Loving from Self

What does it mean to love from Self? It means knowing our own feelings and needs. It also means communicating our truth with honesty and vulnerability. We can empathize, reassure, and express love without fear or hesitation. We also feel secure with our partner and create the same sense of safety for them. Loving from our best self creates a satisfying, lasting relationship. 

There’s no denying that getting here requires work. Couples often come to therapy stuck in familiar arguments and negative feelings. They’re disconnected and feel alone and frustrated. Because they get caught in negative loops, the real pain and needs never get expressed.

Beneath the negative cycle is often deeper feelings of resentment around needs not being met. Each partner may not even be in touch with these needs, but stuck in feeling a familiar sense of frustration and aloneness. These feelings are often at the root of the problem and need to be uncovered in order for healing to occur.

We’ll work toward healing your connection in the following ways:

  • Identifying the negative dance that results in fighting and distance
  • Learning how to interrupt the negative cycle, take space, and work towards a more satisfying repair
  • Connecting with past woundings: affairs, emotional affairs, substance use, fights, etc. and working toward healing and forgiveness
  • Understanding needs that have gone unexpressed or that have been expressed indirectly with anger 
  • Learning how to communicate needs and emotions from “Self” with authenticity and vulnerability
  • Learning how to empathize and reassure from to rebuild trust 
  • Feeling more securely attached to your partner and a new dedication to being your best “Selves” together

My work is informed by Hakomi and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), a highly effective and research-based method for couples. I have experience working trust and intimacy issues, chronic conflict, affairs and infidelity, communication issues, parenting issues, and addiction issues in relationships. 

Please connect with me if you would like to learn more about how I can help you and your partner. To schedule a free initial consultation click here.

Call for a free 20-minute phone consultation at:
(510) 470-4135
“Matt is an extraordinary therapist. He is compassionate, kind, and is able to work with very deep experiences. He uses many different approaches to working with clients, but is always able to really get to what is at the heart of things.”
“Informed by the Hakomi method and mindfulness, Matt has a particular knack for understanding how to integrate experience into therapy, turning talk therapy into a therapy of change.”