If you’re a true Love is Blind fan, then you’re already caught up on everything that has happened in Season 6.  Our Greater Baltimore team of therapists loves Love is Blind which is why we’ve decided to share our own relationship and communication tips based on the events that occurred in Season 6. We’ve shared them on social media, and now we’re sharing them here!  We hope you enjoy some of our most comment-worthy moments from season 6! 

For many people, college is an exciting opportunity to move away from home, find and explore your passions, and have a little bit of fun. For many people, college is also a time to explore what it is like to have roommates, and typically, they live, sleep, and eat only about six feet away from you. Living with anyone can be hard, and it is especially difficult to live with someone during one of the most stressful, exciting, and transitional times of your life. Conflicts, especially with roommates, are inevitable, so it is important to know how to navigate (and maybe even prevent some of) these uncomfortable situations. 

Setting a boundary with someone means clearly communicating the limitations and rules of your relationship with them. Typically, your personal boundaries will stem from your values and experiences. While setting a boundary might start an uncomfortable conversation, the power and confidence of saying “no” is an important skill in fostering healthy relationships (with others and with yourself!). 

“Treating” their employees sometimes means providing alcohol at these gatherings. After all, alcohol is a more expensive offering that many people recognize and appreciate.  Having said that, making alcohol available at these gatherings can present unexpected challenges for your employees who are in recovery.  After 7 years of working in drug and alcohol treatment and years of providing therapy to professionals in recovery, here are some things for companies to know as they plan their company’s events. 

It’s not uncommon for some companies to have alcohol available at their holiday parties or large annual gatherings.  While the company itself might see this as a nice treat for their employees, the availability of alcohol can present unwanted challenges for people who are working really hard to maintain their sobriety.  Additionally, there are a number of other reasons why employees might not be interested in consuming alcohol at their company gatherings (religious beliefs, health reasons, medications, etc.).  Here are 6 strategies companies can use to be mindful of employees who do not drink alcohol when planning their next corporate gathering. 

In wedding vows, we promise that we are going to “love”, “cherish”, “support, etc.” our partners through all the ups and downs. It might sound weird to promise “not to use violence” to our partners, probably because people rarely consider themselves capable of getting violent with their significant others.

Although we all dream of a peaceful home, we can shoot word bullets at our loved ones without even noticing. That's why it is crucial to begin by recognizing the bullets.

As a therapist, I’m often helping people take steps to initiate hard conversations with someone close to them. I often hear people delay these conversations because they don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, because they think someone will respond poorly, or because they’ve made an assumption about how the other person will respond. While all of these concerns are valid, avoidance of hard conversations prevents important issues from being addressed and resolved.

You’ve taken the first step and signed up for talk therapy, and now you’re finding that you’re having a hard time sharing. If this is your experience, just know that you are not the only one. As therapists, we see this quite frequently and know that this lack of sharing can be present for a number of reasons. In this article, I’ll talk about some of the common reasons people have difficulty talking in therapy and some things that you can do about it.

If you’ve signed up for therapy, there’s likely a reason for it. It’s possible that you haven’t been feeling well, that you need support or coping strategies, or that you’re going through a difficult season in life. Despite having made that initial decision to sign up for therapy, people can still struggle to open up and bring up the most sensitive topics with their therapists.

If you’ve ever been in therapy, then you know just how important it is to have a good working relationship with your therapist. A good working relationship often means that you feel comfortable with the therapist, have a good connection with them, and trust that you can share personal information without being judged. A good working relationship also means that there is good communication on both ends.

No one likes to be ghosted, not even your therapist. If you have been thinking about ending counseling services with your therapist but you don’t know how to, consider this before you ghost them.

Ever find yourself in a situation where a person asks something of you, and against your better judgment, you agree to it? For example, a friend asks you to go out to a late-night dinner, but you know you have an important meeting in the morning. You find it difficult to refuse, so you agree to meet with this friend anyway. This could be because you find it difficult to set healthy boundaries with those around you.

Boundaries are the rules or guidelines that we identify to keep ourselves safe and healthy. They help us create order and allow us to be responsible for our own actions, even if they are not always enjoyable. They allow us to identify those limits that are acceptable for ourselves as a way of engaging in self-love and respect.

In a previous blog I talk about blindspots being comparable to having broccoli in your teeth. Everyone but you can see the broccoli in your teeth. The broccoli can be thought of as our off-putting behaviors, the things we do that rub people the wrong way, without our realizing it. Like the broccoli, everyone else but us realizes that the behavior is unattractive. In cases with actual broccoli or off-putting behaviors, there’s a decision to be made. Do I point out “the broccoli” or say nothing at all?

Others around us are able to recognize our unattractive behaviors when we cannot. These behaviors are our blindspots. They are the behaviors that rub people the wrong way and cause friction in our relationships. Eye rolling, defensiveness, being negative or overly critical are just a few examples. In those cases, the people around us are confronted with a decision. Will they bring the unattractive behavior to our attention, so we can become aware of it and work on it, or will they simply decide to walk away and create distance in the relationship?

Years ago I read an article about resentment and how it is created. It talked about our people-pleasing tendencies and how we have difficulty saying no to others’ requests because we want them to like us, want them to be happy with us, and because we simply can’t bear the disappointed response that is sure to follow when we say, no. If you can relate, you may want to read more. Saying yes to make other people happy might be creating the very situation you were trying to avoid.

Gardening and relationships probably aren’t words that typically go together, but if you’ve fallen into certain relationship traps, you just might need to hear this. I talk to so many people who desperately want to have a somebody, but when we start talking about the people in their lives, it becomes abundantly clear that these individuals are not their ideal partners.  One of the things that we ultimately end up talking about is needing to weed their garden. So let’s get started to see if you too have fallen into this same trap and need to do some weeding.