The Story Behind Thoughtful Relating
On human nature, the relationships we create,
and a lifetime of learning.
I’ve spent much of my life listening to people’s stories.
For more than 25 years, as a licensed marriage and family therapist, I’ve had the privilege of sitting with individuals, couples, and families, learning about their experiences and the ways those experiences have shaped who they are.
I’ve always been fascinated by human behavior. I want to understand the person beneath the behavior, the family they grew up in, the relationships that influenced them, and the experiences that shaped the way they see themselves and the world. I was a people watcher. I am still a people watcher. I can sit anywhere and watch people go by and imagine their lives, their heartbreaks, their seasons of love.
I’m blessed and thankful to have had the opportunity through my work, to intimately know people. So many different people, yet the main ingredients for a lived life are the same. Thoughtful Relating grew from my desire to share some of what I’ve learned through books and programs that people can bring into their everyday lives.
What I’ve learned about love and relationships
I wish everyone understood how much of ourselves we bring into our relationships without even realizing it. The baggage, the fears, the repetitive patterns. Our childhood experiences influence what feels safe to us, how we respond when we’re hurt, what we expect from the people we love, and sometimes even who we’re drawn to. Our childhood experiences also determine how we are in relationships and what we create and repeat over and over again, relationship to relationship.
I’ve worked with so many couples who genuinely love one another but find themselves repeating the same painful arguments. One person feels rejected and reaches for reassurance, while the other feels criticized or overwhelmed and pulls away. Each is responding to something happening inside themselves, but neither necessarily understands what the other is experiencing. For 25 years, the content is different with every couple but the same patterns are there.
Relationships 101
I often think about how we’re expected to know how to have relationships without ever really being taught. We have to learn the rules of the road and pass a test before we’re allowed to drive a car, yet most of us enter our most important relationships without understanding our emotional needs, how to communicate through conflict, or how to repair the hurt we inevitably cause one another.
I’ve said for years that I wanted to write a relationship skills book. So couples who fall in love can learn to navigate through normal struggles and grow together rather than apart. Imagine if we learned these things when we were young? If we understood that our feelings are influenced by our experiences, that the person we love may see the world very differently than we do, and that we can learn to care for ourselves while also caring for our relationships. I think we would approach one another with much more curiosity and compassion. And I think we’d have a better understanding of what it actually means to love someone, and how to ask to be loved in the way we need.
So, here we are. I’ve taken my lifelong love of the written word and combined it with my relational experiences and desire to strengthen and enrich relationships, creating a place where I can share small gifts of knowledge, understanding, and inspiration. My hope is that something you discover here will find its way into your everyday life, helping you better understand yourself, care for the people you love, and find a little more joy along the way.