Let's Talk About Love - Lydia Waruszynski, M.Ed- couples counseling, sex & relationship education
  • Home
  • Lydia W.
  • Reservations
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • Home
  • Lydia W.
  • Reservations
  • Contact
  • Blog

Breaking Up is Always Hard to Do  But in the End It’s Important To Behave in Ways Which Won’t Come Back To Haunt You

6/17/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture


​Navigating high school romance is never easy. Adolescence is that developmental -and experimental- stage where crushes and romantic love can often seem sporadic or not even last very long. And, while break-ups and broken hearts are difficult at any age when it comes to love, they can be particularly devastating during the turbulent teenage years. After all, there are many intense emotions (and surging hormones) involved as teens try to figure out life for themselves, especially while dating. Feelings can even be more distressing for teenagers because of how they process and handle failed romantic relationships. Knowing how to do so with integrity, however, allows adolescents not only to mature but also to build many important interpersonal skills they will eventually carry into adulthood. It’s part of developing healthy self-esteem and self-worth, and a sexual identity, too.



A problematic trend in the present dating world is called ghosting. And, for the record, not only teenagers do it. Ghosting happens when the person you thought you were dating suddenly stops responding to your calls, emails and texts (or blocks you completely) with no apparent explanation or warning, unilaterally ending the relationship and disappearing into thin air. Poof! Gone! Deleted! The cutoff just happens and the person being ghosted is often left in shock, literally haunted by what happened. Not only is it disrespectful, but also  heartless and a cowardly way of ending a relationship and, sadly, becoming more and more commonplace in the digital age.


The only thing worse than saying “I don’t feel the same way”, is not saying anything at all.




Aside from abruptly cutting yourself off from someone who is a threat to your well-being, ending a relationship by ignoring a human being is just plain wrong. Providing a reason and establishing closure is fair and should always be done face-to-face. Accountability. A relationship, no matter how long it lasted, somehow mattered. People matter.  And, if you don’t believe that, you are also setting yourself up for failure.  How? The very same screen you use to hide behind as an easy way out, (even if you convince yourself it’s more about not hurting someone’s feelings) impedes the social skills required for relationship success: maturity and conversation. Avoiding life’s challenges, conflict or confusion, disappointment, pain and loss only exacerbates uncomfortable situations and the vicissitudes of life that much more. Acknowledging them actually helps build empathy. What many ghosters fail to  see is that much of the relationship anxiety they also feel is actually perpetuated by the false sense of security and control they think their device offers.  Running away from situations or problems is never a healthy coping skill.


Often the harder thing to do and the right thing to do are the same.


To hear more tips and techniques about good communication skills please go to Love On the Run with Lydia -a relationships podcast at www.letstalkaboutlove.ca




originally written for YA Magazine

0 Comments

The Cheatsheet on Healing From An Affair by Lydia Waruszynski

6/14/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
Have you or your partner ever experienced infidelity? Did it feel like the ultimate betrayal? Were you able to heal through it? If not, perhaps you were unaware as to how to even begin to navigate all of the complexities inherent to understanding infidelity, nor ever had the opportunity to have the right conversations and guidance in order to be able to do so. One thing for sure, understanding affairs and betrayal beyond the perpetrator-victim perspective is essential, if true healing is ever to take place.


I often meet with couples who are dealing with the aftermath or crisis of an affair. My priority is to provide them with a safe and gentle restorative setting. My objective is to help them discover the reason behind the affair. Often the difficulty lies in discerning -and accepting- the duality of the meaning, as in “what the affair did to you and what it meant to me”. It’s never easy but these are important conversations to be had, nevertheless.


Following are some essential points to consider whenever choosing to rebuild trust, healing and getting past an affair:


  1. Healing will take time and forgiveness is possible but you will each need to work through a very different set of intense and contradictory feelings: while one partner feels gutted by betrayal and deals with feelings of anger, loss, hopelessness, hurt and humiliation, the other typically navigates feelings of ambivalence, loneliness, loss, shame, relief, guilt and self-loathing. Remaining open to the many NORMAL warring emotions between you as a couple, without making any premature conclusions about your future, is crucial!


2.   The partner who had the affair needs to want to learn what to do in order to 
       rebuild and restore trust, which includes “putting up” with their partner’s in-
       cessant pain. To be sure, there are no quick fixes here, and only the passage of   
       caring acts and compassionate experiences  will help make peace with the                
       past.  Accountability, remorse, responsibility and sensitivity are key! Hard as                  
       it may be, the hurt partner also needs to focus back on the relationship and 
       learn how to steer away from their obsession with the lover. Both need to          
       choose the relationship, even if one feels totally not responsible for the affair.



3.   Making meanings out of the motives will only come about from those couple
      conversations which consist of integrating the infidelity or transgression into 
      the narrative of the couple relationship. To do so requires knowing how to 
      move the conversation from an investigative quest-such as rifling through emails and 
      text messages- to one of exploration- embarking upon a quest to understand  the meaning 
      of fear and loss, separateness and togetherness, love and desire, longing
      and loneliness…all important discussion themes when unpacking the meaning of an    
      affair, but also part of a much needed awakening, especially if deciding to forge a brand new
      meaning of your couple connection and life together.              


Understanding infidelity is often a complicated state of affairs.

​


“People stray for many reasons - tainted love, revenge, unfulfilled longings, and plain old lust. At times, an affair is a quest for intensity, a rebellion against the confines of matrimony. An illicit liaison can be catastrophic, but it can also be liberating, a source of strength, a healing. And frequently it's all these things at once. Some affairs are acts of resistance; others happen when we offer no resistance at all. Straying can sound an alarm for the marriage, signalling an urgent need to pay attention to what ails it. Or it can be the death knell that follows a relationship's last gasping breath. I tell my patients that most of us in the West today will have two or three marriages or committed relationships in our lifetimes. For those daring enough to try, they may find themselves having all of them with the same person. An affair may spell the end of a first marriage, as well as the beginning of a new one.” (Esther Perel, 2017)
























0 Comments

On Making the Most Out of Our Lives

6/6/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
  

​The Invitation       By Oriah Mountain Dreamer


It doesn't interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me
how old you are.
I want to know 
if you will risk 
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me
what planets are 
squaring your moon...
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life's betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you 
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn't interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
"Yes."

It doesn't interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know 
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know
if you can be alone 
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.




One of my favourite poems about authenticity and intimacy. Happy reading!

0 Comments

    Hi, I'm Lydia- a modern-day warrior of the heart with a mission to reconcile the mystery and mastery of Love.

    Archives

    December 2022
    May 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    August 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    March 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    June 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    August 2017
    May 2017
    December 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    May 2016
    August 2015
    June 2015
    January 2015
    October 2014
    July 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014

    RSS Feed

Workshops

REALationships
Really Engaged
Eat-Play-Love
Sex on the Menu
Marriage Interrupted
Family Matters

About us

Lydia W.
Reservations
Video
Podcasts
Blog

Where to find us

Contact
Rave Reviews

Partners
© COPYRIGHT 2023. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.