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.
How badly do you want to have an awesome relationship with your partner? How committed are you to making the relationship work? Is failure an option? Do you have one foot out the door? I hear partners complain about how they want things to be different, but they don’t take any risks to change things. It makes sense that striving to create the relationship we want is scary, as this would entail Being in the relationship in very specific ways:
Being fully present and available.
Making our partner a priority.
Stretching to meet our partner’s needs.
Being patient, understanding, and compassionate.
Embracing our partner and their world.
Being vulnerable and showing up.
Bringing this way of being with our partner into our relationship takes a huge emotional risk and investment. For what if we are not accepted, wanted, embraced? What if what we give is not good enough? What if we are judged and rejected? What if we are left? What if in giving we lose ourselves? This is scary.
So instead we hide, protect ourselves, and beat on our partner in an effort to make them the partner we want. We make a full commitment to making our partner our ideal partner… We become obsessed with changing them, even if just in the running script in our minds…
The problem is that the obsession holds us back. I’m sure you know by now that you can’t change your partner. When the focus is misplaced this way we force our partner to operate in self-preservation mode, which is usually not pretty… We actually invite the worst of our partner. We end up shooting ourselves in the foot.
We choose this over the risk of operating from the more vulnerable, generous, and altruistic place. An unfortunate choice, as that is actually the gateway to our awesome relationship… Take note for how you invite the worst of your partner, for how you co-create the status quo of your relationship.
Now, don’t misunderstand this. I’m not implying you become a doormat or a punching bag. I’m simply suggesting you put aside the power struggle. You don’t have to have your way just to make a point. You don’t have to punish your partner. You don’t have to parent your partner or teach them a lesson. You don’t have to win or get your way.
You don’t have to be right. Relationships are not about all that. If this is your focus and want to stick with it, I promise you will not be happy nor create the relationship you want. Stop all this silly nonsense. Your digging in your heals in reaction to their reaction is making things worse. Know that you create a non-ending reciprocal pattern when you do this. It’s time to start somewhere and change this. It’s OK to give in, risk, and invest.
Embrace the concept that operating from an altruistic place does not mean or lead to your being cancelled, muted, non-existent, nullified, eliminated… Creating space for your partner to exist and thrive does not take away from who you are, or make you an idiot. It’s OK to be humble, to go with the flow, to Zen-wise detach.
Detach with love and investment. Make positive contributions in your interactions, repair, healing, enrichment, and growth of your relationship: Set appropriate boundaries (watch your delivery). Make responsible requests. Moderate your feelings. Make timely amends. Mindfully share your thoughts. Give generously. Do a lot of Self care.
When you take risks and invest you are empowering your Self and allowing your partner to exist. When your partner’s existence is not threatened, they can bring their best Self to the relationship. And, isn’t that what you wanted in the first place?
Become the ideal partner. Support your partner’s existence. Create safety for your partner to receive you. Invite your partner to be your ideal partner. Take matters into your own hands. Woo your partner in their love language. Go all out. No more hesitation, ambivalence, or holding back. Make a huge investment for a huge return. Go for your awesome relationship today!
Happy Investing!
~ 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.
People usually marry for love. A new phenomenon, only a couple of centuries old, in the history of the institution of marriage and in this culture. I say “usually” because sometimes people just get married because that is the thing to do, again speaking from today’s and this culture’s context.
But what people sometimes don’t realize is that in getting married they are entering a deeper partnership. Choosing to be in a long-term relationship / marriage, is one of life’s most important decisions. The influence of this partnership is infinite. This partnership can enhance each individual’s potential exponentially. How does the saying go? “The sum of the parts is greater than the whole.”
In our partnership we learn from our partner, we complement each other, we support each other, we work together, we collaborate, we brainstorm, we dream together, we synergize.
In our partnership we can heal ourselves and we can become whole. This is the “psycho-babble” part of this beautiful concept. The tangible piece is even more engrossing and awesome. In uniting efforts, resources, support, and dreams couples can truly achieve unimaginable riches (whatever “riches” might mean for the couple).
It’s incredible to me to see how partners hurt each other, undermine each other, hold each other back and wreck havoc in their relationship. It is incredible to me to see couples work against each other as opposed to together. They see and treat their partner as the enemy instead of the ally they truly are. They do not capitalize on the synergy inherent of the partnership.
These couples have unhappy and unsatisfying relationships and are stuck in their own personal growth and development. They are not advancing as they could. They are not living the life they want. They have not reached their fullest potential.
I have seen couples achieve the impossible. Couples can not only function as romantic partners but as life partners. How is your couple measuring up in terms of being “life partners”? What does being “life partners” mean to you? Is your definition limited to being together “’til death do as apart”?
Or, is your definition broader and includes ideas such as meeting each other’s needs, learning from each other, becoming whole, resolving repeating arguments, reaching agreements on conflicts, having joint goals and achieving them, having personal goals and achieving them, shooting for the moon, enjoying the journey, leaving a legacy, being excellent role models for your children and others, and anything you think belongs here?
Your relationship can be anything you want it to be and can help you live life to the fullest. It just requires two willing partners. Invite your partner to join you in creating a life long fantastic partnership!
Happy Life Partnering!!
~ Your MetroRelationship ™ Assignment
Share with your partner what you had envisioned for your life and invite them to do the same. Discuss how your visions are similar and how you can work together to achieve your dreams.
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.
When was the last time you were physically intimate with your partner? If you say a long time, you are not alone! A lot of couples share their sexual life is in the toilet. They struggle getting along, among other things, to the point that being physically intimate is the furthest thing from their mind. Getting along is a big priority for these couples. They experience a lot of fighting, a lot of distance or a rollercoaster of both.
The fighting can range from bickering, disagreeing, passive-aggressiveness to full blown screaming, degrading and even aggressive matches. Regardless of the intensity, these couples are in constant turmoil in their attempt to be seen, acknowledged, accepted and cherished. They feel as if walking on barbedwire. One client shared he felt as if his stomach was full of broken glass.
For some couples conflict is so intolerable that they just prefer to avoid each other… These partners experience a gripping black whole in their chest and a sense of dread when in disconnection with their partner. The partner that usually prefers to be in connection feels as if they are falling off a cliff, but both partners struggle with the gloominess and stagnation.
Part of the reason couples end up in this place is because they tend to focus on the negative. They assign negative motives to their partner. They insist on pointing fingers and being the expert in their relationship as opposed to being accountable for their own contribution to the situation. And, they love to point out their partner’s shortcomings. Being the recipient of this treatment just plain sucks.
When partners treat each other this way, they touch the other’s vulnerable, already hurt and tender parts. It’s like adding salt to injury… What they invite as a result is the other’s usual way of coping with hurt, their defense mechanism. As defense mechanisms get activated, partners revert to less resourceful, appropriate and honoring ways of interacting leading to additional injury. Partners live in this state of affairs.
Over time the damage is so compounded that it is difficult for them to make sense of what is happening and to see the possibility of being able to have the relationship they want. They feel stuck, hopeless and believe the only way to have a happier existence is to get the heck out. But I see couples come back from this hopeless state and create beautiful relationships. I know it’s possible, and with targeted investment I know it’s possible for you as well.
So, here is to getting started on making this possible for you!
I am CHALLENGING you to stop the usual running script in your head, the dirty thinking about how much your partner stinks. Stop the incessant negative internal, and external, observations and chatter about your partner’s faults. I want you to STOP IT NOW.
Catch yourself having your negative assumptions and assigning of motives. Catch yourself nitpicking and looking for the imperfections. Catch yourself examining how your partner didn’t keep their word, follow up, finish a task, nagged you, etc.
Catch yourself thinking how your partner should be different. Just plain STOP IT! I want you to go cold turkey, detox, and eradicate this cancer that is ruining your relationship, and your life.
Instead I want you to do the exact opposite. I want you to scour every interaction, behavior, conversation, gift, etc. for how awesome and fabulous your partner actually is. I want you to SEE your partner. I want you to stop futzing around and take investing in your relationship seriously.
It’s time to make the changes you want and to make a full on commitment to making this happen. No more excuses. No just trying. Not making it work and not having the relationship you want are no longer options. Say yes to this different focus, and get to it!
I can imagine you just got to that last sentence and you were ready to go, and then doubt and fear crept back in. And, then you did your usual, “but why should I if my partner…” STOP IT! Challenge the part of your self that can’t take in the possibility of something different.
Stop making it about how your partner needs to change and about how much they stink. Start being accountable for what you contribute to your situation and how you invite what you get… Start inviting something different…
Start focusing on what’s awesome about your partner and how they do try… Clean your thinking. Give your partner a break. Envision the possibilities. Open the door to them. Refocus your investment and enjoy your partner! Complete the MetroRelationship (sm) Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start experiencing the relationship you want.
Happy Refocusing!
~ Your MetroRelationship ™ Assignment
Every night this week before going to bed, tell your partner 3 things you appreciate or like about them – be descriptive and detailed, authentic, and generous in your observation and sharing.
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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