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What to consider when making new year resolutions about relationships and how to keep your resolutions.

New Year Resolutions to improve your relationships suggest that there aspects of your marriage or partnership you might not be happy about. The desire to change a marriage for the better will of course involve your partner and unless your partner’s in complete agreement with your thoughts, this makes it doubly difficult to keep these kind of resolutions. If for instance you feel trapped in a relationship and you feel your marriage would be better if you had more freedom, suggesting to your partner that you want to go out more and spend more time with your friends might make them feel defensive. They may wonder whether you still care for them. Be careful, therefore, about how you approach your resolutions and think about the possible consequences. As they could cause more harm than good if tackled in the wrong way.

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Stress and depression can ruin your holidays and hurt your health. Being realistic, planning ahead and seeking support can help ward off stress and depression.

The holiday season, which begins for most Americans with Thanksgiving and continues through New Year’s Day, often brings unwelcome guests — stress and depression. And it’s no wonder. In an effort to pull off a perfect holiday, you might find yourself facing a dizzying array of demands — parties, shopping, baking, cleaning and entertaining, to name a few. So much for peace and joy, right?

Actually, with some practical tips, you can minimize the stress and depression that often accompany the holidays. You may even end up enjoying the holidays more than you thought you would.

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Personal empowerment often plays a big role in the quality of your relationships because of the beliefs and behaviors you express in your interactions with others.

If you’ve ever expected a relationship to somehow “complete” you or make you feel strong or whole, you probably experienced disappointment and frustration as it seemed to cause bigger problems in your life.

There are several reasons why personal empowerment is important in relationships:

1) Other people sense the way you feel about yourself and treat you accordingly.

Have you ever noticed that other people seem to pick up on subtle cues and reflect your own beliefs back to you? For example, if you lack confidence, you’ll often find yourself encountering aggressive or intimidating people who seem to exacerbate those feelings. If you don’t have a healthy level of respect for yourself, you’ll probably encounter plenty of people who don’t respect you either.

This is no accident! People tend to sense your inner beliefs based on your demeanor and body language, and gear their behavior to match.

When you’re empowered and strong, you communicate that essence to others, and others will treat you as such, resulting in healthier relationships.

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Have you recently gone through some dramatic and transformative changes in your life? Whether these changes are related to your job, relationships, or spirituality, the shift has taken some getting used to and you need something positive to focus on. You enjoy a lot of different pastimes, but you really want to devote yourself to something you simply love doing. How do you find your passion? Perhaps just as important, how do you turn that passion into something meaningful and substantial in your life?

Find out now… 

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. –Eleanor Roosevelt 

A passion in life isn’t something you’re born with. It’s cultivated by your interests, what stimulates you and what you are genuinely excited about. But what if you want to pursue many avenues and just don’t know which one you’d be the most successful at or want to invest the most time in? Or what if nothing particularly lights the proverbial fire under your bottom, but you have a lot of energy that you could devote to something? Or maybe you’re stuck in a job you despise, but don’t know what other route to take that would truly be fulfilling.

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The holidays offer plenty of reasons to be stressed out and anxious — the gifts you haven’t wrapped, the pile of cookie exchange invites, the office parties. But for many, the biggest source of holiday stress is family — the family dinner, the obligations, and the burden of family tradition. And if you’re fighting clinical depression, or have had depression in the past, the holiday stress can be a trigger for more serious problems.

“There’s this idea that holiday gatherings with family are supposed to be joyful and stress-free,” says Ken Duckworth, MD, medical director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “That’s not the case. Family relationships are complicated. But that’s doesn’t mean that the solution is to skip the holidays entirely.”

With holiday family reunions looming in your calendar, what are some ways that you can prepare yourself and cope better this season? We turned to the experts for some tips on beating holiday stress and anxiety.

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What’s the key to successful relationships? Here, Susan Quilliam reveals the simple things you need to know to deepen your partnership and make your relationship work:

1. Without quality time, your relationship will not survive. Carve out at least half an hour a night, and at least one day a month when you the two of you spend time exclusively together.

2. You will both need security, comfort. A good relationship is built on compromise and a great deal of give and take on both sides.

3. Keep your dependence and independence in balance. Tell and show your partner how much you need him, but don’t cling, as that can make your partner feel trapped.

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Communication is the sending of information from one person to another. Communication can be verbal, for example, one person talking to another, or it can be non-verbal, for example, a scowl on a person’s face that will probably let other people know he is angry. Communication can be positive or negative, effective or ineffective.

It is very important for parents to be able to communicate openly and effectively with their children. Open, effective communication benefits not only the children, but every member of the family. Relationships between parents and their children are greatly improved when there is effective communication taking place. In general, if communication between parents and their children is good, then their relationships are good as well.

Children learn how to communicate by watching their parents. If parents communicate openly and effectively, chances are that their children will, too. Good communication skills will benefit children for their entire lives. Children begin to form ideas and beliefs about themselves based on how their parents communicate with them. When parents communicate effectively with their children, they are showing them respect. Children then begin to feel that they are heard and understood by their parents, which is a boost to self-esteem. On the other hand, communication between parents and children that is ineffective or negative can lead children to believe that they are unimportant, unheard, or misunderstood. Such children may also come to see their parents as unhelpful and untrustworthy.

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A child who has a strong relationship with Mom during preschool years tends to form closer friendships in grade school, finds a new study that also indicates why.

“In a secure, emotionally open mother-child relationship, children develop a more positive, less biased understanding of others, which then promotes more positive friendships during the early school years,” said researcher Nancy McElwain of the University of Illinois.

Scientists have known about the link between attachment with the mother and a child’s resulting friendship quality, but they haven’t fully understood why.

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The first contact with your child’s teacher, in many ways, is the most important, This is the time you are building rapport and developing a relationship of trust. Therefore, an appropriate time and setting is important for the first brief encounter. A phone call, a note, or, best of all, an initial face-to-face meeting is best. A good time to contact your child’s teacher is during the first week of school. This gives you an opportunity to meet one another when neither has any complaints. Otherwise, the first teacher contact can be unpleasant. The teacher is usually calling to describe some unacceptable behavior or report a child’s tack of progress and her concern that a learning problem may exist. This kind of contact usually puts a parent on the defensive, and communication can be hampered. Neither party wins, and the biggest loser is your child.

However, during the first week of school, the teacher probably knows very little about your child. Thus, you are in a position to provide some helpful information. This is the time to mention then identify these. And, last but not least, assure the teacher that she has your full support and cooperation. Provide the teacher with your phone number and tell her to feel free to call when help is needed from home. Let the teacher know from the start that you want to work with her, not against her, so your child will learn. Do not feel you are intruding or asking for special treatment. You are simply indicating that you are truly concerned that your child receives a good education.

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Many couples find their relationships stuck in a rut after they’ve been together for a while. Here are some ways to rekindle the fires of love:

• Remember: Fragrant roses, moonlit walks, and candlelight dinners are all wonderful ways to avoid addressing the real problems in your marriage
• Communication is key to any relationship. Put down those binoculars, march right over there, and introduce yourself
• Try buying your husband that watch he’s always wanted, and then throwing it in the ocean to show that your love is more important than material things

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