by Viktoriia Kotova | Mar 2, 2025 | Blog, Coaching & Personal Development |
Spring is a season of renewal—a time when nature awakens, fresh energy fills the air, and transformation happens all around us. Just as the earth sheds the old and embraces the new, organizations, teams, and relationships benefit from periodic renewal. Transactional Analysis offers powerful tools to help us refresh our perspectives, refine our communication, and revitalize our interactions.
This month, let’s explore how we can apply TA principles to renew the way we work, lead, and connect with those around us.
- Refresh Communication: Breaking Unhelpful Patterns
In any setting—whether at work or home—communication patterns can become ingrained over time. We fall into predictable ways of interacting—some productive, others limiting. TA helps us identify these patterns and introduce renewal into our conversations.
Exercise: The Transactional Audit
- Over the next week, observe three conversations that feel repetitive or frustrating.
- Identify which ego states (Parent, Adult, Child) were driving the exchange.
- Ask: How can I shift to the Adult ego state to bring fresh energy into this conversation?
By stepping into a renewed communication approach, we create space for constructive dialogue and new outcomes.
- Rewriting Family & Personal Scripts: Letting Go of Old Patterns
Just like organizations, families and individuals follow scripts—unspoken rules and patterns of behavior that may no longer serve them. Renewal involves recognizing these outdated scripts and making conscious changes.
Exercise: Family or Personal Script Renewal
- Think about a family rule or personal habit that has been followed for years (e.g., “We must always eat dinner together, no matter what” or “I have to always be the responsible one”).
- Discuss (or reflect) whether this rule or habit still supports growth and well-being.
- Together, decide if it’s time to adjust, replace, or keep the script.
Breaking free from rigid scripts allows for greater flexibility, understanding, and personal renewal.
- Reconnecting Through Positive Strokes
In TA, strokes are units of recognition that influence morale and motivation. A lack of positive strokes can lead to disconnection in relationships, whether at work or home.
Exercise: The 3:1 Stroke Challenge
- For every critical stroke you give (constructive feedback or correction),
- Offer three positive strokes (genuine appreciation, acknowledgment of effort, or recognition of improvement).
- Observe how this shift renews relationships, whether in the workplace or at home.
A Season of Renewal in All Areas of Life
Just as spring refreshes the natural world, renewal in our professional, personal, and family environments is essential for long-term success and harmony. By resetting communication patterns, rewriting scripts, and fostering positive recognition, we create an atmosphere of adaptability, motivation, and fresh possibilities.
*Created with AI assistance
by Brenda Schaeffer | Feb 4, 2025 | Blog |
Love without power goes idle; power without love injures.*
Dr. Brenda Schaeffer
Valentine’s Day is the one day of the year where we are reminded to stop and think of the people we love. Of all the mysteries that enchant us, love may be the one most sought after. But we must not confuse love with sentimentality or physical love. Love is far greater. It is an energy that is free and available to all. It does not care what you look like, what you believe, what you do for a living, your gender orientation, and whether you are married, single or in a relationship at all. Love nourishes and is the most cost-effective medical insurance policy and the cheapest medicine there is. And there is no end to its supply. Love has been proven to improve the immune system, increase life expectancy, reduce depression, produce zestful children, nourish relationships, and induce feelings of calm, safety, and trust. And there is also growing scientific evidence that some of the things we pass off as love are bad for our health.
Love and relationships are not one and the same. Relationships are neutral places where we can express profound love, withhold love, distort love, mishandle love, or betray love. Most hearts have been injured in relationships, and it is an unhealed heart that is vulnerable to unhealthy attachments to people, romance, or sex, that lead to loneliness, disappointment, jealousy, heartbreak, power struggles, fear, hate, shame, abuse, and addictive love. A healthy love relationship, on the other hand, is “green and growing”. In it we are free to be who we are, to have our own thoughts, to disagree, to have needs and feelings and in an atmosphere of trust.
Think of the heart as having two sets of emotions. Lower emotions lead to conditions and expectations we place on the love we offer to others. It is conditional. The higher emotions of the heart express a deep unconditional love that invites us to reach out, nurture, embrace, celebrate, and give to those we love.
It makes sense for us to know the ways we express love. On this Valentine’s Day, reflect on how you express love to others. Here are some characteristics of healthy and unhealthy or addictive relationships. The greatest Valentine gift you can give to those you love, is to look at the signs of unhealthy attachment and see if there is one thing you can change to have healthier relationships. Then work on it. Look too, at the signs of healthy relationships and celebrate what you do well and do more of it. And remember, we can only change ourselves, but that change can invite a change in others.
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Unhealthy Attachment/Love Addiction Healthy Love
- __Attempting to fix others __Caring detachment
- __Power plays __Equal personal power
- __Desires and fears closeness __Risks being vulnerable
- __ Over-adapting to others __ Being true to self
- __ Weak or rigid boundaries __ Clear permeable boundaries
- __ Has elements of sadomasochism __ Brings out best qualities in self and other
- __ Fears letting go __ Accepts endings
- __ Fears risk, change __ Is vital and alive
- __ Stunted individual growth __ Invites growth in self and other
- __ Difficulty being emotionally honest __Encourages emotional intimacy
- __ Plays psychological games __ Free to ask honestly for needs
- __ Giving to get __ Giving is without expectations
- __ Attempts to change and control other __ Accepts differences and limitations
- __ Needs approval from others to feel complete __ Encourages self-sufficiency
- __ Seeking solutions outside of self __ Trust in own decision making
- __ Demands unconditional love __ Lives unconditional love
- __ Refuses or abuses commitment __ Accepts and respects commitment
- __ Looks to other for self-worth __ Has high self-esteem
- __ Fears abandonment __ Has a high level of trust
- __ Re-creates familiar bad feelings __ Expresses feelings spontaneously
*Adaptations and quotes from Is It Love or Is It Addiction? by Brenda Schaeffer
Visit Brenda’s website.
