In today's insightful episode of The Better Relationships Podcast, I delve into the transformative world of relationship coaching with a focus on romantic partnerships. Discover the profound impact a relationship coach can have on your love life, whether you're seeking to strengthen a healthy bond or navigate through rocky waters. I'll explore:
- The comprehensive role of a relationship coach and how they create a safe, non-judgmental space for personal growth and relationship enhancement. - The unique benefits of relationship coaching compared to traditional therapy, emphasizing present actions and future goals. - The significance of a relationship plan and how it can serve as a roadmap for couples seeking to align their visions and navigate life's changes together. - The five stages of relationship coaching tailored to meet the diverse needs of individuals and couples at various points in their journey – from readiness to attraction, commitment, couples coaching, and the pursuit of a happy, healthy, harmonious partnership.
Plus, Dr. Dar Hawks provides an exclusive look into her coaching approach and shares valuable resources such as the Sovereign Relationship Needs Quiz and the Couples Quiz to help you assess the dynamics of your relationship.
Whether you're curious about the coaching process or ready to take the leap towards a more fulfilling love life, this episode offers a wealth of knowledge and practical advice. Don't miss out on the opportunity to transform your relationship and become the best partner you can be.
For a deeper dive into your relationship needs and to book a session with Dr. Dar, visit www.relationshiphuddle.me.
To take the Sovereign Relationship Needs Quiz, head to www.relationshipneeds.me and start your journey towards a more empowered and satisfying relationship today.
Remember, investing in your relationship is a testament to strength and commitment. Tune in to discover how relationship coaching can be the catalyst for lasting love and connection.
Follow Dr. Dar on social media for more empowering content: - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/drdarhawks - Facebook: https://facebook.com/drdarhawks - Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/drdarhawks
Embrace the path to a stronger, more vibrant relationship – listen now and join the conversation.
📋 Episode Chapters
(00:00) My topic today answers the question, what does a relationship coach do (14:04) Relationship coaching focuses on building healthy communication skills, building trust and intimacy (15:55) There are some differences between coaching and therapy regarding relationships (21:55) Readiness coaching is all about becoming ready for the relationship you're in (25:31) Darling Hawks focuses on creating happy, healthy and harmonious relati
Take my free Primary Relationship Needs Quiz to discover your dominant, secondary, and shadow Primary Relationship Needs by visiting https://needs.drdarhawks.com. This one thing will help you better understand yourself, your partner, and your relationship, and even improve communication and connection between you and your partner.
Note: The quiz name has changed from Sovereign Relationship Needs to Primary Relationship Needs as of July 2024. Please keep that in mind for podcasts dated before July 2024.
Book a coaching session: https://huddle.drdarhawks.com
In today's insightful episode of The Better Relationships Podcast, I delve into the transformative world of relationship coaching with a focus on romantic partnerships. Discover the profound impact a relationship coach can have on your love life, whether you're seeking to strengthen a healthy bond or navigate through rocky waters. I'll explore:
- The comprehensive role of a relationship coach and how they create a safe, non-judgmental space for personal growth and relationship enhancement. - The unique benefits of relationship coaching compared to traditional therapy, emphasizing present actions and future goals. - The significance of a relationship plan and how it can serve as a roadmap for couples seeking to align their visions and navigate life's changes together. - The five stages of relationship coaching tailored to meet the diverse needs of individuals and couples at various points in their journey – from readiness to attraction, commitment, couples coaching, and the pursuit of a happy, healthy, harmonious partnership.
Plus, Dr. Dar Hawks provides an exclusive look into her coaching approach and shares valuable resources such as the Sovereign Relationship Needs Quiz and the Couples Quiz to help you assess the dynamics of your relationship.
Whether you're curious about the coaching process or ready to take the leap towards a more fulfilling love life, this episode offers a wealth of knowledge and practical advice. Don't miss out on the opportunity to transform your relationship and become the best partner you can be.
For a deeper dive into your relationship needs and to book a session with Dr. Dar, visit www.relationshiphuddle.me.
To take the Sovereign Relationship Needs Quiz, head to www.relationshipneeds.me and start your journey towards a more empowered and satisfying relationship today.
Remember, investing in your relationship is a testament to strength and commitment. Tune in to discover how relationship coaching can be the catalyst for lasting love and connection.
Follow Dr. Dar on social media for more empowering content: - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/drdarhawks - Facebook: https://facebook.com/drdarhawks - Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/drdarhawks
Embrace the path to a stronger, more vibrant relationship – listen now and join the conversation.
📋 Episode Chapters
(00:00) My topic today answers the question, what does a relationship coach do (14:04) Relationship coaching focuses on building healthy communication skills, building trust and intimacy (15:55) There are some differences between coaching and therapy regarding relationships (21:55) Readiness coaching is all about becoming ready for the relationship you're in (25:31) Darling Hawks focuses on creating happy, healthy and harmonious relati
Take my free Primary Relationship Needs Quiz to discover your dominant, secondary, and shadow Primary Relationship Needs by visiting https://needs.drdarhawks.com. This one thing will help you better understand yourself, your partner, and your relationship, and even improve communication and connection between you and your partner.
Note: The quiz name has changed from Sovereign Relationship Needs to Primary Relationship Needs as of July 2024. Please keep that in mind for podcasts dated before July 2024.
Book a coaching session: https://huddle.drdarhawks.com
Welcome to the Better Relationships podcast, where Dr. Dar Hawks, the relationship healer, shares the advice and insights you need to create the healthy, happy, and harmonious relationship you deserve.
>> Dr Dar:
Welcome to episode 30 of the Better Relationships podcast cast. My topic today answers the question, what does a relationship coach do? I'll start with this quote. Our greatest joy and our greatest pain comes in our relationships with others. That's by Stephen Covey, and he's the creator of the seven habits for highly effective people. Whenever I introduce myself as a relationship coach, I am sometimes asked, what does a relationship coach do? And what comes out of my mouth first is the quote by Stephen Covey. When I think back on all of the struggles I've had in my life, I have to admit that every single one was directly related to an issue in a relationship, whether that was with a family member, friends, coworkers, people that I hired to do some work for me or help me with something, a company. Basically, we have relationships with people, places, and things, and we have a relationship to ourself. So relationships are really what makes life work out great or not so much. For the purposes of this podcast, I'm going to focus on romantic love relationships. As I reflect on my life, I see that I could have benefited from relationship coaching, but I had no idea it was even a thing. And now here I am, as a professionally trained relationship coach, sharing with you what a relationship coach does. Let me first share with you that it's really challenging, I think, to describe with clear words what coaching is, because it's so experiential and each person's experience is unique. So I can only share with you my approach and generalized, descriptions of what relationship coaching is, and I will do my best to do that for you. Now, relationship coaching is a subset of life coaching that focuses on helping you prioritize and improve yourself, your life, your work, and your relationships. So you can see there's a whole life coaching kind of feel to it or theme to it. That's because I'm an advocate for being a life coach with a specialty in relationships. Because to be able to coach and support a whole person, you need to understand life coaching principles because you are not dissected into these different pieces for how you are at work, how you are at home, how you are with your parents, how you are with your partner. You are a whole person, and then you have a m life that you share with other people. And so being trained and being able to coach a whole person, because your relationships, you, your life, and your partner are intricately tied together is important. Relationship coaches can be general or they can specialize in a specific area such as marriage, dating, family, parenting, career oriented relationships, or a romantic love or couples coach. Relationship coaches are professionally trained to hear your concerns, champion your goals and aspirations, understand your unique situation, and offer expert insights tailored to your specific needs. Relationship coaching isn't just for couples. It can also benefit happy, healthy relationships and individuals with a proactive approach to building and maintaining a successful relationship. Relationship coaching actually empowers you to take charge of your own happiness while working towards creating a fulfilling partnership with your significant other. First and foremost, a relationship coach creates a safe space where you share openly, honestly and frankly just end up gushing. because of the space your coach creates for you, you feel safe. You feel like you can share anything with them and know that they're not going to share it with anyone else, that they have a confidentiality policy, and you know that you can trust them with your heart and your soul and your mind. Relationship coaches will help you identify your strengths and weaknesses, understand your own values and beliefs, help you work through differences you have with people or that you see, and help you find common ground with them. help you resolve issues and give you the tools to handle future conflicts on your own. And to be honest, they will help you avoid or prevent conflicts and teach you how to see or notice or be aware when a conflict is about to start or something is on the way to a potential conflict so that you can nip it in the bud before it becomes this big thing that you've got to contend with. They will teach you healthy relationship skills and show you communication, and listening techniques to help you in your unique circumstance and situation and the personalities that you're dealing with. They will also help you see things from a different and healthy perspective to help you optimize your relationship mindset and resolve whatever it is you're dealing with. A relationship mindset, that's really my terminology for my brand and what it means is what are your thoughts, behaviors and attitudes about your own relationship, about your past relationships and about your current relationship? What are your thoughts and feelings about your partner? And what are your attitudes and behaviors and thoughts and feelings that you've carried forward from family relationships or other relationships that had an impact on you that may be affecting your current relationship? They will assist you with identifying and addressing patterns or behaviors that could be causing a strain in your relationship or that could cause one in the future. They help you work towards becoming the best version of yourself so that you can be a better partner. They help you identify your needs and get them met. And by the way, if you want to know more about my body of work around needs, take my sovereign relationship needs quiz at relationshipneeds me and you will learn what your primary, secondary and weakness needs are. And I'm not going to explain those terms right now to you, but you will learn all about them and get pdfs that explains each of the five human needs in my body of work that happen in relationships. The beauty of this of identifying your sovereign relationship need is that it guides everything that you do, all the choices that you make, how you're going to interact with your partner. Because when you're feeling that need present not as a need anymore, but as a superpower, if you will, then you're going to be at your best and you're going to be able to make decisions from that place and just be patient if you're not in that space. Relationship coaches will also help you strengthen your existing relationship with your partner, save your relationship, or help you amicably part ways. If that's what you and your partner choose to do, that is what you will choose to do. They will help you address a recurring or unresolved issue, help you with communication issues or listening issues, help you with unrealistic goals or expectations, and help you set some goals and expectations. They also will help you identify and reach those goals, either together or individually. And by addressing these issues together with your relationship coach, you can better understand every person's point of view as well as your own. Identify where the common ground is and find effective ways to manage yourself through where common ground doesn't exist, where your differences are, where your disagreements are. They will help you get really comfortable with your in your own skin. accept and love yourself first, and then help you allow and let yourself be loved and appreciated and accepted by others. They will help you learn how to accept and give compliments the right way to where you and your partner truly feel appreciated. Whether it's a small disagreement or a major argument, I believe everybody faces conflict at some point in their life, and relationship coaches will help you sort out those conflicts by giving you tools and techniques to resolve them in a healthy and productive manner. They will do that much faster, with less angst, with less stress than you can on your own. Some of the techniques can involve finding new ways to connect and deepen intimacy, improve trust and commitment, reignite commitment in the relationship, and improve communication and listening to deepen intimacy as well. With the guidance of a relationship coach, couples can learn how to communicate effectively, express their needs and desires, and have a dialogue to further or to help you get your needs and desires met and navigate conflicts in a healthy and productive manner. It's easy to think that things will stay the same romantic, lovey dovey way as when you and your partner agreed to be in a committed relationship. But the reality is that you and your partner will grow over time. Your goals and desires change, and life brings situations that cause change. That kind of change can either draw you closer or push you further apart. So your relationship coach will help you navigate change in your life so that you can continue to maintain a close relationship with your partner. And I'd like to say whether you stay together or not, my clients have said these things about my relationship coaching services and I'm sharing them with you because I feel like they are a strong guideline for ensuring you're being nurtured and cared for by your coach. I call them the six guideposts for being relationship coached. So here they are. The first one is you feel safe, heard and supported. The second one is you don't feel judged, nor do you feel like there are any biases or ideologies being pushed on you. You're not afraid to open up, to bury your soul and your heart, and you feel safe to do that. You feel free to express your emotions and reactions however they come out and know that you're going to be accepted and supported. You feel supported between sessions and you also look forward to your sessions with your coach. Those are all a good indicator that this coach is an ideal match for you. You may be wondering, but isn't that what a therapist does? Well, there is some overlap, but relationship coaching is different from therapy. Therapy focuses on healing past wounds, typically, and treating mental and emotional health issues. And relationship coaching tends to be more proactive and focused on the present and future of a relationship. I want to share a little bit about ontological coaching because that's more of what I do, along with, choice theory and reality therapy. Those are terms that may not make sense to you, but I'll do my best to explain them now. Ontology means the science of being and so ontological coaches have been trained and continue their education. By the way, in m studying humans, what it is to be human, why is it that we behave and do the things we do? What drives the choices that we make, what motivates and inspires us? And the key questions that we seek to answer with our clients are what is serving you, what isn't serving you, and your highest good. And what choices are you making that are serving you and aren't serving you? And that's a very powerful model that creates incredible results for my clients. In addition to orienting around the relationship needs that I shared earlier, relationship coaching offers a safe space for you and your partner to address difficult topics without judgment or bias. Relationship coaches are trained to listen more than they talk. Sometimes they do have to talk a lot because that's what the client asks, but their listening is powerful and they create this container where you truly find yourself sharing and sharing and sharing because of the space that they've created to truly hear you and support you. They, are trained to provide a nonbiased perspective without taking sides, which m allows both of you to express your feelings and needs without fear or criticism. That can lead to deeper understanding and communication within the relationship, just in the coaching conversations that you're having together with your partner and your coach. While therapy can be incredibly beneficial for individuals with deep rooted psychological and emotional issues, coaching is geared towards individuals who seek to improve their current relationships and create a better future in life for themselves. Also, relationship coaches have a more practical approach to problem solving. Their approach is not only to solve the problem, but also to put in measures so that that problem doesn't continue to recur in your life. And if it does look like it's popping up, provide you with the tools and techniques to nip it in the bud. They may offer specific strategies and techniques for improving your communication, managing conflict or rebuilding trust in your relationship. They also will help you become more secure and stable in yourself so that, for example, jealousy issues, distrust issues, snooping, those kinds of things no longer happen. Coaching tools that you get from your relationship coach can be implemented immediately in your real life and they lead to tangible results that sometimes you will experience immediately, and they'll benefit you in other relationships and, areas of your life as well. With your relationship coach, you will also receive personalized support tailored to your unique needs as a couple. Often you will find your relationship coach creating tools for you, specifically for you in the moment, to help you with your situation and tailored to you and who you are. Unlike therapy, which tends to have a more generalized approach with packaged tools and techniques that already exist, coaching also takes into account the specific dynamics and challenges that you're having in your relationship. The main goal of relationship coaching is to empower you to better manage your relationships, to create fulfilling and satisfied connections. It focuses on building healthy communication skills, building trust and intimacy. And honestly, this is the crux of it, creating and maintaining a strong foundation for long term success. I call that your relationship plan. Relationship coaching is not just reserved for couples in trouble. It can benefit happy and healthy relationships as well by helping you maintain a, strong connection, again, keeping communication skills optimal and navigating any challenges that can arise. I personally don't think therapy and coaching can be done simultaneously. According to the relationship Coaching Institute where I received my singles, couples and family coach training, coaching starts where therapy ends. And I think that just says it so completely and clearly. Here are some differences between coaching and therapy. Therapy assumes the client needs healing, that there's something broken. Coaching assumes the client is whole and complete. Therapy has its roots in medicine and psychiatry and frankly, both those disciplines are rooted in patriarchy and those approaches and mindsets. Coaching is rooted in sports, performance, business, self growth and other venues that are all about improving ourselves and accomplishing what we want to accomplish in our lives and feeling really joyful and happy and satisfied with where we are, who we are and where we're going. Therapy works with people to achieve self understanding and emotional healing. Coaching works to move people to a higher level of functioning and higher level of functioning. Relationships Therapy focuses a lot on feelings and past based events and past relationships. Coaching focuses on actions in the present, choices in the present, and designing the future from the present. Therapy explores the root cause and the root of problems to where you have to relive them over and over again. As my clients have told me, coaching actually focuses on solving problems and more importantly, preventing them. Therapy works to bring the unconscious into your consciousness and coaching works with the conscious mind, which I have found also benefits the unconscious mind as well. Therapy works for internal resolution of pain and the letting go of old patterns. Coaching works on providing solutions to overcome barriers, learn new skills, implement healthy choices and habits, and as a result of that, pain can get removed along with pattern, older patterns that are not serving you fall to the wayside because I take the approach of what's serving you and what isn't serving you. It's pretty easy for my clients to see, well, that's not serving me. Why am I? I shouldn't keep doing that. I'm going to stop. And it's easier for them to stop once they recognize what is and is not serving them. Why don't more people get help from a relationship coach? Well, here are a few reasons that you may resonate with and understand. They might fear that they will be judged or controlled or pushed to do something they don't want to do or push to change who they are. They might feel embarrassed or ashamed for seeking outside help with their relationship. They might feel like they should be able to handle things on their own. They have a desire to keep things private and fear that their family or community will find out. They have a public Persona of things are great in front of their communities. They want to keep things private. They don't want their family or community or coworkers to know. So they put on this brave front and behave as though everything's fine, everything's great. They might have a misconception that only couples in dire straits or on the verge of a breakup need coaching, which is far from the truth. They also might have a lack of awareness that relationship coaching is even a thing or an option like I did. Consequently, they opt for doing nothing, choosing to talk with friends or family. Or they think the only option they have is religious counseling or therapy. They might think that admitting they need help is a sign of weakness. On a side note, in the years that I've been a relationship coach, I have to say at least 80% of my clients have come to me and their partner is not in support of therapy because of the stigma associated with it, but also because they don't want to rehash the old going through the past, digging through the past. Their partners are more focused on the now and what they can do for tomorrow. And that's where coaching is very beneficial. So if you have someone or with a partner who is resistant or thinks coaching is therapy, they are very different and they might be more open and accepting of coaching. The truth is, seeking guidance and support from a relationship coach shows strength and commitment to making your relationship thrive. It takes courage to admit that you might need some help in this aspect of your life. Seeking the assistance of a relationship coach is actually a sign of your strength and commitment to making your relationship better and becoming a better partner for your partner. In our society, we focus on individual growth and self care and our careers, but we neglect the importance of investing in our relationships. Our relationships don't just go on autopilot and work effectively and harmoniously for the rest of our lives. Relationship coaching can benefit any type of couple. Doesn't matter where you're from, who you are, who you're with, or what type of relationship you are. Whether you're just getting into a relationship, getting out of a relationship, or a newlywed, or your long term partners or short term partners, you can benefit from relationship coaching also. It's not about fixing problems only. It's also about making things better, bringing more things into your life that work for you and when you're in that sweet spot, life is easier and things start happening for you. Doors start opening because your energy is changing to that of attraction, which is what I want to talk about next. As a relationship coaching institute certified relationship coach, I am professionally trained for these five stages of relationships and to coach you in any of the five or all of them together. Readiness coaching. Readiness coaching to me is all about becoming ready for the relationship that you're in as individuals. We are single for a long time and we know how to do, know ourselves and we know how to do single or be an individual. But becoming a couple requires a lot of different things. Readiness coaching addresses questions like who am I? What do I want? How do I get what I want? What type of person do I want to be with? Am I with this type of person? Is what I'm doing in my life today? And is my relationship serving me for my highest good? In what areas is it not serving me and addressing those types of things? Readiness coaching benefits you whether or not you are in a relationship and the coaching activities walks you through your relationship history and helps you define or determine identify what from your history is impacting you today and isn't serving you and what is impacting your relationship today and isn't serving your relationship today. Going through a, personality assessment with the intention to get you to the point where you truly love yourself, all of you, your traits, behaviors, values, preferences, dare I say, even your mistakes and where things didn't go well or where your choices weren't serving you, helps you identify your goals, wants and needs and it clarifies your relationship vision, life vision, your requirements, needs and wants because those are slightly different from your personal needs and vision. Most of the couples I've worked with or individuals I've worked with, they don't have a life vision. they don't really know what their requirements are. And when I first ask them what do you need or what do you want? Their quick answer usually is I don't know, I'm focused on my partner or I'm focused on the person I care about. Can we focus on them because I know what they want? But here's the thing. When you get clear about your vision, requirements, needs and wants, then you can communicate them better. And not only that, you can get them met and talk with your partner about ways to get them met. Most importantly, when you know what your requirements, needs and wants are and you have a relationship vision and a vision for yourself, you know when you're going off the rails. You know, when things aren't serving you and you will know what to do to course correct. You also will create a profile of your life partner so that you know how to navigate the things that are serving your highest good and the things from them that aren't serving you. The things that aren't serving you may result, or it may end up that you're not going to be able to change your partner. Right. Your partner is not going to want to change that aspect of themselves. And so that profile will help you put together strategies of how to manage through that as you're accepting and loving your partner. Readiness coaching is also about creating and developing your own relationship plan. And I have to tell you, none of my clients, when they came to me initially, have a relationship plan. And it's designed to put together what you want your relationship to look like this year. What do you want to accomplish with your partner this year and individually? and it also provides a check in on various aspects of a relationship that can go awry, and I'll talk about those in a minute. But if you would like to become a better partner or become ready for a relationship, I suggest you go to readyquiz drdarhawks.com and check in on these 15 areas of focus where I provide you in that quiz, statements that you can ask yourself and rate yourself as to how things are going in that area of your relationship. So here are the 15 areas of focus that I work with my clients, towards creating happy, healthy and harmonious relationships. One is respect. Being respectful of each other and ourselves. Appreciating and loving each other and yourself. Balancing being an individual with being a couple. Valuing and appreciating each other and yourself. Supporting each other, trusting each other and honoring each other's commitments and promises and learning how to negotiate when there's differences in those commitments or differences in what each partner wants and how to handle things when commitments are broken or promises are broken. Providing and having emotional safety, spiritual safety, financial and legal safety accepting and understanding each other and yourself. Practicing clean, curious and connecting communication creating common ground creating an intimate connection creating harmony in yourself and with your relationship while having healthy boundaries and honoring them for each other and creating time and space for each other and for romance, intimacy and sex. The quiz will help you as an individual look at these different areas. There'll be statements for you to rank yourself or rate yourself on as to how you're thinking things are going in your relationship with respect to that area. Attraction coaching is the second stage. I'm trained in and that focuses on helping you meet your lifetime partner. Primarily in my coaching practice, I focus on creating your relationship plan. Whether you do that by yourself or with your partner matters not. it just really depends on what you're coming to me with. So the relationship plan is a detailed plan and I help you ensure that you stay on your path with your plan that you design with me. It includes all kinds of things. In addition to those 15 areas I just shared, a relationship plan includes how you're going to communicate with each other, your agreements with each other, domestic responsibility agreements with each other. It can include agreements around how you're going to handle and manage things when one or the other is upset or angry. It's pretty comprehensive. Even though I have a framework for the relationship plan, you're the one that really creates it, with me, and then I help you stay on track with it. And then we review it periodically to do check ins to see how things are going optimally. I collaborate with you and your partner, if desired, to get you from wherever you are up to five. The ranking scale is one to five, and so when you're operating optimally in your relationship, the five is the score. Commitment coaching helps new couples and existing couples be conscious and objective about their future. And now you can see why the relationship plan is important because there's also dreams and goals and aspirations, part of the relationship plan. What do you want for your future? Where do you see yourself going? And then when life throws in curveballs, you can make adjustments to your plan. Coaching activities could include becoming clear about what is serving you in this relationship and what isn't and what to do about it. It's about getting a reality check about your relationship plan and goals and being accountable for what you want and moving forward to accomplishing whatever it is you want to have. It's about developing strategies and actual techniques for difficult conversations and decision making so that you can do those with your partner or have those with your partner without creating a big mess or conflict. Commitment coaching also addresses emotional and other compatibility issues. And if you want to check in on potential compatibility concerns or questions that you might have, I invite you to go to couplesquiz drdarhawks.com. That one is more tailored to you thinking about your partner in your relationship and more about compatibility, whereas the other one is more about you looking at it from your point of view. Couples coaching is the fourth stage and that's where I work with a committed couple to create a functional, healthy, harmonious relationship going forward. There we may work on getting a relationship off to a good start. We can also work on your relationship plan here, and we can also save a relationship that's become rocky or is close to ending. But the couple wants to make a last ditch effort to try and save the relationship. And that could be whether you stay together or not, you still will have a great relationship. Building, effective communication, and conflict prevention skills. Not a fan of conflict resolution skills because it's about the existing conflict. I prefer to also give my clients prevention skills. Also giving you skills and tools to discover and overcome issues and obstacles around topics like parenting, domestic responsibilities, finances, et cetera, and also identifying and negotiating mutual wants, needs, and goals. You can probably see a theme here, right? Everything is part of your relationship. And then the fifth one, which is my terminology here, happy, healthy, harmonious coaching stage helps a committed couple that's already humming along in their relationship, but they just want to deepen their emotional intimacy, trust, love and connection. Or they may have taken the couple's quiz and they're noticing a few areas where they've gone from a five to a score, a lower score, and they want to amp it up again. Coaching activities could include reviewing the couple's quiz, developing or updating the relationship plan around those, and making agreements, and providing tools and techniques in a structure for quality time together. For increasing authentic expression of your thoughts, feelings, and wants and needs with each other, owning emotional reactivity and addressing, going through them without creating an outburst or an upset that makes you both want to not be in the same room with each other and being able to say, you know, I'm really angry about this and this is how I feel about it and it being okay. Increasing mutual trust, support and safety around m emotional vulnerabilities and intimacy could also include navigating life changes where maybe you're having to take care of an aging parent and that's changing the dynamic of your relationship. Or an example with COVID where you're both at home now and you're working and the kids are at home and navigating all of those stress stressors. It includes developing skills, rituals, and practices for deepening emotional, physical and spiritual connection and navigating life. The hurdles that life brings. Your relationship coach can help you fall in love with yourself, your partner, and your relationship all over again. Because, to be honest, if you don't love yourself, it's really because, let's be honest, if you don't love yourself, my question is, how can you expect your partner to love you for who you are? And if you don't love yourself? How is that really serving you? I believe that happy, healthy and harmonious relationships are created by becoming and being a healthy partner, emotionally, mentally, physically, financially, legally, psychologically. I think I said mentally though. And with our families, it includes having a healthy relationship mindset, practicing healthy relationship behaviors using connecting, communication, managing your energy and moods, and scheduling quality time with your partner. Your time together, with or without your partner will help you learn how to nurture your relationship so that you can feel fulfilled and appreciated. Communicate openly and honestly and confidently. Ride through any conflicts calmly enjoy time with your partner again and feel like the best version of yourself as your relationship just gets better and better and better. Please know you're not in this alone. As a side note, I mentioned this earlier. Relationship coaching and life coaching is really challenging to explain and the reason is because it's experiential. And my suggestion is if you're wanting to hire a relationship coach, have a consult with them and make sure that you have enough time with them and they give you their time to where you can get to know each other. And if you're feeling like what they're saying, their energy resonates with you and there are no barriers or resistance in you, then they're probably a good fit for you. If after learning about what a relationship coach does and connecting with my voice and words and energy, you feel you could benefit from relationship coaching, contact me by going to drdarhawks.com and click on the contact button or link and you'll find ways to connect with me there. Or go ahead and schedule a coaching session. Why wait? You can schedule your coaching session by going to relationshiphuddle me. That's relationship H-U-D-D-L-E me m if you're not quite ready for coaching, I invite you once again to take my sovereign relationship needs quiz. It costs you nothing but a few minutes of your time and you'll learn about five life changing relationship needs along with what your primary need in your relationships is all about. Go to relationshipneeds me now to take that quiz. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your listening and I look forward to connecting with you next time.
>> Credits:
If you enjoyed today's episode and found it helpful, please subscribe to the better Relationships podcast on your favorite platform and share it with your friends and family. Together, we can create a community of healthier, happier and harmonious relationships. To better understand your unconscious needs and unlock better communication, take the sovereign relationship needs test at relationshiptest me so you can have a more fulfilling relationship with your partner. For additional resources, information, and to share your thoughts or questions, visit drdarhawks.com. That's drdarhawks.com. And if you'd like to schedule a coaching session with Dr. Dar, visit relationshiphuddle me. Until next time, keep communicating with curiosity and an open heart. The advice in this podcast is not a substitute for the professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment provided by licensed med or mental health professionals.