There is no better way to create wonderful memories and meaning in one’s relationship than with rituals. Rituals are a special way to show love, appreciation and importance for the partners throughout time in the life of the relationship.
Relationships are made up of interactions between two partners which can be negative or positive. Their repetition provide the overall feel of the relationship. Rituals collaborate with this process.
Couple rituals play a central role in giving color, substance, and style to the relationship and mark off one couple from another, giving each a special character. They make a major contribution to the stability and continuity of the life of the relationship. They assist in creating and maintaining a couple’s identity (unique values, standards, role prescription, and perceptions).
Rituals encapsulate the essence of who partners are within their relationship through the reenactment of specified behaviors. This is a tool that can help change that overall feeling and enhance the meaning of the relationship and its satisfaction quotient.
There are specific characteristics to positive couple rituals. They are symbolic, consistent, respectful and meaningful. They have a sense of specialness and importance. They provide a sense of “weness” and organize partners’ behaviors. Partners feel a void when they are skipped or absent.
Rituals can be creative and exclusive to celebrate anniversaries of events and holidays, or repetitive woven into our routines. There are actually three categories of rituals:
1) Celebrations. These specific to the couple such as engagements, weddings, anniversaries and Valentine’s Day; and family celebrations in which couples partake. Family celebrations can be religious holidays such as Christmas, Easter, The Passover Seder or secular holiday observances such as Thanksgiving, New Year’s Day, or the Fourth of July, within the American culture anyway.
2) Traditions. These are less culture-specific and more idiosyncratic to the couple and their family and recur with regularity. These might include: Summer vacations, dates, birthdays, parties of various kinds, special meals.
3) Ritualized routines. These are the ones most frequently enacted and the ones least consciously planed. To this category belong rituals such as a dinnertime, bedtime routines, leisure time activities on weekends or evenings, everyday greetings and good-byes, contact during the day, ways of staying current, etc. These interactions help to define partners’ roles and responsibilities and are a way of organizing daily interactions.
When rituals play out over time their richness reaffirm symbolism of values, affects, and perspectives hence their power to be conduits of change.
Which couple rituals in your relationship capture the essence of who you are as partners in your relationship? Which rituals promote positive feelings in your relationship? Which rituals promote meaningful and satisfying interactions? Which rituals allow your relating to create the relationship you want?
Use Positive Couple Rituals to change and enhance your relationship today!
Happy Ritualizing!!
~ Your MetroRelationship ™ Assignment
Create robust rituals to celebrate your coupleness. Revisit your rituals and see which ones you want to do away with, which ones you want to keep and why, and which ones need tweaking. Make sure your rituals help you create your relationship vision.
Copyright (c) 2016 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
We are energy. We look like solid entities in our human form only because of our limited human faculties. We are energetic beings with vibrational frequencies. Imagine us as energy waves, reaching further than apparent by the illusion of our human form. We are all interconnected… We all feel and impact each other… It is our human duty to clean our energy, to make sure we raise our vibrational frequency.
The higher the frequency the closer we are in our Being to our Authentic Self (Soul). The higher the frequency the better we feel and the better we Love…
This might be a foreign concept to some of you. If this is the case for you, I ask that you stay open minded and keep reading from a place of curiosity.
Ok, so how do we raise our vibrational frequency? It is actually much easier than it sounds! First, you need to assess what kind of energy you have in the moment.
If you are feeling down, blue, sad, hopeless, powerless, scared (fear), insecure, guilty, unworthy, worried, discouraged, disappointed, angry, frustrated, overwhelmed and the like, then you know your frequency is very low – what I usually call “dirty”. This is not in alignment with your Authentic, Loving, Self.
It is your responsibility to make yourself feel better. You DO have control over how you feel. At any moment in time, you can make a conscious decision to change your mood and emotions. This does not mean you are living in la la land or that you are being delusional.
This means you are in charge of your Self! Stopping your negative and limiting script, changing your dirty lens and owning your self, and choosing what you focus on and what pictures you put in your mind are ways of immediately changing how you feel. Go back to prior issues for a refresher on these if needed.
Sometimes it is a little challenging to take charge of our Self in this way… So, while you are getting used to this idea, getting good at taking charge of your internal world and making it work for you, there is another approach to add to your tool kit. Now this might sound really basic, but know that when applied strategically it can make a world of difference in your life and relationship.
The trick is to literally remove yourself from your immediate moment: You can stop a discussion or task and schedule it for later, and instead engage in a different activity to get your resourcefulness juices going again. These can be any proven feel good activity in your book… The key is to shift the moment, engage in an activity that makes you feel good.
When we feel good, we raise our vibrational frequency – it’s this simple! Feeling contentment, optimism, hopefulness, belief / positive expectation, freedom, enthusiasm, eagerness, passion, happiness, joy, compassion, appreciation, Love is in alignment with our Authentic Self…
The closer we get ourselves to these feelings, by whatever clean means, the closer we are to Being our Authentic Self… Please take a moment to digest and take this in. This is the moment of truth…
When we Are our Authentic Selves (Soul-ful…), have a high vibrational frequency, we create other high vibrational frequency experiences feeding a “healthy” reciprocal loop… Can you imagine hanging in this range consistently? What this means for the experiences in your life?
What this means for the type of relationship you can create, experience – immediately? It’s time to clean your energy and start enjoying the blossoms of your higher vibrational Self. Feel better, love better!
Complete the MetroRelationship ™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start experiencing the relationship you want.
Happy Cleaning!
~ Your MetroRelationship ™ Assignment
Pick 3 feel good activities, rituals, and treats to integrate into your week – book, schedule, and calendar them. Get any related materials or prepare spaces involved ahead of time. Make this a weekly ritual in and of itself!
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.
One characteristic satisfied and successful couples have in common is that they are part of each other’s lives.Duh-ah! I’m sure this does not come as a surprise. The trick though is how the partners are part of each other’s lives.
Partners have difficulties negotiating what this means to them and integrating a healthy approach to togetherness and couplehood. Their relating ranges from partners leading parallel lives where each barely knows what the other is up to and is minimally involved in the other’s activities, pursuits and processes to being completely enmeshed in each other’s world where there is little space for uniqueness, originality, and authentic selfhood.
The extent the relationship is characterized by these interactions impacts the resiliency of the partnership. This relating poses a danger to the couple as it extinguishes the sparks between the partners rendering them passionless.
Couples with no passion express dissatisfaction, lack of intimacy and connection and tend to feel dead in their relationship [Disengaged relational style], have a very conflictual relationship (misguided passion!) [Conflictual relational style], and/or become great friends (friendship is nice but not enough…) [Enmeshed relational style].
In any case, they are at risk. These couples usually do not fare well. The space between them is too great to bare, the conflict is too painful, and/or their interactions are too tedious and boring!
Continuing with such dynamics leads to inertia in the relationship, while it lasts…, and in the partners’ lives. This is how people get stuck and are generally unhappy.
The opposite is also true. When partners find a balance between togetherness and separateness, of being a couple while holding on to their individuality, when they create a true partnership where they get to explore, integrate and express their whole self, they are then able to engender passion and tap into the synergy intrinsic to couples.
Thus the couple is able to have a satisfying and successful relationship, create and contribute to our universe, live their life and be truly alive. The goal of our humanness…
Happy Balancing!!
~ Your MetroRelationship ™Assignment
Identify what is your style [or combination of styles] of relating: Disengaged, Conflictual or Enmeshed. Discuss with your partner the impact your style is having on your relationship and your lives.
Examine the contribution of your behaviors, activities and commitment to your style and their overall value in your life. Brainstorm and explore ideas of what to add to your repertoire that addresses your level of togetherness and individuality. Pick two ideas to integrate into your lives and do it now!
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.
You might not have a chance if you keep this up: A tendency to look for weaknesses, gaps, holes, things to improve, deficiencies and the like, and miss the boat on capitalizing on strengths in your relationship. We bring this tendency to how we view our partner and how we relate with them. We look for their shortcomings, what they forget to do, what they could do better, and what else they can do for us. We use a lack and negative expectations lens. We filter our experience to prove our negative expectations. We expect our partner to fail before they even try.
It is imperative that we stop using this destructive lens and reprogram our thinking. When partners struggle in their relationship, they usually have a proclivity for assuming the worst about their partner’s motives and how they feel. They sell themselves short believing their partner does not like them or care about them, then go about relating from this perspective…
Can you imagine how differently you’d relate if you believed you are cherished as opposed to hated? You’d be a lot more open and giving, and a lot less defensive and mean.
It is imperative that we give our partner the benefit of the doubt, the opportunity to show us their greatness, and take a risk letting them show us their love and care. I know it is challenging to do this, especially when our partner has been operating with defense mechanisms, which are usually hurtful to us. But they can’t give us something different if we don’t give them the chance.
I encourage partners to do Appreciations to start reprogramming this undermining habit. This forces them to focus on the positives in their partner, interactions and relationship. They get to search, find and acknowledge their partner’s good qualities, efforts and investments. This shift in focus assists in rewiring the brain, creating a different brain circuitry, which allows a different experience to emerge…
Learning to focus on the positive and things we is an essential skill. It engages the gratitude center of the brain, which cannot be in a state of gratitude and a state of fear at the same time. We usually operate from a fear state that is driven by egotistical thoughts… It is time to make a concerted effort at operating from a gratitude state. This means operating from an appreciation and abundant position that is driven by Loving and accepting thoughts…
We are not our mind… We do have control over our thoughts… We get into trouble when we overly identify with our mind. We don’t realize that our mind is just a tool for Self expression, that we don’t use well at that. We create incessant noise with our negative thinking, ugly pictures and low or unrealistic expectations. We end up creating an unsatisfying self-fulfilling prophecy and prevent our self from Being! It is time to properly engage your mind.
Take charge of what you think, what scripts you run, how you interpret things, what meaning you assign, and what pictures you conjure.
Remember that what we focus on perseveres, what we imagine we create, and what we expect we get. Create the most outrageous vision of your most fabulous relationship, and then carry on as if it already is… The more adept you get at engaging your mind the more wonderful your life and relationship are.
Happy Conjuring!
~ Your MetroRelationship ™Assignment
Let’s do better with focusing on the good and new…
Pay attention to the things you like throughout the day
Focus on the qualities you are attracted to in your partner
Identify your partner’s strengths and how they make your life better
Notice anything new your partner is trying to implement, any efforts put forth and any nurturing gestures (focus ONLY on what is, NOT what is not!)
Observe how you allow the good to come to you and how you are able to receive the good that is given…
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.
Our relationship is one of the biggest, most powerful asset and gift we have in our life! It is a true treasure chest worth a fortune. It can deliver unimaginable heights of satisfaction, peace, joy, love, happiness and success!!
To cash-in on this fortune we have to polish the gems on the rough, the hidden treasures.
Hidden Treasure #1 – Potential to Heal:
One of the unconscious reasons we are attracted to our partner is their ability to trigger us, get under our skin, believe it or not! They trigger us because the way they treat us and relate to us makes us feel at a deep level the same way we did growing up when our parents behaved in ways that bother (hurt) us. History is repeating itself. We replicate patterns in our lives.
To heal we have to break this pattern and get from our partner a different outcome than usual to our disagreements and treatment that meets our needs. This mends our wounds.
When we operate from a place of being healed, we are no longer as reactionary, triggerable, and raw. This allows us to relate with our partner from a more conscious and available place creating satisfying encounters. Also, we have our emotional and mental resources ready for use in more productive and fruitful endeavors!
Hidden Treasure #2 – Potential to Grow:
The other unconscious reason we are attracted to our partner is their appearing to be similar to us but also very different. They may seem down right opposite us!! They are messy, we are neat freaks. They are social butterflies, we like isolation. We need to talk about everything, they don’t want to talk about anything. Etc.
We are unconsciously attracted to this seemingly opposite person and their characteristics and coping mechanisms because these constitute parts of ourselves and ways that we are not aware of and in touch with and thus in our partnership we become whole and complete.
To actually become whole and complete, we have to grow, we have to learn from our partner’s oppositeness and start getting in touch with and owning the different parts of ourselves that we have denied, lost, and hidden.
When we operate from a more complete and integrated self, we have access to different characteristics, coping mechanisms and parts of ourselves that bring forth a full and aware self to engage in relating, thus eliminating friction and tension idiosyncratic to operating from a fragmented self. An aware and integrated self make us more resilient and adept in our relationship and life!
Hidden Treasure #3 – Potential to Create:
Borrowing from evolutionary theory, we partner up to procreate and ensure survival of our species. In our more advanced times, where our lives do not just revolve around ensuring basic survival, this concept can be taken a step further to include how well we procreate and what do we do in our lifetime to ensure the survival of future generations.
This includes first creating a healthy, nurturing and happy family where children can be raised into differentiated, happy, healthy, well-functioning, and contributing members of our society. And, second, tapping into our partnership synergy so that we can be real contributing members of our society.
Our partnership’ inherent synergy is a fabulous resource to assist in these processes. When tapped and focused it generates energy, flow and momentum for the couple that assists and promotes the achievement of anything the partners set their mind to! The sky is their limit!!
Our relationship is a gift that usually goes unwrapped! It is a wasted and essential resource necessary for our wellbeing and success. We need our relationship to heal, grow and create successfully, and we have it right there for our capitalizing! All we have to do is polish those gems!
Happy Polishing!!!
~ Your MetroRelationship ™ Assignment
Figure out how your partner makes you feel the negative feels you had growing up. You might have to go deep to figure out these feelings and the connection. Go easy on yourself, this is difficult stuff. Then share this new found insight with your partner from a non-blaming position asking them to just hear you out.
Finally, give your partner two specific behavior changes they can choose one from to do providing you with a different outcome than the usual and thus healing you. Make sure the choices you give meet your needs.
Copyright (c) 2016 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
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Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT has been in the mental health profession in varying capacities for the past 20+ years. She is the Founder and Director of metrorelationship.com a psychotherapy and coaching practice specializing in working with busy professional and entrepreneurial couples who are struggling getting on the same page and feeling connected. The work helps couples create a radiant and successful relationship and meaningful life by becoming a strong partnership and increasing their connection, intimacy, and fun. Emma is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Relationship Strategy™.
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