Understanding Depression Many people have described depression as a black curtain of despair coming down over their lives. Depressed people lose their ability to concentrate and have little to no energy most of the time. They become increasingly more irritable and often say to other people they are ‘feeling low or down’. People who have been feeling ‘down’ for more than two weeks are generally described as “clinically depressed”. Global Statistics on Depression During 2015–2018, 13.2% of adults aged 18 and over used antidepressant medications and use was higher among women (17.7%) than men (8.4%). Globally, 1 in 4 adults…

Acceptance is a skill and way of being and needs to be at the center of a loving relationship. Acceptance provides a sense of safety that your partner can be themselves in a loving relationship, and that you will support them. In communication acceptance comes when great listening is provided. Listening at a level that you accept the thoughts, feelings, intentions or actions your partner is sharing with you without judgment or evaluation, their inner and outer life. Your partner’s experience IS – it is not right or wrong. Accepting your partner’s thoughts, feelings, intentions and actions does not imply…

The Adverse Childhood Experiences (The ACEs Study) focuses on the adverse impact of traumatic or adverse childhood events on adult health. Adverse childhood experiences include physical and emotional abuse, mental illness of the caregiver, neglect, household violence, disruption at home and school, birth-related issues, etc.

Celebrated author Patricia Love has magnificently explained how most of us are familiar with the consequences of a relationship turning sour. She defines how many women are eager to hold up a conversation, while many men choose to walk away, lacking in communication skills. In her 2007 publication Why Women Talk and Men Walk: How to Improve Your Relationship Without Discussing It, Patricia explores a wide variety of aspects of a loving relationship. She takes her readers on a journey to explore these aspects. As mature human beings, we know how things can go when a relationship turns from sweet…

The International Authority for Professional Coaching & Mentoring (IAPC&M) and Why I Support this Coaching Accreditation Body, Tony Vernon, HWC, NMC, AMC, MMC Coaching, counseling or therapy are complex processes that are provided as services offered by human-beings with their own personalities, strengths, weaknesses, overall experiences and skills. How does this serve the public well? Indeed, coaching or counseling a client, couple, parent, child, teen or a group of people needs a complex adaptive system. Coaches need to use competency and capability to help their clients succeed as a measuring system in sessions. This makes sense as often clients in…

Renowned author Nathaniel Branden has exquisitely articulated the various aspects of love in this book. He gracefully defines love and why it is born, grows, and sometimes dies. We recommend this book to all couples wanting to deepen their knowledge of love. As human beings, many of us wonder how romantic love evolves. There is a thin line between immature and mature love and in his 1980 publication The Psychology of Romantic Love, Nathaniel Branden explores many aspects of love. Indeed, he takes his readers on an intuitive ride to explore the various levels of romantic love. Nathaniel clearly explains…

Intersubjectivity has become a topic of considerable interest among psychoanalysts, psychologists, therapists and advanced professional coaches. In its most basic sense the term intersubjectivity refers to the interaction between two subjects: self and other. It is mostly used in a therapist-client or coach-client context but is particularly useful to look at when working with couples in a loving relationship because all couples bring intersubjectivity or another word would be their dynamic to the work. Their intersubjective experience or dynamic consists of: strengths, vulnerabilities, stories, wounds, and often attachment-based issues that get played out in their loving relationship. The sharing of intersubjective experience…

Attachment theory explains how we behave and react in relationships. Our attachment style is set up in our early interactions with our parents or primary caregivers as a child. An attachment style has a huge impact on how we interact with others as adults. Your attachment style developed in your early childhood interactions dramatically affects how you act, interact and behave in a loving relationship. Attachment theory has more evidence and validity behind it, and is a more accurate way of understanding what drives a person in life and relationships than psychiatric or DSM terms like Narcissism, Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD),…

Our attachment to our parents in our initial infancy years of life is a vitally important period that, to a degree, shapes you for the rest of your life. There is now a huge amount of evidence to support the validity of attachment theory and how our early years affect our ability to form close relationships as an adult. Our loving relationships are too largely defined by the kind of bonding, and interactions we experienced as a child with our parents or primary caregivers. Mary Ainsworth and John Bowlby, two developmental psychologists, are attributed to the development of attachment theory…

An attachment style dictates mostly how an individual relates to other people and is developed during the initial stages of our life as a child. They are established during infancy from interactions with our parents or primary caregivers. However, the style of attachment we develop as a child will stay with us all throughout our life unless we become aware of it, and work to change it by working with a professional counselor, therapist or credentialed coach. Our attachment style will play out in all of our social relationships and particularly in our loving relationship. To put it in another…

An attachment style is the specific way in which we relate to others in relationships. Attachment styles are very powerful and strongly define how we respond emotionally and in interactions with others as an adult. People differ in their attachment styles based on their early interactions with their primary caregivers, usually their mother and father. Attachment theory was introduced by Mary Ainsworth and John Bowlby in the 1950s. It now has a huge amount of evidence behind its validity. According to their work, attachment styles are shaped and developed in our early childhood as a response to the relationship we…

Commitment makes the difference in a loving relationship, because loving relationships are not easy. The story that Hollywood has sold us is not real. Loving relationships open us up in a way that is beautiful, but at the same time this openness also presents a new challenge, we are exposed and very vulnerable to being hurt, and our deepest wounds are often brought up to the surface. Although this is a challenge, it presents an opportunity to heal. I suggest the purpose of a loving relationship is to help us to heal from our wounds. Escaping through the Rational Mind…

← Read or Listen to our Loves Hidden Policy Articles Superficial Love As a professional relationship/couples coach I am often helping or teaching others to love each other more, but often not intellectually with goals, as you might think as a coach. The human ego lives in a state of wanting to ‘get more, and wanting to get what we want’ from another, but this is based on ‘getting’ and so is superficial when it comes to a loving relationship. Because pure love for another has no selfish intent, instead it has, an open-hearted, giving nature that fully supports the…

← Read or Listen to our Loves Hidden Policy Articles A loving relationship is key to keeping your daily emotional and mental health intact, more so than many studies anticipated before. To be in a loving relationship with someone and envision a future together, even if a little anxious or nervous in the early stages, is a powerful heart opening experience like no other. Later on if the relationship develops: a loving, secure relationship significantly impacts confidence, inner security, fulfillment and happiness. It is now becoming clear the impact a loving  relationship has on our health, due to dramatically reducing…

← Read or Listen to our Loves Hidden Policy Articles Many studies now show a healthy, loving relationship brings a multitude of emotional and psychological benefits. It is a fact that people who have supportive and healthy, loving relationships are less likely to succumb to stress and anxiety, etc. but research now confirms a loving relationship helps us to lead a longer, more productive life with increased resilience, but what about sleep? A healthy, loving relationship improves us psychosocially and positively affects our sleep. We know it, we feel it, regardless of what studies show. But before we look at…

← Read or Listen to our Loves Hidden Policy Articles Society today is very unpredictable, but our loving relationship should not be. A loving relationship should be stability building, consistent and deeply caring because as human-beings we are built for safety. Safety is our primary emotional need, greater than all of our other emotional needs including sex. Sex without a foundation of safety and connection may be thrilling and meet our excitement and bodily needs, but will most likely not build a lasting relationship. Because safety is the primary need for us as human-beings. Children must have safety in their lives…

← Read or Listen to our Loves Hidden Policy Articles Life in 2020, due to the pandemic shifted to computer, tablet, and phone screens. With electronic screens literally becoming our windows to the world for the majority of us, with the exception of close family life. The amount of time we spent on our devices significantly increased with the changing world, and this happened for children too. But screens take away a large part of our social interaction and visual attention needs, direct eye contact in our daily life is extremely important. Most of us are not aware of the…

← Read or Listen to our Loves Hidden Policy Articles The importance of effective communication is often discussed in business circles as well as personal therapy, or in coaching sessions. Communication is important to work on as we learn and grow personally and professionally. But our honesty threshold is often overlooked. Today, people are investing huge amounts of time and money into learning better communication skills, sales and marketing techniques, working with a personal trainer, and dressing for success. But few courses are taught about honesty and authenticity, and far too few of us are thinking about this. What will…

← Read or Listen to our Loves Hidden Policy Articles Human beings are essentially a species that depends on cooperation and connection to survive and thrive. We are naturally a pro-social being, and the desire for cooperation and connection is evident in all aspects of human life. We have an urge to connect to those around us: colleagues, friends, family and our loving partner for intimacy. This is fundamentally an instinctive driver. When we are deprived of meaningful connections, or enough emotional support we are more likely to experience stress, mental worries, or even depression. The reality is we are…

← Read or Listen to our Loves Hidden Policy Articles Can Humans Really Smell Emotions? People affect you. They just do. Is this chemistry or does smell affect us? I suggest both but more recent studies show that humans can smell emotional states with their noses even if they may not be conscious of what they are smelling. The human nose, or more specifically the olfactory tract that sends neural signals to the brain and amygdala is a rapid communication system that affects us far faster than verbal communication. Our human systems have evolved over millions of years phylogenetically to…