Relationships

In Sheree's opinion, what we desire most from a relationship is to be loved and held, known and understood.

However, we have also been socialised to present ourselves and our relationships as perfect - and this denies us the opportunity to receive all that a relationship has to offer us. 

If you and your partner can truly be in mindful awareness together, you have the opportunity to experience what you desire the most. 

Relationships as a system

From the perspective of Hakomi Experiential Work with Couples, a relationship is regarded as a system, where each member of the couple relationship contributes unconscious patterns and habits that influence the way we behave and what we perceive.

This perception also includes includes how we might relate to ourselves - and our self beliefs.  

How can Sheree help yours?

With this in mind, you will both learn to develop mindful awareness, and you will learn how to apply this in the moment to whatever is happening now.

We study what is occurring in the present moment for each person, and how each interacts with the other from this place, using mindful awareness. 

This gentle, yet effective process of self-study can allow you to be with yourself, and with the other, in the present moment, where whatever is happening can be observed, understood and accepted.

The process goes beyond insight and into action: working in mindful awareness with what is occurring now, can free us to focus on our interactions with each other, helping us to move forwards.  

Raising the issues

Couple differences tend to arise around needs, vulnerability and self-protection. Becoming aware of how these create patterns of relating, and observing how this rolls out in the present moment, can provide us with useful information about our self and the other.

Finding pathways ahead

As we begin to see what is happening in our moment to moment interactions, we also see that this experience can become information that we can use to help ourselves and our relationship.

As we're doing this, we're also building our capacity for sharing and understanding our own experience and that of the Other. In this way, it is possible to strengthen our relationships, and build our individual resilience, expanding our ideas about who we are, and about who the Other is. 

Being able to bring more of ourselves into our connection with the Other potentially allows us both to deepen, and to flourish together.

Our scientifically grounded approach

Authors Lewis, Amini and Lannon in their book 'A General Theory of Love' write:

“From birth to death, love is not just the focus of human experience but also the life force of the mind, determining our moods, stabilising our bodily rhythms, and changing the structure of our brains.”

This view best sums up Sheree's approach to understanding, working with and being in relationship: the neuro-biological processes involved in attachment and behaviour play a much bigger role in what we create together as a couple, than what we realise.  

Understanding how this combines within family systems and impacts human developmental processes, is vital to create understanding and compassion.  In Sheree's opinion, this is what love and relationships are all about.