It is not uncommon for us to become so tunnel vision in our experience that we miss the forest for the tree. We focus on what’s not working, how we’ve been wronged, what we don’t like, how much we have to do, and all the miseries of life.
We tend to overwork, neglect ourselves and our loved ones. We are far from living our Best Life and creating our Best Relationship… We can focus and work differently instead… And, we can implement pleasure and delight habits…
Why pleasure and delight habits? Great question. As I’ve been embracing the concept of doing my life with more Ease, these have been coming up… And, how glorious they are! They simply make life easier and more enjoyable… They profoundly add to creating our best life and relationship…
Now, I’m not talking about debauchery, far from it. I’m talking about creating space, grace and inspired flow in our daily routine. I’m talking about being gentle and compassionate with ourselves, and others. And, of course, I’m talking about enjoying simple pleasures.
It costs almost nothing to meditate, savor clean food, drink water, enjoy herbal teas, play with our pet, frolic in nature, witness a sunset, star gaze, take a bath, read a good book, be moved by music and such.
It definitely costs nothing to be present in a conversation and bask in the interaction with a loved one, and even a stranger.
And better yet, it really does cost nothing to do things we know will Delight our partner…
Watch the Video to learn more and complete the Assignment below!
ASSIGNMENT: Embrace this opportunity for more pleasure and delight in your life…
Clean up your daily routine. Reclaim and own your time! Get rid of time wasters. Make sure you have focus, transition and Free time.
Add a daily Simple Pleasure habit
Add a daily Delight Partner habit
Implement a Habits Tracking System as what you measure improves…
As with anything, when you bring consciousness, focus and attention to something, Awesomeness happens. I wish this for you in your life and your relationship.
Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…
Copyright (c) 2021 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 the Successful Couple Strategy™ that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly connection notes in your inbox with Personal Development and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com
The conversation continues on having a refresh and reset, a renewal, on creating a new beginning, and on getting traction on our relationship and life transformation… Are you ready for newness? Let’s do it! To get traction with the new, we have to get rid of the old… Your new beginning needs a communication cleanse to set the right tone for the awesomeness that’s to come.
Today we’ll focus on how to clean up how you communicate in your relationship. I recently wrote about Communication Roadblocks that get in the way of your Radiant and Successful Relationship.
Let’s make it our business to remove these from our interactions. Let’s do a communication cleanse. But let’s make sure this is not just a quick cleanse but a new way of showing up to our relationship and interactions with our partner (and other loves ones!) going forward.
Here is the list of The Dirty Dozen of Communication. These are roadblocks to communication, to getting on the same page and aligning in your relationship.
Addressing needs or concerns when triggered
Using electronic devices as modes of communication
Addressing issues on the fly
Starting conversations when not in a good state
Disregarding good communication skills and tools
Forcing conversations
Not really listening, paying attention or taking in the other
Not having personal accountability and ownership
Track-jumping and messy content
Making a federal case
Being aggressive in speech, attitude or behavior
Patronizing in some form…
When we are not mindful and intentional of how we show up and how we interact with our partner, and others, we are bound to be messy in that exchange. We might be going about our business and just being ourselves, when we realize that an exchange is not going well. That we are showing up with The Dirty Dozen of Communication.
At that point the damage has been done and now the rest of the exchange needs to tend to it. What happens a lot of times is that partners are not even aware that the exchange is starting to go south, and they keep on going. They end up doing more damage.
Or they are stubborn. They realize the exchange is not going well, and they try to regroup without changing their approach! In this case they also end up doing more damage.
This observation doesn’t mean that we can’t let our hair down, be spontaneous or be ourselves… In the contrary, this observation points out that we are showing up with our messy, unintentional, defense ridden, not conscious self… We are showing up with our Small Self…
Instead, when we connect first with our Big Self, our Authentic Self, our Higher Self, we then automatically go into an interaction with more grace, mindfulness, intentionality, respect, acceptance, understanding, and other good stuff.
Communicating well doesn’t have to be that challenging:
The first order of business is to connect and align with ourselves first… From here the rest is much easier…
The next order of business is to avoid doing The Dirty Dozen of Communication.
This 3-Step Approach to Great Communication is the key for preventing fights, easily getting on the same page and for aligning with each other.
To honor our current refresh, reset and renew theme let’s target Step 2 and be super proactive about removing Communication Roadblocks still present in our interactions.
Your new beginning needs a communication cleanse to set the right tone for the awesomeness that’s to come. Cleanse your communication of the pesky behaviors that undermine your relationship.
ASSIGNMENT: Let’s make a dent in cleansing your communication style!
Select 5 Communication Roadblocks from The Dirty Dozen of Communication list to target and purge from your interactions.
Set a weekly reminder on your phone to check yourself on these so they don’t make their way back…
Keep targeting the other Dirty Dozen until they are all gone…
Stay intentional about not allowing them back!
As with anything, when you bring consciousness, focus and attention to something, Awesomeness happens. I wish this for you in your life and your relationship.
Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…
Copyright (c) 2021 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 the Successful Couple Strategy™ that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly connection notes in your inbox with Personal Development and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com
New beginnings are super exciting, and this new season promises nothing less. Not only is it a new season, but it is also Springtime when things come alive. And, this Spring is meaningful as it marks a one-year anniversary of the still ongoing global pandemic but with it hope as the vaccine is being distributed. Newness is in the air. This is the perfect time for a relationship refresh and reset.
What is a relationship refresh and reset? A relationship refresh and reset is a time for renewal. It’s a time for starting again with a shift from:
looking at your partner and relationship in the same old that is keeping things blah to seeing the possibilities…
feeling stuck, stagnant and bored to feeling excited and in love again…
neglecting or taking the relationship and partner for granted to moving them to the top of your priority list…
It’s a time for embracing newness by showering your partner with positive energy and approaching your relationship from a different angle…
The past of couple articles covered detoxing and spring cleaning to clear the way for new beginnings. And, envisioning your upleveled relationship and life to guide the way. Now we’ll cover how to create the newness…
We’ll cover how to shift your thoughts, your feelings and your behaviors.
Are you ready to refresh and reset your relationship? Are you ready to embrace and create newness? Are you ready for your new beginning?
Watch the Video to learn how and complete the Assignment below!
ASSIGNMENT: Select the area that needs the most attention you want to focus on transforming:
Thoughts – Embracing a Relationship Enrichment (you are allies on a joint journey) mindset
Feelings – Embracing a gratitude, generous and compassionate heartset
Behaviors – Embracing a nurturing, attentive, and engaging actionset
Create 3 daily habits around your chosen area to get serious traction towards transforming your relationship.
As with anything, when you bring consciousness, focus and attention to something, Awesomeness happens. I wish this for you in your life and your relationship.
Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…
Copyright (c) 2021 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 the Successful Couple Strategy™ that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly connection notes in your inbox with Personal Development and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com
Springtime is a time for renewal and New Beginnings… It is an opportunity to start fresh again. It is a time to refresh, course correct and reset. All changes in season and any new start, provide the opportunity for New Beginnings… Spring is special in this endeavor as the newness is so obvious with nature springing back to life… There is momentum in this… This is your chance to spring to a new level in your relationship and life…
Does that sound scary, or empowering and motivating to you? Taking full ownership and being fully accountable for what we create in our life can be scary. It might seem easier to stick our head in the sand, to blame others or circumstances, and to settle than to play full out.
The truth is that when we live our life with lack of full ownership, our life is actually more challenging and more painful…
It is not easy to:
Constantly be blown with the wind and with the whim of others
Let others dictate our fate and live an unfulfilled life
Live inauthentically for fear of judgement, criticism and rejection
Commit, show up and engage only 99%, allowing for waffling
Own our voice, our truth, our desires and our potential
Express all of ourselves
Shine our Radiance
I invite you to play full out! But to do that you need to know yourself, own yourself and apply yourself. Are you ready for that?
You might even be scared to say Yes… If this is you, no worries we are here to support you. We’ll go nice and easy, yet powerfully, so you can stick with us and honor your Journey…
The first thing to do is to start getting in touch with what you want your life to be like, truly… No hedging, no lip service, no settling, no excuses. If nothing mattered but to create the life you desired, what would it look like?
What would your life look like, if your life depended on it…?
This means really exploring your desires for the whole of your life… This means being curious, thinking deeply, visualizing and meditating on what is really in your heart and soul…
Make some time to be with yourself and to really play, explore and dream about these. We are taking this concept beyond identifying your Ideal Day and accumulating Ideal Days to create your Best Life. That is a hack to get you going and to get you on your right path…
Now, we are going for creating our Best Life 2.0!
The 8 Robust Life Areas™
Break down your life into specific Life Areas and flesh out what you desire in each.
If we are not ok as a couple, everything in our life suffers… If we create a radiant and successful relationship then everything else in our life is easier… Everything in our life depends on it…
Visioning Your Best Relationship…
The relationship with our partner is one of the most important relationships in our life. Unfortunately, we usually don’t view it and treat it as such.
To create your Best Relationship, you first have to know what your Best Relationship would look like… Then you can go about creating it.
Below is a guide for things to consider when envisioning and designing your Best Relationship. They are of course presented as the 5 Elements of the Successful Couple Strategy™ developed to assist couples create the relationship they desire…
Element1 – Context & Mindset
Here is where you explore what you believe about attracting your mate, being in a romantic relationship, the purpose of the relationship, commitment, trust, devotion and loyalty, priorities, partnership, expectations, interdependence, synergy, contribution, impact and anything else important to you.
What would a Relationship Enrichment Lifestyle look like for you? What would prioritizing your partner look like for you? What would being all in look like for you…?
Element2 – Communication & Alignment
Here is where you explore what being on the same page with your partner would look and feel like. You’d explore beliefs and preferences about communication and being aligned. And, on what topics you would want to get on the same page.
How would communication take place? How would you safeguard your bond and eliminate communication roadblocks? What communication skills and tools would you acquire?
Element3 – Clarity & Dynamics
Here is where you explore what you believe and understand about relationship dynamics, repeating patterns, and getting stuck. And what kind of relationship dynamics you’d prefer. You’d also explore your beliefs about feelings, emotions, and needs. Including thoughts about worthiness and self-esteem, vulnerability and shame, sympathy and compassion.
How would you build resilience and increase self-esteem? How would you increase your EQ? How would you meet your own and each other’s needs?
Element4 – Connection & Intimacy
Here is where you explore what you believe about and your preferences for togetherness vs separateness, connection, love, bond, masculinity and femininity, romance, sensuality, attraction, desire, passion, intimacy, sexuality, stimulation, play, fun, adventure, and friendship.
How would you increase your connection, intimacy and fun? How would you need to Be to experience a deep, synergistic long-lasting love? How do you need to stretch to allow the love you want?
Element5 – Collaboration & Partnership
Here is where you explore what Life Partnership, creating a Strong Partnership, and collaborating mean to you. You’ll explore what kind of family and life you want to create. How you’d want to be a strong partnership. How you want to design and approach creating the life you desire.
How do you want to run your business of life? What kind of parents do you want to be? How do you want to live your life? What kind of lifestyle do you want to have? What kind of legacy you want to leave?
By reading the above, you are already ahead of the game… You can’t unread it and unearth the seeds planted… Your brain already has the instructions to take stock of your life, and your relationship; and, to strive for more…
You’ll start picking up momentum and getting massive traction in your transformation by:
Exploring what’s informing your current experience in your relationship
Exploring what kind of relationship you desire
Consciously and intentionally choosing how to create your Best Relationship
It all starts with a Vision. That’s what you are doing today. You are fleshing out and owning how you truly want your relationship to be. This is the first step in making it happen…
ASSIGNMENT: Choose the approach that best resonates for you at this time, playing with:
The 8 Robust Life Areas™
The 3 Life Areas Hack™
Visioning Your Best Relationship™ using the 5 Elements of the Successful Couple Strategy™
The mere exercise of bringing light to these will start you on your transformation…
As with anything, when you bring consciousness, focus and attention to something, Awesomeness happens. I wish this for you in your life and your relationship.
Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…
Copyright (c) 2021 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 the Successful Couple Strategy™ that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly connection notes in your inbox with Personal Development and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com
Spring is almost here. Yay! Do you know what that means? It means it’s time to get ready for New Beginnings… As everything in nature will slowly be coming back to life and starting anew, so can we. We can take this opportunity to come Alive, to engage more with our life, to create new beginnings, to reset, to recharge… We can start anew in any area of our life we choose. The best way to start anew is with a good detox and spring clean!
We can’t build on rubble. We have to clear the site first, then we need to establish a strong foundation, then we build the structure, and then we fill in the details and finally we make it pretty. We have to do the same thing in our life. This is how we keep upleveling our life, and creating our Best Life…
A good detox and spring clean help us to get rid of any rubble, clutter, toxicity, excess and no longer desired elements we accumulated since our last reset. This allows us to start fresh so we can update or create a new vision to serve as our guiding star as we go about creating the life we desire. This includes our relationship of course…
Clearing the way creates space for the new. This concept is applicable to all areas of life… This is what allows us to have a New Beginning… It’s a best practice to do this every so often to keep our life fresh and always evolving…
So, today’s focus is to do a super good job at really clearing the no longer needed or desired… This is where you get to put on your big person’s pants and roll up your sleeves. The work you put in now will determine what you are able to design and create afterwards…
This is a great exercise to do amidst/post the deconstructing we’ve been doing in our current Pandemic laden world…
Here is to a good cleaning, with ease and compassion…
A Deep Scrub is in Order
Oh boy, I love me a good scrub! LOL Hey, I have written a few posts directly related to this topic already. Check some of them below for additional inspiration, guidance and assignments to help you along. And I’m ongoingly encouraging to keep things simple, to clear the decks and to streamline…
But, today has the focus of clearing as part of deconstructing and continuing to create our New World, including our New Marriage/Relationship… Buckle your seatbelt!
1- Rubble
I’m sure you’ve experienced some kind of a pivot, regrouping or upside-down-life as a result of the ongoing Global Pandemic we are living through. There have been many challenges associated with it, but also tremendous opportunity to course correct and Align with the life we are meant to live…
What rubble has the pivoting, regrouping and being upside-down created in your life? There might be very practical and material items, or more ideological and esoteric items. Like having moved, let go of office space or closed down businesses, and like time splitting between homes, home schooling, and online educating are children.
What stuff have your changes and impact created that might still be sitting there and needs to be cleaned out to free up energy, space and time…?
2- Clutter
As we continue to exist in this semi lockdown world and are still spending a lot of time at home in close quarters with our loved ones. Including doing a lot more of our life from home – kids and other activities, receiving services, etc.
Therefore, we are bound to have more chores and maintenance to do to keep up with our living environment. It is super easy to have stuff around us pile up if we are not intentional about our routines and keeping things tidy and streamlined.
The transition times we used to have to shift focus and help us manage and create our lives are a lot blurrier – days run into evenings, and weekdays run into weekends, and seasons run into the upcoming seasons.
Without these delineations we are bound to get sloppy and not mind routines and their related upkeep as much, creating a build-up of stuff that impinge on our wellbeing… What part of your routine or lifestyle needs more delineation and what build up do you have to clear out?
3- Toxicity
Here is a doozy. Unless you’ve taking up a focus on Personal Development as part of your strategy for Deconstruction-Reconstructing and Thriving as a result of this Pandemic Experience, most likely you’ve indulged during this time…
This means that you might be watching more TV, spending more time on social media, eating more take out, doing more snacking, drinking more, and so on…
Take stock of how you’ve been managing your life and where you have let yourself go that is creating a toxic build up… What is off about your wellbeing, your relationship/s and your life that can benefit from a detox?
Are you gaining weight? Are your hormones off? Are you experiencing other health issues? Is your sleep compromised? Are your mood and mental health at risk? Are you at odds with your loved ones and other people in your life?
4- Excess
This can go both ways… This can go towards over spending, indulging, doing and functioning, and towards taking unnecessary risks, to being frugal, depriving, bumming around, and being super cautious… Either extreme doesn’t serve us.
In either case we are having a reaction and overdoing the side we chose. We might have aspects of both sides, but they are still extreme in nature and therefore create an imbalance…
Take a look at how your approach is impacting your life and your wellbeing… What are you doing to extreme that is creating frustration and pain in your life?
5- Undesirables
I’m fascinated by the impact our current global situation is having on so many institutions and the world structure at large. I realize some are more aware of it than others, and that people have different value systems around everything that is happening.
Regardless of where you stand, take a step back and look at the big picture and its impact on your life philosophy… Take a look at how you view the institutions in your life, how you promote them and the impact they have in your life, and the world at large…
What lens, believes, scripts, approach, and habits have become outdated in your life that are now holding you back from living your Best Life?
Giving these 5 categories a serious review for any clearing and detoxing needed is incredibly powerful. Shedding light on anything we do unconsciously, out of habit, in reaction to and such is a massive exercise in personal ownership and self-empowerment.
Once you get the lay of your land, the next step is to do the clearing and detoxing… As you tackle this, watch the surge in energy, opportunities and lightness return to your life… This is good stuff, don’t cheat yourself of this Gift by taking the lazy way out…
ASSIGNMENT: Select the category that is the messiest and tackle it with gusto. Determine what is needed to free you up to uplevel yourself, your relationship and your life… What is sucking up your energy that could otherwise be better invested in your life and relationship/s?
Do you need to set time to tackle the remnants of a pivot?
Do you need to take a weekend to clean your house from top to bottom?
Do you need to upgrade your routines and habits?
Do you need to have a food or substance, screen-time, social media, technology, or other detox?
Do you need to clean up your mindset about your coping and life approach?
As with anything where we focus our attention energy goes, let’s focus positively and have our energy flow. Let’s remove roadblocks and energy sucks so that we can better invest them in creating our Best Self, Best Relationship and Best Life… We’ll be tackling these in the coming weeks to embrace New Beginnings. So get ready!
Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…
Copyright (c) 2021 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 the Successful Couple Strategy™ that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly connection notes in your inbox with Personal Development and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com
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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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