We all have our holidays traditions, but are yours giving you joy and filling your heart? Following holiday traditions doesn’t mean driving ourselves into the ground with so many to-dos just to check off the boxes of all the things that should get done during the holiday season. I think it’s time to rethink all the extra things we do just for the sake of doing them… Uplevel your holidays with enriching traditions.
But can we even tell the difference between just holidays to-dos and meaningful traditions we value?
If the task or plan feels heavy, burdensome, tedious, or overwhelming, that’s a pretty good sign that it no longer resonates with you, or possibly never did. It can also mean you might be going about it an outdated way, or that there are wounds and patterns that are getting triggered…
Traditions and rituals promote the identity of the couple and the family and serve to transfer values and meaning to the next generation.
If your holidays typically leave you feeling spent, triggered and all out of sorts, that’s a good indication that the way you go about the holidays is not serving you.
Here are some examples of thing I’ve come across that you might relate to:
Spending hours hunting deals on Black Friday and Cyber Monday and thereafter
Buying things just because they are a good deal
Getting distracted or triggered by all the hoopla of the sales and deals
Going beyond means to buy gifts and putting spending on credit cards that already carry balances
Going to a multitude of parties, outings, and other gatherings spreading ourselves thin
Overindulging in food and drink and other substances
Letting go of self-care and mindfulness practices because the daily routine changed
Decorating and gifting with candy and other overly processed consumables
Doing holiday cards, albums, calendars, mugs, pillows, and the like with photos of the children
Giving chotskies for the sake of giving something
Participating in multiple drives and volunteer opportunities
Cooking and baking, or catering, as if for an army and having most of it go to waste
Staying up till hours of the night cooking or wrapping presents
Having the holidays revolve around gift giving
Having celebrations revolve around alcohol/substances consumption and monitoring
Having the ritual of going back to the stores to do returns the day after Christmas
The theme here is in overdoing, overindulging, and overall excess- all usually at our, others, and the planet’s expense in one form or another…
I challenge you to review all your holiday to-dos, traditions, and rituals for what is enriching, meaningful and joyful about them. How are they encouraging and promoting your values? And, to identify if they are just a bunch of checkmarks on your list or excessive.
Decide now how you’d like the rest of the holiday season to go. What do you need to tweak in your approach to have truly replenishing and rejoicing holidays.
APPLICATION: Invite your partner and family members to do a Holidays Review…
~ Review your to-dos, traditions and rituals for their tediousness and heaviness or enrichment and joyfulness quotient ~ Identify if your approach is capturing and reflecting your true values (not what you value because of a pattern or defense mechanism and as a form of compensation…) ~ Decide what you will no longer do and take an action toward eliminating that as necessary ~ Decide what might be missing to add spark, meaning and joy and take an action toward integrating more richness flowing from your values ~ You’ll know you are on the right track as you feel delighted and joyful as you make progress towards designing and planning your holiday celebrations
Let the focus these holidays be on genuine and generous giving, not on checkmark giving…
Let the season be truly magical by entwining the essence of the holidays with the essence of you and yours.
Enjoy (be) the holidays, don’t do the holidays…
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) 2022 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.
Although you might appreciate your partner, do you really appreciate them? Or do you appreciate them when they do things for you and when they conform to expectations… Is your appreciation based on their doing and superficial qualities, or their personal characteristics and essence… How much do you appreciate your partner?
Depending on the length, status, and quality of your relationship, you might have varying degrees of appreciation on conditions and appreciation for its own sake…
There is nothing wrong with appreciations on conditions, we do want to appreciate everything our partner contributes to our life.
It’s interesting that some partners refuse to appreciate or acknowledge their partner’s contributions. They believe what is being contributed are things that should be contributed as being part of a relationship…
These are the same partners that don’t appreciate their partner’s complementary characteristics, preferences, tastes and the like…
And these are the partners that always have complaints about their partner and their relationship. They focus on what didn’t get done, on what went wrong, on how their partner didn’t meet their needs, on how their partner wasn’t their best self…
It is a lot of work to be in this kind of relationship. There is little grace for imperfections, mistakes, limited bandwidth, wobbly moods, low energy, etc.
The interactions are very ego and fear based. The partners are focused primarily on their side of the equation and what they get… By the way, this is the second stage of relationships, the power struggle…
But imagine that you feel strong enough within yourself, consistently take care of yourself, and consistently address the scripts and programs that come up…
And imagine that as a result, you don’t filter your experiences with your partner through your fear lens, your scripts, and your needs… That you are able to see your partner for who they are and not what they do for you…
Then, what would you see? Wouldn’t you see an amazing human being, who is choosing to share their journey with you, and share themselves the best they can…
Regardless of where you fall on this spectrum, the main question still remains- How much do you appreciate your partner? Whether you tend to have appreciation on conditions or appreciations for their own sake, how much do you let your partner in on this?
Does your partner know what you appreciate they do and who they are? How do they know? Do you tell them? Do you tell them in real time? Do you make special time to share this with them, to do appreciations?
We start all our sessions with Appreciations, and we encourage our couples to do appreciations on their own- to have Appreciation Time. These never get old and it’s a wonderful way to nurture your relationship.
An appreciative heart is an abundant and expanded heart…
APPLICATION: Share the concept of Appreciation Time with your partner
~ If you don’t already have Appreciation Time in your relationship, discuss creating space for this to relish each other
~ If you already have Appreciation Time in your relationship, discuss what you love about this practice and ways of enhancing it…
Our Partner is one of the most important people in our life, wouldn’t it stand to reason to fully understand why and to let them know why we appreciate them so…
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) 2022 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.
Stop withholding when you have an issue with your partner. You can still be nice… Unfortunately, when we are upset with our partner, we tend to closedown shop. We are no longer open for business. And this is not just about being intimate.
We take this to the next level. We lose our courtesy, we can’t appreciate, we get mean, and we can even become uncaring, underhanded, and spiteful. When the opposite is required to sustain a radiant and successful relationship… Being super generous…
I’m sure you can identify with the above. There is actually a spectrum of this experience. Sometimes when we are upset, we might even want to ditch the relationship…
I want to make a distinction about being upset and annoyed with our partner and being triggered.
Things might bother us, we might not agree with something, we might be disappointed, we might be put out or inconvenienced, and the like – such is being in relationship.
But when we get triggered, different filters come on… We forget who we are, we forget who our partner is, we forget the moment and we are thrown into an abyss of pain…
~ It’s like we got kicked in the chest and we can’t breathe… ~ It’s like we are thrown off a cliff and are free falling…
Our very survival feels threatened at some level…
When we are triggered we forget the current year, we forget we are not interacting with our caretakers from growing up, we forget we are radiant energetic beings, that we are awesome, that we have everything we need inside ourselves, and that everything is OK…
We get thrown into our little story of our little/lower self with our little life where everything is scary…
So, it makes complete sense that it would be very challenging to care about our partner’s feelings and their needs when our survival feels threatened… We can’t possible concern ourselves with being nice when we are in that state…
This requires lots of self-love, compassion, understanding and grace…
But this is not what I’m talking about here…
~ I’m talking about our regular upset and annoyance that we can easily address. ~ I’m talking about arguing for argument’s sake. ~ I’m talking about making points out of principle. ~ I’m talking about proving yourself right and your partner wrong… ~ I’m talking about trying to win over your partner. ~ I’m talking about doing relationship math, keeping score cards and doing tit-for-tats… ~ I’m talking about holding our ground just because we think it’s our boundary. ~ I’m talking about operating from our lower self because we are too lazy to clean up the moment!
This is not way to create our amazing relationship. What’s the point in all that?
How about we embrace the higher road, align with our higher self, and operate from generosity instead? When we are triggered, we are not ourselves – this requires special attention. But when we are just upset or annoyed, we can do a lot better!
And please know that I know that even this request might be too much for you. If you are finding that you are struggling, and it feels impossible to be generous because you are too depleted, then that’s the place to address. Focus on repleting yourself first.
Have a hooky day, a self-care day, a slower day. Be gentle, be compassionate. Give yourself lots of love…
Be super generous with yourself, and then with your partner….
APPLICATION: Maybe it’s time to rethink generosity… Maybe it’s time to reconsider the Law of Reciprocity…
~ How about we give just to give ~ How about we give with gusto ~ How about we concern ourselves with giving vs what we get ~ How about we actually receive what we are giving… ~ How about we appreciate what we get…
Gratitude, thankfulness, appreciation, giving and receiving are not as simple as they seem. Some have to be more intentional about these to enrich their relationship, and their lives…
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) 2022 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.
Thanksgiving is about really appreciating everything in our lives… A grateful heart is like a magic pill… There are so many ways to embrace a Gratitude Practice and being Thankful. When we appreciate our life in its full glory, the challenges and all- as they are for us, then we are abundant…
From an abundant place we can genuinely be generous to enrich the life of others, and in turn our own. Today, let’s focus on Expanding Generosity (Thanksgiving Series Pt3).
No matter how we cut it, there is always someone who has less than us or has it worse than us… And helping alleviate their suffering or making their lives better in some way not only does it help them, but it also helps us…
Being generous is a lovely character strength that add to who we are… It helps us have a fuller human experience. It enriches our lives. And it helps us make the world a better place in the process…
Generosity is a Win-Win affair.
Cultivating being generous is super fun and super rewarding.
Learn 3 unique ways of Expanding Generosity…
Watch the video to learn three unique ways of Expanding Generosity and rock the Season of Giving…
APPLICATION: When we expand how we show our generosity is permeates the fabric of our life. Our generous nature shines through touching other’s hearts and in turn making us feel good.
I – Identify the area where you haven’t been as generous as you’d like: With yourself, with your loved ones, with others at large…
II – Make a commitment to become more generous in that area
III – Embrace Expanding Generosity with GUSTO:
Yourself – It’s easy for us to run ourselves into the ground and forget our basic needs if we are not careful… Recalibrate your calendar (Time Map) so you create a gentler approach to your days… Build in: Buffer Time, Transition Time, Me Time. And use these times as designated… Don’t allow them to get sucked up by other demands…
✔️Make sure you milk Me Time! Add what nurturing activity you’ll do for yourself during that time…
Your Loved Ones – Some tend to be nicer to strangers… How about we are more generous with those we love? Be very intentional about the language you use and use kind and gentler words as much as possible. Make a list of nicer words you’ll use, nurturing gestures you’ll sprinkle into your days, and different ways and times you’ll give more affection…
✔️Make sure you get creative with your words, gestures, and affections- delight your loveys!
Others at Large – When we think of giving, we usually thing of contributions and donations. Which, of course, are absolutely fine and if that’s what you do please continue to do so.
But being generous with others goes beyond specific “giving”, it has to do with showing up with a generous heart the rest of the time as much as possible. How about giving more generous tips, more compliments, and being present with your eye contact and attention?
✔️Make sure you take this on to a degree that the receiving person takes note of the generosity!
Notice how good it feels to be generous and kind to yourself and others…
Generosity is not just about giving money or donations to charities or special causes. Generosity starts with having an open and kind hear with ourselves and those around us…
Expand Generosity with gusto!
Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…
With Much Love & Light!
PS –Check out past Holidays posts to help you Start Your Season Right!
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
Did you know that the better you feel, the easier and more joyful your life becomes? Whether you look at this in terms of having high vibrations and attracting other high vibration experiences in your life.
Or, if you look at this as when you feel well, you have more energy, you have more patience, you have more bandwidth and such to apply to your life. Or just as, feeling well is all that matters. The important point is that we want to feel well, happy. The better we feel, the better. Here is to feeling better by Embracing Gratitude (Thanksgiving Series Pt2).
There are a multitude of ways to make ourselves feel better, but what better way this Season than with: Grace, Gratitude, and Generosity…
Not only are these amazing character strengths to embrace and rejoice with during the Holidays Season, but they are great character strengths to develop and embrace all year around. These are great characteristics to cultivate through our personal development work for increased wellbeing…
Today in Part2, we’ll focus on Embracing Gratitude. 🙏
Embracing Gratitude is a wonderful antidote for dispelling fear, anxiety, anger and the like. Our brain can’t be in a triggered state and in a gratitude state at the same time…
This is one of the reasons we start all our sessions with Appreciations. Where the partners get to share what they appreciate about the other and what the other has done or how they’ve been since the prior session.
Focusing on the yummy stuff also invites more yummy stuff. It reinforces that what the other is doing or how they are showing up is appreciated, which serves as a reward and incentive…
It sets a different tone to the session. There is a shift to a pro relationship mindset…
It curves the negativity bias and helps reprogram it…
And, other goodies…
All these benefits are just within the context of a therapy session, and within its first few minutes. Imagine what an impact appreciation and gratitude can have in your life as an ongoing practice…
For now, let’s Embrace Gratitude for the next few weeks by expanding your Gratitude Practice, and reap 3 coveted benefits in the process….
Watch the video to learn how to expand your Gratitude Practice and about the benefits you get as a result…
APPLICATION: The feeling of Gratitude is one of those super feelings that is easy to generate and has a wonderful impact on our wellbeing, our life, and the world at large… Embracing Gratitude with a Gratitude Practice built into our lifestyle is key to really integrate this potent elixir into our life.
Select one or more tactics below to really play with in the coming weeks:
Appreciation Habit – We tend to have negativity bias in how we view everything, especially our partner and our relationship… This is the worst thing to allow to flourish in your relationship if you are interested in creating a Radiant and Successful Relationship…
✨ Create a time in your daily routine where you get to spend a few minutes with your partner sharing appreciations about each other and acknowledging their investment in making your relationship, home and life more awesome.
Thankfulness Lens – First thing upon waking put on a Thankfulness Lens:
✨ Set the intention to notice the beauty in your life and world, see the positive and opportunities in situations, recognize the good intention behind your partner’s actions
✨ Be thankful for all these treasures
Honoring Differences – We live in a world where homogeneousness is valued, or rather where differences are not really tolerated… How about deciding not to contribute to polarizing views, believes, perspectives, actions and general approach to life?
✨ Notice where you are intolerant, prejudice, inflexible, judgmental and the like and decide now to widen your views and approach.
✨ Choose 3 behaviors you can integrate into your life to loosen the usual limiting grip and Transmute this wasted energy. This applies to political views, friendships, in-laws, children, and most importantly your partner… For example, stop begrudging your partner their wish for more separateness… Build-in more personal time into your lifestyle.
Embracing Gratitude is a wonderful sentiment to add to our Holidays Season and merriment. Additionally, being Grateful is a potent character strength that when harnessed within a Gratitude Practice it becomes a powerful tool for creating an amazing relationship and gorgeous life…
This one is a keeper!
Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…
With Much Love & Light!
PS –Check out past Holidays posts to help you Start Your Season Right!
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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