it was a frightening proposition. Think back, we all wanted mommy and daddy to like us, to give us a smile, tell us we drew a pretty picture, that we were a good boy or girl. And then there was the punishment/reward mechanism furthering our need to fit in. After a while many of us stopped seeking this approval, but for even the most rebellious, it is still deep in our psyche that making it through the day still involves being accepted.

Becoming a couple is a complex proposition and many of us are still subconsciously struggling to get this approval in our relationships. We might think we aren’t but it is still etched into our psyches, though in more subtle ways as adults.  It was intensely programmed into us and it still lingers in varying degrees. Even if our defense is to become the distant one in a relationship, we still suffer because we don’t access the depth of love that is really who we are in our core and what we want to give and receive with a chosen partner. Our first days and months were just reaching out to be held and touched and verifying that we are lovable without having to do anything to earn it.

Step 1 to a healthy relationship, look at your history, get some clarity of who you are and who you partner is and then from a determination to break the cycle, become each others allies in the return to the innocence. It can be done. Why be a couple for anything less?