The only Time that exists is Now which encompasses our past and future as we understand them. I’ll spare you the physics lesson, but suffice it to say that at any moment in time we create our own reality and have access to all the information we need… I’ve created a powerful tool, Imagine Visiting with our Future Super Successful (FSS) Self who shows us the ropes to create what we desire in all areas of our life.
Mine is my cheerleader, counsel, guide, and coach. I figured Imagine Visiting with my FSS Self is a fun way to access information I already know, but don’t know I know… (If these concepts are foreign to you and you are having a reaction, just focus on the Imagining, visualizing, part of this… Either way it works marvelously…)
My FSS Self has it all figured out. She has cracked all the codes, is fully living her Authentic Life every moment, and is making a huge impact in the world through the lives of others… She knows what she is doing! Whenever I think small, get impatient, have doubts, or get in my own way in any way, she is there to nudge me in the right direction.
She knows what I’m capable of doing and how important my gifts are to the world. She knows what is best for me and for the world. So, I know what is best for me, and how to serve those I’m privileged to share this Journey with…
What do you know about your Authentic Self? What do you know about your FSS Self? What do you Know? See, I believe that we can all have our most magnificent lives, heal ourselves, have awesomest relationships and make a huge difference in the world. I think most of us choose to live mediocre lives… I invite you to say No to a mediocre life. To say, no more!
I invite you to take charge of your Life. I invite you to be the CEO of your Life. I invite you to own this new Identity, to have everything you do flow from this new place. I invite you to Live your life like you mean it. I invite you to accept your FSS Self’s guidance…
I invite you to embrace your FSS CEO Self as your new Identity. Can you see your new life? Can you taste it? Can you smell it? Can you hear it? Can you FEEL it? Sit with this concept for a moment. Your best possible and already super successful Self being in charge… Already living your magnificent Life, every moment!
What is different? What do you do differently? What parts of you are you accessing? What do you put in place to support you? How do you leverage your Self? How do you engage your best parts consistently? How do you invite your partner on this Trip? How do you stay the course?
How do you continually give your Self what it needs to show up in its most brilliant form? What priorities, boundaries, systems and structures do you need to put in place to elevate yourself? What else do you need to implement to assist you on your Journey? How else do you need to Be to Rock this Journey?
Since, I started Visiting with my FSS CEO Self, and embracing this as my new Identity, all my decisions are easier to make. My approach to everything is different… It’s surreal… Give it a try, pick an item you have to decide on and approach it from both Identities, your current and your embraced FSS CEO Self. See what you experience…
Now put your new FSS CEO Self Identity in charge of your relationship… Interact with your partner as if you already have your awesome relationship, the relationship of your dreams, the relationship you’ve desired. For why continue to waste time and be in pain, when you know the outcome… Start Living the outcome…
Make your future your Present… You can create your desired reality… Live your Awesome Relationship Now!
Complete the MetroRelationship™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start experiencing your awesome relationship, and Authentic Life…
Happy Living!
~ Your MetroRelationship™Assignment
At the beginning of each day, Visit with your FSS CEO Self and consult on what is to be your approach to the day, or to a specific issue. Embrace the FSS CEO Self Identity and operate from that place. Do this for a week, and then check-in on how you are feeling and what you’ve been able to accomplish, or change… Add this to your Tool Kit…
Copyright (c) 2016 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: 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 a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
We are asked and begged to be Mindful by our partner. More often than not we hear their plea as a complaint or criticism. We do not recognize their cry for connection and love. This is because they might not have the language or know how to ask us to be in connection with them.
They might instead indeed complain that we are not around, too busy, distracted, controlling, demanding, etc. But all they are saying is, “I can’t feel you. Please show the real you to me.”
Wow! Can you imagine our partner actually asking the real us to show up to our interactions! We might not know how to respond to that. Do we know who the real us is? If our partner is complaining that we are not available, however they do that, then they have experienced a disconnect with us and are having a relationship with our Defense Mechanisms. Ugly! Not for nothing they are complaining.
Pay attention to what is behind your partner’s complaint. Whether they appear to be asking for togetherness or space, underneath it all is the need to feel understood, gotten, connected and loved. Go figure!
Pay attention to how you are approaching your partner and how you are responding to their request for connection. Are you relating with your Defense Mechanism and not your true self? When we operate from our defense mechanism place we are not very attractive.
Pay attention to what you are bringing forth. Is this how you would describe yourself as a person? Is this what you would put on your resume? Is this what you want on your eulogy? It is unfortunate that we do not put our best foot forth in our relationship. We do not give of our true self and show the real us in our relationship. We are short changing ourselves and our partner!
Notice and welcome the invitation to show up to your relationship. Give a positive RSVP to being Mindful and Present in your relationship. Stop squandering yourself by Doing and channel your Being into your relating. Be with your partner. Get a chance to experience exhilaration and joy!
Happy Being!!
~ Your MetroRelationship™Assignment
It is time to decide to be Mindful. Your life and relationship depend on it. Explore this concept with your partner and choose one behavior each that you will do to start Being more Present in your relationship.
Copyright (c) 2008-2014 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: 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 a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
A lot of times when we are feeling stressed, bored, out-of-sync, reactive, and other such feelings, part of the reason is that we are operating from a less-than-resourceful state and are not tapping into our fullness, power and authenticity.
When we operate from this place and do not bring our best self forward, we are robbing yourself of a richer experience and our partner of being in a genuine relationship with us. They are in relationship with the worst of us! And, then we wonder how come we get the worst of them!!
It is challenging to be in a relationship when both partners are seeing the worst of each other and consistently operate from a triggered state. This relationship is a struggle and a drag. The partners are tired, hopeless and feel stuck.
If this resonates with you, it is time for a change! Stop worrying about what your partner is doing or not doing, and focus instead on what you bring to the relationship. Look at yourself from your partner’s perspective. Ouch! Not so pretty is it?
Change the focus from how you want your partner to change to how you are going to change.
It is time to bring more parts of you to the relationship. It is time to use the best parts of you. It is time to stop reacting. It is time to bring loving, accepting, nurturing and positive energy to your interactions. It is time for you to be mindfully available to your partner. It is time for the real – not the manipulative, controlling, passive-aggressive, reactive, chip-on-the-shoulder you – to come out and play!
Bring the best you to the table and do it now. Start giving you, your partner, your relationship and your life the gift of the Real You!
Happy Giving!!
~ Your MetroRelationship™Assignment
Pick 1 characteristic about you that is not conducive to a satisfying relationship and stop using it.
Pick 2 characteristics about you that you don’t frequently use but bring out the best in you and implement them more into your MO.
Copyright (c) 2016 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: 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 a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
I learned to listen to my husband’s wishes. This might sound simple and easy to do, and even a given, right? But it’s not. It’s common for partners to give and do for each other what they’d like for themselves. Just this week I was talking with a client who does not like to make a fuss over her birthday so she doesn’t make one over her husband’s either, when the he actually wants a fuss!
I wish, my husband likes to fly under the radar also. I’ve learned to respect and honor that. I’ve learned not to embarrass him with undo attention and lavish gifts. It makes him uncomfortable. So, why would I celebrate him and gift him in that way? Who am I really gifting then…?
This works both ways. Whoever wants the fuss, should get the fuss. Whoever wants a modest acknowledgement, should get a modest acknowledgement. Who are we to tell our partner what would make them feel good, how they should celebrate and what kind of birthday, or whatever, they should have?
I see so much pain caused by these impositions. Partners’ refuse to do right by their partner… It’s their way or the highway, never mind their partner’s wishes. Yikes!
Partners also get hang up on fairness. They play the tit-for-tat game. If I do this, YOU have to do this. If it doesn’t bother me, it shouldn’t bother you. I’m OK with it, why aren’t you? If I am mindful of this, you should be mindful of this. And, on and on. Fairness is overrated! There is no such thing as fair in relationship.
There will be such things as when one does more than the other, one makes more than the other, one invest more or better than the other, etc. Such is life. If you are both committed, trying and investing you are in good shape.
Don’t get hang up on the details of it all. It’s just noise, minutia and irrelevant life content. You each contribute in your own unique and necessary way… Don’t quantify your investment. Don’t Do in your relationship, Be in your relationship.
And, it’s definitely OK to have double standards! Yes, that’s right. Please read this carefully. This is a huge thing for couples. Partner’s get hang up on justness, rightness, equality, balance, and such in their relating. They worry about how come some rules apply to one and not the other. And, this might be the case for you as well. So, there are two ways to go about this. One, when a rule is made, it applies to both partners.
The one that really cares about the rule, and the other. Both partners agree to abide by this rule. The one that doesn’t particularly love or agree or need the rule complies to meet the partner’s need. Two, when a rule is made, it applies to only one partner.
One partner does a certain behavior, even if they don’t particularly care to, again as an investment. They don’t have the same need, so they don’t require the same behavior of their partner.
The theme here is to stretch and to go out of our way to meet our partner’s needs… Partner’s usually go about this the opposite way. They are all about their own selves, ego driven, thoughtless, uncaring, and selfish. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m NOT encouraging selflessness! I’m encouraging Love…
So, make sure you understand where you both stand on your “rules”. Explore these. What are the wishes, preferences, expectations, guidelines, contracts and agreements that you are each to follow in order to be attuned, connected, safe, synchronized, on the same page, together, and partnering effortlessly?
Don’t impose your wishes for your partner on your partner, they can have their own wishes! Express yours mindfully and respectfully without trumping your partner’s.
Stay open minded, creative, resourceful, giving, compassionate, accepting and forgiving. Both your needs then get met…
Complete the MetroRelationship™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start experiencing your awesome relationship, and Authentic Life…
Happy Meeting!
~ Your MetroRelationship™Assignment
Identify an area such as celebrating, planning, eating, cleaning, connecting, investing, parenting, dressing, exercising, or whatever, where you have been out of sync or where there has been tension because you have a different approach or preference.
STOP telling your partner what to do, how to do it, how to feel, what to want, how to be and the like, get out of their circle!
Approach your partner about this topic with the gift of letting go… Let them know that going forward they can do it their way…
Add this to your Tool Kit…
Copyright (c) 2016 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: 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 a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
Trust is very delicate and fragile and needs to be earned and developed, it is not a given. And, once it is achieved it is only transient. For it to survive it needs to be safeguarded and nurtured. It is like achieving our ideal weight and level of fitness. To maintain them we need to continue to eat healthy and nutritious foods and keep up with out fitness program.
Even though we are not aware or cognizant of this when we are infants, for obvious reasons, we are actually born as fully trusting human beings. We start off with a clean slate. This trust slowly gets eroded as we are parented by imperfect parents. We quickly learn that our needs do not get met 100% of the time and that others are not there for us %100 of the time the way we need them to be.
This makes us cautious. This teaches us how to protect ourselves and not be vulnerable to others. This creates defense mechanisms that hide our authentic self and prevent us from being fully engaged with ourselves, our partner and in our life as a whole. This keeps us from being fully alive!
Our defense mechanisms show up in the form of being passive-aggressive, aggressive, angry, controlling, obsessive, pursuing, shut-down, and a multitude of other ways that prevent us from being in connection with our loved ones. The kicker is that partners usually have opposite defense mechanisms that tend to trigger, hurt, each other further.
For example, let’s say that Jane needs attention and security and to get it she controls and obsesses. She is married to John, who needs freedom and validation and to get it he withdraws and acts passive-aggressively. When Jane wants attention from John, she demands things, asks a lot of questions, becomes critical and bossy. This makes John want more space and so he withdraws further, making Jane come after him more.
And so, their pattern, cycle, dynamic goes. They keep this perpetual cycle until, if and when, they figure out what is behind their behavior and each works to give the other what they need. Until they become conscious and mindful in their relating.
This is challenging to do, because each partner is looking to get what they want and has difficulties giving what the other partner wants. Each is trying to meet their own needs and is stuck in that perspective. When neither budges, and they continue to hurt the other in their pursuit of getting their own needs met, they get stuck in a power struggle.
This is a very painful place. Partners hurt each other in their quest to be OK. They too are imperfect in their relating. Trust keeps getting eroded.
This situation gets to a critical point when in their unconsciousness partners use their defense mechanisms to an extreme inflicting additional trauma on their partner. Trust in relationship and in stuck dynamics is subject to many tests, but when exposed to extreme negative treatment (i.e., violence, abuse, cheating) it cannot withstand the impacts of the trauma.
It is imperative for partners to change the focus of their attention from what their partner is not doing for them or how their partner is hurting them, to what they are not doing for their partner and how they are hurting their partner. No matter how much pain they are in, partners need to see how they contribute to their stuck dynamic and change their contribution to it.
When the partners’ focus changes and they are both doing for each other from a more giving, nurturing, accepting and unconditional loving place, they are finally creating safety for each other, meeting each others’ needs, and developing and safeguarding their trust.
The partners are fully engaged; they bring their authentic selves to their relating, and are in connection. They are conscious and mindful. They are healing, growing, and contributing. They are becoming more fully alive!
Happy Trusting and Living!!
~ Your MetroRelationship™Assignment
For the next two days, closely observe what you do that bothers your partner. At the end of your observation period, invite your partner to a Connecting Session. Make it fun and safe:
1. Share three things you noticed bothered them in the past two days 2. Take a guess as to why it bothered them 3. Have your partner correct any wrong interpretations 4. For every interpretation you got right, they get to request a cute and small gesture from you that tickles their fancy.
Copyright (c) 2016 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: 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 a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
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Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT has been in the mental health profession in varying capacities for the past 20+ years. She is the Founder and Director of metrorelationship.com a psychotherapy and coaching practice specializing in working with busy professional and entrepreneurial couples who are struggling getting on the same page and feeling connected. The work helps couples create a radiant and successful relationship and meaningful life by becoming a strong partnership and increasing their connection, intimacy, and fun. Emma is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Relationship Strategy™.
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