Does it feel like you Love TOO Much?

Do you think that you love your partner more than they love you? That you care more? That you do more for the home, the family, and the relationship? That if it weren’t for you, things would fall apart? You are not alone in this. It is very common for one partner to do more nurturing, caring, and making sure everything is ok. Does this sound like you? Do you do the caretaking for the family and the relationship? Does it feel like you Love TOO Much?

If we care more and love too much, then by implication it feels like the other cares less… Nobody wants to feel like their loved one doesn’t care as much… It doesn’t feel good to feel less cared about… It doesn’t feel good to love too much…

When we love too much, we lose ourselves in the caring and caretaking… Everything we do is for the other/s, with the other/s in mind, and we don’t even think about our needs, preferences, and wishes. We don’t even figure in the equation.

What happens next is that our whole routine revolves around our loved one/s, our whole week and lifestyle revolve around our loved one/s, our whole life revolves around our loved one/s… We lose sight of who we are, what we are meant to do, of our growth, of where we want to go and who we want to become, and of our actual Journey…

We become myopic, we miss the forest for the tree. We focus on the minutiae of the everyday. We get distracted by others’ whims and agendas and by bright shiny objects. We bang around without purpose.

We fill our days with crap – a bunch of meaningless tasks and a lot of running around. Our tasks are not related to projects. Our projects are not related to goals. Our goals are not related to our vision. We are just wasting are precious time, our precious limited Life Energy…

Some don’t even have outlined tasks, clear projects, established goals or a driving vision… So, you see how easy it is to get lost in the everyday. To focus on what our partner is doing or not doing. To micromanage our home and our loved one/s. To get overly involved in other people’s business. To care about the concern of others. To take over other people’s responsibilities. To take it all on because it’s easier to fill in our void with others’ stuff…

Then we wonder why we feel overwhelmed, anxious, lost, blah, bored, resentful, exhausted, taken for granted, lonely, alone and the like.

It’s easy to distract ourselves from ourselves by loving too much… This is easy to do when we don’t fully own ourselves, for what else are we supposed to do… If we don’t have ourselves, at least we have others…

We have nothing else to care about so we put all our care on them… But then we feel bad because we care more than they do… Then we don’t feel cared about enough…

We create a super hurtful and harmful cycle… We neglect ourselves and our lives. We feel stuck, empty and unhappy. We wonder what’s the meaning of it all… We are missing the forest for the tree!

If we were to just stand still, be present, and look inside ourselves, we would find the answers. We would feel safe, connected, inspired, abundant and see the purpose of our life…

So…

- Stop doing for your loved one/s what they can do for themselves.
- Stop micromanaging.
- Stop obsessively checking in and on everything.
- Stop redundantly tracking everything.
- Stop doing stuff for the sake of doing stuff.
- Stop filling your life with junk.
- Stop doing stuff that doesn’t serve you.
- Stop saying yes to other people’s agendas.
- Stop __________________.

Stop wasting your precious Life Energy on pursuits that don’t enhance your Journey in some way… Minimize the chaos, the mundane, the minutia, the redundant, the excess, the spinning, the grind…

Stop loving too much, for when you do you also enable others to not do for themselves… This is actually not helpful, you cheat them of the possibility of them figuring it out… Being too helpful is not helpful… Just stop.

Focus on what brings you joy and helps you create your Best Relationship and Life. On what moves the needle forward in your Journey. What enriches your life and the life of the people you love… Not by fishing for them but by teaching them how to fish and by collaborating…

Loving TOO Much is not a great quality, it’s not a character strength… It is actually a sign of codependence, a quality that holds back the people involved…

When we love too much, we become codependent where the members of the relationship/s are held back from their full potential by the dynamics they create. The helped person can’t learn and have self-agency. The helper becomes obsessed with the other at their expense. Neither side wins. This contributes to stuckness in relationships…

APPLICATION: Find three behaviors/tasks you do on a daily basis that are Life Energy sucking and Signs that You Love TOO Much… Figure out how to stop engaging in those behaviors by replacing them with healthy, effective and productive ones, for example:

- Have a system for doing food and other shopping so you don’t run out of things
- Prep food and snacks
- Teach children how to make their bed and make it their responsibility
- Teach children / discuss with partner how to pick up their stuff and put dirty clothes in hampers
- Agree on who puts the dishes in the dish washer and who empties it
- Design lunchboxes duty and agree on who is responsible for putting them together
- Create a morning routine where everyone is responsible for getting themselves ready and ready to go
- Have a place for backpacks, lunchboxes, school papers, school activities supplies/equipment, etc. (to have been packed up or prepped the day before!)
- Have a place for coats, gloves, scarves, shoes and such
- Don’t run stuff your children forget to school
- Prioritize money producing tasks at work or completing your important project’s tasks
- Block off time to do focus work
- Don’t have a million errands to run after work
- Have a streamlined afterschool, evening and bedtime routine
- Block off selfcare time, couple time, social media engagement time, etc.
- Have a system for doing laundry a couple of times a week only
- Select a recurring time to do home admin tasks and synchronize with your partner

Loving too much is not the way to go. To create a radiant and successful relationship, and meaningful life, we are to fully own ourselves and empower others to do the same… We are to shoot for Interdependence in our relationship/s with extreme personal ownership, reciprocity and collaboration.

We want to love compassionately and passionately and give our relationship/s our best, not our worst by loving too much…

Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…

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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

Overwhelmed, how is your support and collaboration? (PT5)

by Emma Viglucci

It is not easy to live a successful and meaningful life. It takes intentionality, focus and dedication to stay the course. Our life Journey has ups and downs, and at times it can feel like an obstacle course. With the many demands of today’s modern life and specially recently as we’ve weathered a global pandemic, things can be challenging. It can be overwhelming to manage all the demands and responsibilities. This is why it’s so important to uplevel your support and collaboration.

Imagine having world-class support and collaboration protocol to help create your Best Life. Then the Universe becomes the limit…

It is no fun going it alone. And most importantly when we don’t have the proper support, we hold ourselves back from creating the life (and relationship!) we desire… For you see, when we try to do everything by ourselves in a vacuum, it shows in our results…

When we go it alone:

We are limited by how much we can do, by our knowledge base and by our skill set
We are focused on doing and forget Being
We elude our creativity and our knowing
We are flooded by the minutiae of life and miss the forest for the tree
We miss savoring life experiences, the simple pleasures and amazing people
We cheat ourselves of connection and intimacy
We hold ourselves back from the potential that leveraging and connectivity can afford us…

These limitations have a massive impact:

We hold ourselves back from our true potential and from living our full Human Experience
We settle for less and can’t even imagine having something special to contribute
We erode our connection and bond and jeopardize the essence of our relationship
We subscribe to subpar parenting tactics
We neglect, abandon and even abuse ourselves

We end up:

Settling for a job we hate and merely getting a paycheck to live from month to month
Creating a mediocre relationship, tolerating our partner, missing out on our epic love
Missing out on the synergy inherent in our partnership
Misparenting our children to the point that they become ill, symptomatic, misbehaved, maladjusted
Damaging our body, mind, and spirit

For those that are still carrying the badge of honor for: Sacrificing themselves, exploiting their every ounce of living, and running themselves into the ground – I implore you to reconsider your approach!

It behooves partners to crack the code on how to better support each other and implement a Collaboration Protocol into their lifestyle to create the life of their dreams. They can easily accomplish this through the Relationship Enrichment Lifestyle™.

What does support and collaboration look like in a relationship? Every relationship has their own flavor of this, but the essence is to have a divide and conquer approach. Where one partner picks up where the other leaves off. And, where both partners are in the loop and current on everything that’s going on in their joint lives. But, most importantly where the partners are working together to achieve a common goal.

The partners designing and working together towards a Joint Life Vision is the key towards creating your Best Life and having your fullest Human Experience…

Check out this super inspiring video: Taking Visioning to the next level!

Create a Strong Partnership

Ok, so how do we create a fabulous life and epic love relationship when we are already stretched thin and overwhelmed? You set yourself up for having better support and collaboration, you create a Strong Partnership.

Setting Up for Success

Success and creating awesomeness doesn’t happen by accident. We have to be intentional and proactive about it.

FIRST – Clear: Decommit, eliminate distractions, outsource, declutter, streamline, simplify, automate

SECOND – Envision: Design your Joint Life Vision that flows from your values and has clear goals

THIRD – Structure: Create your Ideal Day (daily routine) that you’ll follow as a template

FOURTH – Systematize: Set up systems for sharing responsibilities, completing tasks, building Habits

FIFTH – Flow: Include buffers and transitions into your routines

This formula helps reduce the overwhelm and set yourself up for a productive, meaningful and joyful life. It:

1. Creates space to operate differently
2. Identifies your North Star to guide your aspirations
3. Provides a structure to contain your endeavors
4. Promotes an effortless approach to managing your days and the business of life
5. Supports operating with ease and joy

What’s important to note here is that our ability to implement this depends heavily on: Our mindset, communication skills, how we meet needs, and bond with our partner. Partners who jump into problem solving and changing up their lives have a hard go of it if the other relationship Elements are not robust

FEELING STUCK, HOW IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP MINDSET? (PT1)

BICKERING AND FIGHTING, HOW ARE YOUR COMMUNICATION SKILLS? (PT2)

REPEATING ARGUMENTS, HOW ARE YOUR RELATIONSHIP DYNAMICS? (PT3)

MISSING LOVE, HOW IS YOUR CONNECTION AND INTIMACY? (PT4)

If it was easy to create a fabulous life and epic love relationship, then everybody would have these things. Our job is to invest in ourselves and our relationship so that we are in good shape to create our Best Life. And so that we have an amazing Human Experience.

ASSIGNMENT: Identify where the weak link is in your life and relationship right now. It can be within one of the Elements, or in one of the steps in the Success Formula.

Decide how you will go about addressing your weak link… Take an immediate action to get the ball rolling in creating your radiant and successful relationship and meaningful life…

As with anything, when you bring consciousness, focus and attention to something, Awesomeness happens. I wish this for you in your life and your relationship.

Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…

With Much Love & Light!

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Importance of personal and partner character strengths

by Emma Viglucci

It is uncommon to speak in terms of Mothering and Fathering in the context of our relationship… Unless of course we are talking about raising our children. But I’ve been presenting this concept as a way to continue to heal and grow ourselves. As a personal development tool, and more recently as a relationship enrichment tool… Today I’m expanding the Fathering repertoire by sharing the importance of personal and partner’s character strengths.

Remember, we all have female and male energy and can embrace characteristics and embody attributes from both. When I’m presenting on Mothering and Fathering, and Female and Male Energy, I’m not talking about gender or sexuality… I’m referring to our inherent energies… Our job is to balance how we embrace, activate and utilize them…

Mothering flows from female energy and Fathering flows from male energy, and they can both be done by women and men… There is no judgement as to which is better or preferred, and this is not a form of sexism, genderism, or such. This just is. Anything else is a social construct we’ve unknowingly accepted…

But please note, I’m not denying the oppression of female energy and women over millennia… If nothing else, I’m actually highlighting the importance of undoing this oppression. I’m doing it through what I know best, which is personal development and relationship enrichment…

- - Mothering has to do with nurturing and caring.
  - Fathering has to do with structuring and disciplining.

When we embrace providing these characteristics to ourselves, we reparent ourselves… I refer you to the book Healing Your Emotional Self, for top notch work on reparenting ourselves…

Reparenting ourselves means giving ourselves what we needed and didn’t get growing up. How we were hurt and not met growing up created wounds, limiting believes and other goodies that have permeated how we organized ourselves and cope with life. Including how we show up in relationship, get triggered and create our stuck dynamics… Reparenting ourselves is a way of healing and releasing ourselves from that stronghold…

Then, bring this to the context of our relationship and we have an exponential impact… Now, I’m not talking about being a mother or a father to your partner and vice versa. That’s the worst thing we can do… I’m talking about being Mothering and Fathering. I’m talking about your interactions and how you approach your partner and the relationship using more:

- - Nurturing, compassion, softness, flexibility, and such (Mothering) for engendering feelings of belonging, worthiness, and acceptance.
  - RoleModeling/guiding, routines, structure, systems and such (Fathering) for engendering feelings of safety, security, and stability.

You see how these can be salve to core wounds?

The key here is to sprinkle the Mothering characteristics into your interactions with yourself and your partner. And the Fathering characteristics to how you do your relationship and your life.

This means be nice to yourself (self-care) and your partner (other-care) and embrace a Relationship Enrichment Lifestyle™… Voila!

Work Your Character Strengths

So, where do Character Strengths come in? Working on developing our Character Strengths is a Fathering tactic as it involves learning, honing, applying. Mothering is feminine with being, expanding, flowing… The active and directed part of this endeavor is masculine and therefore Fathering…

Working on developing our Character Strengths helps us become more of who we are, more integrated and robust. It helps us have a richer human experience, and it helps us bring a better self to our relationship and our partner…

Having strong Character Strengths helps partners avoid the many pitfalls they would otherwise encounter in their relationship…

Our personal and our partner’s character strengths influence the character of our relationship with things like a love, kindness, gratitude, honesty, forgiveness, perspective, self-regulation, teamwork, etc.

The VIA Institute of Character created a Character Strengths Survey to measure the good qualities in people and to counterbalance the Disorder Statistical Manual (DSM) used to diagnose mental disorders…

They identified 24 Character Strengths that were classified into 6 categories:

- - Wisdom – Creativity, curiosity, judgment, love of learning, perspective
  - Courage – Bravery, honesty, perseverance, zest
  - Humanity – Kindness, love, social intelligence
  - Justice – Fairness, leadership, teamwork
  - Temperance – Forgiveness, humility, prudence, self-regulation
  - Transcendence – Appreciation of beaty & excellence, gratitude, hope, humor, spirituality

Doesn’t it make sense that to develop this further in ourselves would only but enrich our relationship?

As we continue to expand our Fathering repertoire, we are polishing the use of our male energy for more security, stability, productivity, efficiency, and results in our life. Let’s continue to create our Best Self, Best Relationship and Best Life!

ASSIGNMENT: Intentionally integrate your Character Strengths into your life and your relationship…

- - Take the survey to identify your current strengths and where you can stand to invest in some more development.

- - The easiest way to work on developing a characteristic is by creating a Habit to help you practice it… Choose 3 Character Strengths you are looking to develop and create Habits for them into your daily routine: Doing a behavior or activity that would help you practice the strength. And, keep working this method until you feel you’ve made progress developing the Character Strengths you desire.

As with anything, when you bring consciousness, focus and attention to something, Awesomeness happens. I wish this for you in your life and your relationship.

Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…

With Much Love & Light!

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Create safety, security and trust in your relationship

by Emma Viglucci

A lot of people have difficulties having trust in their relationship, and in general… Mistrust in our relationship is not just about wondering, or obsessing about, if our partner is cheating. But not trusting our partner usually has the flavor of not trusting we can count on them. That they have our back. That they’ll pick up where we leave off. Whether or not they’ll follow through on what they say. If they’ll use their best judgement. And so on. It is imperative that we create safety, security and trust in our relationship for it to be successful…

A quick note about wondering if your partner is cheating. Listen to your gut, it knows… Listening to your gut is a very subtle sense of knowing. It’s not blaring. Anything blaring is fear, and fear has to do with us, and not what our partner is doing or not doing. Keep your jealousy in check. This is also about you, and your insecurities. There are exceptions of course, you have to keep your context in mind.

If there is a history of indiscretions, you are probably on hyperalert and picking up stuff, and something most likely is going on. Don’t shoot the messenger. Deeper healing needs to happen to change this pattern. But this is for another time. If this resonates for you, sending you love (you might want to get support with this).

Going back to regular mistrust, to mistrust on the everyday and the mundane. Note, I qualify this again because when it comes down to it most of us can usually trust that our partner will be there when it matters and for the important stuff. Though there are exceptions here as well of course.

Sometimes our partner can’t be there for us with the big and important stuff either if it goes against themselves in some way or triggers them in some way. This depends on your relationship dynamics and the emotional development of the partner/s.

One more qualifier… During times of tragedy, partner’s get thrown into a tizzy and go into survival mode for themselves, possibly not being able to be there for each other.

Nobody ever said relationships are easy! These are the meatier ways in that mistrust and betrayal happen. They are blows to the relationship and require more specific attention.

But for today’s topic, I’m focusing on mistrust as a pervasive feeling in your relationship (and outside of your relationship…). Mistrust in the everyday and the mundane. Why this focus? Because this is where the healing and transformation happens…

How you do your relationship and your life on a daily basis and in the little things, has a profound impact on what kind of relationship and life you create at the end of the day…

Safety, Security and Trust

We don’t automatically create safety, security and trust in our relationship. This has to be an intentional tactic in our approach to our relationship and our partner. And, we have to be intentional about how we do our everyday life to provide this to ourselves as well. This intentionality helps us heal any unfinished business and reprogram old belief systems still lingering that are informing how we perceive interactions and the people in our life…

Safety, security and trust have to do with Fathering… How we were Fathered growing up had an impact in our ability to feel safe and secure and be able to trust.

Did we have consistent caretaking and routines? Were boundaries respected? Was discipline authoritative (not authoritarian/controlling or lax/lacking)? Were we honored for who we are?

Or did we experience rigidity and/or chaos? Inconsistent attention, routines and rules? Ridicule and dismissal? Or even maybe verbal and other violence?

Do you start to see that how things played out growing up informed our ability to feel safe and secure, and therefore our ability to trust?

And, what if we haven’t done any healing or personal development, we are still walking around with the same perception of others and the world. That the world and people are dangerous or untrustworthy… We walk around with the belief that we can’t count on others or trust them, that others are out to get us, that bad things will happen, and such.

Hey, I’m not saying people and the world are perfect and that these things don’t ever happen all the same.

I’m referring to situations when we just see the worst possible scenario, when we make negative assumptions and when we assign malicious motives that are totally unfounded. When we can’t give the benefit of the doubt. Or worse, when good things are coming our way, but we can’t receive them for the same reasons!

If all this is resonating for you, you need some Fathering. No, you don’t need your Daddy or a Sugar Daddy. LOL And, Fathering is not just from fathers and men. Women do Fathering, just as men do Mothering… This has nothing to do with gender. This has to do with energy and characteristics that all humans have though might need to embrace more… You need more Fathering from yourself and in your relationship…

So, what does this look like? This looks like cleaning up our mindset and minding our negativity bias, setting effective boundaries, fully owning and being accountable for ourselves, having safe verbal and body language, improving communication skills and upleveling communication tools, implementing Intentional Habits™ and embracing a Relationship Enrichment Lifestyle™.

Thus, we show up properly and safely. We are accountable, consistent, and reliable. And therefore, we are trustworthy… We are trustworthy for ourselves and for our partner…

Kudos when you tackle this, for you’d be Fathering, re-parenting and re-programming, yourself… Intentionally showing up and setting up your life and your relationship allows you to create your radiant and successful relationship and meaningful life.

ASSIGNMENT: We’ve been living in a male dominated world, yet we haven’t cracked how to properly utilize our male characteristics, strengths and energy…

1) Take stock of how you show up in the world and what characteristics and strengths you use the most.

MALE – Analytical, strategic, systematic, planner, organizer, scheduler, logical, manager, strength, power, and such

FEMALE – Compassionate, caring, nurturing, flexible, flowy, spontaneous, creative, intuitive, emotional, soft, and such

2) How well are these working for you? Does it seem that you can improve in both areas? The key is own ourselves fully, integrate both aspects more, and be more intentional. Add intentionality to how you approach your day and your relationship using the inherent male characteristics and their related tools.

Create the container, the structure, with your male energy, e.i., your daily routine… This will create the safety, stability, and security we all so desperately seek…

3) BONUS – add Female characteristics within the structure for the integration and balance factor

As with anything, when you bring consciousness, focus and attention to something, Awesomeness happens. I wish this for you in your life and your relationship.

Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…

With Much Love & Light!

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Mothering Vs Fathering

by Emma Viglucci

Mothering Vs Fathering… This is not a competition! First off, wishing all the Moms a very Happy Mother’s Day. And here is an invitation for all of us to embrace more Mothering in our own lives, of ourselves and our loved us. We can all stand to be more compassionate, nurturing and loving… Second, the key is finding a balance for these two characteristics within ourselves for a more integrated Human Experience…

We are still living in a very male dominated world with a lot of masculine energy. We’ve repressed women and feminine energy for a very long time. All gender equality discussion aside, this is happening even within ourselves… We have repressed our own feminine energy… We shame and hide the softer and more vulnerable side of ourselves.

I’ve taken the opportunity in our last webinar to celebrate Mothering not just for Mother’s Day but as an invitation to join the shift. There a shift happening in the world for a more feminine, compassionate, heart-centered and more collaborative approach to life

Beware, if you are male energy dominant and are tipping your toes into embracing your more feminine energy, this might feel weird… LOL

For me, it felt like something was wrong. I felt lazy (Zen…), mellow, unmotivated, without a care in the world, floaty and other soft feelings… Now, if you know me or have experienced me, you know I can be intense and very energetic. So, these felt so foreign and out of character to the point where it didn’t feel right at first…

But then marvelous things started to happen, the experience drove home the point that more doing isn’t better… That more work doesn’t necessarily create more results, that being more intensity doesn’t necessarily influence others more, and that over functioning doesn’t necessarily mean getting needs met better… That way of being had actually created less of the desired outcome!

At the same time, we can’t go all feminine either – we’d never get anything done!

The answer is to work better not harder, to properly use our masculine energy as we explore and welcome our feminine energy more…

Hence, today’s topic on Fathering ourselves and our relationship…

Why Fathering?

Fathering has to do with protection, security, discipline, motivation, doing, structure, systems, and the like. So, when we are in our doing mode, which is most of the time, we are operating with mostly our male energy… For those of us that are super ambitious, motivated and like to get things done, we thrive in this energy.

The problem is that we are living unbalanced and out of whack, in this eventually catches up with us…. When we repress our female energy, we are shutting down our being mode, our creativity, inspiration, intuition, emotions, compassion, nurturing, and the like. We become super intense and almost robotic… The richer side of life gets lost on us!

And, yet with all the doing people are doing, they are still not very productive and haven’t been able to create the life they desire…

Why is this? Because they are not properly using their male energy. They are living through the energy without properly supporting themselves. They are not using skills and tools to manage themselves better to get more from their efforts.

A key concept to utilize to get all the benefits of fathering is operating our life with systems… What does this mean? System or protocol or procedure or process or approach – or way of doing things on a recurring basis… This is how we get the most bang from our investments. Whatever we do, we need a little process for it – this is how we do this thing…

What that does is take the guess work, required will power, inconsistency, ambivalence, lack of focus and such right of our experience helping us stay motivated, focused, consistent, productive, efficient and the like without killing ourselves.

What’s more when we operate this way, we are Fathering ourselves in that we are providing ourselves stability, consistency, dependability, reliability, solidity, strength and such… Which as you can imagine that generates feelings of trustworthiness, safety, and security… Much needed as part of our personal development and healing…

And what’s even more, when we create amazing daily routines that include Pleasure and Delight Habits and other Intentional Habits and we implement collaboration systems with our partner, we are able to easily and effortlessly embrace a Relationship Enrichment Lifestyle and create a lovely home life and family…

So, we are looking to do our Male Energy better and to embrace our Female Energy more…

Eventually, we’d notice we are Being while we are doing! As our systems, structures, routines and such create the container for us to play in…

When we are in a rat race and spinning our wheels doing, it’s very challenging for the feminine energy to make its appearance… When the male energy is focused and given purpose it’s soothed allowing space for the female energy to come out to play… Ah…

And that’s how we become more integrated and more who we are, more our Authentic Self enabling us to create our radiant and successful relationship and meaningful life. Voila!

ASSIGNMENT: What say you? Ready to add more systems into your life for more productivity, efficiency and focus? Ready to create your container to give you freedom for more Being…? Let’s do this!

1) Take stock of how your days usually go… How defined are your routines, your habits and how you approach your responsibilities? How do you manage your time? How do you take care of what’s important to you? Do your daily activities and tactics flow from your goals and life vision?

2) Start with a strategy that flows from your vision and goals, and informs your ideal day, daily routines, and habits to support your goals and trend towards your vision…

3) Become very mindful of what energy you are operating with by putting the masculine to good use working your strategy and creating space for your feminine to come out to play more. Enjoy!

As with anything, when you bring consciousness, focus and attention to something, Awesomeness happens. I wish this for you in your life and your relationship.

Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…

With Much Love & Light!

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Prevent drama with self-regulation and co-regulation

by Emma Viglucci

You know when you don’t feel so hot physically or emotionally, how you are more sensitive to most things? And, even more so with your partner and how they are being? The things that you would normally let go or that wouldn’t necessarily bother you, in this state they are actually experienced as micro aggressions. And, when this happens you are both thrown for a loop… You can prevent pain and drama with self-regulation and co-regulation.

What does that mean? Self-regulation is the ability to manage our thoughts, feelings and behaviors in our Journey. More specifically, emotional self-regulation is our ability to manage disruptive feelings and impulses in the face of a trigger. It means having a moderate and appropriate response commensurate to the perceived infraction or stressor.

Co-regulation then is the ability of a person to manage their own responses in an interaction so that they are supportive to the other in managing their feelings and impulses. When one remains calm and soothing, their nervous system calms the other’s producing a feedback loop that is soothing to both…

When managing responses to help alleviate a situation and support the other, we’d use non-verbal safety cues, warmth, soothing tone of voice, communication that acknowledges distress, supportive silence if indicated, and an openness to discuss the experience.

This is why it’s so important to avoid the Dirty Dozen of Communication, to use intentional Communication Skills and upleveled Communication Tools (If you work with us, check out Deep Dive 6: Stop the Fighting, Stop the Drama™). Great communication between partners can mitigate conflict, prevent triggers, and assist partners swiftly address any tension, intensity and such. It helps the partner self- and other-regulate as they interact…

More on Self-Regulation

Self-regulation is super important as a life skill… When we get good at self-regulating life becomes so much easier… We are not as triggerable and hypersensitive, we are more resilient, we are more steady and stronger… We feel solid, unshakable, and empowered… We feel good about ourselves and our abilities. It actually contributes to our self-esteem…

Most people usually don’t take this on as a personal project, unless they are into personal development, are in therapy or are a therapist. LOL

But this is not a bad thing to take seriously, and to take on as a personal development focus…

I can tell you, that the people that did the best this past year are the people who have done some personal development work and have increased their resilience level… I invite you to review posts from intense times during the pandemic for more on all this…

5 Insights for your physical and mental health
Focus on building stamina and resilience
Coping with healthy vs unhealthy habits
Summer of self-improvement
The secret to cultivating resilience
Master your mind, master your day
Embrace the art of self-care for increased self-regulation and resilience

When we are more solid and not as easily perturbed by the silly things in life and our partner’s imperfections, we just have a much easier go of it… It shows in our state of mind on a daily basis, in our interactions with others, in our relationship with our loved ones, in our work, and in our life in general.

When we increase our self-regulation and our resilience increases as a byproduct, we are no longer blown by the wind and don’t spend our resources on primarily dealing with ourselves and the drama we create!

This means that we have more internal resources for the things that are important to us in life, and for creating our Best Life.

Furthermore, this means that we are able to create a radiant and successful relationship, our Best Relationship, with our partner as we are showing up steadier and more authentically. We are not showing up with noise and defenses… Can you see the full impact of this?

Improving your self-regulation

Pursuing improving self-regulation doesn’t have to be intimidating… It’s actually quite simple. It’s as easy as implementing a Self-care Practice…

A self-care practice is about taking care of yourself, Mothering yourself… It is about giving yourself love and nurturing. And, it’s about meeting your needs. When you embrace a self-care practice, you embrace a self-love practice… This is the reprogramming your brain needs to rewire itself and facilitate self-regulation…

Hey, if you are saying, Who has time for Self-Care, I encourage you to revisit that limiting belief… Where there is a will there is a way. For example, my next door neighbor power walks up and down her driveway (as her children are home) while on work calls to fit in her daily exercise. Bam!

Now, I’m not suggesting or encouraging anyone to multitask this way. But, I am suggesting that you can figure it out if you want to. It’s all about building in habits into your daily routine to support your efforts. Building in habits into your routine is an effective way to self-manage, as you become more intentional about your day and preventative of chaos, stress and triggers…

Improving your self-management, improving your self-regulation, increasing your resilience, and increasing your self-esteem are all fabulous attributes to pursue as these significantly contribute to the quality of your relationship and your life…

When you are less triggerable and are able to stand still and not get blown by the wind, you are able to be available and present for your partner and your relationship… You are able to show up calmly, soothingly and compassionately to an interaction, and hence you are able to contribute to co-regulation as needed…

Additionally, when you show up better, you are less likely to trigger your partner in turn allowing them to show up properly for you and also contribute to co-regulation… Tada!

There is a built-in feedback-loop in the reciprocity of the interactions. This is how you change relationship patterns and dynamics…

I hope you get how powerful and impactful this concept is. And, that you can make a huge difference in your relationship and your life with as simple a tactic as implement a Self-Care Practice through (Wellness) Habits in your Daily Routine…

ASSIGNMENT: What say you? Ready now to implement a Self-Care Practice, or uplevel one you might already have? We can always stand to evolve more… (Wink!)

1) Take stock of activities in your life that are meant to give yourself care and love. Don’t judge or shame yourself. Whatever you are at, it’s ok. Remember, you are on a Journey…

2) Check out our blog for prior blog posts on Self-care and YouTube for inspiration and ideas of other activities that would replenish and enrich you. The idea is to appropriately give yourself more Love.

3) Choose 3 activities you’d like to implement, create Habit behaviors of them, and integrate them into your Daily Routine.

Before you know it, you’ll see a massive difference on how grounded, steady and strong you feel. And, you’ll notice what a difference it’s making in your days and in your relationship. Go at it and fun with it!

As with anything, when you bring consciousness, focus and attention to something, Awesomeness happens. I wish this for you in your life and your relationship.

Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…

With Much Love & Light!

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About Emma

Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT has been in the mental health field 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. We help couples create a radiant and authentic 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 Couple Strategy™.