Relationship Advice

Jake & Hannah Eagle offer relationship advice based on Green Psychology

Lovers, mothers, brothers and more . . . How can you make your relationships easier and more wonderful? This relationship advice page will introduce you to a series of blog posts, articles, and audio recordings addressing this ancient subject—but with a fresh perspective. Relationship advice is offered all the time, but much of it doesn’t work because it comes out of the old paradigm in which we hold others responsible for how we feel.

“You made me angry!”

“You hurt my feelings.”

“You don’t respect me.”

And on and on and on . . .

Operating from within that paradigm, there’s little hope of creating easy, sustainable, loving relationships. If you want to learn how to do that, read and listen to the following relationship advice. By the way, here’s the first thing to know—the word “relationship” is part of the problem. The word “relationship” is a noun, it’s static. What we’re talking about is RELATING—a verb, an active, alive, dynamic process.

People who offer relationship advice often ask, “How’s your relationship?” They should be asking, “How are you relating?” Because once you start focusing on how you’re relating, you’ve moved yourself from a passive observer to an active creator.

Relationship Advice Grounded in Twenty Years of Experience

The advice that we offer is based on what we’ve learned from our failures (both of us were married before), as well as our success—having been really happy together for the past twenty years. When we say “failures,” we want to be clear that we’re not dissing our earlier partners, they were good people, but we didn’t know how to make good and healthy partnerships with them. Shortly after we came together in 1991, we sought out good help. We worked with a talented therapist who taught us how to relate in new, mature, loving ways, and how to create a healthy partnership. Years later, we met John and Joyce Weir, our mentors. They were eighty-five years old at the time and they had shared a rich life together. They generously passed on to us much of what they learned, and we want to do the same . . .

We’re in the process of creating an online course for people interested in this subject. The course will explore the different phases of relating—we call it Dating Relating Mating, and we hope to have it available in the first half of 2012. But for now, enjoy the posts, articles, and audio recordings that follow . . .

Relationship Advice Blog Posts

Within Our Romantic Relationships, everything is a chance to connect: Romantic relationships offer something unique In romantic relationships, if we frame our conversations with our partner in a particular way, even the difficult conversations become a chance to deepen our connection. The key is turning toward one another, not away from...
Love or Fear: Every year for the past fifteen years I travel to Japan each springtime to teach advanced communication skills as part of a ten-day group therapy experience. Each trip feels like a time stamp on my life. I look back and...
Respect Yourself: Respect yourself is the answer! What's the question? Well, it comes in response to our most popular blog post: How To Find A Good Man. As a result of that post we've received several specific emails asking for more advice...
How To Love? Just remember, it's love stupid!: How to love, that's the question. The answer is simple. It's love stupid! "It's the economy, stupid" was a phrase in American politics widely used during Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential campaign against George Bush. The point they were making was...
Minimize the Risk of Getting Hurt When Falling in Love: In my previous postings, how to find a good man and how to find a good woman, I emphasized that early in the dating stage you need to be rather intolerant. I’d like to say more about this. If you’re trying...
The Process of Individuation | Step Three: The final stage in the process of individuation is reconnecting with the person you individuated from, and interacting with them without losing yourself. This is not always possible. But you won’t know until you go through the stages of declaring...
How To Individuate | Step Two: This post explores how to individuate by taking the second step in the three step process. In an earlier post I wrote generally about the individuation process. I identified three stages: Declaring Separating Reconnecting I’ve written about declaring, and now I want to address...
How To Individuate | Step One: This blog post explores how to individuate. In an earlier blog post I wrote more broadly about the Individuation Process. I wrote about the need to individuate if we ever want to become our own person and live a life...
Individuation Process: To fulfill our greatest potential requires us to differentiate so that we can experience autonomy from others and intimacy with others. One key step to accomplish this is that we must go through the individuation process. This process most commonly occurs...
Can Marriage Be Easy?: This is the first in a series of interviews in which Mike Bundrant, the publisher of Healthy Times Newspaper, interviews Jake Eagle about topics related to personal growth. In this interview, which is a bit over twenty minutes, Mike asks...
A Mother's Unconditional Love: A dear client of mine recently had to say goodbye to her mother who passed away three months after being diagnosed with cancer. My client fully participated in her mother’s dying process. Much healing occurred as the daughter accompanied her...
What Should I Expect From My Relationship?: What should I expect from my relationship? This is such an important question, and one that many couples never ask or answer. It really comes down to understanding and agreeing on our rights and responsibilities. Rights and responsibilities are key to...
Personal Growth | Lessons From Firewalking: I recently ran across a chat site called ‘Why Grow Up?’ Their tagline says: “Why Grow Up? Why be responsible? Why act mature? Why play by rules? Why eat healthy? Why sleep early? Why become a doctor? Why this? Why...
How To Express Emotions in a Healthy Way: I recently received an email from someone who was concerned about how to express emotions, because in some ways she feels like she is "bad" or "failing" when she expresses "negative" emotions. She wrote: "I am feeling myself to be 'bad,'...
Leaving a Relationship: The Easy Way Out? | Huffington Post: As a practicing therapist, working with many couples over the past 20 years, I disagree with Margaret's Paul's recent article in the Huffington Post, Leaving A Relationship: The Easy Way Out?, which proclaims that difficult relationships are fodder for...
How To Stop Arguing: I’m a Gunsmoke enthusiast. The TV show aired from 1955 to 1975, and provided mentoring in honesty, integrity, accountability, kindness, and grit. Those of us who grew up paying attention to Matt Dillon learned valuable lessons. Recently watching a rerun,...
Why Do I Keep Choosing The Wrong Partner?: In my previous postings, “how to find a good man” and “how to find a good woman,” I emphasized that early in the dating stage you need to be rather intolerant. I’d like to say more about this. If you’re trying...
How To Find A Good Woman: In an earlier posting I wrote about how to find a good man. Most everything I said applies to finding a good woman, so please reference that post. However, here are a few more specific comments. By the way, there’s a...
How To Find A Good Man: "How To Find A Good Man," is a continuation from my previous blog, “Why can’t I find a good man,” in which I suggest that many women attempt to force relationships to work with the wrong men. It’s as if...
Why Can't I Find A Good Man?: In my private counseling practice I work with a lot of women who ask the question, "Why can't I find a good man?" I often point out the good news, which is that you're only looking for one. Today, I had...