Relationship Alive! 03: Katherine Woodward Thomas - Overcoming Your Barriers to Love and Connection
Welcome! My guest today is Katherine Woodward Thomas, who is the author of the national bestseller Calling in the One: 7 Weeks to Attract the Love of Your Life, and Conscious Uncoupling (in stores 9/22/2015). She is also a licensed psychotherapist and a highly acclaimed transformative educator who has worked with thousands of people around issues of love and relationship.
Katherine also created the online Conscious Uncoupling course to help people deal with relationship breakups and I have personally experienced this program and its benefits. It was my work and personal transformation with this course that led me to Katherine and inviting her to be a guest on Relationship Alive.
While as always it can be challenging to summarize everything here in our show guide, here are some of the salient points from our conversation:
- We are responsible for our own lives. How you do (or don't) take responsibility for your life is THE determining factor in your ability to have an amazing relationship.
- We often have unconscious barriers in place that can keep us from becoming magnetic to the right person, or from having an amazing relationship even if you are lucky enough to find yourself with a great partner.
- We are on the cutting edge of what's possible in relationships. Prior generations didn't have to solve the same problems that we did, and they had completely different expectations of what it meant to be in a committed relationship with a partner.
- We all carry around wounds from our childhood - and those wounds can impact us in the present, triggering emotions or preventing us from fully stepping into the moment. Where in your life are those wounds having an impact on you? Can you stop accepting that impact as inevitable - or as somehow tied to your partner - and instead take it on as something within YOU that can be addressed and healed?
- That inner growth allows us to self-validate and become comfortable in our own skin, regardless of the past.
- Are you focused in your relationship on controlling so as to avoid your fears? Or are you focused on creating and expanding into a positive vision for what is possible for you, and for your relationship with your partner?
- We sometimes sabotage ourselves because we think the highest and best love relationship seems outside of our identity. Is your identity of who you are in relationship congruent with what you actually want your relationship to be?
- There is a difference in how our “younger” and “older” selves function in relationships. You can learn to attend to the younger part of yourself as an adult - so that the adult is running the show. Katherine reveals a simple process for how to do this in the episode.
- All of this work allows you to truly be a present adult in your relationship.
- Are you able to provide support for yourself? We can’t expect support from our partner that we aren’t willing to give ourselves.
- Not coming from your adult self is also a surefire way to ultimately kill the passion/desire in your relationship. Expecting your partner to parent you will erode the sensual energy. However, when you and your partner can be fully present with each other, that's when the true sparks (the ones that last) can truly fly.
- Relationships are active and alive and have to be created again and again. Are you choosing your relationship every day?
- The “source fracture wound” is the original break in your heart and what you made it mean about yourself when it happened.
- Responding to our partner from that wounded place brings toxicity to the relationship.
- Katherine explains how to get in touch with that source fracture so that it can be healed in the light of day.
- Again, willingness to be self-responsible is the key to having a great, lasting relationship.
We will probably be having Katherine on the show again soon, as she has so much more to offer! Until then, please check out the links and resources below!
Links and Resources:
Katherine Woodward Thomas's website
Download the show notes and more on NeilSattin.com
The Relationship Alive Community on Facebook
Text "PASSION" to 33444 to download a pdf of the show guide (and be entered for a free giveaway of a signed copy of Calling in the One within the first week of this show's airing)
AMAZING intro and outtro music graciously provided courtesy of The Railsplitters - Check them out HERE