Love and Relationship Advice Blog

A couple of days ago, a friend of wished us a happy new year by telling us that "everything's going to be fine in 2009."

While this is certainly our wish for you, we think that our lives and relationships can be even better than "fine" in the coming year and so can yours.

We all can restart the spark--the spark in our significant relationship; the spark in our everyday lives; the spark in other relationships that are important to us.

We can ALL create more happiness and joy in the coming year.

We think it all starts with putting the spark back in your relationships and lives.

So as you're reading this, your question might be ...

How do you put the spark back or even find it after it's been buried under fear, distance, apathy, tiredness or disconnection?

Here are some ways that you can begin starting right now to invite more spark into your life...

Continue reading "Restart the Spark in 2009" »

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 04:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The other evening, our entire family, including our two grandsons, went to the Ohio State Fair to see Melissa Etheridge in concert. We can truthfully say that we have never seen another performer with as much passion, energy, and musical talent (along with her band) as Melissa at this performance. She glowed and her smile, humor, honesty and convictions touched all of us.

She took us on a musical journey of her life--which included loves lost, her career, cancer, her lessons learned and her awakening. We were amazed at the range of emotions that she was able to take us through as she sang her way through her life so far.

One of her messages was plain and simple--You have to love yourself first before you can love someone else.

Continue reading "Relationship Advice from Melissa Etheridge" »

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 02:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For the past couple of weeks we've been thinking about body image and how it affects relationships. We asked the people on our newsletter list 3 questions which are simple, but not necessarily easy to answer...

The questions were:

-Do you love yourself?

-Do you love your body?

-Do you like your physical appearance?

Because so many people seemed to be bothered by these questions, we knew that health, weight, body size and body image were indeed barriers to love, connection and better relationships.

Because of how big of an issue this seems to be, we decided we wanted to do something to help change all this...

Susie asked our good friend Andrea Albright (who is a health, fitness and weight loss coach) to do an online class for you and our other subscribers about how and why so many people let their body and their appearance be a barrier to the love, connection and intimacy that they really want. And most importantly what you can do about it.

This is the truth--At first Susie wanted to do this class in August but since Andrea is in the process of launching
a brand new program for people who want to enjoy more health and look and feel better, we talked her into sharing some of her secrets with you at no charge right now.

When we say right now-- we mean right now.

Susie and Andrea are offering this info totally free and...

It's tomorrow night (Wednesday) June 25th at 9PM Eastern time / 6PM Pacific Time.

Because it's a webcast and teleseminar, the best part of all this is that you don't have to go anywhere to "attend" this class and get this life and relationship changing info Susie and Andrea are going to share with you.

You can listen in on this one-time only web cast and teleseminar from the comfort of your home, office or anywhere there is a computer or a telephone you can use for an hour or so.

http://www.passionateheart.com/SusieandAndreasClass

When you sign up for Susie and Andrea's class and info, you'll even get a chance to submit your top 2 questions about your body image and how it affects your ability to create closer, more connected and more loving relationships.

Once again...

This is happening tomorrow night (Wednesday) June 25th at 9PM Eastern time / 6PM Pacific Time.

This is a one-time only class where Relationship Coach Susie Collins and health, fitness and weight loss coach
Andrea Allbright will share with you how to learn to love your body and how to make sure you don't allow your
thoughts about your body (no matter what size it is) to create a barrier between you and close, connected
relationships with anyone in your life.

http://www.passionateheart.com/SusieandAndreasClass

In this class, Susie and Andrea are also going to be offering some great health and fitness tips you can use at any age plus you can also submit your questions to them that they might answer during the class.

To sign up for this incredible life and body changing info just visit

http://www.passionateheart.com/SusieandAndreasClass

We think you'll get a lot of valuable insights and it will be time well spent.

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 03:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The car accident we had Christmas night could have been worse and we're certainly glad it wasn't.

In thinking about what happened and this newsletter, we don't mean to "rock" your idea of relationships and life but...

We're believers in the idea that everything that happens in our relationships and lives happens for a reason and that in almost every case, this reason is to help us to heal, to learn and to grow as we move toward being our best selves.

In our opinion, this "growth" that seems to happen, whether we invite it or not or find it easy or a struggle, is essential in helping us to create more joy and happiness in each present moment.

Here's what happened and our "take-away" from it...

Continue reading "Relationship Advice from a Deer Accident" »

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 01:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

About a week ago, we watched the Cincinnati Reds professional baseball team score 16 runs against the Seattle Mariners. Now this might might not seem like such a big deal and you might be wondering what this has to do with relationships--but here's what we learned from that event that we'll pass on to you...

This was not your ordinary baseball game because the whole town of Seattle was taking this opportunity to welcome back and honor Ken Griffey Jr. who now plays for the Reds and played for the Mariners for 11 years. His playing performance was so memorable at Seattle that the town chose the game that we saw to honor him.

And honor him they did. There were numerous standing ovations for Griffey (on the opposing team) from the Seattle fans, including each time he went to play in the outfield.

Being the observers of human nature that we are, we figured that the Reds' overwhelming win was due to the overwhelming positive energy given by thousands of people for their favorite son--and the rest of the Reds team members benefited from the energy also.

So back to the question of what this all has to do with your relationships...

Continue reading "What we learned about Relationships from the Cincinnati Reds" »

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 03:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Many of us are starting new ventures and leaving people, jobs or old ways of being for more of what we want in our lives.

The two of us are in the process of doing some remodeling to get our 130 year old house ready to sell so that we can relocate in a larger city about an hour away. With this preparation for our move, we're dealing with issues from our past, as well as some fears.

We know that this process of letting go of the past and moving into a more empowering future--whether it is about a relationship, job or location--is a normal one and one that all of us face from time to time.

So how do you move through this process of letting go of the past and moving on in an empowering way?

Continue reading "Letting Go and Moving On from a Breakup, a Job or Anything Else" »

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 01:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The two of us absolutely love music and have had an especially good time watching concert dvds of our favorite artists. It's been a great way for us to connect with each other in the evenings and just enjoy ourselves!

Last week, Otto brought out the BeeGees collectors edition and we ended up spending the entire evening enjoying a 1997 concert and then a dvd of the group's history. We had a great time talking about what we learned about life and relationships from discovering things about the Brothers Gibb and we'd like to share some of our thoughts here...

Continue reading "What we Learned about Relationships and Life from the BeeGees" »

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of our coaching clients just got back from a vacation to Ireland and had a few "ah-ha's" that we'd like to pass along to you which we think can help you create more love, passion and connection in your relationships and your life (if you read this with an open mind and heart.)

This coaching client discovered that he actually relaxed when he was on his trip--which was unusual for him because of his demanding job and his somewhat disconnected relationship with his family. He felt "free" when he was in Ireland and had an excitement for life that he hadn't had in a long time.

What he realized was that he wanted to keep those good feelings that he had during his vacation. He didn't want to climb back into his "armour," as he put it, when he went back to his job and continued his "normal" life.

In a nut shell, he didn't want to go back to the way things were before his vacation--his feelings of separateness, anxiety and feeling like he had to control everything in his life.

Continue reading "The Vacation Love Lesson" »

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 03:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

One of the fastest growing trends today is the home business, especially couples who go into business together. While home businesses definitely have their pluses, there can be some real pitfalls if you're not careful!

We started our marriage and our home business together during the same year and even though we thought we knew a great deal about relationships, we have had to really deepen our skills to keep our heads above water and to make it all work. Because we work in the same office in our home, we have to continue to put into practice what we teach and to be very conscious in every moment.

Today, we received a great question from a person who was commenting on a previous communciation article that we wrote and we thought it would be helpful to write specifically about couples who are trying to manuever the sticky terrain of working together and living together.

Continue reading "Communication Tip for Couples who share a Home Business" »

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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...

Continue reading "Relationship Tips for Being Happier" »

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 02:05 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?

Continue reading "Success--Raise Your Hand if You Want More!" »

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