Relationships & relational patterns

Relationships matter which is exactly why they can be so hard.

You can care deeply about someone and still find yourself stuck in the same arguments, the same distance, or the same feeling that something is just not working.

The easiest thing is to focus on the other person: what they’re doing or not doing. But often, the same patterns keep showing up for us, just with different faces.

In therapy, we learn to honour the process of what is unfolding. This helps us look at what is actually happening between you and within you. Primarily. This tends to affect all the other dynamics such as what is happening between you, and significant others. So our session work might include looking at:

• how you communicate (or don’t)
• what happens when things get tense
• where your boundaries are or if there aren’t any
• how you respond when emotions run high

Relationships tend to bring to the surface the emotions we sometimes prefer to avoid: hurt, anger, jealousy and disconnection. The hard emotions to sit with. Once the patterns can be seen more clearly, there is more freedom to do something different. Sometimes that means repairing and reconnecting. Sometimes it means making clearer decisions about what you want and what you do not want. Either way, it’s about showing up in your relationships in a way that actually works for you.