Tired of fighting without resolution?

Tired of fighting without resolution?

So many of our “big projects” are coming to gorgeous fruition. Life indeed is Grand! How about you? What accomplishment or deliciousness are you celebrating from this year? Nothing is irrelevant, a given or expectation. Anything beautiful in your life you Allowed and coCreated. Acknowledge it, own it, celebrate it. We create the life we have, take credit and delight…

We get what we put in… This brings me to today’s writing. We are on Element2 of the Successful Couple Strategy™:

Element1 – Context & Mindset

Element2 – Communication & Alignment

Element3 – Clarity & Dynamics

Element4 – Connection & Intimacy

Element5 – Collaboration & Partnership

Today’s topic – Fighting Without Resolution. Unfortunately, it is very common for couples to fight and not resolve the issue at hand. There is a multitude of reasons for this. Here are a few, the partners:

  1. Engage in discussing what’s bothering them at inopportune times, or downright inappropriate times
  2. Start discussions with a hothead, when they are still triggered
  3. Address their concern by going after their partner and the perceived infraction
  4. Get hang up on being right, making their point, winning the argument
  5. Lose sight of the topic at hand and bring up other prior (also still unresolved) frustrations
  6. Turn the discussion into how the other is not showing up right, or is fighting unfairly
  7. Make it their business to teach the other skills, tell them what they did wrong or what they could do better
  8. Take on a defensive stance and go on the offensive
  9. Use the moment to address everything that is bothering them
  10. Go at the conversation attacking their partner, their character and making character flaw observations

Can you see how these would not be conducive for addressing concerns, understanding each, getting on the same page, resolving issues and building and sustaining intimacy? What’s really interesting is that even though this approach doesn’t work, partners keep doing this over and over. This is how they keep trying to work on things and make changes. It doesn’t work!

It doesn’t work because they can’t expect their partner to be able to discuss or address something potentially intense at any given moment because they want to. Or, for the other to have that expectation in turn. Partners need to proactively select a time to have a productive discussion.

It doesn’t work because they start conversations from an unresourced state. They are triggered and sensitive. They go in with guns blazing blaming, criticizing, shaming, demanding, controlling, attacking and the like. They go in making their partner wrong off the bat.

They go in as a victim and injured party. They don’t give the partner the benefit of the doubt, speak about their own experience and never mind taking ownership for what they contributed to the situation.

It doesn’t work because they get caught up in the reactive moment and lose sight of the topic at hand. The interaction becomes about everything else. How they are talking, how they are not using skills, how they do everything wrong, how they always do this, how it’s hopeless, how everything stinks, and on and on… They miss the forest for the tree. Instead of showing up with their best self, with a collaborative, compassionate and flexible approach.

And, even worst of all. It doesn’t work because they are attacking who the other person is… They are devaluing, questioning, and shredding their partner. Who the heck are they to question the other? How dare they assume they have that right? Because you are disgruntled, married, hurt and possibly your partner actually wronged you, it still does not mean you get to be a jerk.

It is our job to be our best human self that we can possibly muster at any given time, and to give ourselves the opportunity to that. Going into discussions without that intention doesn’t serve anyone! It sets you up to show up with the little you. And, it sets you up to get nonsense from your partner. Why do that to yourself?

This is why when we are in session the discussions go much better, because these things are not allowed. It behooves you to bring a cleaner version of your approach to your conversations. And, you don’t have to have the most amazing skills in the world, be perfect at delivering them and be a saint. Your attempt at doing things differently goes a long way in and of itself… Your partner can see the investment and they usually respond in kind…

Note, sometimes you might try, and the moment still turns into a s*t show. Listen, nobody and no relationship is perfect. It happens. What becomes important then is what you do afterwards. How you conduct yourself and go back in… How you learn from the experience and work on doing better next time. Learning from your mistakes and continuing to invest on becoming the best version of you. This is at the crux of it all.

ASSIGNMENT: Do a review of how your discussions usually go and identify how you contribute to the conversation going south. If you can’t find anything this could be part of the issue in and of itself… If you were in the conversation, you contributed to how it went… Own your side and focus on making the changes you need to make… This alone helps start a new pattern…

As usual the focus is on what we can change and what we have control over… Stop wasting your energy and time trying to change your partner and focusing on creating something different by telling your partner what they need to change… Stop giving your power away! Focusing on your side is super empowering and that’s how you create change, and ultimately the relationship and life you want. You can do it!

Stay tuned for next week’s issue on a Changing Dynamics topic…

Complete the Assignment, and share your takeaway, insights, and results with a note in the Comments box at the end! I’d love to hear how you are using this content.

Happy Changing!

 

 

   Copyright (c) 2019 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

 

Freedom to live your life by Design

Freedom to live your life by Design

At the publishing of this, I’m on a road trip cross country. Yay!! Super grateful at having the freedom to pretty much pick up and go. Little ahead planning time went into making this happen. It’s so satisfying to enjoy such liberties and create experiences to treasure. This is the result of living a life by Design…

It is not always easy to create the life we want, to design our own life, as we have a tendency to get in our own way… We have tendency to react and live our life by default… We might have limiting beliefs that hold us back from Being our Authentic Self. These block our access to our internal guidance system, our intuition, our gifts, our Awesomeness.

Being disconnected from our Self, is painful… This is the source of our angst in life… When we are disconnected from our Self, we go through life just banging around and suffering in one way or another…

Limiting beliefs flow from three fundamental human ego driven core belief systems. Somewhere along the way, usually very early on in our childhood through interactions with our care-takers, we internalized one or more of these:

  • Powerless
  • Unlovable
  • Unworthy

If you were to process any situation in your life, any pain you are currently undergoing, you will find at least one of these as the underlying feeling. These are accompanied by related distorted thoughts about yourself and the world that perpetuate the stuck situation and resulting pain.

When we insist on subscribing to these, either by shear stubbornness or just plain ignorance, we stay disconnected from our Self, our internal resources, and therefore unable to effect changes in our life. It becomes impossible to design and create the life we desire.

We have a choice to make. Do we want to live our fullest life? Do we want to live our most enjoyable and rewarding life? Do we want to have an amazing Journey? Do we want to live our life by Design? If so, we consistently focus in connecting to our Self. When we are Connected to our Self, we Know we are powerful, lovable and worthy… This is the antidote!!! It’s that’s simple…

We can choose to be Connected. We can choose to Be our best Self. We can choose to have our best Life. We have so much freedom that we can even choose bondage… Living feeling powerless, unlovable, and/or unworthy and not to resolving this is to choose to live in bondage… The choice is ours. What we create is a result of our choices.

So, our job to remove obstacles that prevent us from connecting to our Self.

  • Our job is to mind our thoughts and clean up any that lead to bad feelings…
  • Our job is to mind how we feel and subscribe to feel-good activities that make our heart sing…
  • Our job is to mind what we do and find the positive in all…

And, our job is to focus on connecting to our Self with Mindfulness Practices… This is the shortcut… You can immediately have full access to your Self and the resources to design and create the life you desire. The life you came to live in this life experience.

You can live your life by Design, start by choosing to do so…

Remember to complete the MetroRelationsip™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start creating your Successful Relationship and Meaningful Life…

Share your experience by leaving a comment below! 

Happy Choosing!

 

 

~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment

Make a list of thoughts you recognize as limiting beliefs… Or, that you are aware have held you back from the life you desire…

Go through each and debunk them! Feel the release of their hold on you…

Add this to your Tool Kit…

 

   Copyright (c) 2018 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

 

Are you fighting a lot in your relationship?

Are you fighting a lot in your relationship?

I have written before, and you probably already know from your own knowledge base, that we are all Energy, that everything is a form of energy… We are not actually solid. Though because we use our “humanness”, we experience reality as we do… Reality as we think it is, just “isn’t”… If reality isn’t as we think it is, this has implications for everything in our lives… Give this a listen for some background and other resources on this concept…

Everything is energy, even our thoughts are energy. Energy particles/waves vibrate at different frequencies embodying different forms… Remember chemistry class? Medium vibration produces water, in high vibration produces steam/gas, and low vibration produces ice. This is a crude analogy, but the same concept applies to thoughts…

The higher the vibration of our thoughts (positive), the lighter the outcome – more gaseous, vaporous, ethereal, subjective, non-physical, spiritual, expansive…

The lower the vibration of our thoughts (negative), the heavier the outcome – more material, concrete, specific, measurable, objective, corporeal, finite…

Thoughts/energy produce (create, manifest) at the frequency they vibrate… This is how we create our own reality. This is how we create our life. We literally think and create. What we observe and focus on, we create more of… What we expect (think will happen), we’ll get…

If we have a few different thoughts/expectations (vibrations) on the same subject, we muddy the waters if you may, and we don’t get clear outcomes… We don’t get water, steam or ice, we get mud!

The implications of this are huge as you can already surmise. If we have negative thoughts/expectations, they have low vibrations, and create their negative content… Obviously the opposite is also true.

If we have positive thoughts/expectations, they have a high vibration, and therefore create their positive content… You can probably see where I’m going with this in applicability to your relationship, but before I connect the dots here are a couple of other points on this.

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, Mind Over Matter. The more post-modern version of this is, Mind Over Mind. We get/create what we Mind/Think… Doesn’t it behoove us to be Mindful…? Doesn’t it behoove us to make are dominant thoughts what we want, not what we don’t want nor to have rampant and unintentional thoughts??

And, let’s take this a step further. How about we stop minding/observing how things supposedly are…? How about we stop minding/observing our Self as we think we are…? Read that again… How about we stop minding/observing our Partner as we think they are…? How about we break this thinking habit, the habit of thinking that reality is…?

How about we open up to the possibilities? How about we open up to new expectations? How about we open up to expect what we want? How about we open up to the possibility of Being how we want to be…? How about we Are as we wish…? How about we operate from who Are…? And, that my friends is immediate Transformation…

If we Mind our life from this place, all our dilemmas disappear… I promise… Just mind your opposing, conflicting, ambivalent, muddy expectations… If you are clean, you’ll get clean outcomes… And, the Universe is the limit…

What does this mean for your relationship? Take a guess… What would happen to your conflict? What would happen to your disagreements? What would happen to the fighting? What would happen to your connection? What would happen to your collaboration? If you no longer observe/expect your partner to disappoint you, let you down, betray you, annoy you and such, they won’t…!

The truth is in the eye of the beholder… You observe/interpret/decide “what is”, you assign the meaning, you Be and operate as you wish, you create the relationship you want… You create… You are that powerful… … Don’t take my word for it. Experiment and see for yourself…

Choose today to stop fighting, and act/Be as you wish you Are. See your partner as you wish they Are… Address the moment from this new vantage point… Stop the drama. Stop the fighting. Enjoy the new Being, and creating of the relationship you want…  

Remember to complete the MetroRelationsip™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start creating your Successful Relationship and Meaningful Life…

Share your experience by leaving a comment below! 

Happy Minding!

 

 

~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment

Take a beat to ponder about who you Are… Transcend your usual view of your Self…

Really connect with who you Are… Grab all parts of yourself, all the parts you love, and mush them together. Now feel your creation. Feel the essence of what you created.

Feel the Essence of you. Feel You. Embrace You. From now on, flow from this You…

Add this to your Tool Kit…

 

 

   Copyright (c) 2018 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

 

Escalation-proof Your Relationship

Escalation-proof Your Relationship

I frequently witness partners’ devastation when feeling stuck in their relationship. They share about their pain and hopelessness. They believe things are as good as they are going to get, and think there is nothing that can be done to change them.

The pain is great because if this is as good as it’s going to get, then they think they shouldn’t be in it. And, with that come feelings of failure, betrayal, resentment, anger, loss, sadness and such. In this dooms day perspective they perpetuate their pain…

What’s interesting is that this happens when they are triggered. If asked at other times how things are going, it’s usually far from dooms day. But, when we are triggered it is very easy to miss the forest for the tree. Partners put on blinders and only see the episode that hurt them or threw them off track, and all the previous similar ones.

They are great historians and skilled at threading this negative pattern… They focus on this one dimension of their relationship and refuse to see the rest that’s good, or even amazing.

When partners focus on what is not working as a theme and really harp on what goes wrong, they are setting up a self-fulfilling prophecy. They are looking for things that don’t work. They are looking for their partner’s mistakes. They are looking for things that bother them. And, find they will because nobody is perfect.

They are hyper-vigilant and on alert against their partner… Donning this lens is nothing but self-and-other-defeating, relationship sabotaging, limiting and down right abusive of our Self and our Partner.

The ruminating on the events and interactions that hurt us just serve to retraumatize ourselves. It keeps us stuck in a negative thinking loop, that generates hurtful feelings and that keeps us from acting from our Authentic and Highest Self… This promotes nasty behavior towards our partner and neglectful behavior towards our Self. It is very difficult to set effective loving boundaries and maintain our self-care practice when we are in this place.

We are reactive, and sometimes don’t even realize it… If we continue to nurture our grouch, our lens gets dirtier and dirtier to the point where we lose our sight period. We lose our perspective completely. Then of course it’s hard to imagine there is coming back from the current experience or that something different is possible…

The first item of business here is to suspend all judgment, slow down the recursive thinking, and put ourselves on a time-out. Imagine you can hit a pause button where the movie can stop playing, do that… Do whatever it takes to stop ruminating, analyzing, fact-finding and the like…

This squirrely activity is just like you drinking the poising and expecting your target to die. Stop poisoning yourself! Do any activity that releases positive chemistry in your brain and helps you change your state. You are responsible for how you feel…

From this place you are more resourced and are now able to address your trigger. But don’t go at it until you are able to see your partner’s experience. If you can’t or as soon as you start thinking about it you get retriggered, then you are not ready to address this with your partner. Keep at this until you are ready. Otherwise, you’ll keep hacking at your bond and creating more damage that becomes harder and harder to repair.

Do whatever it takes to see things from your partner’s viewpoint and experience. Understand what is happening for them and the pain they are also in. Access your compassion for their side. Then you’d be ready to effectively and productively address the initial trigger.

Your job is to keep yourself in a resourced state as much as possible, or more and more, for your relationship to work. If you are intent on being right, being resentful for how you’ve been wronged, and upset then there is little chance to make changes in your relationship. Might as well quit now and save yourself a lot of aggravation. But, please know that this does not have to be your outcome! You CAN push through this veil and enjoy the Light on the other side…

> Boundary setting and getting needs met:

The boundary in this instance is of containing yourself. If we refuse to take the hook our partner is casting and if we refuse to take ourselves on a ride, we minimize the damage we usually do. When a trigger happens, take a moment to regroup, change your state, gather what’s happening for you and for your partner, put it all in perspective and then you are ready to go back.

From a less escalated, regrouped, and resourced place you can more easily repair, get back on the same page, and move on. A key element here is that when you take your leave from the situation, that you still remain connected… Otherwise, the triggering continues…

How do you usually keep retraumatizing your Self? Make a commitment now to stop that! Give your Self a lot of love and compassion.

Complete the MetroRelationship™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start experiencing your awesome and radiant relationship, and authentic and meaningful life…

Happy Regrouping!

 

~ Your MetroRelationship Assignment

Escalation-proof your relationship to prevent stuckness and hopelessness:

Make an agreement with your partner on how to implement time-outs to prevent escalations, and discuss how to reentry.

Identify items that easily put you in a positive state and integrate them into your routine.

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

 

Is Your Brain Working for You or Against You?

Is Your Brain Working for You or Against You?

Unfortunately I get to see how partners get in their own way when trying to create connection and intimacy with each other. I can hear the noise in their head. I can see the wheels turning. I can see the gears grinding. I can see the squirrels running around, some even holding on to nuts for posterity… I can see the wreckage. I can see the black hole. I can see their pain.

If there was a device I could put on to see in their head, I would get these images. But wait, there is a device that can see in our heads, that measures brain activity…

Brain scans show images of certain parts of the brain lit up according to our self-torture predispositions… Certain parts of the brain get more activated than others for each of us, which give a certain flavor to our struggle or MO: Love and Depression (Deep Limbic System) – Moodiness, irritability, increased negative thinking and perception of events, decreased motivation, social isolation, decreased/increased sexual responsiveness.

Anxiety and Fear (Basal Ganglia) – Anxiety, nervousness, panic attacks, tendency to predict the worst, conflict avoidance, headaches, low/excessive motivation

Inattention and Impulsivity (Prefrontal Cortex) – Short attention span, distractibility, lack of perseverance, impulse control problems, hyperactivity, chronic lateness, poor time management, disorganization, procrastination, unavailability of emotions, misperceptions, poor judgment, trouble learning from experience, short-term memory problems, social and test anxiety.

Worry and Obsessiveness (Cingulate System) – Worrying, holding on to hurts from the past, getting stuck on thoughts (obsessions), getting stuck on behaviors (compulsions), oppositional behavior, argumentativeness, uncooperativeness, tendency to say no automatically, addictive behaviors (alcohol or drug abuse, eating disorders, etc.), chronic pain, and cognitive inflexibility.

Memory and Temper (Temporal Lobes) – [left lobe] Aggression (internally or externally directed), dark or violent thoughts, sensitivity to slights, mild paranoia, word-finding problems, auditory processing problems, reading difficulties, emotional instability. [right lobe] Difficulty recognizing facial expressions, difficulty decoding vocal intonation, implicated in social-skill struggles.

Nobody has a perfect brain. Nobody was raised (parented) perfectly that their brain wired itself perfectly. As you may know we develop, our brain evolves and our personality is organized, according to our interactions and experiences growing up. We also have genetic predispositions of course. These create our unique brain with its own sensitivities and ingrained neuron firing patterns that inform how we show up on a daily basis.

When we understand that our brain and our mind are running the show on autopilot and from previous unapproved programming (if we haven’t done sufficient personal development work), we finally understand that we are living a life and relationship by default… We are living our human experience in reactive mode, with blinders on and banging into the walls around us.

While at the mercy of our raw brain and mind, we get hang up on how we see interactions with our partner and their MO. We focus on how they are showing up…

This is the doom approach to our relationship, first because this is a boundary transgression. Second, because we use dirty lenses to filter interactions flowing already from psychological defenses and brain-activity byproducts… In other words, our interactions are littered with unconscious and reactive processes. Partners take this at face value and think that what they see is who their partner is…

What’s showing up in our interactions though is not who we are… What’s showing up in our interactions is an automatic program that we didn’t purposefully install and that is running on a glitchy or outdated operating system. These are foibles of our human condition.

These riddle our experience with uneasiness and struggle. We have to remember that we are Spiritual Beings having a human experience. That the real us is obstructed by this mechanics; our brilliance, our essence is muffled. Without launching into a philosophical and existential presentation now, suffice it to say that if we focus solely on what’s in front of our face that we are completely missing the boat.

How do we make sure we are not left behind…? We need to take charge of our own brain and mind. How do we take charge of our brain and mind? We need to implement and stick to a mindfulness practice. A mindfulness practice can take on all kinds of forms – do not worry that you can’t meditate!

Mindfulness practices calm the mind and by extension soothe the brain. In the soothing we actually rewire the brain by triggering different neuron firing patterns. Thus, we alleviate the sensitive areas that are on overdrive. We improve the function of our go-to areas getting better gas mileage.

We integrate all parts of the brain, gaining access to areas we usually don’t access. We improve our overall functioning, health and wellbeing including increasing our vibrational frequency. The investment required to integrate a mindfulness practice into our overall self-care practice is minimal in comparison to the gargantuan benefits we gain. This is gaining benefits on steroids!

Boundary setting and getting needs met: A great boundary is to implement and safeguard your self-care practice, even from yourself! Implement a robust self-care practice that includes things like me-time, fitness, restorative sleep, healthy-conscious-eating, and such and of course mindfulness activities into your routine. Mindfulness activities include things like: prayer, visualization, affirmations, journaling, etc.

All these have meditative properties. Meditation does not have to take on the traditional monk-form we usually think of when we think of meditation. Coloring, knitting, running, swimming, dancing have meditative properties. The trick is not to focus on the thinking but to focus on something else like breathing, feelings, a point on the wall, the movement of waves or beautiful scenery.

Men and women have different meditative experiences and preferences (no surprise there, what do we do and like the same?!).

Men look for the stillness and emptiness… Women look for the flow and connection/love… We can use this to experiment with different types of meditation styles or activities. The goal is to quite the mind… A mistake people make when trying to meditate is focus on not thinking which creates more thinking… So, leave your thoughts alone and focus on something else.

Also, take into consideration what type of brain sensitivities you have and select meditative practices that work with your type of brain. Knowing and working with how you are wired, and understanding your partner from this vantage point, is a huge help in better understanding interactions and for more effortlessly getting on the same page.

As you rewire yourself with mindfulness practice and intentionality in your life, the easier life and your relationship become. Trust me, give mindfulness a whirl!

Complete the MetroRelationship™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start experiencing your awesome and radiant relationship, and authentic and meaningful life…

Happy Minding!

 

   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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