We are in charge of how we choose to experience our life moments, and what we choose to do with them… This is a choice we can make about anything, at any time… Even in the face of trouble, chaos, crisis, and anything that we would usually consider negative life events. It’s all about the meaning we assign things… How we let them impact us… And, how we choose to address them…
The same goes for when others around us are having a moment… If they are spinning, we don’t have to spin with them… If they are feeling blue, cranky or mad, we don’t have to take on their feelings… If they are stressed, we don’t have to fix their stress… If they are ambivalent, we can stand in our Knowing…
We can have our feelings and experiences independently of others’. We can also choose to safeguard our wellbeing when those around us start to influence or impact us with their negative state. It’s not super easy to always stand still and not get sucked in…
It’s in our, and in our loved ones’, best interest to learn how to not get sucked in… I’ve had several sessions, and other experiences, recently where this was a prevalent theme. Partners get sucked into their partner’s mood, reactivity, and script allowing themselves, their emotional state, to be hijacked…
It’s already bad enough that we co-create our current patterns, our relationship dynamic, playing-out our unresolved issues so we have another go at them. It’s imperative we exercise more personal boundaries, self-soothing and regulating, and self-management to not take the bait and get hijacked. Consequently, this is also essential for changing the patterns themselves…
When you don’t take charge of your side of things and jump into the mud with the other, you perpetuate the negativity, collude with their perspective, entrench the limiting mindset, and create a life story riddled with dissatisfaction… You end up creating a mediocre life!
Jumping in the mud with them – trying to fix their issue, trying to make them feel better, trying to show them a different way, trying to rescue the moment and the like are all signs of Loving TOO Much… We can’t save people from themselves. They can only do this…
For when we fix things for them, we prevent them from experiencing the motivating pain, accessing their own resources, figuring it out, and possibly hitting the necessary rock bottom that would lead to the Light…
We have to be mindful not to get in their way. And, we have to be mindful not to get in our own way… When we take care of another in this way, we don’t take care of ourselves… Nobody wins!
Don’t take the bait. Don’t get on anyone’s ride. Focus on standing still. Reap the rewards!
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 Standing!
~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment
Take stock of when your interactions tend to go south in your relationship: before work, upon getting home, dinner, evening routine, bed time, Friday night, a particular time during the weekend, Sunday night, when food shopping, in the car, at weddings, at events, at in-laws’, etc.
See if you can identify a pattern as to when, and as a theme as to what about…
Do something to mitigate the when. Do something to address the what.
Add this to your Tool Kit…
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.
As we continue to settle into September, Back-to-School and the Hectic/Q4 Season, it is paramount that we are in tip top shape to handle the demands and opportunities of the Season. We all have different expectations for ourselves, our relationships, our family, our home, and our business.
We all have different ambitions, wishes, and dreams. We all have different definitions of what being in tip top shape means as well. But most importantly, we all have different motivation, energy, resources, skills, support and such. We are our own worst enemy and usually hold ourselves back if we are not intentional about our approach to our life…
In your quest to get yourself in better shape to gracefully and joyfully navigate the Season, you might want to address and clear feelings that might be driving and glitching your “operating system”…
Some of these feelings include: guilt, shame, anger, resentment, rejection, loneliness, abandonment, sadness and grief. The energy generated by these feelings course through our body and inform our state. They even lodge themselves in our body when left unprocessed. This causes the body to function poorly and eventually break down, causing dis-ease (ungraceful aging and a shorter life-span to boot!)…
The issue with this is that it’s not as simple as getting over the feeling… Our thinking patterns keep generating the same feelings over and over!
Our thinking habit is the culprit. The way we choose to interpret the events in our life, the way we give up are personal power, the way we allow others to take advantage of us, the way we allow others to take us for granted, the way we plow through inconsiderate of others and the like, all generate feelings that we don’t process or address properly.
A lot of times we are aware of the feelings but continue to go about our situation the same old way in the pursuit of resolution. The same approach will always create the same result! So, unless we are proactive, intentional and mindful in our attempt to take care of ourselves and do right in our life, not much will change. If we have lofty dreams, they might go unrealized… And, what a shame that would be!
When we are habitually angry and resentful – we are the only ones hurting with our insistence of holding on to these feelings! This habitual state of being means you are processing your world with a victim, poor me, I don’t matter and the like kind of lens that generates these feelings. This lens needs cleaning and your boundaries need reinforcing…
When we generate guilt and shame feelings we are filtering our life by beliefs that don’t serve us – guilt has to do with doing what we consider a good deed, shame has to do with what we consider being a good (worthy) person… We might have all sorts of funky beliefs driving these… We need to set clearer and more compassionate expectations… Also, we might be great at guilting and shaming others. Ugh! Clean this up immediately.
We don’t want this done to us, so why would we do it to others. Through mirror neurons, what we do to others we also are actually doing to ourselves… Stopping this relational habit is the quickest way to start cleaning up the negative related energy running through our bodies…
Rejection, loneliness and abandonment are similar to anger and resentment. We can choose how we perceive the event, and most importantly how much meaning and power we give to it… We can also go about getting connection, belonging, and acceptance needs met differently than how we are expecting them to be met currently that is dissatisfying…
Sadness and grief usually follow a loss of some sort. Sometimes the loss is not so obvious, or what we traditionally would consider a loss… These include things like – loss of childhood, youth, success, progress, outcome / certain experience, what was, what could have been, etc. Transition periods cause this inherently, even when the transitions are positive.
Here our role is to honor the feeling. Rituals, traditions, processes, and the like are excellent for relieving this.
It is imperative to make sure we are in tip top shape to smoothly, effectively and productively tackle our Autumn Agenda. Addressing our feelings and our habitual feeling state is a must to get out of our own way, and ensure a peaceful, delightful and rewarding Season. Minding our feelings clears the way for a better way of Being and an enriched life. Go ahead, you’ll be super happy you did!
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
Identify what is your habitual way of feeling…
Anger, resentment
Guilt, shame
Rejection, loneliness, abandonment
Sadness, grief
Start cleaning up your lens/script/beliefs, how you interpret events, how you allow events to impact you, how you choose to feel, how you choose to respond, how you are proactive about addressing your circumstances…
These feelings are your friend. They guide you to where you need to make 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’m so thrilled to be with you right now as our awareness comes together in this moment in time. Isn’t it amazing that we can be together even when we are not together in the old-fashion-physical-traditional way?
How are you feeling? How are you doing? How are things going? What is new and fabulous in your life? Even that terrific cup of coffee you had this morning makes the cut to answer this question… Find the yummy even when all seems bleak…
At this end, I’m over the moon excited as we are putting finishing touches on yet another milestone project in the Practice. We are going completely paperless! This is huge for me, as I’m a creative type that needs to see it and touch it… I use major platforms to work and collaborate yet have my daily to-do and follow up items on a sticky pad.
If you hang with me, you’ve seen it! LOL Regardless, our records and related processes are finally catching up with rest of Us! Woohoo, happy dance!
This is so extremely freeing. I feel I can finally cut the rope to this massive boulder I’ve been dragging along. Phew! It’s interesting the things we tolerate in our life without realizing how they impact us… As we’ve been transitioning to our new electronic record, case management and client care platform I realize how much nonsense and minutiae backend work we’ve been doing.
As I like to cross my T’s and dot my I’s, and as I’m immensely conscientious, I’ve managed to create a nightmare of this. As we would anytime we shoot for perfection… But, as I continue on my own growth Journey every aspect of my life is becoming Lighter…
We set up our lives to protect ourselves and indulge our perceived limitations… We carry along boulders of all sizes as security blankets, and we work hard at carrying them!
We construct paradigms that are expensive to our lives. Imagine how much more fluid, creative and innovative we could be without these. Imagine how much freer, lighter and joyous our life could be… Imagine what an incredible life you’d Mastermind if fear wasn’t the order of the day… The Universe is literally the limit…
So, it’s time to assess our life and recognize what we’ve been tolerating. What boulders we’ve constructed and insist on carrying along. What box or closet we keep choosing to live in. What limiting beliefs we refuse to clean up.
It’s time we recognize how we’ve created bondage for ourselves. How we’ve imprisoned ourselves and disconnected ourselves from all that’s Good. How we hold ourselves back from the relationship(s) and life we truly desire. It’s time to think outside the box, better, bigger. It’s time to Transcend minutiae and fear… It’s time to let go. It’s time to Trust. It’s time to Live. It’s time to Shine.
What boulder have you created in your life that is dampening your Brilliance? That is keeping you small. That is holding you back. That doesn’t serve you, your loved ones and the world… Whatever is coming up for you might really shake you… Be gentle, accepting and loving towards yourself.
Recognize that you are Amazing and all you have to do is Connect with that… How about it? Try connecting with your Awesomeness, and start deconstructing and letting go of your boulder…
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 Liberating!
~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment
Address your biggest time suck or pain in your life.
Gently put a system in place to eradicate this obstacle…
Take your time, think it through, implement intentionally and with lots of selfcare on the way…
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 am off this week for spring break, and in celebration of my birthday. Yep, took the week off to celebrate me. Ha! I learned a long time ago that I don’t prefer to work on my birthday and to honor that feeling. This goes for not working on my husband and daughter’s birthdays (seeing clients on those evenings).
So, I’ve had a week of pampering and working on personal projects and interests. So fun! This is one aspect of what I call “minding my business”, and love it.
Part of “minding our business” is owning our life, our personal experience. We Create this moment by moment… We have a choice in how we feel, what we eat, how we look, how healthy we are, how our house looks, how we relate to others, what we do, how we use our time, what we produce, how we use our finances, and everything else… It is our life and we are the creators of it, ALL of it…
We create our life with every single decision throughout the day:
What time we get up, do we meditate, do we exercise, do we eat nutritious foods, do we safe guard our work/productive time, do we have beauty in our surroundings, do we spend time in nature, do we connect with the influencers in our life, do we connect with our loved ones, do we stay connected with our Higher Self and our Spirituality, do we have healthy and efficient daily routines, do we have a gratitude practice?
It is very easy to blame our circumstances and the people in our life for not having the life we desire… It is very easy to react to everything during our day, as opposed to intentionally going about it… It is very easy to waste our time, our day, our life… We have to make every moment count!
And, making every moment count doesn’t mean a free for all and living it up, or being stuck in the grind and slaving ourselves. Making every moment count means we choose how we use it. We can choose to work, to volunteer, to play, to lie around, or anything we want… The creation is in the choosing… If you don’t see the choice, therein lies the first shift needed to create the life you want…
Everything is a choice. We make decisions based on our upbringing, script, programming, values, level of self-worth and self-esteem, skills, health, finances, personality, and such. But note, we actually have choices and options in these as well! ALL this is changeable… Even your upbringing… You can choose how you view it and how you let it impact you… Nothing is set in stone. You create YOU. You create your Life. You are the master of your business.
When we don’t mind our business, our business suffers… Our health, relationship, finances, home, work, all of it suffers. It is our Job to mind our Business. It is imperative that we take charge, own and mind our every moment. It is imperative that we create a life by design, that we choose what makes us happy, and that we focus on that pursuit. Living our life by default is not living our Life. It is wasting our life.
Another aspect of minding our business is not getting involved in other people’s business… This is harder for some to do than owning their own business! People love to have an opinion and worry/wonder about how others are doing, what they are doing, and how they are doing it.
They love to judge and measure. They are nosey. If they spend that energy minding their own business their life would be so much better… Any frustration we experience is because we are minding someone else’s business… We think on how they should be operating and contributing differently… This is none of our business!
If our needs are not met by how someone else is being, we have a choice in how we address that. Telling others how to be is not part of it. This is where partners get into trouble in their relationship. There are a lot of misconceptions around this. Even if you are married you can’t tell someone else how to Be!
I’m sorry if I’m ruffling your feathers. If you are troubled by this concept, you might need to polish up your boundaries… There are ways for both partners to be satisfied without either telling the other how to Be… You can co-create a life that works for you both and that honors each of you. The key is in minding your business…
What part of your life can use more owning, designing, tweaking? Where in your life do you need to back off? Enjoy minding your business!
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!
Copyright (c) 2020 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’m a therapist… I’m a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. I’m a Certified Imago Therapist (additional training in doing couples work). Hence, I specialize in working with couples. I’m often asked what’s my niche, what’s my thing… I specialize in working with codependent couples (partners having poor boundaries and self ownership…).
And, I further specialize in working with couples where apathy is ramped in their relationship. Where one partner is not involved, withdrawn, removed, difficult to engage, self absorbed and such. And, where the other partner is driven insane by this (not literally of course!).
This is the pattern that is so prevalent in couples. This is the pursuer-distancer dance.
Partners in this dance have a difficult time staying connected without loosing themselves… Therefore they strive for connection, but as soon as it gets too comfy they feel threatened. To deal with their unconscious fear, they pull their shenanigans that end up creating space for psychological, existential, safety.
The problem with this pattern is that the shenanigans and the space created are damaging to the relationship, the bond, respect for each other, and the self-esteem of the partners. This might create psychological safety, but this doesn’t meet our inherent need for connection and love. This is the gun we use to shoot ourselves on the foot. This is a disaster for relationships!
This is so damaging that when too pervasive it’s difficult to comeback from.
And, unfortunately, this is when couples come in for Couples Therapy… So, I want to do you a favor, and give you specifics about this pattern so you can catch it early and do something about it early before it’s too disruptive in your relationship. These are the characteristics I have identified in the Codependent Couple™ that create this debilitating dance:
The “I Don’t Give a *S—T” Partner – Underfunctioner in relationship, Minimizer (simplifies interactions/situations), Distancer (withdraws from interactions/situations), Rigid boundaries, Lets other take control / ownership / responsibility, Passive-aggressive …
Narrow range of emotions (shutdown), Narcissistic personality characteristics, Independent, “Me” oriented, Little access to memories, Needless / “clueless”, Dismissive, Left brain dominant (linear thinker, appears controlled / posed, reticent), usually Male
The “Oh, Poor Me” Partner – Overfunctioner in relationship, Maximizer (exaggerates interactions/situations), Pursuer (“hounds” in interactions/situations), Loose boundaries, Controlling of other / takes over / overly responsible, Manipulative …
The characteristics fall on a range. The couples that struggle the most are the most polarized.
Now, nothing is black and white and so clean cut in life. I’m sure there are characteristics in both groups that you can identify with. Please note, these do not define you! These are defense mechanisms, bad habits and lack of skills and tools… All of it can be changed!!
What I want you to do is to identify which group is more like you, most of the time, or in times of crisis, stress or transition. Once you identified your side. Your job is to become more moderate in the way you operate.
So, more specifically, your job is to pick one or two characteristics that get you the most in trouble, stuck, in your relationship and give it your all to moderate it. This is challenging as with any habit we try to change or any other self-growth or development endeavor we undertake. You’ll be out of your comfort zone for sure. But it is in this stretch that we heal, grow and evolve… And, how we create our awesome relationship to boot!
Remember to pick one or two to focus on. Don’t go overboard trying to change everything at once. You’ll only accomplish to trigger yourself and your partner (explanation beyond today’s writing), and to crash and burn! Instead, take baby steps in a massive way! To do this successfully:
Gratitude – Keep a Gratitude Practice™ where you stay in a state of appreciation through out the day (or as much as possible…). Your brain cannot physically be in a state of appreciation and fear at the same time…
Accountability – Share with others what you are trying to do and have them keep you accountable in a loving way.
Tracking – Keep a journal or other tracking of your feelings, experiences, impact, effects, results, etc.
Self-Care – Practice a lot of self-care to soothe your unconscious mind… You don’t want to undermine or sabotage your own efforts…
Reassurance – Your partner might become suspicious… Reassure them that you are investing in the relationship.
Support – Get support to help you see things differently so you can pursue operating differently, to learn the skills and tools you might need, to support your efforts, to cheerlead you, to help you tweak your investments for better results, and help you manage your Self…
Even if you are the only one changing the steps to the dance, the dance changes… As usual, focus on what you need to do to be the best you and the best partner, and you’ll soon be performing your best choreography yet! Complete the MetroRelationship™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start experiencing your awesome relationship, and Authentic Life… Happy Dancing!
~ Your MetroRelationship™Assignment
Ask your partner what they need from you this weekend. What would be a gesture, behavior, attitude, or such that would touch their heart? What is something they’ve been wanting from you that hasn’t happened yet, or could happen more? This is your chance to stretch…
For as soon as a partner is presented with such a question, you know you’ll be asked for something that is challenging for you to give… This is the beauty of our relationship. It’s a playground at the ready. Here we get to learn and practice new skills…
Go ahead, honor your commitment to yourself to heal, grow and evolve… Your partner is gifting you with the opportunity to stretch! Go about this respectfully, responsively, intentionally, and mindfully – no need to crash yourselves! 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.
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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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