As we get deeper into the Holiday Season, we might find ourselves going through the motions, pushing ahead and just checking things off our list. But are we truly embracing the merriment, the joy, the blessings, and a deeper purpose for the holidays that make them more meaningful and magical?
Magical holidays are not about all the decorations, food, and gifts… Though these might add flavor to our celebration. What makes them truly magical is in the embracing the spirit of them. The spirit of giving and loving…
If we were to assess how we are going about our Holidays, are we truly embracing their spirit?
Are we giving and loving generously? And I don’t mean in a materialistic or shallow way, but giving the gift of our presence, our attention, our patience, our kindness, our understanding, our grace, our acceptance, our forgiveness, our all in and full commitment…
Are we giving the gift of our Authentic Self? For this is how we feel the deeper and more meaningful connection and the magic…
Maybe it’s time to take a few moments to reflect on this and decide if we need to tweak anything about how we are going about this End-Of-Year and Holiday Season…
~ Are we being as intentional and graceful as we can be? ~ Are we allowing for transition time, down time, and reflection time to ensure we go about the merriment in the most supporting, honoring, and joyful way for us and our loved ones? ~ Are we bringing our Authentic, Higher Self to our celebration?
I find that sometimes people, and I’m no exception, get caught up in all the doing and material, and lose sight of what is most important to them at the end of the day…
I offer that we streamline our to-do list, creating more down time and space for a slower pace and for activities that are more enriching, delightful, and joyous.
This is when creating our own traditions in our relationship, family, groups and even workplace add to the merriment and to more meaningful holidays.
Create New Holiday Traditions
The way to more satisfying, enriching and meaningful holidays is to add the personal, connection, and memorable factor. Here are areas where we’d want to put in our attention for more magical holidays:
Relationship – DIY a meaningful gift, writing a love letter, creating a recipe book of your partner’s favorite meals, cooking or baking together, having a special romantical holiday dinner, visiting an especially festive site or doing a holiday activity, taking a yearly holiday photo, doing a memory jar with memorable moments on slips of paper to review the following year, babysitting for family members or friends with young children
Family – DIY holiday decorations or ornaments, creating a yearly scrapbook of most memorable experiences to rejoice with at every holiday, creating a holiday treats recipe book, building ginger bread houses, binge-watching holiday movies, shopping for toys and donating them to a shelter, baking pies and donating them to an old folks’ home, or doing other community service, creating a time capsule
Groups and Workplace – Hosting a theme night of singing, movies, games, cooking or baking, facilitating a scavenger hunt, organizing a mystery gift exchange or holiday gift swap, gifting a framed statement of acknowledgement of their unique contributions, hosting a ball or dance party, orchestrating a fun, pretty, or adventurous holiday outing, contributing something special to a gathering
So, what will you cut off your minutiae to-do or material list? How will you create more spaciousness? How will you embrace creating more enriching experiences these holidays?
Here is wishing you more magical and meaningful holidays!
With Much Love & Light!
End this Year with a Bam, Waltz into the New Year!
Check out this month’s Integration Experience~ Available in Recording! ~ The Reset Process for the New Year or for an Anytime Upleveling We are in the thick of the Holiday Season and have only a few weeks left to the year. This is a very special time of year where we get to create magical and meaningful holidays and get to nourish the relationships with our loved ones. But we also get to bring more intentionality into our life to reset for a Grand New Beginning. We can be intentional about how we wrap up the year and start the new one (or any new period). We get to complete things that we have wanted to get under our belt for the year. We get to clear out and make space for the new. We get to think about what we want to create and manifest in our relationship and our life. And we get to tweak how we want do things going forward to help us create and experience what we desire. *This is a work along experience to knock out the process and have it in place to start the New Year right. Access it HERE!
Don’t have a Membership with us yet? Get Access it and much more through our Radiance Membership! (at only $29 per month) Get Enrolled NOW!
Get our FREE 1-pg downloadable End-Of-Year and New-Year Planning Process(ENP Process) for making your relationship resolutions, goals and dreams come true and for creating the life you love!
PPS: Do you need support taking yourself, your relationship, and your life to the next level- actually living a healthy, happy, harmonious and overall abundant life?
Copyright (c) 2024 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.
What is your tradition for wrapping up the year? What kind of bow do you like to put on it? Have you acknowledged all your accomplishments and experiences you’ve had this year? Have you wrapped up anything you don’t want to carry into the New Year? What else are you leaving behind? Do you have any other special transition practices to glide into the New Year? How are you having your Future Self’s back? How are you resetting and realigning for your New Beginning? Now is the time to give all this some thought to have a magnificent and smoother transition into the New Year…
And what does resetting and realigning mean?
~ They mean that you revisit what who you are and how you become more your true self… ~ They mean that you revisit what kind of partner you want to be and what kind of relationship you want to create… ~ They mean that you revisit what kind of lifestyle you want to live and what kind of life you want to create…
Tall order? Maybe, but this doesn’t have to be intimidating. You can focus only on the area that resonates most for you if you want to streamline your process. The key here is that what we focus on grows- or becomes, or we create… By giving attention to what we desire, not what we don’t desire mind you, we energize it and make it so… I know, not very scientific but I’ll spare you those insights for the sake of getting to the crux of it here for you.
Our Signature Planning Processcan help you get all this under your belt. A key concept as you do your planning is that it requires some dreaming. This is the fun part in my opinion, aside from setting up the actual strategyof course… (Yes, I can be nerdy- don’t judge me! LOL) Do dare to get in touch with your big dreams. Go big, why not? What would light up your heart should that thing come to be?
Remember, that accomplishing some part of a big dream is a lot more that accomplishing all of a small one or nothing from not having one… Don’t let your dream, or your partner’s intimidate you. The other thing is to then find a way of making those a shared dream. This is where the juice is- togetherness, meaning, purpose, synergy, joy, happiness… Have fun with this!
In today’s video, I share about Element 5 of our Successful Relationship Strategy™- Collaboration & Partnership, where we align with our partner to become a strong partnership and to create the life of our dreams…
PSS: Do you need support taking yourself, your relationship, and your life to the next level- actually living a healthy, happy, harmonious and overall abundant life?
Copyright (c) 2023 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.
As the end-of-year brings with it so many demands, expectations, and an already overwhelmed, stretched, and tired self, it’s time we have our own back to make it easier on ourselves… What if we start closing down shop for the year… This might seem impossible with all the things to do for the holidays and personal and professional projects to wrap-up. But that’s just it, what if we draw a line on the sand and decide how much more we are willing to do and not to do. And, how about building in the things that give us more joy?
I use our signature End-of-Year & New-Year Planning (ENP) Processto help me stay focused and intentionally go about this so I feel empowered, at ease, and joyful as I put a bow on the year and align myself for the new one…
This process evolved overtime, where I added three more stepsto our already powerful process, that just brings this whole exercise to a whole new level. I’m particularly proud of STEP4 that is all about including the fun, joy, and the richness to our life… This is where the sparkle resides!
How about taking a sneak peek at that step to generate more joy and sparkle starting now? Why wait for the New Year? You can better have your own back as the season reaches its peak, and setting yourself up to glide into the New Year… These practices do wonders for generating energy, vitality, and wellness. This is one way to start getting ahead of the winter blues, and all while you make the rest of the holiday season even better.
And today’s video further enhances the process by applying it to planning for a Lifetime of Love!
Here is wishing you an amazing end-of-year and a better upcoming year!
PSS: Do you need support taking yourself, your relationship, and your life to the next level- actually living a healthy, happy, harmonious and overall abundant life?
Copyright (c) 2023 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.
Yes, we want beautiful and magical holidays, yet that expectation in and of itself creates stress and overwhelm for us. The holidays can be challenging for many for a lot of different reasons including having to deal with family-of-origin dynamics, unresolved issues, toxicity, and other triggers.
We can go about the season differently in that we can be mindful of our end-of-year and new year planning approach, and how we actually plan the holidays to reduce stress, overwhelm, and exhaustion. And, we can go about them with the intention of minimizing conflicts and triggers.
When we go about things without intentionality and mindfulness we might experience life and relationships as mine fields… Where the less care we put into how we tread, the more likely we are to blow things up…
Things that might create conflict and that can be triggering can be related to:
Contribution, collaboration, support, accomplishments, achievements, impact, success, gifting, spending, appearances, weight, body image, self-esteem, transitions, life changes, aging
Wellness, self-management, mental health concerns (anxiety, phobias, panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention-deficit disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, bipolar and other mood disorders, borderline and other personality disorders, eating disorders, addictions and substance abuse, and others)
When these things are part of one’s life in some shape or form, they have an impact on how we feel and experience interactions and events.
We might end up feeling and experiencing: not being good enough, put down, put out, pressured, criticized, blamed, let down, rejected, neglected, unsupported, misunderstood, not valued, disrespected, taken for granted, ignored, dismissed, unimportant, incompetent, powerless, and so on…
Whether we choose to respond, staying calm and collected, or react, getting agitated and thrown off, it’s up to us…
In the moment and in the face of being triggered it might not feel like we have a choice. It is almost impossible, biologically, to respond well in the face of a trigger. Therefore, it is imperative that we have our own backand mitigate conflicts and triggers by anticipating them. We can exercise our power to choose proactively and get ahead of these things to be preventative.
Of course, we can’t prevent all conflicts and triggers, but we can sure stave off a lot by mindfully and intentionally addressing our circumstances and needs.
Check out our latest podcast episode for more specific circumstances and triggers and how to go about managing them for a more wonderful season and upcoming year.
PSS: Do you need support taking yourself, your relationship, and your life to the next level- actually living a healthy, happy, harmonious and overall abundant life?
Copyright (c) 2023 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.
As we wrap up the year, or period of our life, and are looking to make changes for a New Beginning, it is helpful first to get rid of and let go of the old… When our life, mind and consciousness are cluttered with things that no longer serve us, we get weighted down. It is difficult to see, create, or embrace anything new if there is no space for it. We can’t start a new beginning, uplevel our life and our relationship, if we are attached to the old ways…
We can very easily fill up our space, calendar, routines, lifestyle, and mind with extra stuff, commitments, to-dos, and thoughts… And, most of the time we are not really intentional about what we add in, we just fill up the spaces unconsciously and reactively… We do what we usually do, we do it by default, or with misconceptions…
If we really took the time to assess if all the stuff we add in serves us, honors us and enrich our lives, we might be surprised at the answers we find.
Most of the time more is not better.
More activities, sports, memberships, parties, habits, supplements, gifting, and so on, is not necessarily better… I find in the stories clients and others share, what a nightmare gets created by overdoing things…
The thing is that the nightmare feels natural: ~ That’s the way things are. ~ This is how our weekends go. ~ This is what happens during the holidays. ~ This is what the school year is about. ~ This is how we vacation.
But the thing is, that upon further inspection and reflection, and even after all these are carefully orchestrated and choreographed, it becomes obvious that they are still set up from a place of lack, attachment, and control. Defensive ego patternswe use to manage our feelings, states, and needs…
The approach is driven by unconscious processes not by intentionality and mindfulness, by our values and purpose… When we look at what we create with our approach we can see that it is ill informed. We can see stress, overwhelm, anxiety, friction, fighting, chaos, exhaustion, disconnection, acting out, anger, and the like…
We are creating the opposite of what we are after with this approach. We are not enriching our lives, we are overloading and suffocating it… We are squandering our life force, our energy…
I remember someone sharing how she was going to make the holidays magical with beautifully wrapped presents or put together toys, decorating for a winter wonderland, baking treats from scratch, writing Christmas cards, and a litany of other holidays to-dos. All to be done during the night so the children wouldn’t be in the way, and so they could be surprised when it all came together.
Sounds beautiful, except that she was so sleep deprived that she kept getting sick and couldn’t kick a cough, she was irritable to say the least and impatient with everyone, and had ongoing disagreements and fights with her husband because he “was useless” in alleviating all that needed to get done…
And I’m sure this list looks minor compared to yours… I know she is not alone. I have heard a version of this story over and over… Hey, I’ve been here myself. No judgement, just an observation for increased awareness, and lots of compassion for us all…
So, how do we turn this around and do our life differently going forward? It’s actually quite simple, though not necessarily easy if we are not committed to creating the relationship and life we desire…
FIRST– Decide what kind of relationship and life you want SECOND – Commit to this and to address any patterns that might undermine you THIRD – Stay the course and get support as needed
Note, that we have a story about ourselves, our relationship, our partner, and life in general that might need revising… How we see things, the meaning we assign things, and what we think of ourselves- the identity we create, drive what we create… Our narrative and scripts are the filters of our experience… For us to create a different experience, and a different relationship and different life, we have to change the story we keep writing…
When the story changes, we can align everything differently against it – our new identity, our focus, our responses, our choices, our habits, our routines, our lifestyle, our investments… For then we go about living the new story, and we create what we desire…
But be careful, you might think you are already doing this that’s why you planned your year, your holidays, and your life as you did… The key here is to check-in if you are healthy, energized, joyful, graceful, compassionate, patient, harmonious, peaceful, connected, loving… If not, what you created is probably driven by ego patterns and not from what your heart truly desires… Take a look, and realign accordingly…
Embrace a radical decluttering and letting goof all the extra… Keep only what aligns with your new story. And please, please, create spaciousness in your approach… This is the space where the surprises, blessings, miracles, and magic actually happen…
Wishing you a truly magical End-Of-Year, Holiday Season, and upcoming New Year; or New Beginning!
Wishing you all the joy, connection and love today and always…
With Much Love & Light!
PS: Do you need support taking yourself, your relationship, and your life to the next level- actually living a healthy, happy, harmonious and overall abundant life?
Copyright (c) 2023 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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