Sorrel Pindar, Burnout & Overwhelm Solutions

14/11/2024

𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐃𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐌𝐲 𝐇𝐮𝐬𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐁𝐞𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐉𝐞𝐤𝐲𝐥𝐥 & 𝐇𝐲𝐝𝐞?

Many of the women I have worked with report that their husband or partner bears more than a passing resemblance to Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde.

These men swing from love, kindness and compassion to irritability, anger, hostility and vengefulness.

If you live with a Jekyll & Hyde character you may find that you can’t be sure when his mood will change, or what will trigger another outburst. Of course this only makes it harder to manage the delicate business of keeping the peace.

Men who are physically or emotionally violent can be thoroughly charming in public. If you do not feel safe with your husband or partner, then make sure you get yourself to a place of safety.

However if you prefer to stay with him and find a solution, this article offers some information and ways you can proceed.

Many of the women I have worked with report that their husband or partner bears more than a passing resemblance to Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde. These men swing between love, kindness and compassion to irritability, anger, hostility and vengefulness. If you live with a Jekyll & Hyde character you may find th...

14/11/2024

What would you like to change in your relationship with your other half?

Do you sometimes feel like you're talking to the wall?

Or that all you ever hear is "No"?

I can't change your partner. But I can help you change how you talk to your partner.

It starts with a little bit of data. Take the Relationship Communication Styles Quiz and find out a bit more about your own communication style...

We all make mistakes. Find out which of the losing strategies you're using in your relationship with your partner and what you can do to deepen your connection.

12/11/2024

Are you one of those people who get into a lot of arguments with their spouse or partner?

And would it help to understand what you might be contributing to the arguments and learn some tools you can use straightaway to get free of the conflict?

For instance there's the pitfall of unbridled self-expression. This is the idea, made popular in the 60s, that we should get all our emotion out there, put all our cards on the table, even though it rarely evokes kindness in others.

Sometimes it takes the form of anger and sometimes it’s more an outpouring of misery (what I call misery-dumping). But neither is relational. Many couples struggle with this, and it can lead to unnecessary arguments and disconnection.

Unbridled self-expression is one of the 'Five Losing Strategies' - patterns of communication which let us down in relationships.

If you'd like to find out where your own communication style might be letting you down, you can make a start right now, by taking my Relationship Communication Style Quiz.

It will reveal which of the 'Five Losing Strategies' you are most inclined to use and how much you use winning strategies with your partner.

We all make mistakes. Find out which of the losing strategies you're using in your relationship with your partner and what you can do to deepen your connection.

11/11/2024

Is Your Attachment Style Keeping Your Love Life Stuck on Repeat?

In a recent conversation a divorce lawyer told me sometimes she'll to see the same client three, four or even five times, while others will only ever get divorced once.

The difference between these two clients? It's pretty much down to whether they take time out between relationships to explore their own role in the breakdown of the marriage.

The rinse and repeat divorces happen when the person goes straight from one relationship to another without pausing for breath.

There are many things we can reflect on when we are between relationships: for instance self-esteem, communication patterns and attachment style.

https://www.sorrelpindar.co.uk/blog/is-your-love-life-stuck-on-repeat

11/11/2024

What fears or behaviour patterns have you brought with you from childhood?

Like tiny rodents, small things from childhood can create quite a lot of havoc in adulthood.

I’ve been noticing recently that I have a fear of being found out – or perhaps more accurately a fear of being accused of something I didn’t do.

I was talking about it with my supervisor and she asked me “when do you think you first experienced this?”

When I thought about it, it seemed like it started when I was about 11 or 12. It was during the first two to three years at boarding school. It might have happened before then, but it wouldn’t have had such an impact then, because I felt relatively safe.

At school though, we didn’t feel safe.

Looking back I can see how it took me about two years to really learn the ropes and figure out how to avoid getting into trouble when I was at school. And perhaps more importantly, how to survive psychologically.

In those first two years, any child would be emotionally vulnerable. If you get into trouble or if you get on the wrong side of another pupil, you can’t go home to your parents at the end of the day.

You don’t really know what’s possible and what isn’t. That comes later. In the end you learn to work the system (unless you’re an even bigger goody two-shoes than I was). And you learn how to keep yourself out of trouble.

But the fear of being found out or wrongly accused stays in there as one of many neural pathways left over from childhood.

And like those little rodents it eats away at your sense of who you are, what you’re worth and who you can trust.

Of course this isn’t confined to people who went to boarding school. All children experience the fear of being found out or being wrongly accused. As a parent, I was aware that I couldn’t always know who had done what. Small children are quite happy to shift the responsibility to their siblings.

Hopefully most of us leave this fear behind when we reach adulthood. But for some of us it persists, and it gets in the way of living life to the full. We find it hard to commit to things when that fear of being found out transforms into fear of getting things wrong.

But I find it’s helpful to remember that those fears and behaviours are patterns I created to keep me safe in those early years at school. And that I can create new ways of responding to difficult situations now.

I can remind myself that the fear of being found out or getting things wrong is something I have created in my mind, that I am capable of handling most situations and that the adult Sorrel is much more powerful and skilful than little Sorrel was. And I will be ok no matter what happens.

Perhaps it was fear of getting things wrong which stopped me sharing my guide to going beyond boarding school survival. So I am being the adult now and telling you about it. If you want to read it, you can download it here:

Boarding school survivors may find that they self-sabotage with survival strategies they created in childhood to keep them safe. This e-book takes you through a process of uncovering those strategies and creating something new.

10/11/2024

How do you deal with those tricky little situations that come up at home?

Like when the bins have been forgotten again, or the dishes are neatly stacked but covered in grease?

Or the realisation that your partner has forgotten that you're going out tonight and that they're supposed to be staying home with the kids?

These kinds of situations require a degree of finesse if you don't want it to end up in a blazing row. But very often we get triggered and default to our habitual communication pattern.

Knowing what our defaults are makes it easier to correct them. And you can find out what your defaults are by taking the Relationship Communication Styles Quiz.

We all make mistakes. Find out which of the losing strategies you're using in your relationship with your partner and what you can do to deepen your connection.

09/11/2024

What's magic got to do with my relationship?

I used to think that there must be some kind of science to relationships. I tried everything I could think of during 40 years of relationships including the marriage which brought me my two daughters.

But it was only in my latest relationship (since I turned 60) that I realised that there is more art than science to relationships.

What I had learned about human psychology in eight years of study did not serve me nearly as well what I learned from the mistakes I made in those first four relationships.

And what I have learned about the art of relationships with my current partner is what I have shared with clients and friends and what I am offering you here.

This e-book takes you through three stages on the journey towards relationship renewal. We start with your grounding: who you are, what you need, your inner sovereignty. Then into curiosity & compassion where you start to see your partner and yourself with new eyes. And in the final stage you le...

08/11/2024

There are three things you can do for your inner child if you want a happier marriage:

🧒 listen to your younger self and what they have to say
👩‍👧 reassure and help your little you to feel safe
👨‍👦 give them some guidance and limits

In other words be a parent.

But inner child work isn't a one and done kind of thing. If we only do it once, the chances are that that little person inside you will revert to the behaviour patterns which made you decide to do that inner child work in the first place.

So it needs to be more of a regular practice, where you ask your younger you what they need, listen to what they have to say and take that very important step of placing limits on their behaviour. Like "I love you and you are not allowed to shout at my spouse!

To make this easier I created a low cost mini-course to take you through a process and help you establish a practice.

If you'd like to find out more, comment below with the word 'child'or DM me.

07/11/2024

You know the old adage "communication is key"?

The trouble is... it isn't always the best option.

There's not much to be gained from communicating from a bad feeling where all you want to do is moan or gripe 🤨

Many of us believe that for a relationship to work we need to express ourselves and put it all out there.

But it's not actually true that it's best to get it all out in the open. That's just a bit old hat 🤠

It's more relational to consider the likely impact of what you're about to say on your parter and then make a choice.

If you'd like to get to know your own communication style a bit better, take the quiz! It'll give you scores on six different types of communication and help you find a way to get more connection & intimacy with your partner.

We all make mistakes. Find out which of the losing strategies you're using in your relationship with your partner and what you can do to deepen your connection.

05/11/2024

Why is my partner so irritating?

Do you find your partner gets on your nerves more than you'd like?

Maybe consider whether it's your partner or your nerves which is responsible!

My partner and I both have days when we're just more irritable than usual.

What we realised is that we both get more irritable when we're tired, we've drunk too much alcohol or something has disturbed our equilibrium (such as a shirty email from someone).

So now we both adopt the approach that when he seems irritating, I check in with myself - am I just feeling irritable? And vice versa.

Once I realise I'm just irritable myself, I can focus on ensuring that my irritability isn't clouding my thinking about what he's saying. That way I don't descend into a downward spiral of negativity about what him or me or our relationship.

This is just one thing that our relationship has brought us - the ability to notice our own states and not get caught up in the thinking that would drive us into the Death Spiral.

When do you find your partner irritating? And what might that irritation stem from, inside of you?

If you’d like to do something about those irritations and frustrations, you can download my e-book, Three Steps to a Magical Relationship:

This e-book takes you through three stages on the journey towards relationship renewal. We start with your grounding: who you are, what you need, your inner sovereignty. Then into curiosity & compassion where you start to see your partner and yourself with new eyes. And in the final stage you le...

04/11/2024

𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐈𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐑𝐮𝐢𝐧 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐠𝐞

We all have those days. The days when we seem to lose touch with our own adultness and behave like children.

Maybe you fly into a rage because your partner said something hurtful, or maybe you burst into tears over something small.

This kind of behaviour isn't helpful when it's in response to a conflict or problem within a relationship. However it is a kind of survival strategy. It is completely understandable.

For we are all capable of inner child behaviour when we are triggered. We come to our relationships with the same patterns we created as children when we felt unsafe.

Those behaviours come to form a sort of survival kit, and we can all change our survival kit to make it more appropriate to adult life.

We all have those days. The days when we seem to lose touch with our own adultness and behave like children. Maybe you fly into a rage because your partner said something hurtful, or maybe you burst into tears over something small. This kind of behaviour isn't helpful as a response to a conflict or....