Love and Relationship Advice Blog

There's an old saying that you can die of a broken heart and according to researchers this actually turns out to be true! According to a Washington Post article, a study done at John Hopkins School of Medicine shows that stress hormones produced by a breakup, a death, a sudden shock, or even a car accident can indeed mirror a heart attack, especially in women.

The article goes on to quote the main researcher of the study--"Our hypothesis is that massive amounts of these stress hormones can go right to the heart and produce a stunning of the heart muscle that causes this temporary dysfunction resembling a heart attack," Wittstein said. "It doesn't kill the heart muscle like a typical heart attack, but it renders it helpless."

So with this information, it's all the more important to take some very active steps in healing after a relationship breakup or divorce. There are some things that you can do to begin your healing process if you've gone through a breakup, whether it was yesterday or 10 years ago.

There’s no question about it—the breakup of a relationship of any kind that’s important to you can be very painful. Having a pain in your heart or a knot in the pit of your stomach and feeling like you've been punched are just a couple of the ways those feelings can get stuck and show up as physical symptoms in your body. Some people react to trauma with anger, some people withdraw, some people act as if nothing’s wrong, some people numb themselves out with alcohol, drugs, television, work, sex, or new relationships—so having the physical manifestation of pain in your heart is just one of many ways that this can happen.

Sometimes life does create circumstances that make us feel like we’ve been punched in the stomach and can’t catch our breath or we experience actual physical pain. When something happens that is painful and traumatic, you have to find a way to deal with it that’s healthy. It’s what we do next after that event that’s the important thing.

Whatever physical manifestations that you are feeling as a result of your breakup, find a way to get in touch with those feelings. Of course, if you are feeling pain in your heart, have it checked out by a doctor--AND also find a way to acknowledge your overwhelming feelings. If you need help in doing that, find a therapist who understands your problem and can help you unravel your emotions.

If you have physical pain in your heart or any other physical symptom after a breakup, you may be consciously focusing on the fear that is present inside you.

Here’s what happened to Susie after her first marriage of 30 years ended...

“I remember being in my house and not being able to breathe one day shortly after my ex-husband left me. I was overwhelmed, not only because he left our 30 year marriage and I was alone, but also because now I had the responsibility of the upkeep and repair of our one hundred thirty year old house. My ex had taken care of everything having to do with maintaining or renovating the house, as had my father when I was growing up.

“I had no confidence that I could do the things that they had always done and I felt sorry for myself. I realized that I had always been taken care of when it came to house maintenance jobs and although I was a very self-sufficient person with her own income, it was very hard for me to let go of having a husband around to take care of me in that way.

“Since I couldn’t seem to breathe inside the house that day that I was overwhelmed, I went outside, lay in my hammock and used every trick I could to calm myself.

“One important thing that I did was to separate the stories that I told myself about my situation from fact. The stories that I told myself came from the fear and low self-confidence that I was feeling at this time in my life. The stories told me that I couldn’t take care of my house by myself without my ex-husband here to maintain it. The fact was that many women live in and take care of old houses by themselves. To help get over these fears, I contacted several women friends who were living by themselves in old houses and asked how they did it. Then I took steps to feel more confident by actually doing what they told me. Simply by having phone numbers of repair services and other people who were available for home maintenance helped me to feel secure and to keep breathing.”

If you are experiencing physical pain because of a breakup, along with seeing your physician, separate the facts from your stories and you will begin to untangle the knots that you are holding in your body. In our book, "How to Heal Your Broken Heart," we tell the stories of several people who learned how to calm themselves and deal with their fears in order to take steps toward healing after a breakup. We also give some great techniques in the Resources section of the book to help you feel what you are feeling without overwhelming yourself. The important thing is to find something that works for you.

Begin a yoga or meditation practice. If you are drawn to something more physical, start taking aerobics, Pilates, running, walking—anything to start moving. Get a massage. In the process of moving, you will reduce your stress and the physical pain will probably begin to lessen or disappear in the process. Consciously, start loving yourself and see your heart as healthy in your mind’s eye. The more you visualize love around your heart area, the less you will focus on the lack of love that you currently feel if you've experienced a breakup.

We suggest that you begin now taking measures to reduce the amount of stress and sadness that you are holding onto, because if you don’t let it go, damage to your physical body can happen.

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Has this ever happened to you? You do or say something that triggers a person who is close to you to react in a way that disconnects and separates the two of you. This person might blame you or criticize you and you usually react by apologizing profusely or lashing out in anger yourself?

You might even be the one who gets triggered by a loved one and you find that you are reacting in a way that you don't like--but you don't know how to stop doing and saying whatever it is that you are doing and saying.

If this is similar to what happens in your relationship, we'd invite you to read how one of our coaching clients is beginning to change the dynamic in her relationship with her partner...

Carol and her husband had been doing this common relationship dance for as long as she could remember. The scenario usually went something like this...

Her husband Tom would get frustrated by something--usually some repair that he was trying to do around the house--and Carol would offer her help. Tom would get triggered by Carol's offer and tell her that whenever she offers her help, he feels like she is smothering him. Their usual "dance" was that he would continue to tell her how her smothering was pushing him away and she would end up apologizing to him and feeling very bad about herself.

She came to us and wanted help in changing this dynamic between them because she didn't like the way she felt when they became so disconnected. She admitted that she had tried to "fix" everything for him, as she had done with almost everyone in her life. She realized that helping people, even when they hadn't asked for help, was her way of giving love.

We suggested that she begin to become very aware when she was giving help when it wasn't asked for and begin to become aware of when she was trying to please and to get love from someone by doing something for them. We told her that it was fine to do things for people to show your love but not if your motivation is to get love. Those kinds of "loving" actions can have a smothering effect on some people and that could have been what was happening between Carol and Tom.

Since Carol and Tom had been doing this particular relationship dance for many years, it was a challenge for Carol to take an honest assessment of her offers for help to determine when she was trying to fix it for him in return for love and when she was simply offering help. Slowly, she began to learn how to discern her motivations and to stop herself when she had the urge to "smother" him with her help.

But Tom had his own challenges in this dance too. He secretly enjoyed "catching" her when she was trying to be too helpful and was ever ready to give her a speech about her smothering. He also had some esteem issues and felt like he was inadequate in a lot of ways.

So when Carol began changing, Tom kept wanting to continue the pattern and their dance.

This week, Carol told us that she had a victory to tell us about. Tom had been particularly frustrated in trying to fix a leaky water pipe. Before Carol said anything to him, she searched her motivations and determined how she could help and that she didn't want anything in return.

When she asked Tom if he wanted help, he began to chastise her once again for smothering him. Instead of Carol following their prescribed dance, she told him in a neutral voice that if he didn't want her help, he could instead say "No, thank you." Instead of wanting to make it up with him and "chase" after him to apologize time and again, Carol simply said what was true for her--and then didn't hang onto to any of it. She let it go and Tom also let it go.

What a victory that she stopped the dance and their old, destructive pattern!

Anyone can change old patterns if they are willing to step outside of them and try something different. If you are stuck in an old pattern or destructive relationship dance, we urge you to begin making the changes that will bring you closer instead of tear you apart.

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 06:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While we were browsing the internet, we ran into the Valley Jew and to our delight, the author quoted from our "Relationship Manifesto." He, of course, had his own "Typical Valley Jew Relationship Manifesto" which included--"3. We will complain about things our older relatives do and then do them ourselves. “ And you should hear her complain about Costco's lasagna!”

We loved what they had to say because isn't it so true that we all either silently or not-so-silently complain about things that other people in our lives do and then we turn around and do them ourselves! The sad thing is that we usually aren't aware that we're even doing them and we wonder why our lives and relationships don't seem to be working the way we want them to work.

What we do is continue to manifest the same kinds of results in our lives until we realize that we need to look within ourselves for the answers to our happiness instead of pointing our fingers outward at others and focusing on what they are doing wrong.

We'll explain with a story from our lives...

For a long time, Otto complained about how his father was when Otto was growing up. His father worked several jobs to support the family and he didn't have much patience for the adverturesome young boy he was trying to raise. Otto experienced his dad's anger more than once and silently held it against him for many years, although
his dad had mellowed with years.

Fast forward many years to Otto being the dad of a son who often tries his patience. Otto found himself reacting to his son in many of the same ways that his father had reacted to him--and that he had hated.

The difference was that Otto wanted to manifest something different for his life and his relationship with his son so he began to look at where his anger was coming from and to heal his past. He began to understand his father and have more compassion for him and in the process, had more compassion for his son.

Now, Otto has a lot more patience with his son and he doesn't seem to experience the angry episodes that he used to experience.

Through looking at what he had been complaining about his son and turning it to looking within himself, he's manifesting a different future for he and his son.

We love "Loving What is" by Byron Katie and her questions that help us to look within ourselves when we begin pointing our fingers outward at others as "the problem."

We encourage you to take the Typical Valley Jew Relationship Manifesto and turn it around so that you can begin to create your own Relationship Manifesto and the life and relationships that you really want.

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Like many people around the world, we've been watching the Winter Olympics on television. We're constantly amazed at the level of concentration and dedication the athletes have for excelling in their sport. Although not everyone is appreciating the efforts of our US team as much as we are, we thought we'd add our comments to the mix, especially how we see it relating to relationships.

As we've watched, we couldn't help asking ourselves a few questions...

Did they learn their sport overnight? Of course not.

Do they have to practice everyday? Of course they do.

Believe it or not--the same thing holds true for having great relationships.

If there's one thing we've learned in our own lives and from the lives of people who work with us in our coaching practice, it's that in order to have a truly close, connected relationship, you need to keep doing things every day to keep your love alive and growing.

Even If you aren't in an intimate relationship and you want to be, you have to begin doing the kinds of things in your current relationships that are more of what you want in your life. It certainly is true--we do get more of what we practice and love certainly falls into this category as well as anything you might learn.

Here are some really simple ideas for practicing having more love in your life-- TODAY AND EVERY DAY-- that can build a closer, more connected relationships. Although we're making some assumptions about what you might wantmore of in your relationships, we think that these ideas are worth repeating because we all forget to do them in our busy lives...

1. Look at the people in your life when you talk with them--especially the people close to you--your partner, your children. We've just finished a teleseminar series on "Getting the Spark Back in Your Relationship" and that was one of the most important ideas that impacted the participants. They realized how much they did NOT look at each other and how that disconnects them.

2. Be appreciative when your loved ones or anyone does something special for you. Stop what you are doing, open your heart, and thank them.

3. Do something nice for someone today. Maybe you've been thinking about doing something or sending a card to someone and haven't taken the time to do it. Take the time today. Since Valentine's Day was this past week, you might have given and received cards or presents from your loved ones. Extend this love to today and tomorrow as well!

4. Move past your habitual responses and truly listen to your loved ones. Do it differently today. When you truly stop and listen with an open heart, you understand. You might not agree but you understand and with understanding comes compassion and connection.

5. Like the Olympic athletes, keep practicing every day.

What we wish for all of you is to have the love and happiness that you want in your life. No matter what relationships you currently have, there is always a way to make them better.

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Even if there's great love between two people, one of the biggest problems in long-term relationships is a ho hum feeling and even boredom. This boredom can cause either or both people to ask themselves "Is that all there is?" and can even lead to infidelity or divorce.

If this is what's happening in your life, a good movie to watch is "Shall we Dance?" staring Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon and Jennifer Lopez.

Not only is the dancing fun to watch but it has a good message about relationships that we'd like to pass on...

In the movie, Richard Gere's character seemingly had everything--a great wife, very successful law practice, two great kids. You name it and he seemed to have it.

So if he had all of this, why did his life not seem to have any spark to it or aliveness?

The most memorable line in the movie that seemed to sum up his feelings was this--"I was ashamed of wanting to be happier." He was ashamed that even though he had so much in his life, he wanted more.

Because of his hunger for "something," he was attracted to the Jennifer Lopez character and ultimately to dancing. He came alive by learning to dance.

Now, we're not saying that the answer to your aliveness is that you learn to dance. What we are suggesting is that you search within yourself to find what interest or desire you may have shut off from your life and consider doing that thing that may seem uncharacteristic or even strange to other people.

Whether it's to rekindle your passion for your significant other or a long-forgotten interest that you may have buried in the past, we urge you to begin to get in touch with what can bring you more joy and more passion.

Music gives both of us a lot of joy and we own over 400 cds of a wide variety of performing artists. Both of us have discovered that we need and want to keep this passion for music alive and a major part of our lives. It simply helps us to be happy more of the time!

We also do things every day to keep our love, passion and connection alive between the two of us. Unlike the main characters in "Shall We Dance?" we make time for our relationship and to connect with each other. If you want aliveness and spark in your life and relationship, you simply can't take your loved ones for granted.

Maybe you don't have a clue what you may be secretly longing for or to do. We urge you to not continue as Thoreau said leading a "quiet life of desperation." We urge you to explore in healthy ways how to bring more aliveness back into your life.

Remember, we are the only ones in charge of our lives. Let's live this life to its fullest.

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 02:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night as I watched Bono of U2 accept a Grammy award for their album "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb," I was appreciating the relationship lesson that he talked about from his own life. Because my husband and I are relationship coaches, we tend to look at most things in life as "relationship lessons" but I thought this was truly important enough to pass on.

We thought that "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" was a political statement but apparently we were wrong. Bono told the audience that the atomic bomb was his father who he's been screaming about for years and with this award he was giving it up. In other words, he was giving up blaming, judging and complaining about his father and would come to peace with whatever was between them.

If only all of us would have the same courage to do this in our own lives, we would not only be at peace about the past but our current relationships would be so much clearer and better.

It's just a fact--we carry old hurts and challenges from past relationships into new ones, without ever meaning to. What we've discovered in our own lives and from working with people in our coaching practice is that in order to have close, connected, and alive relationships, you have to begin making peace with the past. This usually means forgiving yourself and the other person and letting them go.

Here are some suggestions that you might try if you have been carrying around hurt, blame, and anger about what someone did or didn't do in your past:

1. Know that the hurt, blame and anger that you have been carrying around is only hurting you. Even though what the other person did or didn't do may have been unexcusable, know that holding onto this pain is only hurting you further.

2. Make sure that you acknowledge your pain but also see it passing through you. Whether you use a breath technique (simply breathing deeply in your abdomen can help) or some other method, see yourself free of this pain.

3. Make an attempt to understand the other person. Often times, when you understand where someone else has been, you can realize why things happened the way they did. It doesn't excuse what happened. It just helps us to come from a softer place toward the person.

4. In forgiving this person, you are not condoning what happened. You are instead allowing new life to come into your mind and body to replace the hurt. Remember, life can be very short so make the most of it while you are here.

These are just a few ideas to help you if you've been holding onto old hurts and pain.

Susie Collins, Relationship Coach

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 09:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Romantic Ideas are almost easy to come up with when you simply do this one thing that almost no one does in their relationship...

What most of us do--whether we realize it our not--is to give a gift that we would like rather than what the person who is to receive our gift would like. One of our friends arranged a lovely weekend at a "castle" hotel in a nearby city for her husband as a surprise. The package she bought included massages for each of them and of course, chocolates and champagne.

While all of this might sound really luscious to a lot of us, her husband thought it was a nice gesture but not his style. The woman's daughter even told her that the weekend plans sounded like they were for her rather than what her dad would have liked.

While we certainly think weekend retreats are wonderful, we also recognize that when you are planning your special gift that you invoke the Platinum Rule.

According to Dr. Tony Alessandra, the Platinum Rule says, "Treat others the way they want to be treated."

Dr. Alessandra explains that "the goal of The Platinum Rule is personal chemistry and productive relationships. You do not have to change your personality. You do not have to roll over and submit to others. You simply have to understand what drives people and recognize your options for dealing with them."

In other words, we are all different and honoring those differences creates great relationships! We've certainly learned this in our own lives together, as well as watching this dynamic in the lives of our coaching clients.

So what does all of this have to do with creating romantic ideas for Valentine's Day?

Everything!

Otto once worked with a woman who was so disappointed when she received flowers from her husband at home and not at work. It might sound like this woman is unappreciative of her husband's efforts and there of course, is probably some degree of truth to that but there's also the idea that he didn't love and honor her the way she wanted to be honored. She wanted his flowers to be a public display of their love. He wanted the flowers to be a private display of their love. Neither are right or wrong. It's simply a difference in way a person wants love.

So our romantic idea for you is to pay attention to what your beloved would like and how they would like it. You have a few days before Valentine's Day so do some research.

Here are some questions to get your research started...

1. Become the observer. Ask yourself--What can I learn about new about my beloved? There's always something new to learn if we are open to seeing it. We might think that we know everything about our mate but we suggest that you look at him or her with new eyes.

2. Does your beloved like surprises or hate them? Believe it our not, some people like surprises and others don't like them because they don't like to be disappointed if they don't get exactly what they want.

3. How would your beloved like to see your love in action? Something tangible like flowers or chocolate or something like a romantic evening alone together? Maybe a bubble bath together or creating a soft "nest" for the two of you to snuggle into. Maybe an evening on the town, going out to dinner and then to a play or movie. Resist the temptation to plan something that would be the way you would like it.

4. Now obviously you both can't plan a big outing for each other on the same day. If you are planning something big and special, tell your beloved and if he/she doesn't like surprises, tell them what you are thinking of planning. You might combine what you each would like to do and your celebration of your love certainly doesn't have to be on that one day--Valentine's Day.

In fact, we suggest that in order to keep your love alive, vibrant and growing, you find ways to celebrate your love and each other often. Take turns in pleasing each other and you'll find that your love grows deeper.

For more romantic ideas, visit http://www.relationshipgold.com/Romance/index.htm

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It may sound like common sense but what we've discovered as Relationship Coaches is that many relationship challenges, especially intimate relationships, are created in part because people don't look, really look, at one another anymore.

We are currently offering a seminar by telephone about how to get the spark back in your relationship and the number one thing that our participants took away from last night's session was the realization that they have "forgotten" about actually looking at each other when they interact.

Here are some simple communication tips to help the two of you feel closer and more connected, along with reasons why looking at each other is so important...

1. Stop what you are doing and actually look your partner in their eyes when you are talking to them or when they are talking to you. Yes, we are all busy and have a million things to do but so often, we take for granted the very person who should be and maybe once was the closest to us--the person we once felt very connected to but now we are just two people living in the same house.

2. Understand that when you do not look at your partner when he/she is talking or when you are talking to them, you are not honoring them and you are showing a lack of respect. Althought it seems like a small thing, over time, this lack of respect erodes a relationship to the point that the two people don't even know each other any more.

3. When you don't look at one another when you are speaking to each other, your conversation is ripe for misunderstandings, assumptions and building resentment. How often have you been supposedly listening to someone as they were speaking and your mind has been elsewhere? It's far easier to be present when the other person is talking when you are looking into their eyes and it's also far easier to understand what they are saying. If you understand what they are saying, you're not going to make assumptions and you'll clear up resentments before they build and get out of control.

4. It's been said that the eyes are the window to the soul. When you look in someone's eyes, you are seeing who they really are. You are able to understand them better and possibly have more compassion for that person that you might not have had if you hadn't looked in their eyes.

5. When people are scared of opening to others (for whatever reason), they often don't look into the other's eyes. If you find that you are not looking in your partner's eyes (or anyone's) as they talk, begin to ask yourself why. Are you afraid of what the other person will see in them? Have you allowed yourself to overcommit and are racing through your life, not really living it? Have you forgotten how to really love someone?

If you discover that you are not looking in the eyes of others who you love (children, spouse, partner), we invite you to ask yourself these questions and then decide if you truly want to open to a deeper relationship with that person.

Don't let your life go by on auto-pilot. Take charge and start living!

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you were to go to any street corner or shopping mall and take a poll, asking people what it means to be successful and if they feel they are, you would get as many answers as the number of people you asked.

Success means something different to everyone and our question to you is this--Is there an area of your life in which you'd like to be more successful and what might that mean?

Because we're Relationship coaches, we of course focus on helping people be more successful in their relationships. In our opinion, everything is about our relationship with ourselves, some "thing," some issue, some group or some person.

With this in mind, what are some ways to be more successful in any part of your life?

Here are some of our ideas and you are welcome to add your own by making a comment at the bottom of this article:

1. Determine what being successful means to you. Is it having a lot of money? Is it raising healthy, happy children? Is it being of service to those who are less fortunate? Is it being a good person? Is it having a good job doing meaningful work? Is it having a healthy body? How would you characterize success? Is it a combination of several of these ideas?

2. In what area of your life would you like to have more success? Success comes easier in some areas of our lives than others. Some of us have great intimate relationships and not the financial success that we would like. Others of us have great success in our work but not in our relationships. How would you truly like to be more successful? Not what someone else tells you or has told you, but what you feel inside yourself.

3. Determine what is getting in your way of having the success that you want in that area of your life. Any belief and any obstacle can be removed or possibly looked at in a different way. Consider the ant--We watched ants on a hot summer's day with our grandsons. We saw them going about their business in a very determined way and if something got in their way, they just walked around it, through it or under it. They simply found another way to get to where they wanted to go.

One of the keys to having what you want, in our opinion, is to identify the beliefs that are holding you back and shifting into a mindset of possibilities. Just like the ant--there's always a way and it might not be as direct or as quick as we think it should be.

4. Learn to be happy right where you are. If you don't learn this, how will you ever be happy when you get "there" or be successful, whatever that means to you? Because we're human, there will always be something more--success will mean something else when we achieve what we set out to do. If we don't learn to appreciate where we are right now, while looking forward to what is possible, we will be dwelling on what we don't want and that kind of thinking certainly can keep us stuck where we don't want to be. Learning to be happy right where you are while planning and envisioning for what you want more of in your life can be tricky. We've found that this idea is one of the major tools to making changes for the better in your life and creating success.

We'll add another point from one of our favorite success and motivation teachers, Jim Rohn:

"And here's the last one; learning to solve problems. Business problems, family problems, financial problems, emotional problems, etc. -- challenges for us all. Here's the best way to treat a problem: As an opportunity to grow. Change if you have to, modify if you must, discard an old philosophy that wasn't working well for a new one. The best phrase my mentor ever gave me was when he said, "Mr. Rohn if you will change, everything will change for you." Wow, I took that to heart, and sure enough the more I changed the more everything changed for me."
Excerpted from Jim Rohn's newsletter and from 2004 Jim Rohn Weekend Event with Special Guests Denis Waitley, Brian Tracy and More

We wish you much success in your life and relationships, whatever that means to you, and we welcome your comments.

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)