"Within your own house dwells the treasure of joy; so why do you go begging door to door?" 
            -Sufi 
            Saying 








"A joyful heart is the inevitable result of a heart burning with love."
       - Mother
        Theresa








Love is patient; love is kind and envies no one... Love does not insist on its own way.  There is nothing love cannot face; there is no limit to its faith, hope, and its endurance. Love will never come to an end.
  -I Corinthians
             13:4-8








"We must be the change we wish to see in the world."
    -Mahatma
        Gandhi








"We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to mankind."
-Martin Luther 
           King Jr.








"Be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves..."
-Rainer Maria 
               Rilke








"Do not cherish the unworthy desire that the changeable might become the unchanging."
           -Buddha








"You want to be loved because you do not love: but the moment you love, it is finished, you are no longer inquiring whether or not somebody loves you."
- J. Krishnamurti








"All the world is full of suffering.  It is also full of overcoming it."
        -Helen 
            Keller








"The best portion of a good man's life -- his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love."
    -William
     Wordsworth








 828.328.4673

Here are some basic relationship principles which guide our work with clients:

• Infatuation is not love.  Infatuation is the stage at the beginning of a relationship, during which time each person is trying to be what each thinks the other wants them to be.  Only after this point can a couple really determine if they are compatible, because that is when each can see the others’ imperfections and potential problem areas.  Only after the infatuation stage can people present their authentic selves to each other.   

•  There is no distinction between being “in love” and “loving.” Many clients may think they still love their partner but aren’t “in love” with them anymore.  The “in love” stage they are referring to is infatuation.  This is not authentic love since, during this stage, we are only in love with the IDEA of the other person, rather than the reality of them.  When clients tell me they are no longer “in love” but still love their partner, I usually tell them this is good!  It is only at that point that couples can truly “choose” each other. The work begins when people start loving each other with their faults and all, learning to love and accept the other person unconditionally.

LOVE is not a NOUN. 
LOVE is a VERB. To experience it, you must be giving it away. 

• Avoiding conflict is literally impossible.  Conflict avoiders just create bigger problems.  Many of the clients we have worked with described themselves as conflict avoiders when they first came for therapy. They describe themselves as being very scared of conflict, adn so they do whatever necessary to avoid them, including pretending they do not exist, or going along with activities or behaviors that they were not really willing to do.  We help clients to see that attempting to avoid conflict never solves the conflict -- it merely prolongs it and usually makes it worse. Since problems are the unavoidable hazard of being human, our therapists train people in effective conflict resolution.   

• Preventative Maintenance goes a long way. Too many couples come to me as a last stop on the way to the divorce attorney’s office.  Often, their dysfunctional patterns are so engrained that it takes an enormous amount of work and changing in order to resolve the problem.  If couples consult a therapist in the early stages of a problem, rather than when it becomes terminal, the outcome would likely be far more optimistic. 

You change your oil every three to five thousand miles, but how often do you do anything to maintain your relationships?

• Give up being “right.” It is problematic when couples polarize – or move to opposing sides – when there is a conflict in the relationship.  Each thinks the other is wrong and should change.  This is a problem because each then wants and expects the other person to change in order for the problem to be solved.  This is a set-up for failure because one can only control oneself.  As long as you are waiting for someone else to change, you will never have any empowerment over the situation. Couples who find themselves in endless arguments are most likely battling over being "right."  There is no solution to this kind of communication pattern because each person is more committed to defending themselves than they are to finding common ground.  This pattern must be completely surrendered in order for a healthy marriage to emerge. 

• You put yourself into a no-win situation when you try to prove your partner wrong.  Love involves wanting good things for your partner.  It involves wanting your partner to be happy.  How can you want good things for your partner in a situation in which they are always “wrong?”  After a while, who wants to be married to a “loser,” anyway?  How can you love and respect someone who is always wrong?  In the "right/wrong" paradigm, someone always has to lose, and what really happens is that both end up losing.  You lose affinity for your partner.  You lose joy.  You lose the opportunity to solve the conflict!  And even if you win, while you might feel a temporary victory, your partner experiences a loss which likely leads them to develop a resentment, and this sets the stage for the next competitive situation.  In a healthy love relationship, partners support things that make their spouses happy, even if it is not necessarily something they would choose for themselves.  They know that when their spouses are happy, they are happy.  This makes for a happy marriage.

 Marriage and Family Therapy Services offers real life solutions to the endless patterns of arguing. 

• Let go of resentments.  Resentment is the cancer that corrodes all relationships.  To let go of it, we must work on eliminating expectations… they always lead to resentments.  We rob ourselves of the opportunity to experience love in the moment (which is, by the way, the ONLY time you can experience love) with our partner when we keep re-experiencing situations from the past that disappointed us.  We need to learn to practice patience, tolerance, and forgiveness when people don’t meet our expectations, and learn to be present with our partners exactly as they are -- especially when they do not fulfill our expectations.  Our therapists are highly qualified to assist people in learning the skill of letting go of this relationship killer. 

• Do not look for your partner to “complete you.”  The line “You complete me” from Jerry Mcguire sold a lot of movie tickets, but has done nothing to further the cause of healthy relationships!  It perpetuates the codependent idea that we are only whole and adequate when someone else thinks we are, or when we are in a romantic relationship with someone.  In reality, we cannot look outside of ourselves for happiness, acceptance or validation -- no amount of it would ever satisfy us if we are operating on the idea that we don't have it on our own.  We must work on ourselves spiritually and emotionally so that we feel whole without relying on someone else to fill an imaginary "void." 

 © Liza Shaw 2008. Contact:  828-328-4673.  Permission to reproduce and/or share this information is granted as long as this statement remains, and it is not used for any financial gain.  The above content is informational in nature and is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or defect.  Consult a therapist for help if you are in need of assistance beyond that which you find on this website.