The Relearning Blog

Ever wonder why you decided to get married or why you want to get married? I wonder how many of us ask ourselves these questions? What I’ve come to learn as a couples’ therapist is, it is often our fundamental belief system (our values and conditioning) that are different, and this is OK. What doesn’t work however, is when two people choose to come together and build a life with the hope or expectation that these two differing belief systems should automatically join forces, without any clash and be the start of a harmonious and easy marriage. This is never the case. This hope or expectation and conviction to one’s own belief system is often the catalyst for conflict in relationships. The statement that is often expressed by couples is that “We just don’t get along.” “We don’t understand each other.” “We are just so different.” Yes, of course you are. You are two separate entities that are coming together with a misconception and belief system that differences will work themselves out miraculously. A further unrealistic belief, that the other partner will or should adjust, conform with full acceptance in the name of love. This can happen and does happen, often at the cost of the conforming partner feeling a tremendous loss of their identity. Sound familiar? If yes, you are not alone.

Asking these following questions can mitigate or at least soften some of the conflict and challenges when you do decide to tie the knot. If anything, exploring and being curious about marriage and what it means will help you better understand your own belief system along with your partners. Hopefully this can help eliminate the not so pleasant surprises down your path of marriage.

1)     What kind of wedding do you want? (yes, this is important, and it is one day) More important question to ask: what are your intentions as a couple?

It’s wonderful to have a beautiful, picturesque wedding, having your loved ones there to celebrate your union. Having your values and your intentions as a couple being reflected on your wedding day is equally important.  

2)      Why is it important for you to get married?

Is time ticking? Are you feeling societal pressures? Want companionship? Having clarity over your intentions helps you make sound and responsive decisions rather than reactive ones. Asking this question can help you understand your partner and whether your intentions for marriage are aligned.

3)      What are your expectations for marriage?

What is your idea of marriage? How do you see your marriage unfold? This may look very different from the expectations of your partner and that of families. Asking this question can help distinguish your true wants and desires separate from others. It also provides an opportunity for you and your partner to acknowledge these external pressures and navigate them together.

4)      How will you face life’s stressors in your marriage?

Marriage is something new and always changing. When there is any kind of change, there is loss. By acknowledging and normalizing this loss within and between, a beautiful change can help soften the grief experienced. It can bring empathy and understanding into your conversations as to the ways in which you have dealt with challenges in your life as an individual and now, how to face some life challenges as a couple. 

5)      How will you protect your own individuality in your togetherness?

This is part of the grief that is often experienced. When we get married, it feels sometimes impossible to protect and hold on to our own individual selves. It can often feel like an internal battle and more often show up in conflict with our partners. There is often a sense of push and pull in marriage. Having the discussion about a sense of self, individual hobbies and interests and your own personal growth is not only helpful, but necessary to maintain a long-lasting relationship.

6)       What’s your vision and commitment to your future together? 

Asking these two questions will help you understand if your idea of marriage and commitment to the marriage are aligned. Marriage is work. It’s the commitment to the work, process and your journey together that counts.

Take the time to ask yourself why you want to get married or why you did get married? These questions and the experiences in answering them can have a tremendous impact on your marriage and its longevity. Awareness of ourselves, our wants, desires and needs start with self-reflection. Followed by communicating these thoughts and feelings to our partners in hopes to create a stronger bond. The “why’s” aren’t always important to figure out, but when it comes to marriage it helps to understand the motivations behind “the act of love.” Loving each other is beautiful. However, understanding and accepting each other is the key ingredient to a forever ever.

Read more about relationships here.

Authored by Kavita Patel RSW, MSW/Psychotherapist & Co-Founder of ReLearning Human.

Many of my clients share their challenges around falling asleep or staying asleep throughout the night. Especially during this time of year. When further explored, it’s quite clear that one of the challenges around sleep is that we are in fact trying to force ourselves to sleep! We know the drill. Twist and turn, get up to pee, curse, scroll on our phone, thoughts and worries running through our minds, curse some more, and so on. Forcing sleep doesn’t work. When we do this, we disrupt our natural process of sleep, our circadian rhythms and the release of sleep hormones such as melatonin. Here are some reasons as to why forcing yourself to sleep won’t work.

Let’s think about it, if you are forcing yourself to sleep you are adding pressure on yourself and this often leads us into an anxiety spiral. At this point trying to sleep is becoming more and more stressful. When you are feeling anxious, you are more sensitive and can experience a heightened awareness, not only in your body, but your surroundings. We experience anxiety when we are feeling a sense of threat (i.e.: F**k, I can’t sleep! I’m not going to be able to function and deliver a stellar presentation at work tomorrow!).  

We also don’t give sleep and the complexities of sleep the credit that it deserves, and we often neglect this process by neglecting to listen to our bodies. Your body knows when it needs to sleep and fighting off these cues often lead to disruptive sleep cycles. I understand that you may not be able to take a nap in the middle of the day (especially if you’re physically in the office 😊), however listening to your body at the end of the day and following through on what it needs when it comes to sleep may surprise you.

Probably the worst thing you can do (I am guilty of this too) is reaching for your phone or any device before sleep and/or when you awake in the middle of the night. When you do this, you are activating your brain and it will be difficult to fall asleep. 

My first suggestion with clients wanting to relearn how to sleep and stay asleep is the practice of:

 1) Acceptance VS resistance. This can help support your process of sleep overall. It interrupts the current habit or pattern that exists. You are also choosing to focus on the present moment and not tomorrow’s presentation.

2) Mindfulness sleep meditations can keep you in the present moment. Deep breathing and muscle relaxation techniques can help calm your mind and body, easing your anxiety (find some resources here). Journaling is also another way to declutter your mind and soften or dump any negative ruminating thoughts.

3) Listening to your body and trusting that it knows when to sleep is helpful. You can try getting up, doing some light stretches, walking around or sitting in another room if that is an option and doing this quietly.

4) Assisting your body and mind with a pre-sleep realistic relaxing routine can help wind down.  Limiting caffeine, heavy meals and screen time before bed can help. However, don’t set yourself up for failure. If you don’t like to read or meditate before bed, then don’t. Setting a realistic relaxing routine for you is important.

5) Give it time. If you are starting your journey in relearning how to sleep and stay asleep, some offerings of grace and kindness to yourself will be nice. Your brain needs time, repetition and consistency to adopt a new learning. So be nice to your brain.

6) Seeking additional support for sleep may be necessary and always recommended if it is impacting your daily functioning. Consult with a healthcare professional. They may be able to provide further support around your specific sleep care needs.

Getting to know our bodies and our natural sleep cycle is important. Being in tune with ourselves brings an awareness of what we need to fall asleep and stay asleep. Accepting that our needs around sleep will change from time to time can be difficult. We are not always going to have a deep, peaceful sleep due to life events, stressors, change in season and so on. Being mindful of this and accepting this natural process can also contribute to better sleep. It’s a start anyway. If/when you decide to relearn and create a sleep routine that works for you give some of these suggestions a try. Good luck to you and maybe, good night.

Authored by Kavita Patel, RSW, MSW, Psychotherapist & Co-Founder of ReLearning Human.

No one ever really tells us how much work relationships are. The kind that you want anyway or think you should have. Do you agree that Disney f*cked us over? OK I’m already getting off track. We fantasize so much about how our relationships “should” be rather than putting the effort into them. Why would we if we don’t think we need to. We think that if someone loves us and has made a commitment to us then things “should” just work, right? Well no. Relationships require more than love and commitment to work. One tool that we can all start to use in our relationships is curiosity. 

Here is how and what can happen when you practice being curious in your relationship. 

When you show interest in your partner, as in genuine interest, it creates a safe space to open up honest communication. Being curious about your partner can be translated to… “You are important to me.” “Your thoughts and feelings are important to me.” “I want to know you better.” This deepens emotional intimacy and if that’s not hot, I’m not sure what is.

Working with couples I often hear, “there is no spark.” “We love each other deeply, but the passion is gone.” Being curious about each other NOW can introduce spontaneity back into what can often feel like a boring, mundane routined kind of relationship. We are consistently without a doubt evolving as human beings. Exploring each other’s interests, learning a new activity together, sharing sexual fantasies and desires can help reignite your spark and deepen connection.

Approaching conflict and challenges in your relationship with curiosity can transform them into opportunities for learning and growth. When we engage with genuine curiosity, what we are saying is “I care for you.” “I see you are hurting.” “I want to understand you.” Empathy connects us as human beings. It softens conflict and introduces compassion in heated moments (THIS IS NOT EASY TO DO). Feeling as though you and your partner are on the same team can truly nurture a felt sense of connection.

Being curious about how your partner copes and manages their own stressors can help build resilience in your couplehood. When we understand our partners’ experiences and learned coping styles in managing stress/or not (this in itself can be stressful) we are able to work through challenges more effectively. When we feel seen, heard, accepted even at our worst, we are able to feel calmer quicker (co-regulation) when we know we are not in it alone. 

Feel ready to be curious about your partner? If yes, give some of these curious questions a go. (If possible, be present. How is your partner responding? Be curious around your own thoughts, feelings and responses).

Hey ______(insert whatever word used to address your partner)

What did you feel good about today? 

Did you dream last night? What did you dream about?

What’s your favorite color today?

Did you laugh today? About what?

What made you cry today?

What were you afraid of today? 

What stresses you out the most? 

Did anything excite you today? Or what have you felt excited about lately?

Again, relationships require work. And don’t hold me accountable if you are practicing curiosity and your relationship is still falling apart. It is one excellent tool and the work consists of implementing many more tools. If you are still a believer in a “happily ever after,”  good for you! It can and does exist. Only this time it will require some unlearning and relearning about true, realistic, deep human connection. When you feel ready, check out our online therapy services (including couples therapy). Visit our trained therapists’ bios who are truly curious about your relationship and ready to support you through it.

https://relearninghuman.com/starting-therapy#team

*Happily ever not guaranteed, but a safe space is.

To continue to be curious about current or future relationship reads, visit https://relearninghuman.com/2024/08/23/basic-but-not-so-simple-8-revealing-questions-to-ask-yourself-about-relationships/ 

Authored by Kavita Patel RSW, MSW, Psychotherapist (Individuals & Couples Therapist) & Co-Founder of ReLearning Human.

When you think of the birth of life you think of the golden hour, of skin to skin contact between parent and child, of tired yet joyous parents. Trauma during birth or “birth trauma” steals those moments. Steals  hope and preconceived beauty from you and replaces it with panic, terror and disassociation.

My daughter was born November 15, 2022 in an emergency c-section after a medical error. The medical team didn’t call it an error, but it was. After the birth I vaguely remember social workers, patient advocates (or something similar) coming to visit. I had a number of cards of people to call to discuss my experience and also give feedback to the hospital. Even writing that… I’m trying to justify to myself, maybe to you, that it was traumatic. 

The first part of managing trauma is accepting it as trauma. I wasn’t able to do that for a long time. It’s hard even now, 20 months later. I can still hear the bargaining part of my brain saying, “It wasn’t that bad,” “You didn’t die, she didn’t die.”

My daughter was not breathing at birth. I don’t know what happened when she was born. Of course I know, but I don’t. I remember seeing the medical team surrounding her. I’ve read the surgical reports and I still don’t understand. Or maybe I can’t understand. She went to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) after being held by her Dad for a moment. There was an instinctual part of me that knew I shouldn’t hold her. It’s so hard to write that, even now I can feel the shame crawling up my throat. I was too wrapped up in what I had gone through to be there for her. Her birth was one of the first experiences of shame I felt as a Mother.

Over the next few months it felt like my world had shattered. And in many ways, it still does feel like that. Instead of trying to keep it all together, I try to find beauty in the shatters. I’m not trying to pick up the pieces anymore. Everything we experienced in those early months connects together:

• Because we were separated, we struggled with breastfeeding and feeding in general
• She struggled to gain weight so we had appointments everyday for what felt like weeks

For me:

• Insomnia, shame, anxiety, depression, flashbacks and the fatigue, nausea, disconnection, tingling and weight that comes along with those experiences 
• The intense nerve pain that had me shopping for black market gabapentin. Getting in and out of the car was excruciating for all of the follow-up visits 
• Rage in all its fucking glory 
• Avoidance of any possible reminders of birth
• Intrusive and disturbing thoughts and images 

The shame is so loud sometimes. Still. When people, family, compare our story to theirs. 

“My daughter had a c-section and she was fine.”

“I didn’t have to use soothers because we didn’t have a problem breast-feeding.”

“None of my children had any problems gaining weight.”

“You will get over this.”

“You did it, you must be so happy!”

“These years are so precious.”

“Come for a visit, we would love to see you.”

“You need to be more flexible.”

“Well I hemorrhaged after the birth….” 

I can look now and understand that the people who make these comments mean no harm and are just doing what humans do – shielding themselves from the hard stuff, the stuff that we try to ignore, trying to find space, understanding or reprieve in my story. 

There is no comparison, there is no diminishing, there is just the trauma that my body holds when I speak or write of our story. That living experience is still there and needs support instead of shame. Were other births more medically complex? Absolutely. Do other people have less manageable challenges to their birth experience? Yes. And yet, there the trauma is. No matter how much I try to get away from it, it’s still there. 

The minds of others do not get to decide what is and what is not trauma. 

The term postpartum has an air or an insinuation attached that it ends. Like somehow, someday I will be the same as before and I have an inner knowing that I won’t. 20 months later and I am still taken back to that day. The panic rises through my chest as the claws of panic take hold of my throat, my breath stops, eyes well and glaze as the fog comes into my mind. I feel as if I am choking underwater. 

Because I will never ‘get over’ this, I will never ‘get over’ the trauma of this birth. The day that was meant to be connected and beautiful and loving was filled with miscommunication, error and terror. The weeks and months following were full of invalidation, dismissing and comparison. Maybe one day my body will react less. Maybe it won’t. 

And that’s OK.

Instead of getting over it, I am practicing acceptance. Acceptance of my experience and the reactions that have ebbed and flowed everyday since. Acceptance that other people manage their pain in the way that they manage it and that it has nothing to do with me. Accepting that the week leading up to and on the day of my daughter’s birth, I will struggle. It’s OK to not be OK. Being not OK can be managed. 

There is a hype of the “how to’s, when to’s, who to’s, how many to’s” in the wild world of dating and romantic relationships. Whether you are looking for the “right” person (I’m sorry if you still think this is a thing), or you have been with who you thought was the right person and are still questioning it after 15 years of togetherness, then continue reading. You are exactly where you need to be.

You are one of the many humans out there who are trying to figure out this “love thing” or maybe not even love as the way we have been conditioned to think about it, but maybe the “companionship” thing. Can it be that they are the same thing? Maybe one just sounds sexier than the other. 

As human beings we are all seeking a sense of belonging and companionship. Makes sense right? To want company, to want to belong. To want to be accepted and loved for who we are. We are wired to seek this out, however we may be complicating our need for belonging more than we need to. We tend to do this as humans, don’t we? I’m not simplifying the complexities of a romantic relationship by any means. I can’t even, even if I tried. Romantic relationships are a beast, a chaotic and beautiful ecosystem in their own right. 

Truth is, as adults we do not allow ourselves (because most of us have learnt that it is unsafe) to be vulnerable with our feelings. Whether it be on our first dates, or with our partner of 20 years who has commandeered the right side of the couch. 

Some reasons that often prevent us from sharing and being our authentic selves and expressing our feelings is nestled in how we have learned to perceive ourselves, others and the world around us. These views are created by our earlier relational bonds. How we were loved, cared for, learnt about safety or feeling unsafe as a child, etc. From these learnings, most of us hold on tight to our shame, insecurities, pain, trauma that on the surface may look like resentment, anger, frustration of wanting something else perhaps or wanting to be someone we are not. Or the classic one, wanting our partners to be someone they are clearly not.

These views of ourselves can get in the way of being ourselves, our true selves and as a result, blocking the possibility of feeling connected in any relationship. So maybe we need to get back to the basics. Here are some very basic, very hard, very important, and maybe helpful questions that can get you started on figuring out what you want in a relationship (the one with yourself too) and/or what’s blocking you from being in one or jumping out of one.

What does your blueprint of a relationship look like? 

Who’s your role model for a healthy relationship? Do you have one?

What are you looking for in a partner? Why?

What are you willing to contribute in a relationship and offer to your partner? (Yes this is required of you.)

What do you feel in your body when you are close to your partner? 

Are your core values aligned? Do you know what yours are? Do you know theirs? 

(Yes you can ask this on your first date. What do you have to lose?)

Are you willing to put your ego aside? (There is no room for ego in a relationship if you want it to work.) 

If not, what’s stopping you?

Are you expressing your needs and wants? (No, your partner cannot read your mind, I don’t care how long you have been together!)

Relationships are so complex, and the one with ourselves is probably the most complex. Have you been able to answer these basic questions honestly? I commend you for even trying to answer them and if you had some difficulty in answering honestly, it’s OK. No one is judging you but yourself. If you are wondering why it was difficult for you, curious to learn more about yourself, the way you show up in relationships or why you’re not in one, you can reach out with our therapists at ReLearning Human (https://relearninghuman.com/starting-therapy#team)  who can help facilitate a deeper dialogue with you. To hold a safe space for you  so you can start to answer some of these questions, honestly. It’s hard, but not impossible. Maybe basic but not so simple and if you are still reading, it’s possibly because you’re wanting some kind of change in your life? Maybe you’re ready to take a chance, take care of your mental health to help you get back to some real connections.

Oh and a little nugget of hope there may be the “right enough” person out there 😉

Authored by: Kavita Patel, RSW, MSW, Individual & Couples Therapist and Co-Founder of ReLearning Human.