With Summer just around the corner, the school year completed for us, and a major dent made on my goals for the year, I’m turning my attention for now to more leisure, fun and adventures. 😉
How was your half of the year so far? What can you celebrate? How are you structuring and planning on enjoying the Summer? Yeah, yeah, you might have already planned your vacation or trips and enrolled your children in camps, but how will you “milk” the summer?
This is an important aspect of life… Even our “down-time” is over scheduled and packed… I’ve heard crazy plans from people like shuttling themselves from location to location for weeks on end without even making stops at home. Of sustaining intense long-day work weeks to squeeze in long weekend trips.
Of having a ton of personal and home projects in the works. And such… These sound good and fun, but usually the end result is missing the forest for the tree. The goal is to reboot, reset, recharge, realign, not to run rugged where you “need a vacation because of your vacation”…
The goal to reconnect with our Self, is to allow for different flow, to synchronize with our loved ones, to regroup on our path, to realign with our values, to tap into our creativity and inspiration, to access the Innovator in us…
How can this happen if there isn’t a moment to “feel”, to “listen”, to “dream”?
What does this mean for you? What is your Summer Philosophy™? Take this weekend to ponder on this and even run it by others. It’s interesting to hear what is happening out there. I find that people are usually completely overschedule and overbooked, or they haven’t given it much thought and are living their lives by default… What camp are you in?
If you are overscheduled and overbooked – even with “fun” stuff. Take a look and be radical about removing things from your experience. You’ll find that the yummy stuff happens in the in-between…
If you haven’t planned much or given it much thought. You are probably in better shape than the category of people above. It’s challenging to switch gears, slow down, let go, and Be… You have the opportunity to start with a fairly blank canvas… Don’t just add stuff to it… Be intentional about it.
This is your opportunity to pamper and honor your Self. Get in touch with what is important to you and what gives you pleasure. Sprinkle related activities or experiences into your lifestyle for the Summer. Make it a goal to Enjoy your Self…
If you are in the middle. Good for you! Just make sure what you put in place and what you didn’t, is by choice and design and that you are really and truly serving yourself, and your loved ones.
Summer is an untapped built-in resource in our life… Why not “milk it” for all it can provide? Use the Summer as a catalyst to Shift…, and catapult you in making the changes you’ve desired. Slow and steady wins the race…
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 Milking!
~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment
Pick a Treasure activity, outing, experience or trip to add to your Summer Fun.
Make this a Summer to remember…
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.
Aside from being submerged in a current project involving databases, queries, scripts, spreadsheets, and data entry tasks I’m of course still doing my usual. This past week found me also playing with a different kind of data. Brain data, one of my favorites as you might know.
I came across the work of Dr. Daniel Amen (psychiatry and brain imaging…) close to two decades ago with tremendous impact in my work and approach to life. It heavily influenced the self-care and wellness angle I integrate into my relational work…
Over time I have recommended one of his books, “Change Your Brain, Change Your Life”, and have taught its concepts to our clients. They are so ingrained and integrated at this point that referencing their origin seems silly.
But nonetheless, I wanted to bring this incredible and powerful resource to you for a more thorough and scientific background on why it’s important to have a healthy lifestyle… Everything we do impacts our brain, which is single handedly our most prized possession!
So, today’s writing is about encouraging you to be super mindful of your lifestyle and what impact it has on your brain. For the health of your brain will ultimately impact your success and quality of life… The health of your brain impacts your overall health, your mood, your memory, your relational abilities, and more. A healthy brain supports your Being:
Happier
Healthier
Wealthier
Wiser
More Creative
More Innovative…
Dr. Amen’s basic premise has always been that we are not stuck with the brain we have, and that we can be proactive in maintaining our brain’s health – actually bringing it back to health… In going back to this source, I came across his more recent plan for Repairing the Brain. It does not have to be all downhill as we grow older! From his imaging work, he can see the before and after of brain health as one takes on a healthier approach to life…
His plan includes 5 Pillars of Healthy Living:
Faith – spirituality and connection to higher power
Food – nutrition and clean eating
Fitness – physical activity and exercise
Focus – attention, purpose, meaning
Friends – connection with others and fun
What does all this mean to you? How is the health of each of your pillars? Where can you stand to put a little more attention and energy? What do you need to tweak in your lifestyle to strengthen your pillars? Pick one area to play with and take it on!
Go all out and crack this. Work on cleaning or upgrading your current approach – fine tuning your routine (i.e., intermittent fasting), removing junk (i.e., toxins), increasing resources (i.e., nutritious food), keeping it interesting (i.e., different cuisine), and so on.
Think on what kind of life you want to have. Think on how to be proactive about creating the life you want. A lot of times we either create life by default… Or, we dream up the life we want to create, but we take no tangible or consistent steps to creating and sustaining that life…
Therefore, my encouragement and challenge to you today: Make a commitment to proactively creating the life you want, which inherently means having a healthy brain and thereby a healthy lifestyle… Make a move now towards your healthier lifestyle. Have fun with this and enjoy!
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 Repairing!
~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment
Choose the area of your life you usually give TLC with the intention of finally cracking the code…
Faith – spirituality and connection to higher power
Food – nutrition and clean eating
Fitness – physical activity and exercise
Focus – attention, purpose, meaning
Friends – connection with others and fun
Tackle it with purpose and commitment. Tackle it by looking at it from a different angle than you usually might… Use a different context or lens to design your new approach… Keep reconnecting to it as you implement the changes…
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.
I don’t know about you, but my wheels are always turning about how to make a Better Future… I apply this lens to EVERYTHING: relationship with my husband, relationship with my daughter, relationship with family members, relationships with others and in our joint ventures, home and other environments, health, personal development, spirituality, self-care, practice with clients and serving, and humanity as a whole…
This is why I treat my work with clients as Sacred. When they feel better and empowered, collaborate and synergize, they become unstoppable… Once we get over the hump (address what initially brought them to work with us) and clients start getting traction in the direction they desire, it’s interesting how conversations start to change… It’s so exciting and inspiring to see clients Transcend what brought them in, and start creating their much larger life…
We start talking about integrating more Spirituality into their lifestyle. We start talking about opening their homes to less fortunate children. We start talking about their Gift/Contribution to the world and capturing it in a book. We start talking about team development in their business and inspiring leadership.
We start talking about their Social Justice project and how to structure it and launch it. And, the list goes on. It’s so marvelous how “relationship therapy” is a gateway for creating a better future…
Inspired by conversations this week, and lead by my curiosity and approach to life, I’m stepping up my game to further Transcend the everyday… Have you heard of the 100-year Vision Plan?
The idea of this has been such a transformative concept… Regardless of how old you are now reading this, you won’t be alive in 100 years… So, to have a 100-year plan seem ridiculous, right? But, let’s think about what happens when we plan as if we were to be around in 100 years… [Or, how we plan for things in 100 years regardless if we are to be around…]
We’d have to tackle our life as if we were to live that long… The first order of business would be to make sure we are around – to tackle our life to ensure the most longevity… That in and of itself has a ton of implications, doesn’t it?
For starters, we’d make sure we have a super healthy lifestyle, so we don’t break down half way… Which in my book, we should be doing now anyway to ensure an as-long-as-possible, healthy, productive and enjoyable life… I’ll let you in on a little secret, one of my goals is to live to 120! Yeah!
Then, we’d have to make sure we can support ourselves, we’d have to make sure we are still productive contributing members of society, we’d have to make sure we have a rich life to enjoy, what else?
Now, isn’t all this interesting? What is coming up for you? The lifespan has been increasing, and with-it people’s “contributing” years. But, we still hold the mindset of “retirement”, pensions, the golden years, retirement/nursing homes, deteriorating health, decrepit aging, and such… If you were to live 100 more years, how would you approach your life differently?
If you had my goal of living to 120, what would you be doing differently? Would you be closing shop at 65? Who said that the last few decades of our lives need to be spent wasting it away? Most people don’t have amazing lives after “retirement.” They look to retirement and then life is downhill from there… What?! This doesn’t make sense as an approach to life… What about going about our life as if it were a scenic marathon, not a traumatic sprint?
Now, let’s take this a step further. We know we won’t live that long. So, we settle for living well for as long as we can, but with the intention of having impact beyond our years… What would it mean to live our life planning for contributing for another 100 years… Bam! And, that’s the thing… How do we live a super amazing life that has meaning beyond our humanness…
In playing with this concept, I came across this video: The 100 Year Vision.
I know all of this can be a lot to take in, and you might not be ready or interested in it. And that’s ok, we are all on our own specific Journeys. But, regardless of where you are, think about how this concept can enrich your life. If you ponder as much as, how do I live my most healthiest and meaningful life?, then that’s a homerun in my book. That in and of itself is a transformative takeaway… So, start there.
What small change can you start with to start living an even healthier and more meaningful life? This is a tremendously satisfying project, and I wish you much fun and success with it! Enjoy!
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 Visioning!
~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment
Select an area of your life where the minutia and having constant fires to put out just drain you and are a thorn in your back.
Think about what purpose/need this is fulfilling for you… And, how entertaining this is sabotaging where you want to be…
Identify a more proactive, healthier, and effective way to meet the purpose/need, and make the switch immediately.
Then, turn your full focus to where you want to be… Start by dreaming and feeling good about it…
Transcend the daily for the Vision…
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.
What keeps you entertained and engaged in your life? What professional or personal projects are you tackling? Are you excited about these? Are you proud of what you are accomplishing? Are you inspired by what you are involved in? How is your life journey going? How are your personal goals coming along? Are you creating with your Partner?
Creating with our Partner is at the corner stone of our life… This is one of the reasons we couple… How do you create with your Partner? What do you create? Do you have a strong partnership? Do you have systems in place to easily and effortlessly collaborate at the business of life?
It’s interesting how many go through life haphazardly, putting out fires, being stressed out and overwhelmed, getting on each other’s nerves and being resentful… Running your joint life and Creating together doesn’t have to be so. It can actually be seamless, enjoyable, fun, rewarding, and inspiring.
Becoming a strong partnership doesn’t just happen. It requires patience, understanding, acceptance, communication, transparency, open-mindedness, flexibility, compromise, grace, and appreciation for starters.
Becoming a strong partnership means wanting to be a strong couple. Having a clean relationship mindset… Owning ourselves and our power while being mindful, intentional, and cooperative.
It means improving our personal habits, stepping up our game, learning relationship enrichment skills, integrating personal development into our lifestyle, addressing any recurring negative patterns, mutually meeting our needs, subscribing to a relationship nurturing approach, and being collaborative in our everyday.
Becoming a strong partnership means operating as a Team. It means creating a structure in our home and routine that support us and the journey we want to have. It means creating an amazing lifestyle that makes life worth living. It means putting in place the systems to allow us to make that happen. Why struggle and beat our head against the wall. What life hacks do you subscribe to? How do you make your life easier?
It’s time to do these seamlessly consistently:
Provide healthy and nutritious meals and snacks
Have a self-care practice built into daily routine
Glide from one activity to the next
Address and prevent clutter
Have quality family and couple time
Be prepared for activities and for the next day
Have a connected and efficient bedtime routine with children
Have a connected and intimate evening routine with partner
Have a soothing and replenishing personal turndown routine
Have agreed shared responsibilities
Have methods for synchronizing, staying current and in the loop, and collaborating
Have a check-in and staying connected mechanism with partner
Have approach to connection, intimacy, passion and fun that honors both partners
Have approach for accomplishing projects and achieving goals and milestones…
Are cooperatively pursuing your joint life vision…
You are a role model to other couples and families, and an inspiration to those around you…
If you have a lot of the above in place, good for you! See what else you’d like to make easier and work it.
If you feel overwhelmed by the above, it means your life is probably a bit overwhelming and chaotic and could stand to have some organization and structure. Pick 2 items from the list above that when implemented your life would immediately feel like a different life. These are that powerful.
Keep tackling the list. Automate the workings of your life, and see how much easier and rewarding it becomes!
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 Automating!
~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment
Go through your daily routine in your head and identify the times when you are stressed, annoyed, resentful, overwhelmed. Note, what time of day it is, who is involved, where you are, and what’s involved. Pick the one item that calls to you the most and put a system in place to automate it and take the edge off. Enjoy!
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.
Happy Spring (and, in these parts, snow day… LOL)! The weather has been so nutty but wonderfully stimulating as we adjust to the unexpected and the different. I’m sure you know the concept that the same old gets boring, that doing repetitive work or activity stifles our Spirit, that living an unchallenged life is not living. Why settle when we can continue to evolve and expand? This is where the juice is. As you know I’m always learning and connecting the dots in different ways to help us on this quest…
Some pretty cool and easy strategies I came across to stimulate new neuro-pathways in the brain to rewire and expand itself include things like: write with your opposite-dominant hand, take cold showers, drive home a different route, change up your exercise routine, start and end meetings at off times, stimulate the senses, and such. We can make a career of playing with this concept, and how enlivening would that be? I say, let’s sprinkle a little of this into our everyday to keep things fresh and expanding…
So, though part of me balks at the change in schedule, routine, and plans when there is change-up, like a snow day, another part of me relishes the new ensued energy. It is up to us to see the beauty in the wrinkles. Most of us love a good snow day, so this is not so challenging to do here. But think of other wrinkles that show up in your life and how you might fight against and resist them. Look for the beauty (gift) you can enjoy in them instead.
I’m ready for Spring. And in that spirit, I already had a new addition arrive for my garden. I owned my desire to have the scent of honeysuckle permeate my yard and purchased a couple of these beauties. I cannot wait to get out there and dig in the dirt, after the snow melts… My research put these plants not only as a favored fragrant plant but also as a great pollinator (which I was looking for). I get to enjoy nurturing and strengthening these plants indoor (part of the beauty in this wrinkle) before they make it to their outdoor spot. I’m so excited!
Regardless of the weather, with springtime comes Spring Cleaning… This is one of my favorite times of year, when things come back to life, fresh energy flows anew, and there is new Life in the air. I make it my business to fuel this and ride this wave. I have a few springtime rituals help this along that have to do with De-Clutting:
I use this time to clean out junk, excess, accumulation, old things, expired things, no longer wanted things, and such.
I use this time to clean out, tweak, streamline, retarget, refresh routines, habits, rituals, practices, approaches, and such.
I use this time to clean out commitments, activities, goals, projects, tasks and such that are no longer in alignment with my values, current vision, and desires.
I use this time to clean out my mind of any running scripts that might be currently creating havoc, sabotaging, or undermining my wishes. And with this one, comes also the cleaning out of any funky approach to relating with others especially my most loved ones. This is one of the hardest one to do (an you thought cleaning out your closet was a challenge!), and a process that obviously goes on beyond springtime. I’m all about continuing to always evolve and expand in all areas, and of course this one is top of the list.
What is resonating for you as an area that needs cleaning and de-cluttering in your own experience? Where can you clean out junk that is holding you back? Where can you streamline your approach for an easier path? Where can you get rid of stuff to generate new energy?
Go for it and enjoy the emerging sense of renewal!
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 De-Cluttering!
~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment
Identify the area of your life that could benefit the most from de-cluttering: your physical environment, your approach to life, your relationships, or your head…
Identify 3 things in your area that you want to Refresh… Think on how to go about it, put support in place, and go for it!
Add this to your Tool Kit…
~ Share Your Thoughts & Successes in the comment box at the end!
Take a moment now to share below any thoughts, comments, take away, tips, and successes! PLEASE post a comment now – we grow in community!
Thanks for connecting with the MetroRelationship™ Family!
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.
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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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