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The Relationship Blueprint: Unlock Your Power of Connection
Colleen is a student of Dr. Harville Hendrix and Dr. Helen LaKelly Hunt who created the Imago Theory and have brought this work to over 50 countries around the world. She is profoundly influenced by this belief shared by Dr. Harville Hendrix. He said, "We are born in relationship, wounded in relationship and healed in relationship."
What are you struggling with today? Colleen believes that almost any problem we have began with a broken or unhealed relationship. The anxiety or deep sadness we feel often began with unresolved issues in our relationships with our parents, partner, family or friends. When we have unmet needs we are programed to get those needs met. When we don't get what we need we protest by protecting ourselves. this often looks like defensive, critical, demanding behaviors. these behaviors are most often ineffective. As a result we may develop unhealthy relationship with food, sex, gambling our or a substance.
Colleen invites world renown relationship specialists from all over the world to help her guests explore their own relationships and see their problems through a relational lens. She will help us explore how to create intimacy to deepen our connections. Her listeners will gain insights to create a more joyful life.
Colleen is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the state of South Carolina, a certified, Advanced Imago Clinical therapist, a clinical instructor for the Imago International Trading Institute while maintaining her clinical practice in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.
Thank you for joining Colleen today. Remember, don't let life happen to you. You can be the architect of your relationships. Join her next time on the Relationship Blueprint; Unlock Your Power of Connection.
Contact Colleen at colleen@hiltonheadislandcounseling.com for questions or to be a guest on the show!
The Relationship Blueprint: Unlock Your Power of Connection
Episode 14: This Year Let Your Presence Be Your Present
Have you ever wondered how your personal contributions shape the dynamics of your relationships? Join me as I recount my transformative experience with the Imago Relationship Theory, a journey sparked by an unforgettable appearance from Dr. Harville Hendrix on Oprah. This episode serves as both an invitation and a promise: you'll gain invaluable insights into nurturing healthier connections by understanding your own role in relationship dynamics. Dr. Harville Hendrix and Dr. Helen LaKelly Hunt, the brilliant minds behind Imago, bring their wisdom to the forefront, offering tools that extend beyond personal relationships to arenas like education and healthcare.
Explore the potent combination of self-awareness and connection as we reveal how reducing anxiety and achieving congruence can radically enrich your interactions with loved ones. This episode is a heartfelt exploration of the inherent power we all possess to forge stronger bonds, both with others and ourselves. With future episodes set to feature more wisdom from Dr. Hendrix and Dr. Hunt, this conversation is just the beginning of a deeper dive into creating meaningful connections. Whether you're seeking personal growth or aiming to build healthier family dynamics for future generations, this narrative of discovery and empowerment is your guide to transforming relationships.
Thank you for joining me today on the Relationship Blueprint. Remember, don't let life happen to you. You can be the architect of your relationships. So join me next time on the Relationship Blueprint; Unlock Your Power of Connection.
Contact Colleen at colleen@hiltonheadislandcounseling.com for questions or to be a guest on the show!
Hi everyone. It is the Saturday before Christmas and I am very busy with a very important little girl in my life, my granddaughter Harper Lily, and she will only be with me for these few days, so I am taking this week off from the podcast. But while I'm taking this week off, I want to prepare you for next week's amazing interview with Dr Harville Hendricks and Dr Helen LeKelley-Hunt. These people are the founders of the Imago Relationship Theory. They are also the beginning of the Imago International Training Institute worldwide Mago International Training Institute worldwide, where over 60 countries are represented, with talented clinicians from all over the world, and each of those clinicians have been directly or indirectly trained by Harville Hendricks.
Speaker 1:His work first came to me when I was I guess I was young mom and I was watching Oprah Winfrey it may have even been before motherhood, as I think about it and I was watching with such intense focus. He was working with Oprah and a couple on the show and as he talked about the power struggle I thought it sounds familiar Like why does everything he say remind me of what's going on in my own marriage, which at the time was really struggling, and so I really got excited about the work and I guess it was a year later, the professor that I had in graduate school made his book Getting the Love you Want mandatory reading, and so he didn't have to twist my arm. I didn't just read that book, I ingested that book. It made sense to me on so many levels and I got so far with what I could learn about myself. But it wasn't until I took the Getting the Love you Want retreat it's a weekend workshop and I thought, wow, well, it was too late because my first marriage had ended in divorce, which is always sad. There is not a, as far as I know, there's never a happy divorce. They're just sometimes necessary, sometimes necessary.
Speaker 1:But as sad as that was, going to this workshop helped me see what my contribution was to the death of that marriage. It helped me see what my protective behaviors did to actually stop any healing that could have possibly been made. It also showed me how my early wounds made me so attracted to unavailable men emotionally, men that I really cared for but that in the end couldn't, really didn't know how to show up for me. And so once I had more of this kind of insight into myself, it made me so ready for my next opportunity at relationships, and I'm not going to tell you that dating was fun. I did not enjoy that experience, but I will tell you that I kept learning. I kept learning about myself and what it was about me that I wanted in partners that perhaps I could actually find within myself. Well, with all these questions swirling in my head, luckily enough, I was able to meet my partner and love of my people, who are not clinicians how to do this work and taking this work to the bigger world, whether it's in business, or perhaps we have people working with hospitals helping doctors develop bedside manner.
Speaker 1:There are countless schools using this for conflict resolution, helping kids communicate about hard things. I believe that the UN is looking at this work to use with some of their groups, because it's a way of communicating that is safe, even about the really hard things. And it's when we don't communicate about the hard things. We sweep them under the rug, we try to pretend they're not there, we fight about them, we blame our partner, we shame our partner, we give them the silent treatment, we walk away, we show contempt like they're so ridiculous. When we do all these things instead of really having a way through them, we're really damaging our relationships and then, when they end or they don't go well, we're surprised, and what this work has always offered is not only a way to I wouldn't say prevent hurt, because hurt does happen, we're human but when it does happen, what to do after, how to repair and how to get to know yourself and your partner well enough that you'll be able to avoid some of those pitfalls. Just by knowing and also by acknowledging that our intention does not always match our impact, and just having that much can really open up a new road for your relationships.
Speaker 1:Now Dr Hendricks is going to be speaking much more on this, as well as Dr Helen McKellie-Hunt, but I wanted to prepare you this week for all that you might learn, and if some of you wanted to go ahead and get his book ahead of time, before the episode, I would really highly recommend it. It's called how to Talk with Anyone About Anything, and it's good. It's called how to Talk with Anyone About Anything, and it's good. It's really good. It's not as dense His book Getting the Love you Find or Keeping the Love you Want are fabulous books but perhaps a little bit more difficult to digest, whereas this book is so easy to read and so helpful to really start to understand yourself and your partner. It's not ironic. It also helps you start to see what you're setting up with your children. So even if your marriage feels great, wonderful, you may want to think about.
Speaker 1:So what's going on with my kids? What am I doing with them that could inadvertently have them kind of wandering and working through these things when they become young adults or adults? And what I mean by that is sometimes they're really really small things, like two sisters sit down to do an art project and one yells out I'm the best at art. Everybody says I'm the artist in the family and you watch the little one sort of cower. She might say something defensive like I'm good too, but really it often goes unacknowledged and then she begins to think there's only one artist in the family and that has to be her, even though no one has said that. But that's why it's important, as parents, to say art is for everyone and all can be artists. It depends on what you want to do. It's that simple little tweak of that conversation that opens the door that being an artist is not owned by one person in our family, and so there are small ways that you can start to make a difference within the children you raise so that when they're older and they're starting to try on relationships, they may have an easier time of it.
Speaker 1:Reminding ourselves that, like nobody in the world unless you've been very, very fortunate has taught us the art of really how to communicate safely about hard things, really hard stuff. And then, when we do hurt each other, how to repair. What is that process? What does it look like? Will I be giving up something if I say I'm sorry? If I say I'm sorry and I don't mean it, does that do more harm? All of these answers can be found in this new book and it's pretty nice to have this full toolbox and understanding when we go into our next kind of tough situation and we can, in that situation, have a better way of handling it. And one other thing I want to say before we go today is this idea of the giving season, and I'm going to be asking Dr Harville Hendricks and Dr Helen Lakelly Hunt to talk a little bit about giving in relationships. They did a beautiful lecture in Atlanta when I was down there before Thanksgiving and it really got me thinking about the gift of time, the gift of just giving our time being with someone listening to their story.
Speaker 1:We do not have to know the answers, we just have to be there and listen. Let them know we're listening. We can do that by obviously mirroring them. I heard you say that was really hard. I know that. Or it sounded really hard what you went through. You can even guess at what they're feeling. I imagine you're feeling frustrated after that happened, and if you're wrong, they'll correct you. They'll say no, I'm not frustrated, I'm pretty mad. You're mad, I get that. So in our presence is our presence. In our presence is our present. And we can not only be present by listening, but by putting this away, putting that away while our kids are opening presents, putting that away while we're at a dinner or a brunch or cookie decorating or whatever we're doing. We can put that away and know that it's going to be there in a little while. But when we do that, we are really present. We are ready to be good listeners.
Speaker 1:The other present you can give, other than presence, is what we call active listening, and active listening means that you are listening so intently that you could actually repeat back two sentences that you've heard. Yeah, you're saying that's not so hard. I could do that. Maybe you can. I challenge you to take the test. I challenge you to have your partner speak and then maybe it's a paragraph, and then I want you to see if you can repeat that word for word. Okay, back to your partner and you'll report back how that went. I just want to share that most people can remember two sentences. So if you really really want someone to listen to you this season and you really really want them to know how deeply you feel or what their presence meant, to come, you know, to your Christmas party, think of whose sentence is not 20. That you'd like to say and then just wait and watch their reaction. And I wonder if you'll see that by slowing that down they can take that in. It's not a word salad, it's two meaningful sentences.
Speaker 1:That is another gift or present that you can give this year during the holidays Just being present, listening, actively, putting your phone down, eye contact. It's really hard to be mad at somebody looking at them in the eye. If you want to scream at your partner because the turkey's overcooked or they forgot to pick up the baby's gift, if you look at them in the eye and you take a breath, it's going to be very difficult to just scream at them, because it makes them really human, and we remember that we make mistakes all the time. So bringing that compassion to your relationships this year is another beautiful present. And now I just want to leave you with the idea that we're going to get to hear from someone who created all of this with the spirit of wanting to heal the world, one couple at a time, and later in his life, when he decided that he couldn't get all that done while he was here on this earth, that then he decided, hey, but maybe if I get a lot more people who aren't clinicians just doing this in a therapy room, then maybe I can help more people and reach more people so that they might experience more healing. And so he has done that, and we're very excited about his work. Whether it's the clinical work or the work with facilitators and Abago educators, it's all good.
Speaker 1:So please take a moment, check out the book. The book again is called have the book. I've read the book how to Talk with Anyone About Anything. So Merry Christmas if I don't see you before next Saturday, and Happy Hanukkah and have a beautiful year, whatever you're celebrating or even if you don't celebrate All of these presents that we're talking about are really good for all of our relationships, and when our relationships are right, we notice something different.
Speaker 1:I notice that I feel more congruent, I notice that I have less anxiety, I notice that I feel closer to the people that I love, and all of that makes for a much better day. So this is another way for us to take back our power. Remember, the whole point of this podcast is about us harnessing that power that we are given. Us harnessing that power that we are given and then, once we have understanding and tools, then we can use that power to connect the ones we love and also with ourselves. So have a wonderful, wonderful time playing with some of these concepts and I look forward to seeing you when, dr. I look forward to seeing you when Dr Harville Hendricks and Dr Helen McKellie Hunt will be on our show on episode 315. Thanks again, everybody. Have a good one.
