Back from our major trip, a lot of driving, and much sightseeing. The girls trip was conceived and designed by our daughter, Vanessa, with the goal of seeing major cities along the way. Our excursion took us down the East Coast to Jacksonville, FL, across to New Orleans, LA, up to Cleveland, OH, and back across to NJ.
With a few one-nighters along the way, a multiple-day stay in New Orleans, and the 4th of July in Nashville, we did 3,400 miles through 15 states and 13 cities. Woohoo! I feel very accomplished after this. LOL
The trip in itself wasn’t extremely long, but because of the driving exertion, suspension from the everyday, and hypnotic roads, I feel I’ve been away a very long time… It was quite an experience, lending itself to new perspectives, renewed energy and continued ZenBrain… One of many fun spots included visiting the Audubon Park in New Orleans. What a magical and inspiring spot…
I’m so grateful to find places like this on my Journey, whether through a road trip or around the corner. These are the types of places that suspend noise, judgement, resentment, shaming, and the like. These are the types of places that assist in our Reprogramming…
You might be aware that we go through life with our usual view of the world, our mindset and our scripts. These narratives and believes when played over and over continue the running of our programming. This is not a bad thing if we intentionally create positive narratives that serve us…
The problem is that our narratives are usually colored and influenced by well-meaning others operating from a less than inspired, guided and authentic place themselves… Narratives created by default and operating never having been cleaned up, or without ongoing tending, just perpetuate, actually worsen, our dissatisfying status quo.
They provide convoluted and defensive logic, negative reinforcements, and a downright sabotaging approach to life…
For us to have satisfying and successful relationships and a rewarding and meaningful life, we have to tend to our narrative. We have to clean up our view of the world, our beliefs, our meaning systems, our scripts, and our thought patterns. Leaving this untamed, dark, and dirty (like I like to say) is a dangerous way to live our life. We are pretty much signing off on having an unsatisfying experience at the end of the day…
This is why I so love Self-care that includes Mindfulness Practices because this is exactly what they provide. They provide a respite from the noise, the usual chaotic, negative and defensive thinking, and undermining approach. They provide a way to bypass the “programming” allowing us to connect with our core, authenticity, and Light.
When we do this frequently we reprogram ourselves… and start operating from a cleaner, more authentic and inspired place more consistently. This is what I’ve been calling ZenBrain. The experience of a sustained and ongoing peaceful and authentic feeling is just truly Divine. I wish this for you.
I’m super excited that every week more clients share they are incorporating a Mindfulness Practice into their routine. The progress and changes in their Journey is noticeably different once they do this… It is truly amazing to witness…
The Mindfulness Practice can include anything that resonates for us, like visiting and experiencing gorgeous and peaceful places I described above, meditating daily, gratitude journaling, coloring mandalas, anything that is hypnotic, quieting, and allows you to connect with your Higher Self, the core of you… From this place there is no funky program running the show!
It’s up to you how your relationships feel and what your life looks like every day. It’s up to you to shed the programming and live your life from your authentic Self, from Light and Love. And what a life this would be!
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 Reprogramming!
~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment
It is imperative that you integrate a Mindfulness Practice into your routine!
Assess your Mindfulness Quotient and then play with the options below to become more Mindful…
Do Guided Mindfulness Meditation, Transcendental Meditation
Listen to binaural beats frequencies, sounds of nature, Tibetan singing bowls, Tibetan flute
Keep journal of gratitude, positive aspects, letting go
Color Mandalas / Mindfulness Drawings
Intentionally knit, drive, walk, swim, dance, hike, and such
Be in nature
Do deep muscle relaxation, breathing exercises, body scans
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 still on the theme of Milking the Summer… LOL I had this fantastic experience when checking my google email social tab not long ago. It was bombarded with Summer treats of all sorts. Too much email can be annoying, but the Summer theme made reviewing mine rewarding. I found some pretty cool treasures in there from Pinterest.
Yes, you guess it. This included a barrage of Summer Bucket Lists. How fun!!
So, why not? I’m starting a compilation of fun Summer activities, outings, experiences and delights to inspire you in case you are looking for some ideas:
Botanical garden, butterfly garden, zoo, aquarium, amusement park, water park, fair, carnival, festival, outdoor concert, antiquing, labyrinth walking, drive-in movie, arcade, art show
Hang gliding, rock climbing, hot air balloon riding, horseback riding, quad riding, water skiing, white water rafting, cannoning, snorkeling sailing, jet skiing, deep sea fishing, camping, paint-ball, ziplining
Fly a kite, watch fireworks, garden, catch fireflies, hike, bike, hold a garage sale, watch sunsets, watch sunrises, star gaze, have an outdoor slumber party, paint / draw / color outdoors, outdoor yoga
Chilling on a park bench, on a hammock, on porch rocking chair, on a swing, on a lounge chair, on a beach chair, on the grass, on the sand, by a campfire
Build a treehouse, fort, bike-ramp, sandcastle, shed, workbench, easel
Do a cannonball, run in the sprinklers, use the watersides, have a water balloon fight, swimming in any body of water, dance in the rain, make-out in the rain
Collect seashells, rocks, sand, flowers (dry and scrapbook)
Play board games, do a 1000 piece puzzle, learn to knit, make a homemade pizza, plant an indoor herb garden
Get your palm, aura, chakras, cards read
Make it a mission to visit: national parks, different cuisine restaurants, museums, fruit picking farms, farmer’s markets, beaches, playgrounds, wineries, monuments, tourist attractions
Color mandalas, journal, meditate, start a gratitude journal, play the Tibetan flute as ambient music, get Tibetan singing bowls
Pick any that grab your attention and add to your repertoire. Would love to hear any treasures on your bucket list!
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 Bucketing!
~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment
Do create your Summer Bucket List!
Highlight the must not miss items and stay focused on activities, outing, experiences and treats that make your heart sing.
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.
With Summer just around the corner, the school year completed for us, and a major dent made on my goals for the year, I’m turning my attention for now to more leisure, fun and adventures. 😉
How was your half of the year so far? What can you celebrate? How are you structuring and planning on enjoying the Summer? Yeah, yeah, you might have already planned your vacation or trips and enrolled your children in camps, but how will you “milk” the summer?
This is an important aspect of life… Even our “down-time” is over scheduled and packed… I’ve heard crazy plans from people like shuttling themselves from location to location for weeks on end without even making stops at home. Of sustaining intense long-day work weeks to squeeze in long weekend trips.
Of having a ton of personal and home projects in the works. And such… These sound good and fun, but usually the end result is missing the forest for the tree. The goal is to reboot, reset, recharge, realign, not to run rugged where you “need a vacation because of your vacation”…
The goal to reconnect with our Self, is to allow for different flow, to synchronize with our loved ones, to regroup on our path, to realign with our values, to tap into our creativity and inspiration, to access the Innovator in us…
How can this happen if there isn’t a moment to “feel”, to “listen”, to “dream”?
What does this mean for you? What is your Summer Philosophy™? Take this weekend to ponder on this and even run it by others. It’s interesting to hear what is happening out there. I find that people are usually completely overschedule and overbooked, or they haven’t given it much thought and are living their lives by default… What camp are you in?
If you are overscheduled and overbooked – even with “fun” stuff. Take a look and be radical about removing things from your experience. You’ll find that the yummy stuff happens in the in-between…
If you haven’t planned much or given it much thought. You are probably in better shape than the category of people above. It’s challenging to switch gears, slow down, let go, and Be… You have the opportunity to start with a fairly blank canvas… Don’t just add stuff to it… Be intentional about it.
This is your opportunity to pamper and honor your Self. Get in touch with what is important to you and what gives you pleasure. Sprinkle related activities or experiences into your lifestyle for the Summer. Make it a goal to Enjoy your Self…
If you are in the middle. Good for you! Just make sure what you put in place and what you didn’t, is by choice and design and that you are really and truly serving yourself, and your loved ones.
Summer is an untapped built-in resource in our life… Why not “milk it” for all it can provide? Use the Summer as a catalyst to Shift…, and catapult you in making the changes you’ve desired. Slow and steady wins the race…
Remember to complete the MetroRelationsip™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start creating your Successful Relationship and Meaningful Life…
Share your experience by leaving a comment below!
Happy Milking!
~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment
Pick a Treasure activity, outing, experience or trip to add to your Summer Fun.
Make this a Summer to remember…
Add this to your Tool Kit…
Copyright (c) 2018 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
If you are a growth and achievement oriented kind of human, I’m sure you are always looking for how to do things better, and how to improve everything you do and everything around you. Right? I know I’m like that. I’m constantly focused on evolution, expansion and growth.
My profession makes complete sense for me in that I help couples and individuals improve how they do themselves and each other (pun intended LOL). I help them continue to grow, develop, and evolve as individuals. I help them have better interactions with each other, and others. I help them create the relationship and life they desire.
In our work together, I make sure we don’t get hang up on the problems and what doesn’t work… I have a strict rule of not allowing the partners to beat on each other. I have a strict rule for looking for positives and things to appreciate. I have a strict rule for focusing on personal accountability and contribution…
This creates an amazingly safe and fun space for the partners to address, processes, explore, co-create and implement to their hearts’ desire. It’s a privilege and honor to witness their Journey.
I often find that initially in our work partners focus on everything that sucks and how much their partner sucks… They lost sight of the other’s, and usually their own, awesomeness… They lost sight of what works, their attraction, and Why they are together in the first place… Their approach is to have the other change and to fix problems. This is the approach that doesn’t work when we are trying to create the relationship we desire.
There is another approach that doesn’t work, but it’s much less obvious and possibly keeps partners stuck in the name of working on the relationship (something to watch out for when in a therapeutic relationship as well…). And, that is of focusing on the solution…
Implementing solutions in and of itself doesn’t work. If it did people wouldn’t need therapy / coaching. You are smart. You can think through a problem. You can figure stuff out. Then how come change doesn’t happen or hold?
For starters, we need to focus on Why we want the solution… This is driven by our values… When we identify, focus and flow from our values life becomes much easier… When we focus on the why as opposed to the what and the how, we remove resistance and create flow… This is how we create what we desire. It can’t be forced into existence…
So, when we focus on what we like, what we appreciate, what we enjoy about our partner we are reprogramming ourselves to see the positive and not the negative, and therefore to not be impacted by the negative… How about that? Give it try and see how fast things turn around!
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 Focusing!
~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment
Identify your 5 top values…
Use these as a lens as you review what areas need more TLC in your life…
Use these to cut out miscellaneous activities, commitments, belongings, and such in your life…
Use these to stay focused on what is important to you, and to ignore the rest…
Have a Gorilla in the Middle Approach™ to your life!
Add this to your Tool Kit…
Copyright (c) 2018 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
Aside from being submerged in a current project involving databases, queries, scripts, spreadsheets, and data entry tasks I’m of course still doing my usual. This past week found me also playing with a different kind of data. Brain data, one of my favorites as you might know.
I came across the work of Dr. Daniel Amen (psychiatry and brain imaging…) close to two decades ago with tremendous impact in my work and approach to life. It heavily influenced the self-care and wellness angle I integrate into my relational work…
Over time I have recommended one of his books, “Change Your Brain, Change Your Life”, and have taught its concepts to our clients. They are so ingrained and integrated at this point that referencing their origin seems silly.
But nonetheless, I wanted to bring this incredible and powerful resource to you for a more thorough and scientific background on why it’s important to have a healthy lifestyle… Everything we do impacts our brain, which is single handedly our most prized possession!
So, today’s writing is about encouraging you to be super mindful of your lifestyle and what impact it has on your brain. For the health of your brain will ultimately impact your success and quality of life… The health of your brain impacts your overall health, your mood, your memory, your relational abilities, and more. A healthy brain supports your Being:
Happier
Healthier
Wealthier
Wiser
More Creative
More Innovative…
Dr. Amen’s basic premise has always been that we are not stuck with the brain we have, and that we can be proactive in maintaining our brain’s health – actually bringing it back to health… In going back to this source, I came across his more recent plan for Repairing the Brain. It does not have to be all downhill as we grow older! From his imaging work, he can see the before and after of brain health as one takes on a healthier approach to life…
His plan includes 5 Pillars of Healthy Living:
Faith – spirituality and connection to higher power
Food – nutrition and clean eating
Fitness – physical activity and exercise
Focus – attention, purpose, meaning
Friends – connection with others and fun
What does all this mean to you? How is the health of each of your pillars? Where can you stand to put a little more attention and energy? What do you need to tweak in your lifestyle to strengthen your pillars? Pick one area to play with and take it on!
Go all out and crack this. Work on cleaning or upgrading your current approach – fine tuning your routine (i.e., intermittent fasting), removing junk (i.e., toxins), increasing resources (i.e., nutritious food), keeping it interesting (i.e., different cuisine), and so on.
Think on what kind of life you want to have. Think on how to be proactive about creating the life you want. A lot of times we either create life by default… Or, we dream up the life we want to create, but we take no tangible or consistent steps to creating and sustaining that life…
Therefore, my encouragement and challenge to you today: Make a commitment to proactively creating the life you want, which inherently means having a healthy brain and thereby a healthy lifestyle… Make a move now towards your healthier lifestyle. Have fun with this and enjoy!
Remember to complete the MetroRelationsip™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start creating your Successful Relationship and Meaningful Life…
Share your experience by leaving a comment below!
Happy Repairing!
~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment
Choose the area of your life you usually give TLC with the intention of finally cracking the code…
Faith – spirituality and connection to higher power
Food – nutrition and clean eating
Fitness – physical activity and exercise
Focus – attention, purpose, meaning
Friends – connection with others and fun
Tackle it with purpose and commitment. Tackle it by looking at it from a different angle than you usually might… Use a different context or lens to design your new approach… Keep reconnecting to it as you implement the changes…
Add this to your Tool Kit…
Copyright (c) 2018 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication?
Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
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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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