I’m very excited to welcome you to my recently launched updated website. To coincide with this, I ‘m going to be posting more regular blogs mainly based on issues that often show up between couples in my consulting room. Added to this will be shorter blogs on any topic that grabs my attention, or I think will be of interest to you.
So, it’s Monday morning and the Olympics 2024 ended yesterday and I’m feeling quite bereft today.
Many of us have been glued to our television screens this past fortnight in awe of the amazing athletes and their unbelievable achievements of smashed world records and personal bests.
What struck me more than the actual sports was the importance of the Olympic Values. The original values as written in the Olympic Charter were to ‘encourage effort’, ‘preserve human dignity’ and develop harmony’. They have now evolved into:
Striving for Excellence, Respect and Friendship. These seemed to shine through as we witnessed more medal achievements, team camaraderie and respect between the different countries, regardless of political affiliations.
We witnessed the amazing support the athletes had from their families. Many had travelled from far and wide just to be in Paris. For years families provided love, guidance and support with punishing schedules and often rigorous training programmes to help follow their children’s dreams.
Surely, we can bring some of these amazing qualities we have seen this past fortnight into our relationships too:
- Establishing goals in your relationship and recognising there may be differences, and how we can make that work.
- Reflect on what we say and how we say things to our partners.
- How do we show respect and care rather than blame and criticism.
- Stay focused on each other rather than turning away.
- You are on the same team, work together rather than pull apart.
- When things don’t always go according to plan and we are hit by something that we hadn’t planned for, don’t give up, dig deeper, stay resilient and strong and work through the difficult times together.
- Find time to talk and connect rather than putting work first and only texting.
This year more than ever many of the athletes had gone thought very difficult times with their enormous mental health challenges. They fought so hard to overcome their hardships to come back stronger and more determined than ever to succeed.
We are so proud of them and can learn so much from their courage and resilience in the face of adversity.