Things might not be working right now but they can…

Do you feel like life is a struggle? Are you having a hard time in your relationship? Do you find that you can’t seem to get along with your partner? That no matter how hard you try, you just can’t seem to get on the same page? That you can’t create and sustain connection? That you can’t make headways in creating the life you want? Do you feel stagnant, stuck, hopeless? If so, you are not alone. Unfortunately, these are common in a lot of relationships. Things might not be working right now, but they can…

You want to have an amazing life but even thinking of pursuing a Life Vision feels foreign and overwhelming. You have no clue as to where to start. And thinking about living your best life feels ridiculous when your life is a struggle every day. When you are constantly at odds with your partner. How can you possibly think of a dream life, a dream future? You don’t even know what would be in it- it is so far removed. And if you had an inkling it really just lives in dream land…

You can’t even consider going for it as you are in mostly survival mode. Yes, you have some good days and some fun times, but in all you are just grinding and surviving. You are not alive. You are not living your best life. You are not on the same page, feeling deeply connected and having a flowing collaboration with your partner. You are not creating your joint Life Vision every day. The concept of manifesting it together is extraterrestrial talk.

When you pause to think about your life and your relationship, it feels like life is passing you by. It feels like you are incompatible with your partner- that they don’t get you and that you don’t care to get their ridiculousness. Every conversation and interaction end up in a disagreement, escalation, or at minimum both feel really bad- not heard, understood, gotten, valued or cherished. You keep triggering and annoying each other, you are constantly walking on eggshells, and are running on empty. You can count on one hand how many times you were intimate in the past couple of months or had real fun together. So then, how can you possibly have bandwidth and energy for collaborating on a joint Life Vision…

I get it – even considering a joint Life Vision is the furthest thing from your mind…

What if I told you that you can come back from this disillusioned grim place? And that the way is actually quite simple, not easy but simple?

The reason it’s not easy is because we love to blame our partner for what’s wrong. We focus on who they are, how they are, what they do, and not do, and so on. This is really an epidemic. When the couples we work with are stuck, it is partially because they refuse to not focus on their partner and how they supposedly ruin things…

You see focusing on your partner and how they should change- how they should stop lying, or start apologizing, or stop yelling, or start being nice, or stop being compulsive, or start being more compassionate, and so on- is not the answer. We can’t make people do anything, we are not inside their brain and body to make them do the things we want. We can’t demand respect, understanding and niceness. This is not how we create our radiant and successful relationship…

But what I can tell you with certainty, is that you do have control over yourself and what you do… And, that when you do something different or show up differently that your partner automatically responds in kind… A different approach invites, inspires, a different response… This is how you create change- this is how you help your partner change… This is how you create a different relationship that is the cornerstone of creating your best life. From this place you can envision and create your joint Life Vision… Voila!

Hey, I know that this is super hard to do for different reasons. It is especially hard to make our own changes and to show up differently, when our partner is doing what they do that so hurt or annoy us… But if you want to create your best life, it needs to start with you!

You can’t keep waiting for your partner to change or to do something different. You can be waiting a very long time, and that is if you even make is as a couple… You have the power, all the power, to change your relationship for you have control over what you do and what you do creates change…

It’s up to you. Do you want this relationship to work? Do you want to create an epic love affair with your partner? Do you want to create your best life? Do you want to strive for your Life Vison jointly? Well, let’s go- you can do it!

WATCH THE RELATED REEL ON IG: Your Relationship Depends on You

GET THE RELATED THEME RESOURCE: Relationship Collaboration System

APPLICATION: How can you possibly change your relationship by yourself? The key is in fully owning all of you and showing up with your best self, as much as you can, as often as you can…

When you do this, your awesomeness will inspire your partner (and others!) to show up better themselves– and so in actuality you are both working it at the end of the day…

But when you wait for your partner as supposed to inspiring your partner, that’s when things move super slow and they are more painful than they have to be…

So, where do you start? Start as simply as possible and that is by having awareness of your self- your triggers, your sensitivities, your scripts, your stories, your wounds, your defenses, your shadows, how you show up and what you put out, your patterns, what you love, what you desire, what gives you joy, what’s fun and exciting for you, etc. Become more aware of you and learn yourself better!

How? Start with simple mindfulness practices, journaling, being with yourself, staying open and receptive… Strengthen yourself from within…

If you are at a loss for how to do this and stay the course for better taking care of and learning yourself, and how to inspire your partner- we can help.

Take one action today to get you moving on your new track: Get a meditation app, get a new journal, schedule a Self Date, schedule an appointment with a couples therapist or other professional support, anything towards investing in yourself… Have fun!

You can do it! Become your most radiant self and invite your partner to shine with you…

Wishing you all the joy, connection and love today and always…

With Much Love & Light!

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Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Couple Strategy™ that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly connection notes in your inbox with Personal Development and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.

Create your Life Vision through Relationship Collaboration

by Emma Viglucci

Have you embraced that there is no such thing as work-life balance? Striving for this is just crazy making. But there is a better way, that of work-life integration. Where work is just as a satisfying part of your life when we fully engage in it, as it is purpose and value driven… The dilemma still remains how do we get all the business of life done when we spend so much time at work and enjoying our personal time… The solution is in Relationship Collaboration. How you and your partner share in taking care of the business of life is the key…

For some, there might be more to all this. Where they don’t enjoy their work, don’t have a satisfying personal life, and spin their wheels managing their business of life without making much head way to boot… Yikes!

In that instance there is so much work to be done, but for this writing I’m focusing on the managing the business of life… I’ve seen couples take different approaches to sharing in the taking care of their business of life.

I have found that when couples insist on doing everything together or in one partner taking care of all their business, that they slow down their progress in creating their life vision. Worse yet, they don’t even enjoy their current life and might even have relationship issues because the relationship dynamics are skewed.

Either they are “too together” all the time where there isn’t enough healthy separateness, individuality, and independence. Or, one partner is overfunctioning and feeling overwhelmed, stretched thin, alone and resentful, and the other feels left out, intimidated, incompetent, disempowered, and not valued.

In both scenarios the partners are not tapping into the inherent synergy built into the relationship nor capitalizing on their individual strengths. They are not making the most of their partnership in life, and the relationship suffers as a result as well…

The key is to take on a divide-and-conquer and collaborative approach. Where the partners are invested in everything going on, share responsibilities by strengths, interest, and resources, have an empowering system for being in the know and staying current, and where they get to each contribute as they desire.

This approach benefits from the partners’ differences, which are usually opposite in nature giving a fuller range of strengths to the partnership as a whole. And it engages the partners fully in creating their Vision bringing more resources- bandwidth, time, focus, energy, and such to their quest.

When the partners focus on a common vision and goals, work together to achieve them using their gifts and strengths, and stay focused while having each other’s back, the result can’t be anything other than creating their best relationship and best life…

Start better dividing-and-conquering and collaborating with your partner to make your dreams come true. Upgrade your approach with a simple yet powerful Relationship Collaboration System and seamlessly create your Life Vision…

WATCH THE RELATED REEL ON IG: Manifesting by Collaborating

GET THE RELATED THEME RESOURCE: Relationship Collaboration System

APPLICATION: Are you ready to create your Best Relationship, Best Life, and your Life Vision? This can sound daunting, but in really it can be super simple:

First – Decide you are going for it, for real… Don’t hedge. Make a decision to start going for it.

Second – Decide what you are going for and get on the same page with your Partner about it- explore and combine your Life Visions…

Third – Decide what you want to create within the next 3 – 5 years, and then narrow it down to what you want to have created within the next year.

Fourth – Start aligning everything towards that- how you spend your energy, time, bandwidth/focus, and money.

Fifth – Implement a simple Relationship Collaboration System where you embrace a divide-and-conquer approach, seamlessly share responsibilities, and have each other’s back…

Note that even though this seems easy, you might get stuck in any of the steps if you and/or your partner: Have a wobbly mindset or self-esteem, have poor communication skills and tools, have unresolved issues and patterns playing out, are not feeling so hot about each other, and your lives are a bit messy or behind in some areas…

This doesn’t mean you can’t create the relationship or life you desire. It just means that you have a little more work to do that’s all. Don’t give up before you even start. Get the support you need to keep you moving- your life depends on it…

Let’s go for our best life ever, shall we?

Wishing you all the joy, connection and love today and always…

With Much Love & Light!

Stop striving for work-life balance

by Emma Viglucci

As we move into another hectic season, some are worried about picking up the pace again and juggling changing work expectations with other preferences in their lives. Life just has a different flavor now… What was once an acceptable way of life, no longer serves us. We got a taste of freedom and now we want to embrace that more. The problem is that we don’t know how and think the answer is in work-life balance, embracing a “quiet resignation” position… Sorry to break it to you, but that’s not it. Stop striving for work-life balance.

Work-life balance is an illusion, there is no such thing. Imagine being on a seesaw and you strike a balance- how long does that balance last? It’s a constant pursuit to be enjoyed fleetingly. We can put our energy to better use…

We think that striking that balance will allow us to have a better life, to enjoy more free time to pursue endeavors that make our heart sing. We want to put in our time and get out to enjoy our life. But isn’t our work a part of our life? We are wasting all that time if we just look at it as a black hole. If we don’t enjoy and bring our gifts to our work…

What if we were to approach this topic from, how do I create my best life and enjoy all of it? Why do we separate work from the rest of our life? It doesn’t make sense…

With industrialization and other world phenomenon we’ve learned to clock in and out. Where our work is no longer a part of our life. We consider our life to be outside of work…

But what if we were to claim our whole human experience, all our time?

What if we were to expect that our work be just as fulfilling and fun as our time not working? What if we were to expect that we could show up to our life, to any part of it, and enjoy what we were doing in the moment?

What if we were to expect that we could design how we use our time in any way we like and loved all of it? Such as working and playing whenever we want and as much as we want? What if there were little distinction between the two? What if we designed how we use our time and workflow in terms of energy flow?

I remember when I used to work for foster care agencies and feeling that I was trapped- that I had to put in time because I was hired to be there from 9-5… I got paid for being there… I got paid the same amount regardless of if my work ethic, caseload, and success rates were higher than others’…

At least some other jobs or professions provide incentives so one gets compensated for what they produce and how much value they provide. The same goes for business owners if they leverage their business model and work from their unique brilliance. Otherwise, they create a j.o.b for themselves and are in the same predicament of being tied up…

I want to offer you something different than striving for work-life balance. Please, just throw that pursuit out the window. I implore you to upgrade your mindset here so you can shift into creating your best life ever.

I’m offering you instead the concept of Integration… Where you operate from Flow, where you dedicate your time to meaningful pursuits that engage your passion, skills, and brilliance. Where you use your time as you wish. Work more or less, for it doesn’t matter. There’d be little distinction in how you feel pursuing work or non-work activities. They all feel great, and you produce more than enough with minimal effort to create your best life.

Before you come up with reasons (excuses) as to why you can’t or get hang up on the how of it, focus on first things first.

The first thing to do is to embrace this concept as a possibility… Continuing to view and do things as usual doesn’t work for creating our better life. To truly live our best life and have our best human experience, we are to fully own our life. We are to use our gifts and brilliance to its fullest potential. We are to fully engage in our life in all we do…

For when we fully show up to our life and live in the flow, we generate the amazing energy of love to then enjoy and share with our partner, loved ones and the whole world…

WATCH THE RELATED REEL ON IG: Embracing silent resignation?

GET THE RELATED THEME GUIDE: Relationship Collaboration System

APPLICATION: There is no need for the silent resignation in a pursuit of work-life balance… Instead strive for Integration where you access your awesomeness and show up with it in all you do… Then work and play become interchangeable… They both feel amazing and you can do them to any degree you choose…

KEY1 – Connect with yourself every day to access your gifts, talents, brilliance, intuition, creativity, guidance and expansiveness…

KEY2 – Set up your work situation so that you get to contribute with your awesomeness and doing things that light up your heart

KEY3 – Set up your personal situation so that you care of yourself, pursue personal interests, and share your radiance with your loved ones

Note, following these keys might require changing our priorities, focus, habits, routines, scheduling, responsibilities, workflows, commitments, and the like…

It takes courage to go after the life we want. It takes courage engaging our partner in collaboration to create our best joint life…

Let’s set ourselves up for a rocking upcoming season and for the rest of the year!

Wishing you all the joy, connection and love today and always…

With Much Love & Light!

How to soak up the last of Summer

by Emma Viglucci

As we begin to wrap up the Summer, let’s take stock of how we’ve done with our summer professional projects, personal projects, personal development, relationship enrichment, couple fun, and summer activities- in other words, our Summer Upleveling™… This is part of how to soak up the last of Summer.

We set out to take full advantage of what Summer has to offer with its more leisure pace. To enjoy and recharge. To use this time to reset, regroup, and realign with new inspiration. To make a dent in our transformation and in creating the relationship and life we desire…

Then we can bring that awesomeness into what’s next in our Journey this year…

As we are enjoying our last trips, outings, and activities of the Summer, let’s take a moment to soak in the joy, pleasure and abundance that is our life. Is it perfect? Probably not, and that’s ok. Our life is meant to keep improving and evolving, that’s the Journey, that’s the fun… For now, just take stock, enjoy where you are, and chill for a bit…

As we daydream, envision, and ponder about what’s next in our Best Life, let’s stay open for inspiration, new ideas, guidance, downloads, and such. When we slow down and quiet down that’s when we can connect better with our Higher Self and when we can actually hear its message and guidance… This is how we know what makes us happy, what our next move is, what to cultivate, what to play with, what to let go of, and so on…

Be with this subtleness and let it guide you. Let it inform how to wrap up the Summer and set yourself up for a rocking last quarter of the year. Let it show you how you might get in your own way. Let it support you and have your back. Let it show you the simpler and better way, and how to make your life easier.

When you are in a more leisure mode, you can better observe yourself and your life. Use this observation to guide how to better take care of yourself, what routine tweaks you have to make, what conversations you have to have, what boundaries you have to set, what clearing and letting go you have to do, what stepping up and cultivating to embrace.

Use the last of Summer to be with yourself and your loved ones, to set the tone for the upcoming season, to dream and plan together. This might be the time to explore what experiences, traditions, and rituals you want to play with this Autumn and Holiday Season.

Let the last of summer gift you its sunshine to bring forth into the upcoming season and the rest of the year.

GET THE RELATED THEME GUIDE: Find Your Purpose

APPLICATION: Set some time aside during the next week to:

Take Stock and Celebrate – What you’ve accomplished and upleveled so far this year and this Summer

Enjoy and Get Inspired – Be in the moment, soak up the last of the sun, disconnect from the usual and connect more with yourself

Dream and Plan – Think on what you’d like to feel, how you’d like to be and what you’d like to create the rest of the year, make plan to get it going

Let your Summer Upleveling™ juice you up and propel you to new heights through the rest of the year!

Gold stars for a great Summer Upleveling™!

Wishing you all the joy, connection and love today and always…

With Much Love & Light!

PS: Masterclasses

💐 If you missed our recent Masterclasses, you can still get them through our Member Center:

~ A Self-Love Strategy for Creating Your Best Life – Designing and implementing your personalized self-love practice

~ Relationship Enrichment Mini Retreat – Reprogramming and shifting for connecting more deeply and creating the relationship you desire

~ Feeling Stuck and Spring Cleaning is NOT Cutting it – Deconstructing and reconstructing yourself to unleash the radiance within

~ Create an Epic Love Affair with Your Partner – Addressing the struggle and upleveling your relationship to create your epic love affair

~ Get Unstuck with Self ReParenting – Transmuting the patterns keeping you stuck by reprogramming yourself through inner child work

~ Thriving After Infidelity™ – Stop the torture that comes from discovery, get your new footing, and transform your relationship so that’s better than ever before…

They include gorgeous workbooks of transformational processes

Access HERE

💐 Not a member? No worries, join us with a Lifestyle Membership. This Membership includes access to our private community, full access to our Member Center and previous content, and access to upcoming Masterclasses at no additional cost, all for only $29 per month.

Enroll HERE

3 Steps to master the art of fulfillment

by Emma Viglucci

One of the key characteristics of a great life is that it is fulfilling, that it has meaning. A life of insignificant tasks, strained relationships and devoid riches is an empty and unfulfilling life. This is the life that feels life something is missing, or something is wrong. That’s because it’s true. We are meant to have fabulous lives, to figure out how to and to create fabulous lives…

A great life includes experiencing happiness in growth, being always evolving, and progressing. A stagnant life with the same old is a boring and not thriving life. There is a saying, If we are not growing, we are dying…

On the other hand, a life of pursuing and achieving in and of itself is exhausting and just as bereft of sparkle…

The key here is to go for a life of Happily Achieving… Meaning that we are in the pursuit of always improving, while being perfectly content with what is and not losing the forest for the tree. That our pursuit is in Alignment with our purpose and larger vision. That our Why is what gives it radiance and meaning…

But what happens if you are totally struggling in your relationship and your life, and this concept feels like a pie in the sky?

Step1- Get grounded and optimized

First things first, you have to get out of the rut. This usually has to do with poor brain and mental health… Your embodied-brain (brain structure, neurons firing-wiring, and overall nervous system) can literally be glitching out because of your personal history and its impact on your development and because of your daily habits (sleeping, eating, hydrating, exercising, managing stress, using substances).

The key here is to reclaim your brain and mental health via professional support- we are here for you!, personal development work and a rich self-care practice.

Step2- Take full ownership of your life

Secondly, address the biggest obstacle in your life right now. What is giving you the most angst and holding you back from your best relationship and youra best life.

There is one caveat here- you can’t blame your partner… That’s right, you have full responsibility for creating your best relationship and your best life…

1. It is up to you to clean up your relationship mindset, set effective boundaries, own yourself and empower yourself.
2. It is up to you to communicate cleanly and clearly, to properly address concerns and needs, to apologize for your side of things and for when you make a booboo, and to make amends.
3. It is up to you to change your patterns, meet your needs, and increase your resilience.
4. It is up to you to be connected (with yourself, your partner, and others), to have fun, and to sparkle.
5. It is up to you to make your life work, to change what doesn’t, and to go for a fulfilling and meaningful life.

When we take full responsibility for our life and show up to it with gusto in all areas, others, including our partner, and the Universe respond accordingly…

If you are having a strong reaction to this concept, because you have good reasons for why things are as they are, please- just take a deep breath. I have heard, seen and been part of many a story of people’s lives, including my own obviously. And I can tell you that the people that make the most progress, are the happiest, and have the most fulfilling lives are the ones that take full responsibility for their own experience…

The more they stop talking about what their partner is doing or not doing, and the more they focus on their side of things the better their life gets…

Now, I’m not implying you don’t have a partner, you don’t have expectations nor have collaboration with your partner, or that you don’t have an epic love affair with your partner. No, you can have it all and you can by who you are (become) and how you go about things…

It’s actually that simple… Not necessarily easy if you are still tripping all over yourself, but with one step at a time you can. I promise.

Step3- Embrace fulfillment

And thirdly, choose to have it all. Make a decision to go for it, no more excuses or procrastination. This is where your Purpose and Vision serve as your North Star to take your life to the next level. The earlier you activate this the easier the whole process is, but as we already established it might be challenging to connect with these if you are really struggling. It’s up to you how early you can access this and benefit from doing so…

Once you activate your Purpose and Vision then life becomes about Aligning with these, Flowing from these, and Striving for these.

When you live this life, you have mastered the Art of Fulfillment and you get to live your best life…

WATCH THE RELATED REEL ON IG: Art of Fulfillment

GET THE RELATED THEME GUIDE: Find Your Purpose

APPLICATION: Identify where you are currently in the three steps and commit to playing full out in that step…

Step1- Get grounded and optimized – get support and invest in your self-care practice

Step2- Take full ownership of your life – address the most present roadblock or annoyance in your life and invest in creating your successful relationship

Step3- Embrace fulfillment – take things to the next level by embracing your (joint) vision and fully going for your best life

When you have meaningful direction in your life, you live an engaged life- a life of happiness and fulfillment…

Here is to the best Summer Upleveling™ yet!