Communication skills and tools are not just necessary for getting on the same page, making joint decisions and problem solving effectively. They are also indispensable for more deeply understanding each other and warmly flowing in our interactions with our partner. Excellent communication also helps increase our bonding.
Feeling understood is an existential human need… In feeling that the other “gets” us, we feel Known and that we exist… Feeling understood engenders feelings of belonging, being accepted, and safety. This is pretty much at the core of things! This is why it’s super important to use our skills and tools to make sure we get our partner, and others, when we are in our interactions with them.
And, with that it goes without saying how super important it is to show them that we got them… This is where the validation step in the Intentional Dialogue comes in. This is the step that partners forget in interactions that crashes the conversation and possibly even leads to a fight.
Equally important is to communicate so our partner can understand us, and to seek confirmation that we were understood.
Interactions don’t have to go south… Most of the time when couples refer to communication problems, they are actually referring to emotionally charged issues and conversations. They can’t communicate well when they are triggered… Which makes complete sense! Employing communication tools and skills has a lot to do with managing ourselves and being mindful to not trigger our partner… Removing roadblocks to communication goes a long way.
And most importantly, when we are mindful of how we show up and how we communicate we are investing in protecting, nurturing, and strengthening our bond…
Strengthening Our Bond
Therefore, it is imperative that we are very intentional and mindful about how we communicate with our partner and what the focus of our conversations are. For who doesn’t want a lovely and strong bond with their Lovey? Right?
I invite you to add having Meaningful Conversations to your Couple Time… Let’s not use couple time for just more binging on Netflix.
Awareness and consciousness about yourself
Do you know what triggers you and why? Do you know what core wound and defense mechanisms you keep playing out, what you contribute to your repeating patterns? Do you know what your needs are and how to meet them? Do you know your Love Language? Getting a deeper understanding of yourself in this way is enlightening and a great investment in your personal development…
Then, sharing this with your partner and integrating your new awareness into your interactions is truly transformative…
Then, you can share your understandings, discoveries, and what you make of them with your partner. Isn’t this a gorgeous conversation?
Aspirations and passions about yourself
Have you identified your Purpose, what drives you? Are you focused on that purpose daily? Do you have a vision of your future and your life? Do you have clear goals and milestones? What are you working on? Are your projects, tasks and routines in alignment withyour Vision? Getting some clarity around these and aligning your life accordingly makes life so much easier and pleasurable…
Then, share what you are up to, your desires, fears, and possible roadblocks with your partner for additional alignment and meaning…
Aren’t these delicious? Imaging these are the topics of your conversations most of the time… This is what gives our interactions depth and meaning. These interactions are what strengthen our bond, bring us closer and guide our relationship and life. This is how we create radiance and meaning in our relationship.
APPLICATION: Select the area about you that you want to explore, gain a deeper understand, more clarity and direction to play with… Set some time aside to indulge in this exploration, and then bring your discoveries, insights, and desires to your Couple Time
Awareness and consciousness about yourself
Awesomeness and uniqueness about yourself
Aspirations and passions about yourself
In developing ourselves and owning our sparkle, with bring more radiance to our relationship…
Be curious, be playful, be vulnerable, be available…
Share yourself more in your interactions and communication, strengthen you bond!
Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…
With Much Love & Light!
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
Do you think that you love your partner more than they love you? That you care more? That you do more for the home, the family, and the relationship? That if it weren’t for you, things would fall apart? You are not alone in this. It is very common for one partner to do more nurturing, caring, and making sure everything is ok. Does this sound like you? Do you do the caretaking for the family and the relationship? Does it feel like you Love TOO Much?
If we care more and love too much, then by implication it feels like the other cares less… Nobody wants to feel like their loved one doesn’t care as much… It doesn’t feel good to feel less cared about… It doesn’t feel good to love too much…
What happens next is that our whole routine revolves around our loved one/s, our whole week and lifestyle revolve around our loved one/s, our whole life revolves around our loved one/s… We lose sight of who we are, what we are meant to do, of our growth, of where we want to go and who we want to become, and of our actual Journey…
We become myopic, we miss the forest for the tree. We focus on the minutiae of the everyday. We get distracted by others’ whims and agendas and by bright shiny objects. We bang around without purpose.
We fill our days with crap – a bunch of meaningless tasks and a lot of running around. Our tasks are not related to projects. Our projects are not related to goals. Our goals are not related to our vision. We are just wasting are precious time, our precious limited Life Energy…
Some don’t even have outlined tasks, clear projects, established goals or a driving vision… So, you see how easy it is to get lost in the everyday. To focus on what our partner is doing or not doing. To micromanage our home and our loved one/s. To get overly involved in other people’s business. To care about the concern of others. To take over other people’s responsibilities. To take it all on because it’s easier to fill in our void with others’ stuff…
Then we wonder why we feel overwhelmed, anxious, lost, blah, bored, resentful, exhausted, taken for granted, lonely, alone and the like.
It’s easy to distract ourselves from ourselves by loving too much… This is easy to do when we don’t fully own ourselves, for what else are we supposed to do… If we don’t have ourselves, at least we have others…
We have nothing else to care about so we put all our care on them… But then we feel bad because we care more than they do… Then we don’t feel cared about enough…
We create a super hurtful and harmful cycle… We neglect ourselves and our lives. We feel stuck, empty and unhappy. We wonder what’s the meaning of it all… We are missing the forest for the tree!
Stop doing for your loved one/s what they can do for themselves.
Stop micromanaging.
Stop obsessively checking in and on everything.
Stop redundantly tracking everything.
Stop doing stuff for the sake of doing stuff.
Stop filling your life with junk.
Stop doing stuff that doesn’t serve you.
Stop saying yes to other people’s agendas.
Stop __________________.
Stop wasting your precious Life Energy on pursuits that don’t enhance your Journey in some way… Minimize the chaos, the mundane, the minutia, the redundant, the excess, the spinning, the grind…
Stop loving too much, for when you do you also enable others to not do for themselves… This is actually not helpful, you cheat them of the possibility of them figuring it out… Being too helpful is not helpful… Just stop.
Focus on what brings you joy and helps you create your Best Relationship and Life. On what moves the needle forward in your Journey. What enriches your life and the life of the people you love… Not by fishing for them but by teaching them how to fish and by collaborating…
Loving TOO Much is not a great quality, it’s not a character strength… It is actually a sign of codependence, a quality that holds back the people involved…
When we love too much, we become codependent where the members of the relationship/s are held back from their full potential by the dynamics they create. The helped person can’t learn and have self-agency. The helper becomes obsessed with the other at their expense. Neither side wins. This contributes to stuckness in relationships…
APPLICATION: Find three behaviors/tasks you do on a daily basis that are Life Energy sucking and Signs that You Love TOO Much… Figure out how to stop engaging in those behaviors by replacing them with healthy, effective and productive ones, for example:
Have a system for doing food and other shopping so you don’t run out of things
Prep food and snacks
Teach children how to make their bed and make it their responsibility
Teach children / discuss with partner how to pick up their stuff and put dirty clothes in hampers
Agree on who puts the dishes in the dish washer and who empties it
Design lunchboxes duty and agree on who is responsible for putting them together
Create a morning routine where everyone is responsible for getting themselves ready and ready to go
Have a place for backpacks, lunchboxes, school papers, school activities supplies/equipment, etc. (to have been packed up or prepped the day before!)
Have a place for coats, gloves, scarves, shoes and such
Don’t run stuff your children forget to school
Prioritize money producing tasks at work or completing your important project’s tasks
Block off time to do focus work
Don’t have a million errands to run after work
Have a streamlined afterschool, evening and bedtime routine
Block off selfcare time, couple time, social media engagement time, etc.
Have a system for doing laundry a couple of times a week only
Select a recurring time to do home admin tasks and synchronize with your partner
Loving too much is not the way to go. To create a radiant and successful relationship, and meaningful life, we are to fully own ourselves and empower others to do the same… We are to shoot for Interdependence in our relationship/s with extreme personal ownership, reciprocity and collaboration.
We want to love compassionately and passionately and give our relationship/s our best, not our worst by loving too much…
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
It is not easy to live a successful and meaningful life. It takes intentionality, focus and dedication to stay the course. Our life Journey has ups and downs, and at times it can feel like an obstacle course.
With the many demands of today’s modern life and specially recently as we’ve weathered a global pandemic, things can be challenging. It can be overwhelming to manage all the demands and responsibilities. This is why it’s so important to uplevel your support and collaboration.
Imagine having world-class support and collaboration protocol to help create your Best Life. Then the Universe becomes the limit…
It is no fun going it alone. And most importantly when we don’t have the proper support, we hold ourselves back from creating the life (and relationship!) we desire… For you see, when we try to do everything by ourselves in a vacuum, it shows in our results…
When we go it alone:
We are limited by how much we can do, by our knowledge base and by our skill set
We are focused on doing and forget Being
We elude our creativity and our knowing
We are flooded by the minutiae of life and miss the forest for the tree
We miss savoring life experiences, the simple pleasures and amazing people
We cheat ourselves of connection and intimacy
We hold ourselves back from the potential that leveraging and connectivity can afford us…
These limitations have a massive impact:
We hold ourselves back from our true potential and from living our full Human Experience
We settle for less and can’t even imagine having something special to contribute
We erode our connection and bond and jeopardize the essence of our relationship
We subscribe to subpar parenting tactics
We neglect, abandon and even abuse ourselves
We end up:
Settling for a job we hate and merely getting a paycheck to live from month to month
Creating a mediocre relationship, tolerating our partner, missing out on our epic love
Misparenting our children to the point that they become ill, symptomatic, misbehaved, maladjusted
Damaging our body, mind, and spirit
For those that are still carrying the badge of honor for: Sacrificing themselves, exploiting their every ounce of living, and running themselves into the ground – I implore you to reconsider your approach!
It behooves partners to crack the code on how to better support each other and implement a Collaboration Protocol into their lifestyle to create the life of their dreams. They can easily accomplish this through the Relationship Enrichment Lifestyle™.
What does support and collaboration look like in a relationship? Every relationship has their own flavor of this, but the essence is to have a divide and conquer approach. Where one partner picks up where the other leaves off. And, where both partners are in the loop and current on everything that’s going on in their joint lives. But, most importantly where the partners are working together to achieve a common goal.
The partners designing and working together towards a Joint Life Vision is the key towards creating your Best Life and having your fullest Human Experience…
Ok, so how do we create a fabulous life and epic love relationship when we are already stretched thin and overwhelmed? You set yourself up for having better support and collaboration, you create a Strong Partnership.
Setting Up for Success
Success and creating awesomeness doesn’t happen by accident. We have to be intentional and proactive about it.
SECOND – Envision: Design your Joint Life Vision that flows from your values and has clear goals
THIRD – Structure: Create your Ideal Day (daily routine) that you’ll follow as a template
FOURTH – Systematize: Set up systems for sharing responsibilities, completing tasks, building Habits
FIFTH – Flow: Include buffers and transitions into your routines
This formula helps reduce the overwhelm and set yourself up for a productive, meaningful and joyful life. It:
Creates space to operate differently
Identifies your North Star to guide your aspirations
Provides a structure to contain your endeavors
Promotes an effortless approach to managing your days and the business of life
Supports operating with ease and joy
What’s important to note hereis that our ability to implement this depends heavily on: Our mindset, communication skills, how we meet needs, and bond with our partner. Partners who jump into problem solving and changing up their lives have a hard go of it if the other relationship Elements are not robust
If it was easy to create a fabulous life and epic love relationship, then everybody would have these things. Our job is to invest in ourselves and our relationship so that we are in good shape to create our Best Life. And so that we have an amazing Human Experience.
ASSIGNMENT: Identify where the weak link is in your life and relationship right now. It can be within one of the Elements, or in one of the steps in the Success Formula.
Decide how you will go about addressing your weak link… Take an immediate action to get the ball rolling in creating your radiant and successful relationship and meaningful life…
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
I’m operating with a new mantra, Keep clearing. Doing another round of letting go of the old (like possessions, processes, ways of thinking…), and I’m seriously embracing the concept of entering a New Era… Feeling amazing… Yay! How are you doing?
If we want change to happen, we have to change how we do things… We have to change how we look at things… We have to change how we are showing up, how we are choosing to Be. We have to be different to create a new reality… Change doesn’t just happen. And, especially it doesn’t happen by doing more of the same with stronger conviction… We just dig ourselves more and more into our status quo with that approach…
Our best thinking got us this far. But the mindset, capabilities, and tactics that got us here became outdated. It’s time to level-up if we are to create our best year yet, our best relationship yet, our best life yet. It’s time to clear the old if we are to have space for the new… It’s time to truly embrace our potential, our desires, our calling, our purpose, our mission. It’s time to step-it up if we are to play a bigger game.
Now, please do not let your Ego tell you, I’m good, I don’t need a bigger game… This is just your fear talking! Stop fooling yourself that you want a simple life. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is simple and there is Simple. I’m talking about going for the simple that implies mediocracy… Stop settling!
I’ll take simple vs complex as much as my current brain will allow me. Still working on cracking that code, on letting go of making things complicated… LOL But, I’m saying let’s go for an elegantly simply efficient and productive Grand Life…
We usually can’t snap our finger and switch gears. If it was that simple everyone would be living their Grand Life already… It requires owning our why, owning our values, owning our desires, owning our current level of investment into our values, owning our current level of functioning, and fully owning our current status in all areas of our life… It requires complete ownership, a truthful reality check, and full commitment to create our Grand Life…
Hey, you can choose to have your simple mediocre life. That’s always your prerogative, but then maybe I’m not the lid for your pot. And, that’s OK. I’m here to serve those that want to live their life to their full potential, who want to go for it. I’m here to serve those who want to save their marriage, their relationship. Who want to have an amazing relationship with their Partner.
I’m here to serve those that are not afraid to weather the tough times. Who are willing to do what it takes to stay in the game. Who are willing to look at how they contribute to their status quo, and to change how they do their side. Who are willing to stretch out of their comfort zone.
Who are willing to be uncomfortable as they stretch. Who make being uncomfortable their new norm, for as you keep evolving and creating awesomeness you’ll always be stretching and hence uncomfortable a lot…
Do you get that going for your Grand Life requires you fully show up to your life? Really show up… Are you willing to step up your game? Are you willing to be uncomfortable? If not now when…? Don’t wait for the perfect time to start working on things… In all reality, all it takes is a decision… Decide now you are no longer settling. Decide now to go full on for your Grand Life…
If you are struggling in your relationship or simply are going for its next best version, here is a wonderful relationship investment to do this Valentine’s Season:
Love Launch™
During the 4 Weekends leading to Valentine’s Day (or another occasion, or just because!), you are to make a real concerted investment at nurturing your relationship. Do it with gusto and to please your Partner. Put on the “dating lens” – remember you’d do anything for your partner once upon a time…? Go all out to make an impression. And, YOU enjoy the process as you go…
Include this 14 Day Love Challenge! Start on February 1st, or at any time you want to Jump-Start, Spring-to-Life, or Reset your relationship. Simple, yet powerful, Daily Relationship Nurturing Nuggets. Treat your partner right!
Kudos on subscribing to this Newsletter. Kudos on reading this Issue. Kudos on staying open to bringing your relationship and your life to the next level. Now, let’s do it!
ASSIGNMENT: If you are still on the sidelines, a passive bystander, know that you are just killing time and wasting your life. Why postpone your transformation, your results, having your Grand Life? It just doesn’t make sense! Please, PLEASE, make a commitment to get in the game, I’d hate to leave you behind.
You know that when we really want something, we get it… You know that you have made things happen before when you wanted to… Just decide you are going for it, really going for it not dabbling in it… It makes a MASSIVE difference…
Take a look at the Valentine’s Day Love Launch™ and Love Challenge™ and commit to playing full out – embrace the protocols and work it baby!
Make the commitment to invest in your Love Life… Here is to an amazing Love Season!
Can’t wait to delight you with our next goodie to help you properly invest in your relationship! Stay tuned for details!
Complete the Assignment, and share your takeaway, insights, and results with a note in the Comments box at the end! I’d love to hear how you are using this content.
Happy Investing!
Copyright (c) 2020 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 are you doing? Hope you are keeping the momentum from the New Year going… As I’m sure you already know, right about now people start floundering with their New Year Resolutions, Intentions and the like… Tomorrow is the 3rd Monday of the New Year and known as Blue Monday…
The end-of-year drive, the holidays merriment and the new year’s excitement all but come crashing down… This is when back to reality hits us like a ton of bricks.
This is when we realize we are not exactly where we want to be, and the New Year’s promises are quickly fading away. This is when we realize real change needs to happen and we don’t necessarily know how to make it happen. We might know what we want to change, we might even know how, but somehow, we can’t get traction…
This is when it becomes obvious that we can’t make changes with just pure willpower and desire… This is when things become bleak and we feel powerless and stuck. If you are rocking the New Year, Congratulations! Just beware that this can still hit you with a delayed impact if you are not proactively preventative…
It is challenging to get traction on the changes we want because unfortunately our brain is working against us – it doesn’t like change. We literally have brain structures to maintain homoeostasis… To keep things in the status quo. We also have our Ego protecting us from growth and change. It perceives these as a threat…
Change in our life is to the brain and ego like viruses are to our body. The defenses come out to attack any intrusion. Hence, we end up sabotaging our very efforts, wishes and desires…
The 3 main areas people usually want changes on are health, relationship and finances. If they use their genius, they might have set goals around these. Never mind mere Resolutions. 25% of people who set resolutions abandon them after 7days! Intentions and Focus Terms are great as icing on the cake, not as substitutes…
We don’t do much better with goals. Only 14% of Americans set goals, only 3% of them write them down, and only 1% of those review them daily when there is a 42% increase in goal achievement by merely setting them… This makes me sad for people’s ability to create what they want in their life…
So, if we go by these stats, it is very likely that you haven’t set goals and most likely that you haven’t written them down. Therefore, if you are serious about creating the life you want, if you are serious about not settling for a mediocre life, if you are serious about having your best human experience, then it is time to take goal setting seriously.
Seriously doesn’t mean this has to be complicated or a major production. Make it as easy as possible. Just go with the basics if you need a starting point: health, relationship and finances… You can tweak this to your heart’s desire of course, but if you make a commitment to embrace creating changes in these 3 areas you will make a significant improvement in your life…
Additionally, if we don’t want to struggle in achieving these goals, we have to make sure we don’t depend on willpower to work on these… Willpower only takes us so far and is limited… It depends on how we feel, our mood, our energy, our time, etc. If we are to achieve what we want, if we are to create the life we desire, we can’t leave it to chance…
How do we make sure we keep our goals forefront and actively work on them?
FIRST, we have to have a strong desire to achieve them. We have to have a strong Why behind them to inspire us and keep us motivated…
SECOND, we have to set ourselves up to achieve them, with structure and systems… This means we have to set up our daily life with routines around achieving these goals. And, we have to set up the routines with related Habits to automate our investment and take the effort out of it… Voila!
What do you say? Are you ready to really create the life you desire, your best life? Are you ready to set yourself up for an amazing decade? Are you ready for your best year yet? What do you say? Don’t be the majority statistic. Don’t let Blue Monday be a reality for you. Don’t let another year pass by without making a dent in creating the life you really want…
ASSIGNMENT: There is plenty of info out there on how. There are plenty of people having a say on all this. Your job is not to get more info and keep postponing your results. There is plenty on this blog anyway, even on this post alone, to help you get started… Your job is to decide you are going for it, commit to it and get started.
Here is your basic Strategy in its simplest form:
Step 1: Create 1 measurable stretch goal for your 3 life areas, with strong Whys for each
Step 2: Add 3 concrete recurring behaviors to each goal
Step 3: Integrate the recurring behaviors into your daily/weekly/monthly routine(s)
Don’t let this significant time pass you by. The sooner you plan and set your goals, the sooner you’ll start working on them, the longer you’ll have a chance to achieve them… You can rock this!
Make a commitment to no longer settle. Make a commitment to live your best life. Set yourself up to create what you desire right now. Seriously, do your Strategy now – start the week right, start the rest of your life right!
And, because we know it’s not easy to make changes on our own, we are creating some new goodies to help you with the Relationship & Connection area… Stay tuned for more details coming soon!
Complete the Assignment, and share your takeaway, insights, and results with a note in the Comments box at the end! I’d love to hear how you are using this content.
Happy Strategizing!
Copyright (c) 2020 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.
STAY CONNECTED WITH US, SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER
And, Get a FREE Relationship Enrichment Mini Course!
You CAN create the relationship you desire!
With this Mini Course learn how to immediately Break your Impasse, Improve your Communication, Increase your Intimacy, Connection and Fun, & Create a Strong Partnership...
And with Emma’s weekly Love rich with Personal Development & Relationship Enrichment know-how, announcements, resources and more straight into your inbox.
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™.
Pin It on Pinterest
We track visits and User's visit information to analyze our performance and trends in order to create targeted messaging and programs to best serve you. We use cookies to provide a personalized and smoother browsing experience. Refer to our Privacy Policy for additional details.
You consent to our tracking and cookies when using our Websites.OK
