Relationships « Conscious Transitions

Deciphering Suicide

By Sheryl Paul, on July 8th, 2018

I’ve been reluctant to write about suicide as it’s a vast and complicated topic that extends beyond a single blog post; to write about suicide from one perpective inevitably calls to mind another perspective, another angle, another mindset. But suicide is in the news due to the recent celebrity deaths and, as such, the topic is coming up with my clients and on the Break Free From Relationship Anxiety/Conscious Weddings E-Course forum, so I feel compelled to offer my perspective.

What I offer here is one lens through which to view the suffering that can lead to suicide. By no means do I mean to over-simplify this complicated topic or appear trite, but I share this perspective in the hopes that it will shed light for you or someone else who may be suffering. Sometimes one crack of light is what we need to create a shift that leads … Click here to continue reading...

Debunking Sexual Myths: Genital Response Means Desire

By Sheryl Paul, on June 17th, 2018

One of the spokes of any anxiety wheel is cognitive distortions: the assumptions, misunderstandings, and expectations we form about love, relationships, romance, parenting, sexuality, and nearly every realm of being human. Because we’re not explicitly taught how our minds and bodies operate – how to understand and attend to our thoughts, feelings, and sensations – we’re left to form our own conclusions based largely on what we see in mainstream media. Since the mainstream seems to know virtually nothing accurate about these aspects of being human, the vast majority of these conclusions are incorrect, which invariably leads to anxiety since reality will rarely align with what we’re told we “should” be thinking, feeling, and experiencing.

In the realm of relationships, as I’ve written about repeatedly on this site, this often sounds like, “I should be wildly attracted to my partner” or “I should just know when I meet The One.” … Click here to continue reading...

A Foundational Key for Breaking Free From Anxiety

By Sheryl Paul, on June 10th, 2018

“This is your body, your greatest gift, pregnant with wisdom you do not hear, grief you thought was forgotten, and joy you have never known.”

― Marion Woodman, Coming Home to Myself: Reflections for Nurturing a Woman’s Body and Soul

We’re a neck-up culture. We place a high premium on words and believe that our salvation comes from intellectual prowess. We talk and think and ruminate: talking our way out of problems, thinking our way through dilemmas, and fully believing that all of life’s answers are found in our heads. Some of this propensity toward talking comes from our extroverted culture (Americans have a particularly bad reputation worldwide for being blabber-mouths) but it also comes from a defense mechanism that begins early in life for many children: when the pain is too big, they travel away from their bodies, which is the locus of pain, and into their heads.

This … Click here to continue reading...

“My Partner Doesn’t Know How To Touch Me”

By Sheryl Paul, on June 3rd, 2018

Clients often say to me, “My partner isn’t a great lover. He or she doesn’t know how to touch me like past partners have.” To which I respond, “Maybe that’s true, but if your own anxiety, current life circumstances, and sexual/body history are weighing down on you, you will shut down. Anxiety kills desire. Past pain around sexuality eclipses sexual freedom. Body shame circumvents arousal. The work must begin with you. And from there you can have a very different conversation with your partner about what you like and what you don’t like.”

There’s usually a long pause, and then a sigh of relief that speaks to their realization that perhaps there’s hope for the relationship and their sex life after all. Paralyzed by the expectations of the culture that says that sex should be sizzling hot from the first kiss and that this initial spark should fan into fireworks … Click here to continue reading...

Flags Versus Red Flags

By Sheryl Paul, on May 27th, 2018

One of the most common questions I’m asked during a coaching session is, “What are red flags? You say that if I’m suffering from relationship anxiety and I’m in a healthy and secure relationship without red flags then the anxiety is a manifestation of pain that needs attention as opposed to intuition that I’m in the wrong relationship. But what exactly are these red flags?”

It doesn’t matter that I list the red flags explicitly in my course and succinctly here on my site; people need to hear directly from my mouth that whatever particular hook they’re struggling with doesn’t constitute a red flag. I understand this completely. When fear takes hold, one of the stories it spins is that you’re unique and that the messages that you’re reading about anxiety don’t apply to you. Fear can do this around health anxiety, money anxiety, social anxiety, any anxiety. When fear … Click here to continue reading...