How to live on? We have to make this decision too often. We offer you the opposite: try to understand the situation in advance – with a cold head until the crisis broke out. The advice of our experts will help us with this: Anna Vargi, Leonid Kroly, Vadim Petrovsky and Jacques Salome (Jacques Salome).
Each of us at least once came a desire to stop everyday running – and understand our lives, understand what we have come to and where we are going … But where to start? Questions – the sea, and the answers fluctuate between radical conclusions (“Everything is already too late!") And desperately illusory decisions (" Eh, I’ll start all over again!"). We offer you a method by which such traps can be avoided.
Four psychotherapists invite us to comprehend the main spheres of our existence: love relationships and relationships with others, work and our inner life, calmly asking ourselves several exact questions. They will help without (unnecessary) emotions to deal with what is happening to us and around us, and change what needs to be changed. Try to answer these questions honestly, listen to your deepest needs and arising feelings – this will allow you to adjust the situation and, possibly, prevent the crisis.
Love
We are especially acutely experiencing our loneliness or, conversely, we wish to stay alone, ask ourselves whether we made the right choice or are still mistaken … Our love life is an endless series of questions. Do these doubts say that it’s time to change something? Is there a chance to improve relations or is it better to interrupt them?
Questions for reflection
- You have a loved one, you are married or free: are you satisfied with your position? Do you feel that it was a conscious choice?
- Do you listen to your partner? And he hears your desires?
- Would you be happy to choose the one with whom you live now? Are you making joint plans?
- You like your couple? You like to walk somewhere together, you are pleased to introduce people to your partner?
- Are you satisfied with the sexual and emotional aspects of life together?
Analysis and tips
We are talking about our personality
There are several sides in a love relationship: emotional, sexy and social (how the couple behaves in society, in public). The deep needs of each of the partners are associated with each of them, and a person feels happy when most of his desires are satisfied.
Our consultants
- Anna Varga, family psychotherapist, author of several books on family psychotherapy, scientific editor of the book Modern Child. Encyclopedia of mutual understanding ”(OGA, 2006).
- Jacques Salome, French sociopsychologist, specialist in communication psychology, author of dozens of books translated into many languages of the world.
- Leonid Krol, director and leading coach of the class training center "Class", author of several books, including "Man-Orchestra. Microstructure of communication "(together with Ekaterina Mikhailova. Class, 2001).
- Vadim Petrovsky, Transactional Analyst, Scientific Editor by Eric Bern “Transactive Analysis in Psychotherapy” and “Group Psychotherapy” (Academic Project, 2001, 2004).
“When we constantly think about relationships in our pair, about the feelings of a loved one, we are actually interested in ourselves,” says Anna Varga . Tormenting ourselves with doubts, we really want to understand: “Who am I to him (her)? Why does he (she) love me that way, and not otherwise?»It is important to understand: your partner loves you as he knows, this is due to his individual characteristics. We will never find the love that we come up with, we get the one that our partner is capable of. But the style of communication in the pair is formed by two people, and the way it turns out to be depends on both. ". If something in a relationship does not suit you, listen to yourself: what exactly is bothering you, what you want to change. For example, it seems to you that you have ceased to exist for another person, he pays you too little attention. Decipher this: you may not have enough communication, because you are both too busy? Or you stopped going to visit together, make general plans?
Start discussing
Having determined what the problem consists of, think about your personal responsibility for what is happening between you;Evaluate your internal opportunities necessary to improve relations. Answering these questions, discussing the problem with the partner. “The adulthood, maturity of a person in love is determined by his ability to be open,” explains Anna Varga. – Do not hide your feelings, do not save offense in yourself. To prevent the conflict, you need to discuss the situation before there are too many grievances, otherwise any little thing may be the last straw and destroy the relationship ”. So that the conversation does not turn into "debriefing", do not blame. We must talk about problems calmly and restrained: after listening to a partner, tell us what you are ready to change in your behavior, and then invite him to think about the same thing.
And if there is a feeling that you love each other and do not want to part, but you fail to agree? “In this case, it’s nice to contact a psychologist,” advises Anna Varga. – There is no need to be afraid of this: if two want to be together, this means that they have many reserve capabilities, resources. Psychotherapeutic assistance in this case can be very small, the couple itself goes to the road she needs. ".
Relations with others
We have not seen ourselves insufficiently open or too irritable. Around a lot of opportunities to prove yourself in communication, but there are not enough abilities and efforts. The once chosen role is prevented from finding new acquaintances and building relationships with surrounding people. We want to better understand others, we want them to love and respect us, but how to change ourselves?
Questions for reflection
- How close were your relations with your parents in childhood? You someday discussed this topic with them? And with a psychologist?
- How other people usually characterize you? You characterize yourself in the same way or somehow otherwise?
- What relationship do you maintain with other people? Whether you are inclined to slander? Condemn others? Do not trust people? Or, conversely, you listen to others and trust them?
- When you express your opinion, how others relate to it? They are not considered with him, he is recognized as a banal? Or you can easily find like -minded people?
Analysis and tips
What is bothering us
It is easier to see the shortcomings in others, but you need to start an analysis of your problems in communication. “It is impossible to understand why we behave with others in this way, and not otherwise, until we analyze how other people treated us when we were children,” he believes Jacques Salome. It was in childhood that the installation could be formed, which makes us perceive ourselves exclusively through the eyes of others (“I am a trouble -free worker”) or constantly compare ourselves with them (“I am the exact opposite of my mother”).
If it turns out that acquaintances and colleagues perceive us not at all as we really are, you need to figure it out. Perhaps we ourselves incorrectly evaluate ourselves (our self -esteem is underestimated or, conversely, overestimated). But the reason may be that we are too restrained in communication. It is important to learn to manifest yourself and do it without afraid that we will be condemned.
Change the manner of communication
“Communication should be dynamic,” Jacques Salome advises. – Do not move away from people, do not look down on them, but listen to what they say, and respect them as it is ". How to achieve this? Admit that all people are different, and not judge a person only by him. It’s time to part with a useless relationship scheme in which we either blame for all others (“I would like to treat them well, but they do not give me such an opportunity”), or ourselves (“I am too timid”). And think about personal responsibility for what is happening to us: we cannot always affect events, but how we will respond to them depends only on us.
Job
Suddenly the routine becomes unbearable, and we are covered by an irresistible desire for change. We want more free time, more independence or, conversely, dream of working in the team … And what if the work itself does not suit us anymore? It is worth changing the profession or just starting to relate to it differently?
Questions for reflection
- How much time during the week do you devote to work, family, public life and personally? If you could change the distribution of time, what proportions you would establish?
- Which of these values were the main ones for you at the beginning of your career: power;success;Search for meaning;game and creativity;personal life;the ability to listen;active participation in what is happening? And now?
- That in your work in the entire career was the most interesting? Why? By what criteria you judge? And vice versa, which seemed to you the most uninteresting? Why?
- What are you interested in what you are doing?
Analysis and tips
Not only work
Having evaluated the ratio between working and personal time, we can determine our motivation and deep desires. If there is a noticeable difference between the answers to these questions in the past and today, as well as the idea of how everything should be in the ideal. “We can formally be at work, but at the same time mentally be in a completely different place,” he clarifies Leonid Rabb. – This time must also be attributed to the personal. ". The working routine is able to cause us hostility to our work, and then additional “bonuses” will help, which everyone can extract from their professional activity. “A person, for example, has learned to do something twice as soon as before, or to communicate more constructively with the authorities,” continues Leonid Krole. – Thoughts about this bring satisfaction, and additional motivation can return interest in the fed work. ".
Manage your world
“A person can change something at work (even to make a small rearrangement on his table)-and this symbolic action will support his feeling:“ I control the world, not the world with me, ”Leonid Krole advises me. To realize himself not a “slave of work”, but by a person who can impartially assess the situation, other symbolic actions will also help. Those of us who think and talk only about work, while feeling that his own life has become too “one -sided”, will be useful in the morning, before leaving for the service, carefully examine himself in the mirror in several angles, while feeling his own “volume”.
Personal and inner life
In between daily work and a difficult family life, many of us devote too little time for ourselves. How to find out if we manage these rare moments well, whether we satisfy our deep needs?
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