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Easter Connections (8 great suggestions to grow a relationship over the break) - By Gottman Marital Therapist, Level 3 Trainer & Consultant John Flanagan
6 April 2023 / Relationship Help / For Couples
How often when someone asks “How are you?” - the response is ‘Busy’ or indeed the question is ‘Are you keeping busy’, and the answer is “You bet”.
I appreciate we are all busy; nevertheless, we need to create opportunities in our relationship, to connect, to generate fondness and friendship, to update each other on how we are traveling through time and space individually and together. Over this Easter break take time to focus on building stronger connections. Here are eight suggestions to help do this.
ROMANCE ❤️ - By Gottman Master Trainer Trish Purnell-Webb
31 January 2023 / For therapists / Relationship Institute Australasia / Gottman Marital Therapy / For Couples
February has been known as the romance month since well before the 5th century. The holiday has origins in the Roman festival of Lupercalia, held in mid-February. The festival celebrated the coming of spring, and included fertility rites and the pairing off of women with men by lottery, resulting naturally in a glut of newborns arriving during the weeks leading up to Christmas. At the end of the 5th century, Pope Gelasius I, concerned about the growing size of the lower classes, forbade the celebration of Lupercalia.
The notion was revived however in the 14th century by none other than Geoffrey Chaucer. He wrote a 699 line poem called ‘Parliament of Fowls’ about a group of birds that gather together in the early spring on ‘seynt valentynes day’ to choose their mates for the year.
By the 17th century enterprising young flower sellers (think Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady) were calling to young men in the marketplace to ‘Trap your lady’s heart with flowers on Saint Valentine’s day, sir – primroses two bunches a penny!’ And by the end of that century industrious printers had begun creating commercial Valentine’s Day cards to accompany those flowers.
It only took 300 years to turn Valentines day into the $60 billion dollar business we know it as today. All for one day of the year!
But here’s the thing, Gottman demonstrated clearly in his research that in happy, satisfying, successful relationships romance is a daily occurrence.