My name is Kristina von Rosenvinge. I work with people just like you who are ready to build a strong foundation in order to have personal and business success. My specialty is helping people make positive changes by teaching them effective communication, relationship and coping skills. The articles I write and the classes I teach on line are informative and geared to help you bring forth your greatness.
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“Real love is a decision to do life long work by becoming a caring companion.” When I read this recently it put love into a different context for me. I had not thought of it in that way. Yet I think there is so much truth to that statement. It takes commitment and effort to make a relationship work. Even more than that becoming a caring companion involves learning to experience the other with empathy and love. When two people first fall in love they are physically and emotionally drawn to each other. They want to learn everything about each other and are ardently focused on each other. Gradually this ardor shifts because the realities of work and daily obligations have to also be attended to. It is easy with the stresses of daily responsibilities to lose sight of how to keep the relationship vibrant. There has to be a commitment to grow the relationship in addition to developing oneself. It is always a balancing act for each individual to take care of own self-mastery while both simultaneously having to nurture their relationship. Love grows from enjoying each others company, working together on common goals, supporting each others interests, and sharing love through physical and emotional connection. When you are rekindling a relationship you Continue reading What Is Real Love? When I work with couples they are sometimes surprised at my approach. I work with them on not just on what happens between them but also on strengthening each person individually. The reason for that is that relationships are only as healthy as the individuals that make up the couple. It is important that each person feels that he/she is an autonomous and a separate human being. I encourage them to be emotionally honest. That means that they are willing to say real “yes’s” and “no’s” instead of what they think the other wants to hear. They are each willing to ask for what they want. They are not mind reading or guessing about each other rather communication is clear and direct. Another important characteristic is that each takes responsibility for her or his actions. They do not blame or judge but acknowledge what they have done. Additionally they can be counted on to keep promises. Being able to count on each other to keep promises adds to trust. Each can be counted on to be kind, Continue reading Rekindling Your Relationship Begins With Taking Care of Yourself Relationships work best if each partner takes responsibility for his/her own growth. By doing that each is free to give to and grow their relationship. Neither one has the burden of holding up the other instead each is autonomous and they are together because they feel that life is richer as a result. There is no getting away from it we are always growing. Inside us is a blueprint that propels us through the growth stages from childhood into adulthood and beyond. Some of what happens to us in life is out of our control. Yet we have control over how we grow emotionally and how we take care of our minds and bodies. Likewise we generally have a choice in what partners we choose to share our life with. Here are 7 skills that aid self-mastery: 1. Just thinking about what you want doesn’t get you what you want. 2. It is only by doing that you move forward. 3. Learn to trust your inklings. You know best what is right for you. 4. Unhook yourself from what you think others need and expect from you. 5. Stop comparing yourself Continue reading Relationship Development Leads To Self-Mastery I think that one of the most important tools in rekindling a relationship is to share concerns with each other. How can you make changes if you do not bring up what you would like? Our inner life is our own domain to which we alone have the key. Each one of us knows deep inside what we need and want. When we are in a relationship we also have to think as to how we want want impacts the relationship. This is where speaking up is so necessary. It takes trust to bring up things with your partner. Many times I have heard one or the other say “I didn’t know you felt that way.” Usually it is fear that gets in the way of sharing. The fear may be many fold. It could be fear of being laughed at, not being taken seriously, embarrassed that one is not content, etc. Indeed it takes courage to discuss things that are not easy to talk about but change in variably involves taking risks in order to grow. I can remember times when I would be silently agonizing over changes that I wanted for myself or in my relationship. However, since I had a partner Continue reading Rekindle Your Relationship By Sharing Concerns Since I am known for helping couples rekindle their relationships I am frequently asked what to do when the spark is gone. We all need a spark both personally and in our relationship in order to feel good about our life. Recently I came across a new book by Terry L.Orbuch called 5 Simple Steps to Take Your Marriage From Good to Great. This book is based on having studied 373 couples for more than 20 years. She shows that there is scientific validation that relationships/marriages need rekindling in order to go from good to great. The author concludes that passion and excitement in a relationship needs newness, mystery and arousal. She found in her research that ” men use or have sex to feel closeness. Sex makes them feel close and creates intimacy with another person. Women, however, need to have closeness (or intimacy) before they want sex.” This difference in how men and women view closeness is important to look at when trying to reignite the spark. Touch and physical Continue reading Closeness: This Is Different In Men Than It Is In Women I have been writing about changing habits. This got me thinking about the fact that a simple change can produce a profound change in a relationship. Let us suppose that you want to change the way you respond when you feel verbally attacked. The instinctive response is t o get defensive and lash back. What about if instead you took some deep breaths, counted to 30 ( in order to compose yourself) and said “ Help me understand what got you so upset with me”. When you do that you are not escalating the situation instead you are asking for information. And there is a high likelihood that the other person (who is already preparing his/her response) is taken by surprise. It takes managing oneself to be able to respond in a new way. There has to be a conscious decision to give a different response instead of repeating the way you typically respond. The result is that you have introduced change. That is exactly what is needed if you want to grow and change relational patterns that keep you stuck in the same repeating pattern. When building a strong personal foundation this is a good example of how by taking new action the transaction is changed. I have been participating in the 30 day blog challenge hosted by Dr. Jeanette Cates. Today is the last day and I am writing number thirty-one. This is what the experience has been like for me. Although the challenge was external I had to make the decision to participate and stick to achieving my goal. I found that as the days went on it became easier to think of what to write. The venture became a daily routine. The task of writing helped me clarify my thoughts and to define my niche. I am passionate about helping people build a strong personal foundation and satisfying relationships. In order to achieve that they will have to challenge themselves to be open to changing limiting beliefs and be willing to take action to achieve what they want for themselves. Personal growth is all about change and expecting more of oneself. The blog challenge tapped into one of my struggles which is consistency. Thirty days is a good length of time to establish a new pattern. The people that I coach want challenge and support as they take action to take their life to a new level. I frequently tell them it takes 21 days to change a habit. It works if the change becomes part of their routine. The blog challenge provided the consistency of thirty days to change my habit of inconsistent blogging. I may not continue to blog daily but my goal is to write an article every day. I just wrote an article at my other site: http://www.budurl.com/rekindle. It is about how our relationships organize us into repetitive patterns. Have you ever noticed that after living with someone for a while that conflicts and a good bit of conversation becomes repetitive? I chatted today about the patterns we get into with friends when we did water aerobics. We all could recall getting into repetitive arguments with our parents. We knew what each person was going to say because the script had become repetitive. We get into patterns to some degree in all our relationships. Some of the patterns we have established lead to closeness and simplify life. But others, when they do not lead to a good resolution, limit us from being able to be as free in expressing ourselves as we want to be. For instance, anyone who grew up in an alcoholic home, experienced being pushed into a role. You were either the bright one, or the good kid, or the trouble maker. It was hard to move out of these roles because the pattern was so firmly established. There was little movement possible where one had the freedom to be just oneself. It is hard as a child to move out of these ritualistic patterns. As adults we have the freedom to take care of ourselves. If we do not like the part we have taken on in our relationship we have the opportunity to do our part differently. The change will have an impact on the balance of the relationship. Relationships are the happiest when each person feels free to be “me”. The right mindset does not guarantee anything. It is a great starting off point. Without effort and taking action change does not happen. Yet when we believe that effort will make a difference then we are much more likely to take action because we love to experience our personal growth. I have seen people grow when they changed fixed mindset beliefs . I am reminded of a man I worked with who at first did not believe he could change what he thought were ingrained personality traits. The problem was that he expressed anger in a way that frightened his wife and children. He was convinced that the way he handled anger was a personality trait that he had no control over. Turns out that his father had a similar anger management problem which he also had always explained as ” that is just how the men in the family are”. My explanation to him was that it was also possible that this was not a personality characteristic from birth but it could be learned behavior. Once this man opened himself up to learning new effective skills for expressing his feelings he really bought into the growth mindset. He had been convinced that he had no control over his anger but his fear that he might lose his family became the incentive for learning new ways of dealing with his anger. It took effort to learn new skills. Habits take time and consistent effort to change. The warm loving response from his wife and children made it all worth while. I have been writing about the fixed and growth mindset. Now I will talk about the brain which really validated the growth mindset. Did you know that the brain is actually like a muscle that keeps getting stronger as you use it? Studies of the brain show that it is capable of forming new connections through out our life. The more we challenge our mind the more the brain cells grow. Much of this exciting brain research has been done in the last twenty years. Our current scientific understanding of the brain validated the growth mindset. However most of us were raised with the idea that intelligence, talent, and personality were fixed. You either had it or you did not. With the knowledge we have now we know that if we want to lead vibrant interesting lives we have to challenge our brain. When we believe in a growth mindset we realize we can keep on learning throughout life. We can let go of limiting beliefs like I am too old, I should have done this earlier, I should be satisfied. Instead we start looking at life as offering us lots of opportunities. It is up to each one of us how we take advantage of these opportunities. |
 
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