By Chandrama Anderson
E-mail Chandrama Anderson
About this blog: About this blog: I am a LMFT specializing in couples counseling and grief and have lived in Silicon Valley since 1969. I'm the president of Connect2 Marriage Counseling. I worked in high-tech at Apple, Stanford University, and in ...
(More)About this blog: About this blog: I am a LMFT specializing in couples counseling and grief and have lived in Silicon Valley since 1969. I'm the president of Connect2 Marriage Counseling. I worked in high-tech at Apple, Stanford University, and in Silicon Valley for 15 years before becoming a therapist. My background in high-tech is helpful in understanding local couples' dynamics and the pressures of living here. I am a wife, mom, sister, friend, author, and lifelong advocate for causes I believe in (such as marriage equality). My parents are both deceased. My son graduated culinary school and is heading toward a degree in Sociology. I enjoy reading, hiking, water fitness, movies, 49ers and Stanford football, Giants baseball, and riding a tandem bike with my husband. I love the beach and mountains; nature is my place of restoration. In my work with couples, and in this blog, I combine knowledge from many fields to bring you my best ideas, tips, tools and skills, plus book and movie reviews, and musings to help you be your genuine self, find your own voice, and have a happy and healthy relationship. Don't be surprised to hear about brain research and business skills, self-soothing techniques from all walks of life, suggestions and experiments, and anything that lights my passion for couples. (Author and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Calif. Lic # MFC 45204.)
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When you get a great job, you do everything you can to be successful and work your way to promotions and raises.
When you find a great partner, please do everything you can to be successful and make your way to deeper intimacy, caring, connection, love, trust, and great sex, too. This provides the foundation to raise children (if you choose to so do), work, be of service, and follow your spiritual path if you have one. Those are the promotions and raises of a great relationship.
What can you both do for the good of the marriage? In fact, what did you do this week to make things better at home?
When we work with couples, we see issues as a systems breakdown – not him or her.
I saw an osteopath yesterday. He was explaining how my body has its own adaptations, and is not perfect. When something changes (in my case, getting rear-ended on 101 last March), the body cannot handle the change, and issues arise. The goal is not to get my body to a perfect state, but to a new adaptation that is manageable and healthy for me.
This is a lot like couples issues. You have come to your own stasis, and when a change comes along, the system gets overloaded and cannot handle it.
Think about how you want to behave in your relationship – what’s good for your marriage? Due to limbic resonance and neural plasticity, being and behaving in healthy ways in your relationship actually changes your brain and your partner’s, too, for the better.
