Connaught Counselling

14/04/2025

31/01/2025

The Reason You’re Attracted to Someone May Not Be What You Think: The 3 Stages of a Relationship

Imagine locking eyes with someone across a crowded room. You feel an undeniable pull—a magnetic force convincing you that you’ve found “the one.” It’s intoxicating, exhilarating—and often completely misunderstood. While this initial spark feels like pure magic, the truth about attraction runs much deeper than surface-level chemistry.

Psychological theories from pioneers like Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud suggest that our romantic choices are rarely random. Instead, they stem from a subconscious "imago"—an image of an ideal partner shaped by early childhood experiences. Whether your caregivers were nurturing or distant, supportive or critical, their actions left an imprint on your understanding of love. As adults, we often revisit these patterns in our relationships, seeking to resolve unresolved emotional wounds.

Let’s explore the three key stages of relationships, where subconscious drives meet the opportunity for personal growth:

---

1. First Phase of Love: The Chemistry High

In the early days of love, everything feels electric. Your body floods with feel-good chemicals like dopamine, norepinephrine, and phenylethylamine, creating an emotional and physical high. While it may feel like undeniable proof of a deep connection, it’s often your subconscious nudging you toward someone who reflects unresolved needs from your past.

This is nature’s way of drawing us into relationships. But the spark doesn’t last forever. As the euphoria fades, reality sets in, and you may begin to notice imperfections or unmet needs. This shift often leads to the next stage: the “power struggle.”

---

2. Second Phase of Love: The Power Struggle

As the honeymoon phase ends, partners may begin to clash. Differences become more apparent, and old wounds are triggered. The power struggle often looks like this:

One partner feels ignored or unloved and starts to withdraw.

The other partner feels abandoned and reacts with frustration.

Arguments, misunderstandings, and emotional distance become frequent.

Childhood fears—like rejection, abandonment, or inadequacy—resurface, intensifying the conflict.

This phase is challenging, and many couples don’t make it through. It’s tempting to assign blame or feel defeated, but the power struggle isn’t the end. It’s an invitation for growth. The decision to stay and work through challenges—or to part ways—marks a pivotal moment in the relationship.

---

3. Third Phase: True, Conscious Love

If both partners choose to navigate the challenges of the power struggle, they can enter the final phase: conscious love. In this stage, the relationship evolves from infatuation to a deeper, more enduring connection.

Key characteristics of this phase include:

Both partners take responsibility for their own happiness instead of relying on the other to fill emotional voids.

Communication becomes open and empathetic, allowing insecurities and needs to be expressed without fear.

The focus shifts from control or blame to kindness, trust, and mutual support.

Emotional and physical intimacy deepen as the couple creates a safe, nurturing space for growth.

True love isn’t about perfection. It’s about committing to growth—both individually and together. While challenges still arise, they are addressed with patience and understanding, fostering resilience and harmony.

---

What Does This Teach Us About Attraction?

That magnetic pull you feel toward someone isn’t just about them; it’s often a reflection of your inner world. The people we’re drawn to mirror our subconscious needs, wounds, and desires. Recognizing this allows us to approach relationships with greater awareness.

Attraction is the starting point, but lasting love is built on a foundation of mutual effort, emotional growth, and shared responsibility. True love isn’t something you “fall into”—it’s something you create together, one step at a time.

19/12/2024

Healing covert narcissism in therapy is hard, but not impossible.

Explore more here: https://bit.ly/3B0gljK

21/11/2024

A great resource especially for this time of year. Highly recommend

I found this book during a season when everything felt fragile – like one more gust of wind would topple the teetering house of cards I called my life. I read it in the quiet moments between tears, in the chaotic hum of days where nothing made sense, and in the stillness of nights when grief sat beside me like an uninvited guest. Here’s what Chödrön whispered to my soul:

1. Falling Apart is an Invitation
We spend so much of our lives clutching at what we’re afraid to lose. Chödrön teaches that falling apart isn’t the end – it’s the beginning. Like the Japanese art of kintsugi, where broken pottery is mended with gold, she shows how our fractures make us beautiful. "Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us," she writes. These words gave me permission to stop holding it all together and let myself fall – because falling is how we learn to rise.

2. Embrace the Groundlessness
There’s a myth we all cling to: that stability is the goal, that certainty is the prize. Chödrön flips this on its head. She invites us to embrace the “groundlessness” of life – the ever-shifting, unpredictable nature of existence. For someone who’s spent their life seeking anchors, this was both terrifying and liberating. She writes, “To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.” This truth still makes my heart race, but now it’s a thrill, not a fear.

3. Pain is the Doorway
We spend so much energy running from pain, numbing it, avoiding it. But Chödrön tenderly insists that pain is our greatest teacher. She doesn’t romanticize suffering; she reframes it as the doorway to transformation. “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know,” she writes. These words became a mantra as I learned to sit with my pain instead of fleeing from it, to listen to what it was trying to teach me.

4. The Power of the Pause
There’s a sacred moment between stimulus and response – a moment Chödrön calls the "pause." It’s in this space that we find freedom. She taught me to pause when anger flared, when fear gripped, when despair threatened to swallow me whole. In that pause, I learned to breathe, to choose, to soften. It’s a practice I’m still learning, but it’s changing everything.

5. The Wisdom of No Escape
One of the book’s most profound lessons is the idea that there’s no escape from life – and that’s okay. Chödrön writes, “The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves.” This was a call to stop fighting reality, to stop trying to force my life into a mold it wasn’t meant to fit. She invites us to stay present, even when it hurts, because the present moment is where healing begins.

6. Compassion for the Self
Chödrön’s words are a salve for the self-critical soul. She reminds us that we’re all stumbling our way through life, doing the best we can with the tools we have. “Be kinder to yourself. And then let your kindness flood the world.” I’ve taped these words to my mirror, a daily reminder to meet myself with the same tenderness I offer others.

7. The Joy of Letting Go
The most surprising gift this book gave me was joy – not in the way we usually think of it, but a quiet, steady joy that comes from letting go. Letting go of perfection. Letting go of control. Letting go of the need for life to be anything other than what it is. In that letting go, I found a peace I didn’t know I was searching for.

I’ve rewritten this review countless times because it’s hard to capture what When Things Fall Apart has meant to me. This book didn’t just help me survive my storm; it taught me to dance in the rain. It showed me that in the breaking, we’re made whole, and in the falling, we find flight.

BOOK: https://amzn.to/3CwVBRh

You can access the Audiobook when you sign up for Audible Trial using the link above.

01/11/2024

People are parenting in a culture of indulgence and counter-intuition these days. Kids get lavished with gifts and treats even when they don’t ask for them. They are exposed to screens from their first days in the world, given phones and tablets - which activate the addiction centres of the brain and inhibit self-development. Children and teenagers are developmentally incapable of managing these boundaryless devices… and we sit back passively, hoping that they aren’t getting into trouble online, not fully sure how their online worlds and identities are evolving. We’re robbing them of their curiosity, their playfulness, their natural inclination to be outside and build huts and their capacity to enjoy rich contact with the world. As well as this, many parents are over-entangled with their kids, over-supporting and micro-managing. When you do too much for a child, you rob them off their sense of self-mastery and as a result, their self-esteem. You foster dependency and passivity. When you gift children and teens with screens, you’re trading their attention, time, self-discipline, boundary development and creativity with tech companies. Get kids outside in nature, plant things and go for forest walks. And seriously reduce their screen time. These are the real gifts. 🥰🥰🥰