“I see so much potential in our marriage. I wish my wife would see it too and join me making our marriage better”, my client Alex told me. Through our work together, Alex has seen fast changes in his personality; he’s less volatile and less stressed after only a few sessions.
Today, he is concerned that his wife won’t follow his lead, and his rapid personal growth will lead to them growing apart, not growing closer.
As a successful writer and father of three, he loves his wife yet yearns for an even stronger marriage. “I keep telling her how she only has to make small changes and what those might mean for our marriage.” Unsurprisingly, his wife resists all of his pleas for change.The truth is that the best way to keep a loved one from changing for the better is to ask them to change for the better.
When you ask a loved one to change for you, what they hear is that you don't love them the way they are today.
The only way to change their marriage will come from unconditional love for his wife. Only when she feels that she is fully accepted as she is, where she is right now, will she have the courage to take a small step and look around: Am I still accepted as I am - right now?
And then she can take the next step.
This is the Paradox of Love.
Where judgment is present, love cannot be. When there is a ‘potential marriage’ that Alex projects on his family life, he will not be able to ‘see’ what is right in front of him, his actual family. He is then no longer really present, no longer able to love unconditionally and invokes the voice of his inner Judge.
I am my clients’ biggest cheerleader and I love my job. How do I help Alex?
First, I help him to understand that flaws that he sees in her are his own shadows. He criticizes in her what he cannot accept in himself. Next, we address the Judge, who actually means well, in his inner world using a light trance state and talk to all the characters in his mind who will come to table around this issue, and put them to other useful work
Once, we have created peace and acceptance in Alex’s inner world, it will reflect in the outer world as well, and love can fill the void. Making room for Alex’s wife to change.
Are you accepting yourself as you are? How is your Judge, although well-intentioned, holding you back?
Reply to this email and let me know!
Balazs Laszlo Karafiath
