Full Respect Living
Exciting News! I’m officially a Certified RLT Relational Coach! I get a fancy little badge and everything. 😀
This is just one stop on my journey to becoming a fully Certified RLT Therapist — a higher level of certification in Relational Life Therapy. It feels good to have reached this stage in my training, but even more rewarding is having a framework for working with couples that’s truly effective. Learning from Terry Real and his team has been an excellent experience, both personally and professionally.
One RLT concept I’ve been revisiting with clients lately is called Full Respect Living. It’s a call to decency, relationality, and healthy boundaries.
The idea is simple — though often neglected in practice. Full Respect Living means that if you’re about to say or do something that falls below the line of basic human respect, you stop. You close your mouth. You give yourself a time-out. You do whatever you need to do to make sure you don’t cross that line.
But here’s the kicker:
Full Respect Living isn’t just about how we treat others — it’s also about how we treat ourselves. We make a promise to ourselves that we are worthy of better treatment. That means we stop shaming, berating, or crucifying ourselves. We put an end to it. The buck stops with us.
No more contempt — inward or outward.
Personally, stopping the contempt directed at myself has been the harder of the two. It’s been eye-opening to realize just how cruel I can be toward myself at times. I’ve caught myself thinking, Holy cow — I was just living like this on autopilot. Yikes.
I’ll be honest: I still have moments when I slip into self-contempt. But I’m committed to Full Respect Living, and I’m getting better. It’s not magic — it just takes practice. It’s about noticing the impulse to react harshly, taking a breath, and reminding myself, Nope. I don’t go there anymore. No contempt — not for me, not for anyone else.
It’s a work in progress. But it feels better — more peaceful, more grounded, and more compassionate toward others when they’re not acting like their best selves.
And if I can do it, so can you.
Happy to be in your corner,
Tom Page, LCPC
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