RELATIONSHIP COACHING

Welcome to the first part of the Series on Relationship Coaching. This coaching is culled from my Book "The Marriage Quest", which will be release soon

We are born with the ability to relate to another human being. Nobody is an island because we all need love and love consists of living relationship. Been in LOVE is the QUEST of all human beings, essential like breathing fresh air and drinking clean water. 

Just like there is awareness about the delicate ecology of nature, there is a growing awareness about the ecology of relationship. What then is ecology? Ecology is a branch of biology dealing with relation of living organism to their surroundings, their habits, and modes of life or population. In connection to relationship, it reveals the chemistry of love; how we relate with our partners and the bonding agents that make us love for a lifetime.

There are many unconscious forces at work in every stage of a relationship, which has the potential for undermining our best efforts to sustain love if we are not aware. When these unconscious biological and emotional forces that are influencing us are uncovered, we will improve our chances for success in making long-term relationship choices. At this point, we are going to look at brain development as a biological force (chemical) that might be at play when we are making relationship choices. It is proper for us to understand and acknowledge the role of our brain chemistry before thinking of being in a relationship with the opposite sex.

When you are growing up there is a lot more going on than the hormonal changes that have traditionally been attributed to changes in teen behavior. The first areas of the brain to mature are the extreme front and back sections which control basic functions such as processing the senses and movement. Areas involved in orientation and language follow. Areas with more advanced functions (integrating information from the senses/reasoning and other functions) mature last.

Since the REACTIVE PART of the brain develops first, and the RESPONSIBLE PART develops last. As a teen or young adult you may not be developmentally mature enough to anticipate negative consequences of the choices you make. The way information comes into your brain, how it is organized, and then your response may be very different from a mature adult’s response. 

BRAIN UNDER CONSTRUCTION:

Teen process emotions differently than adults. The part of your brain related to emotions and decision making are still developing. As your developing brain undergoes rewiring, you are particularly vulnerable to risky behaviors. The amount of simulations needed to activate motivation differs in your adolescent brain than in your adult brain. 

Researchers are finding that human brain circuitry and development does not reach full maturity on average until the early to mid twenties. They estimated that the brain begin to matures at 20 – 21, and other estimation proves that it is closer to 25 - 26.

Well, these are the ages at which you are making career and relationship that will impact the rest of your life. And yet you may not be fully equipped to manage your impulses and make good long term choices until your brain reaches maturity, perhaps as late as 26 years old.

Your brain’s frontal lobe - the part of the brain that control social activities seems to undergo a lot of development during the teen years. At this time while your teenage brain is changing rapidly, relationship matter a lot to you. This is the time when friends are more important than family and what other people think of you is crucial. It is also a time when you are considering the kind of person you desire to spend the rest of your life with. It is also a time when you may even meet and decide to enter a committed partnership or marry the person you desire to cohabit with for life.

So, what are the implications of the timeline of the development of the brain? While as a teen or young adult you may appear to be mature and have advanced intellectually, the link between your seat of judgment and problem-solving and the emotional center of your brain is the last connection to be fully established. This link is crucial to emotional learning and self-regulation. And so as a teen or young adult, you may not be as mature as you and others sometimes think you are. While you appear to be physically mature, your brain may in fact be still developing and important neural connections necessary for adulthood not yet established. You may not appreciate consequences or weigh information the same way as adult’s do. 

Until your brain is well develop, do not rush into a committed relationship or marry early. Wait until you are mature enough to make the right decision. 

DO NOT AWAKEN LOVE WHEN YOU ARE UNDER 20:

Song 8:4 "Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires".

In this verse, God’s Word is saying to young girls, "Do not arouse or awaken love until you are mature to handle the issue of the heart". When it is not yet time and you awaken love, it destroy your capacity of ever discovering true love and dehumanizes your womanhood to a sex toy.

First off, what is God talking about when he says do not arouse or awaken love? How does this happen? Awakening or arousing love when you are not ready for marriage means you are walking along the edges of it. When the Lord tells us not to awaken love until it so desires, it means we aren’t supposed to walk along the cliff until the time is right. 

Do you know why so many ladies confessed they will never trust a man again? Do you know why their hearts were so broken to the extend of hating men? They allowed men to awaken their love and aroused them sexually when they were under 20. At that time, their brain was still under construction and not yet mature enough to make the right decision about relationship and destiny. Now there brains have been corrupted with false love and their souls tied to different men through sex. When they become adult (from the ages of 25), they get confuse about what true love is. They then discovered that sex is not love and love is not having sex. But, because they were so used to falling in love and having sex with different men, they can't withhold themselves the first day of meeting a new lover.
Their love is so awaken and their emotions so aroused to the extend that they can't control falling in bed with every Dick, Tom and Harry who claim to love them. They are always blinded by "Love at first sight" and ends up heart-broken. 

Out of ten, only 1 or 2 under twenty ends up getting married to the men they were dating. And most of them ends up their marriages in divorce. 

Why disturbing your brain while you are still schooling and under 20? As adult, you know what you want and you just can't offer yourself completely to any man that comes your way except if your mind is reprobate and you decided to be a prostitute. Therefore, it's better to wait until you are mature enough to handle the issues of life.

When is that time and how do we know that it’s that time to love? That’s the million dollar question because it’s different for everyone, but there are some solid guidelines that we can be sure of. First off, there isn’t a magic age at which you can point to and say it’s time. So it isn’t about numbers. There are some things that can’t be denied though.