Have you ever felt like you're sleeping with (or rather not sleeping with) the enemy? Or even just felt powerless to make a change in your relationships on your own? It's a defeating place to be and our guest this month is all too familiar.
After dealing with depression and anxiety, Shari Davenport began to play the blame game. If only her husband would remember to put the food away, plan date nights, read books... if only he would be better, then she could be happy. But after her friends told her she needed to seek help or they feared she would lose her family, she started going to therapy.
"In reality, I think the number one cause of my depression and anxiety was a poor relationship with myself," she said in our interview with her (above).
Her own healing led Shari to the realization that she wanted to help others facing similar problems and she sought education and gained certification as a life and relationship coach. Much like a sporting coach, Shari explains that she works with her clients to set goals and achieve them, all while remaining neutral to their decisions. Her purpose is to offer them the objective analysis and tools they need for success.
As we've now passed the one year anniversary of the COVID-19 shutdown, we thought Shari would be the perfect guest to discuss something we've all been feeling, the radical change in how we connect.
"With 2020, it's kind of like PMS. PMS just magnifies what's already there," she said.
Whether that magnifies love or bitterness, these challenges are an opportunity to pay attention to our emotions and uncover what is causing them.
"Our emotions are there to serve us," she said. "They're the fuel that drives our actions."
And just as there are no bad colors, there are also no bad emotions, even if some do feel better than others. They are an opportunity to stop and listen to ourselves. And as we work to understand our own triggers, we can also aim to communicate more clearly and fairly in our relationships.
Shari discusses the "open hand" method and how blaming, complaining and overexplaining can lead to defensive reactions that ultimately create problems and remove your own power.
We hope you'll join us for an enlightening half hour with Shari as we explore simple, actionable ways to be the catalyst for change in your own life!
View the full interview above or on YouTube HERE, including a bonus 5 minutes on how to handle people who "push your buttons."
Learn more about Shari's practice at lovefeelbetter.com.
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