behaviors Archives ⋆ Mike and Susan Dawson

Behaviors of Love-Are you Busting or Building?

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2024-01-08T01:16:55+00:00Love, Relationships|

How do you describe love? Ask ten people and you will get 10 different answers to this question about love. They will range from: A feeling Something deep and mysterious An emotion Actions you do A place that can be painful and you need to guard Lost it, long for, and must have it But most would agree LOVE IS certainly profound, multifaceted and mysterious. LOVE’S ASSOCIATIONS WITH FEELINGS As a counselor, I see love mainly through the actions in how we treat others in relationships, and also the words we use to show others value and importance. Now love itself may not be a feeling; but there are certainly [...]

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Better Relationships-Understanding Emotion and Going Deeper! (EI Part 1)

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2024-01-08T01:17:35+00:00Emotion|

OOPS! Your Feelings are showing! Ever been in a conversation with your spouse and before you know it the tears are just flowing. Or their face turns red and the anger and escalation just pours out! Maybe the shoulders slump and the face goes down. Now your partner is leaving the room in a hurry. Can you relate? What’s happening? In situations like these we usually are aware of the actions or behaviors our partners exhibit. But we rarely perceive the emotions that are being experienced, much less understand what is really taking place deeper inside our partner. Often while working with couples, as they process difficult experiences together, some [...]

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Focus in the Right Direction for Relationship Influence

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2024-01-08T01:17:38+00:00Relationships|

Remember Lucy in the cartoon “Peanuts” by Charles Schultz? She would always ‘tee up’ the football for Charlie Brown, convince him to try to kick it, and then pull it out before he did. Charlie Brown always ended up flat on his back. For all the times Lucy convinced him to try again, she always turned the blame back on Charlie Brown. It is often this way with couples and their relationship, the focus for change is in the wrong direction. Cade and Bea had difficulty talking, and when they did it would escalate and get negative quickly. They each had a laundry list of things the other did, didn’t [...]

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All Emotions are Appropriate, but not All Behaviors.

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2024-01-08T01:17:52+00:00Emotion|

“You’re just being emotional” “You’re so emotional,you’re out of control” “People just use their emotions to get what they want” “Just be rational and think about it” Sound familiar? Years ago it was commonly accepted that our brain had a reasonable side and an emotional side; and some still believe that today. The idea was that we can control our emotions using reason. It’s the emotion vs. reason idea. Not True. We know today that the brain is integrated with emotion and reason, even in the Cerebral Cortex. Without emotion, higher-level problem solving does not happen very well. John Gottman says the “sense of the matter” is essential in problem [...]

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