Dr. Neill Neill
For most families the holiday season is an emotional time. Our young children make more demands upon us. Our adult children expect something of us. If our parents are alive, they may have expectations of us. Our friends may expect us to go shopping with them or go to parties—thus causing holiday stress!
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Dr. Neill Neill
One of my stepsons is gravely ill in hospital, and the past three weeks have been an emotional roller coaster ride for him and the entire family. He has been my son since he was 11; he just turned 40. This is a personal story of grief, love, anger, acceptance and gratefulness.
He went to Emergency with "the flu" under pressure from the family. They thought he had pneumonia and admitted him. It turned out to be a serious staff infection.
Then tests revealed that the infection had moved to his heart area, and since he has an artificial heart valve, they transferred him to the cardiac unit in a larger hospital. There, various specialists are involved: cardiac, infectious disease, internal medicine and others as needed. One thing was agreed on: the condition of his heart rules out surgery…
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Search Tags: death of a son family grieving parenting death
Dr. Neill Neill
One time I heard a man I knew say to his wife "I don’t trust you. But don’t take it personally; I don’t trust anyone."
What made his statement particularly bizarre was that this same man expected trust from everyone else—his employees, his business associates, his creditors, and yes, his wife.
The fact is you need people to trust you to order a meal in a restaurant, to have a credit card or a driver’s license or even to be out in public. You can’t get on in life without others trusting you.
But neither can you get on in life without trusting others too. You trust your employer will pay you. You trust the driver of the car arriving at the stop sign will stop and not run into you.
How does trust develop? The fact is you started off in life in a state of trust.
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Search Tags: commitment family marriage parenting relationships trust
Dr. Neill Neill
When two people are in close sync with each other, they often give little hints of their close connection. For example, they complete each other’s sentences. Such mind reading, tuning in to an intimate partner’s thoughts, is fun, but usually fleeting.
Then one day your partner makes several wrong guesses. You are frustrated, not with his failure to read your mind, but with his failure to listen to you as you try to explain something. He was too busy trying to come up with the right word to hear what you were saying. Then it begins to dawn on you that you aren’t listening either; you are fumbling with his thoughts, rather than listening to his words.
In any long-term relationship, a million things can come along to interrupt communication… babies, work, illness, in-laws… Every such interruption increases the need for clear verbal communication between you. It is unfortunate that this increasing need for clear verbal communication often comes at a time when you think you know each other quite well and don’t need to talk things out as much.
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Search Tags: communication long term relationship marriage Neill Neill relationship relationship communication
Neill Neill
Just before Valentine’s Day last year, a magazine ad for a story-writing Contest caught my eye. It was to be a 300-word story about "How did you fall in love." I wrote our personal story, asked my editor (my wife) to check it over, and then sent it in. I entitled it "The Supper."
To our surprise and delight, the story won the prize for the "most serendipitous love story" and was published in the March/April 2009 issue of Synergy. We celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary this summer (2010).
Please have a chuckle with me..
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Search Tags: falling in love love marriage relationships
Dr. Neill Neill
Have you ever noticed that as you grow older in a relationship, each partner changes? Sometimes the change is internal brought on by a great external change in your relationship—like the birth of a new baby. Do you notice that your partner has changed? Or do you still view them as they were when you first got together?
Jane and John seem to be at an impasse…
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Search Tags: drinking external change internal change post partum depression relationship
Dr. Neill Neill
For many people the holidays involve quite a bit of food and beverage intake in the celebrations; yes, even excess. Then in January diets abound and gym memberships surge.
In our family, typically, everyone would eat too much in December and gain a few unwanted pounds. Then, come the New Year, the list of New Year’s resolutions would include losing weight through some form of diet and fitness program.
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Search Tags: change dieting diets exercise New Years resolutions weight loss
By Carrie Powell-Davidson
We hope that Christmas is a time of joy and happy memories for everyone but the sad truth is, it is not. Many people have experienced the loss of a loved one and celebrating Christmas without them is unbearable. Others may be battling one of life’s challenges such as addiction, illness or poverty and well, their priorities just don’t include a warm and fuzzy holiday. For many of us who work so hard throughout the year, the mere thought of taking on yet another burden like preparing for Christmas is squashing any hopes of a merry ho ho. As retailers and revelers prepare to greet the festivities with open arms, let’s slow it down a notch and have a look at some ways that might help you to relax this season.
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Dr. Neill Neill
When two people get married for the first time, they seldom anticipate ever being part of a blended family. However, blended families, and how we transition into them, are facts of modern life.
On the first evening of a recent holiday weekend my wife Eileen and I headed off to a cottage on Mount Washington. About the same time three other cars were en route. Our daughter (Eileen’s) and our two grandchildren arrived. Eileen’s ex husband and his wife arrived with their son and Eileen’s and his son. Then their daughter from Ontario and her toddler arrived in the fourth car.
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Search Tags: blended families ex spouses marriages stepchildren
Dr. Neill Neill
In these difficult economic times, we are constantly reminded of ’struggle:’ employment struggles, company survival struggles, family budgeting struggles, health maintenance struggles, and so on. We must overcome some real difficulties, as individuals, as families and as communities. So, the question is—is it in our nature to struggle or to flow?
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Search Tags: economic struggle human life cycle our nature struggles struggling to struggle
