Reconnecting: A Self-Coaching Solution to Revive Your Love Life

Acknowledgments ix

Part One The Self-Coaching Phase Working without Your Partner

1. Can I Really Save My Relationship? Becoming a Catalyst 3

2. Why Your Relationship Isn’t the Problem 21

3. Insecurity and Control: Relationship Baggage 35

4. Self-Coaching: Eliminating Your Contribution to the Problem 51

5. Are You a Tiger, Turtle, Elephant, Raccoon, or Peacock? Learning Your Reflexive Personality Style 67

6. Assessing Your Reflexive Personality Patterns 85

7. Sketching Your Self-Portrait 93

8. Self-Talk, Step 1: Separate Facts from Fictions 103

9. Self-Talk, Step 2: Stop Listening to What Hurts You 117

10. Self-Talk, Step 3: Let Go of What Hurts You 129

11. Sketching Your Relationship Portrait: Seeing the Whole Problem 145

Part Two Catalytic Self-Coaching Working with Your Partner

12. Creating a Relationship Vacuum 161

13. Working with Self + Self = Us Portraits 173

14. Coaching Each Other: Risking Trust 185

15. Putting It All Together: Follow-Through 197

16. Love, Infatuation, and Infidelity 213

17. True Love, Great Sex: A Self-Coaching Understanding 225

18. The Ten Essential Principles of Successful Relating 241

Index 253