Oftentimes we are challenged in our spiritual beliefs and those challenges become exemplified when we experience a betrayal. This can raise questions that can shake our faith or solidify it.

The following exercise is designed to help bring back the focus, our auto-calming facets and return the body’s systems to balance. The objective being to allow for regular processing rather than for hyper-vigilance in our over-stressed environment.

There are many feelings we experience as humans in the aftermath of traumatic events. Feelings are designed by nature to allow us to acknowledge, express and heal so that we can move through an experience rather than become stuck within it.

I had the honor of meeting with a group of Trigeminal Neuralgia (TN) survivors this past weekend. They are a group of beautiful people struggling with unbelievable bouts of physical pain. We spoke about how that chronic pain paradigm extends into the personal relationships of each.

How many of you reading the headline immediately thought of the personal acts within your bedroom? That is an example of only one type of intimacy, but it begins well outside of sexuality.

Over the past couple decades, the prevalence of information available on the internet has become astounding. While much of it is helpful and positive, there is an ever-increasingly-available dark side. Many parents believe that parental controls activated on devices are enough to protect their offspring from the depravity that lies just around the next screen.

I am asked regularly about setting boundaries in a relationship and what that really means. Before I help set up new ones with a client and her partner, I ask her to define what boundaries existed before the relational betrayal or infidelity from addiction.

When learning skills for effective communication between couples, there are a few questions that I ask each of the individuals to ask themselves before we even begin the skill training.

It seems like the majority of engaged and newlywed couples fit some semblance of this profile.  Yet, if we are starting off on such good footing, then why do 40 - 50% of all first marriages end in divorce and subsequent marriages at an even higher rate?

The decision to either stay in the relationship or leave after betrayal discovery is indeed a tough one. At first glance, it seems to make sense to run for the hills and save yourself any further hurt. This may, in fact, be the best option for some, but it is often a better choice to hold off on any major decisions until things settle down.

It all begins with an idea.

This scenario, with a few circumstantial changes, can apply to many partners that are in the process of recovery. Interestingly, it appears that whether a partner stays with their spouse after betrayal, or decides to leave the relationship altogether, the process remains much the same.

There are few shocks greater than finding out you've been betrayed and lied to. One's whole world comes crashing down and there are physical, emotional and spiritual levels of shock that are experienced. The pain is whole, complete and consuming. How you find out usually falls into either of two categories, and we will use a couple of examples to further describe them.

You met, fell in love, married, had kids...seemed like the perfect story. You had good conversation, fun, respect and commitment. You loved and lived as a couple and then over time you started to feel the distance growing until all of a sudden your storybook life looked more like roommates passing in the night.