It may be the biggest moneymaker, yet pornography is no friend to couple intimacy, emotional or sexual.

A growing body of clinical research in the last two decades shows pornography, now in countless forms to which the Internet gives quick and easy access, is emerging as a public health issue.

Have you considered how your self-concept affects the quality of your couple relationship? That’s right. The healthier your self-concept is the healthier your relationship.

A question clients frequently ask is: What is the difference between self-concept, self-image and self-esteem?

Your Self-Concept

Your self-concept is how you see you, how you understand and what you believe to be true about you. It is powerful because it shapes your behaviors. It also shapes your life.

In infancy and early childhood, nothing is more essential to a baby than the safety of its caregiver’s warmth, touch, proximity – signals to his emotional and biological systems that he is loved. The safer a baby or small child feels, the more securely attached to the caregiver.

In these first years of life, an infant’s quest to form a love attachment with her primary caregiver, together with the brain’s amazing adaptability, interact dynamically to set enduring neural patterns in the brain that shape the child’s thinking, feeling and behavior patterns, potentially, for a lifetime.

The brain of a small child, it appears, is particularly responsive to the primary caregiver’s care in those early years.

Breaks in connection in this period of life signal danger, and when prolonged, this blocks the development of Oxytocin receptors in the brain, what grow the child’s capacity to receive and respond to love.

When you fell in love, you viewed life through rose-colored lenses. You saw mostly one another’s perfections, shared your hearts willingly, told each other everything. You forgot your limitations, fears, and inhibitions. You felt loved and—connected, empowered and whole. You hoped it would last forever and thought, “This is how life should be!”

It all began in the ‘falling in love’ stage.

What happened to bring you down to earth?

It is well known that conflict is inevitable in life and relationships. Did you know, however, that it also has a positive impact on both your health and the length of your life?

The key lies in how anger is expressed in conflict.

Whereas conflict that produces high levels of emotional stress has a reverse effect on the development of brain cells, low levels of conflict seems to stimulate healthy cell development in the brain.

It’s clear that, where the twentieth century was for science a quest to find the grand unified theory, the heartstrings of the twenty-first century have tied the knot with neuroscience.

In the words of renown neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran in his latest book, The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us Human:

“Brain science has advanced at an astonishing pace over the past fifteen years, lending fresh perspectives on – well, just about everything.”

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You’d hoped the connection you felt when you fell in love would bring a lifetime of fulfillment and joy, but now it seems the harder you try to get it back, the more it slips away.

We looked at how limiting beliefs, held in subconscious memory, can set conditions that activate defensive words and gestures, and here in Part 2, we consider ways to ensure you create the optimal outcomes you need, when addressing issues, to steer clear of subconscious fears and dance problems away!

Ever wonder how it is that two otherwise intelligent adults cannot seem to solve one or two “simple” problems, such as planning a fun night out together?