As we start a New Year, we are looking forward to a new chapter, and possibly a new book, in our life. The thing is that the person that got us here, our current self, is not the person that can get us there… The person that got us here and only do more of the same…
For us to create something new, we have to be able to Be in a new way… The new self can create our new chapter, our Best Year Yet. A way to the new self is through Embracing Self-Love and Being.
Part of our Human Experience is to continue to grow more into who we really are… To continue to evolve. Shedding the slumber, the character defenses, the defense mechanisms, and other unconscious patterns to become our Best Self. This is the pursuit of Self-Growth…
I’m looking at the pursuit of Self-Growth as having two key components:
🌟Self-Love Practice for our Being
🌟Personal Development Practice for our Becoming
This month’s series will focus on our Self-Love Practice with today defining Self-Love and setting us up for a deep dive into developing a rich practice that really honors who we are and takes care of us.
Self-Love has to do with:
💖 Self-Honoring – Respecting and honoring ourselves- our values, our needs, our body, our feelings, our intuition, our perspectives, our space, our time, our preferences, our wishes, our dreams and so on.
💖 Self-Management – Taking full responsibility for ourselves- with learning how to properly manage ourselves and strive for excellence and high performance.
💖 Self-Care – Taking care of ourselves- with having a wholistic self-care practice that generates vitality, health and wellbeing.
💖 Self-Connection – Having a strong relationship with ourselves- with fully knowing and accepting all parts of ourselves, with keeping our own company, with having our own back, with being more present, with nurturing ourselves.
Each of these can be a whole newsletter or blog in and of themselves. LOL Nonetheless, we’ll be covering some aspect of each in the coming weeks, starting today with respecting and honoring ourselves.
Watch the video for 5 Tactics for honoring yourself… Enjoy!
APPLICATION: You’d think it’d be easy to be us. To be who we are. To be ourselves… As you might be aware, this is actually not the case and our Journey is about learning and evolving ourselves… Therefore, it’s imperative that we integrate tackling this intentionally in our lives…
Set some time aside to give yourself some Self-Love…
💗Values – We have to know our Core Values to help us filter our decisions and pursuits in our lives… Complete the Identifying Core Values exercise, and let your discovery inform other practices and tactics for more cohesiveness… Get the guide HERE.
💗Essence – We have to choose what flavor human being we want to be. LOL In your journal, list qualities of people you admire and who you consider role models.
1️⃣Underline the qualities you have in common with them. 2️⃣Circle the qualities they have that you’d like to embrace more in yourself… 3️⃣Summon the essence of that quality and strive for integrating it into yourself… Do this when you need a little pick me up, inspiration or motivation.
💗Feelings – Thoughts lead to feelings… Therefore, we can generate whatever feelings we like!
1️⃣Decide what kinds of feelings you want to experience more in your life…
2️⃣What kinds of thoughts would you have to have to generate those feelings? 3️⃣In your Journal, capture the thoughts so you can reference them as needed if you are having a hard time generating them, and their related feelings, on any giving day… 4️⃣Make it a habit of choosing the feelings you desire for the day first thing in the morning and go about generating them…
💗Intentions – We can be pretty chaotic in how we show up to our life and the days in our life if we are not intentional about it… Intentions are a powerful thing… You can choose how you want to show up everyday, and self correct at any giving moment…
1️⃣In your Journal, make a list of intentions about different ways you’d like to show up in your life.
2️⃣Keep this handy to draw from as needed to bring more intentionality and personal engagement in your life… 3️⃣You can use these as daily intentions, weekly themes, sprinkles for kicks and to keep things fresh
💗Roles – This one is super important. I often discuss this in our work with clients in terms of what kind of people they want to be regardless of how the people in their lives are being…
1️⃣Ponder on what kind of human you want to be, what kind of man, woman, or other gender, what kind of partner, what kind of parent, what kind of “child”, what kind of sibling, what kind of in-law, what kind of friend, neighbor, boss, and so on… 2️⃣In your Journal, capture your musings. 3️⃣Identify where you’d like to tweak how you are being in any relationship and get to making the corrections or upgrades…
Isn’t this work just so delicious!? This is a quick way to embrace you and Be more of who you want to be, who you really are… You’ll just be intentional about really Being you…
Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…
With Much Love & Light!
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
We made it! This is the funnest Part of the funnest Step of our End of Year and New Year Planning! LOL (Yes, we already know I make up my own words) This is the reward for all the awesome planning and later implementing and doing.
This is where we celebrate and honor more deeply the Being part of ourselves for trekking in this Journey… This is where we add all the actual fun, sensing, experiencing, enjoying and other loveliness. This is The Delightful Part (3of3).
I had always added this sparkle sprinkling as a bonus to prior processes and as an ongoing practice. But recently decided that this deserves its own Step as this is where the-in-the-moment and awesomeness is in life, so why not prop it up more? Right?
To that end, boy was it fun compiling the strategies worthy of this Step. AND the addition of this step made it necessary to pull the coordination and integration from Step3 into its own step, Step5-Coordinating. Woot!
I’m super proud of how pretty the process turned out. It’s a much improved and upleveled version of our usual process. Yay!
Before we jump into it, let’s recap the whole process again for easy reference, End-Of-Year & New-Year Planning Process (ENP-Process):
🌟 Step1-Clearing 🌟 Step2-Celebrating 🌟 Step3-Contemplating 🌟 Step4-Candescenting The Inspirational Part The Masterful Part The Delightful Part (today’s Part) 🌟 Step5-Coordinating (today’s Bonus)
🌟 Step6-Communing (today’s Super Bonus)
The Inspirational Part covered how to get in touch with your Essence and bring it forth more…
The Masterful Part covered how to capture and integrate better habits and activities for more Flow and enjoyment in your life…
Today’s part, The Delightful Part, covers how to step it up on the fun, adventures, experiences, satisfaction, joy, happiness, and Love in your life. SO GOOD!
The Delightful Part
In our quest to have a Brilliant Human Experience™ we struggle, we suffer, we stretch, we learn, we rejoice, we celebrate, we enjoy, we savor – hopefully… We are great with the beginning part of this list. Even those that are better are taking it easy and enjoying, might still miss some of the beauty that is possible in our Experience…
I’ve on a mission for myself and to help others have the Best Human Experience ever. Woot!
Hence this newest Step, and particularly this Part, was added to our Planning process to really *capture and focus on the more awesome side of life.
*I imagine this might be offensive to some who are not in a great place, have the means and such. If this is you, I get you and please know that the whole process is meant to help you move your life forward… Also, know that my work with partners and couples focuses on healing, growing and evolving… Right now, I’m covering the icing on our cake…
Depending on where you are and what you need most in your life right now, can determine which step/s you give the most attention.
Also, note the whole process is to help you take charge of your life and make it what you want. If some parts are too much for you, overwhelming or superfluous, by all means tweak them to fit you and your situation.
NOTE: You DO NOT have to implement all the tactics. I’m offering a menu for your choosing. The point is to make things better in your life, not overload and stress you out filling up your life with more stuff.
SO, we know what we want. We know how to do what it takes and how to be to get it… Now, we are on to enjoying it!
The video covers 5 Tactics to Delight you in your Journey… But before we go there, I want to share the BONUS step to bring it all together.
Step5 – Coordination and Integration
The focus today is on the Delighting Tactics, but I want to wrap up this series with a quick overview of this last step to bring it all together for us for a complete process.
The purpose of this step is to make sure you didn’t just plan to your heart’s content and for your process to be forgotten till the end of the upcoming year when you think about setting goals again…
We want to make sure all the clarifying, designing, and strategizing you did gets actually integrated into your life- and work- flows and easily assimilated to help you create the changes and upleveling you are seeking.
SO, here are the Parts for Step5:
⚡️Time Map – Map out how you want to use your time, parts of the day, theme to the days in the week, special times and such. You can create a template of this on a separate calendar (works great with google calendar). View the template and your regular calendar simultaneously for the template to serve as a guide as you schedule yourself on your regular calendar and make commitments…
⚡️Habits and Routines – Add tactics/habits to a Habits tracking app and to your daily routines to make sure they get integrated into your flow and tracked to ensure you stay the course and make progress. I’ve been using Habits, it’s fairly robust yet pretty, flexible and user friendly.
⚡️Calendar – Add your activities, tactics/habits, flow/routine tasks, special days and times, and events for holding space for things to be booked or scheduled. Use a shared calendar with your partner as necessary. Invite others to the events.
⚡️Project Management and Templates – Add your projects, tasks and to-dos to a project management app. I use Asana. This is great if you run a business. For only personal use I recommend Trello, though you can run a business on there as well. Create templates for recurring tasks to safeguard your brainpower for what matters and to keep you organized, not for remembering tasks and steps. And, these are great collaboration tools as well!
⚡️Environments – Finally, review your environments to make sure they support your new habits, routines, activities and interests. Remove any friction that might cause you to falter in your quest and add touches to encourage your follow through. For example, having a water bottle you like to help you drink more water.
You see how all the fleshing out and designing you did become a part of your life and easier to tackle as it gets incorporated into your routine, flow and systems?
This is how you create change and progress and ultimately live your Best Life!
And finally, Step6!
The next thing about all this is that if you haven’t already done this process with your partner…, that you share what you came up with and encourage them to do this for themselves as well. Please note, that they might not go as in depth or as thoroughly as you did, and that’s ok. We all have our own way of doing things…
Then review what you each have to create a Joint Life Vision and approach, and tweak your flow and integration of tactics as necessary to capture the Partnership…
Voila!
Now for real, you get to watch the video for 5 Tactics to help you Masterfully enjoy your Journey… Enjoy!
APPLICATION: Today’s Part is the most fun. Here is where you really get to sprinkle the sparkle! Here is an overview of the process and the Tactics for today’s Part:
🔥 Self-Love Practice – It is very challenging to feel OK if we don’t love and take care of ourselves…
If you are already overwhelmed and tight for time, don’t skimp on this Tactic but maybe hold off on the others. This Tactic is the one that helps you do your self, your relationship/s and your life better!
When you not find but make the time for self-care, treating yourself and connecting with yourself, everything else is good. I promise. Connecting with yourself, means you are never alone and unloved. Prioritizing mindfulness and taking care of yourself keeps you healthy, resilient, energized, inspired and motivated… From this state you can conquer and master everything else…
Stay tuned for more on this in coming issues!
**Make a list of Self-Care and Self-Love activities to choose from to add to your flow… Include little luxuries, pampering, and honoring of yourself. Shoot for Sparking Joy and Delighting Yourself…
**Design your morning, afternoon, and evening routines as well as other special times and dates with yourself adding to them some specific activities from you list…
🔥 Experiences Map – Have more fun and adventure!
**Make a list of amazing experiences and memorable moments you want to have this upcoming year. Places to visit, social engagements, people to hang with, things from our Bucket List/s, First Time things (thanks for this last one Sherri!), and such.
**Draw a line down a paper to represent the upcoming year. Starting at the top add January, go down a bit and add February, and so on to capture the whole year. Then, add the items from your list as makes sense to you and your life, including how you’ll stretch, to the different months of the year.
🔥 Interests and Activities – Enrich your life and have meaningful personal experiences.
**Given your Personal Brand that you identified in The Inspirational Part, decide what kind of hobbies, interests, and activities you’ll want to pursue in the coming months. What kind of flavor will they be: Nerdy, sporty, adventurous, healthy, creative, artistic or what?
Note, more doesn’t mean is better! You already have a full life- we just want to add things that make it more special. There is no need to overload, cram and fill up every minute…
🔥 Passion Project – You don’t necessary need more things to do. But if you are looking to add more meaning and depth to your life and to feel more engaged, this might be a good a good solution.
**If you don’t already have a cause, an interest or a passion, check out what others are doing in their lives when it comes to this. Think about different parts of you, your life, your home, your community and such where you can dig in and add more pizzazz.
🔥 Giving Back Plan – This one piggybacks on the prior tactic but takes it to a more external, humanitarian and philanthropical level.
**Do some soul searching and some online research as to areas where you can contribute, influence, and make an impact. Depending on your ambition, you can tackle the 17 Sustainable Developmental Goals to a degree of your choosing.
Or you can simply identify charities you want to support with contributions or through volunteering, support organizations or associations with your time and talents, mentor youth or team member at work, donate stuff when you declutter your home, or give a helping hand to brothers and sisters in need.
C – Schedule Step5 – You see why this step needed to be added? So much yumminess came out of this process. This is how you make a rich, meaningful, and joyous life.
**Now it’s time to make all your plans, designs and selections from all your work a part of your daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly life using tools and systems. This might take some time, so a separate planning session might be in order. LOL
⭐️ Time Map ⭐️ Habits and Routines ⭐️ Calendar ⭐️ Project Management and Templates ⭐️ Environments
D – Embrace Step6 – Include your Partner!
You did it! Wow!
Doesn’t that just feel incredible, to know exactly what your life will look like, the work and the fun, next year? To know that you got it all covered, and that it’s going to be epic? Knowing that it can all be revisited and tweaked as necessary…
Great job having your own back, future you appreciates you…
Here is to your Best Year Yet!
See you in the New Year!
With Much Love & Light!
PS –Check out past Holiday posts to help you Thrive this Holiday Season and start the New Year 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
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.
I wrote in the last issue about feeling like we are embarking in a New Era. Feels more and more like that every day. I’m so excited thinking on the fact that we are starting a whole new decade. We are at the beginning of a new huge chunk of time. It makes me dizzy to think about what this means.
To step back and think of what I’d like to create in the next 10 years of my Human Experience… Looking at this New Beginning this way is humbling, and so super Inspiring. Have you pondered similarly?
This brings me to today’s writing about Intentionally Co-Creating the life we Desire… As we start a New Year, and a New Decade!, this is the perfect time to Dream, Design, Develop, Display… Before I fully jump into the Topic, if you would allow me to invite you to work with us…
If you feel you would like support making changes, we are here for you! We can help you create the relationship and life you Desire… If you want to go for it, to rock this year and set up a stupendous decade, and are interested in working with us, why wait? You can get started on creating your awesomeness now. Why not?
Waiting for whatever to get started is just postponing what you Desire… Why do that to yourself? Let’s be nicer, kinder and more proactive in beautifully taking care of our Life this year, this decade… Yes? You can still take advantage of our super discounted 10-Session Package and get started right away… Let’s do this!
Today’s topic of Co-Creating the Life we Desire is part of the last element, Element5, in our Sequence for better implementing the Successful Couple Strategy™:
Element1 – Context & Mindset
Element2 – Communication & Alignment
Element3 – Clarity & Dynamics
Element4 – Connection & Intimacy
Element5 – Collaboration & Partnership
The Elements are fundamental and powerful in and of themselves, but this is the one where the changes being made become the most apparent, where they manifest in a variety of ways… Collaboration and Partnership are key for a thriving relationship. A relationship that is not only amazing in its own right, but creates a rippling Impact…
The state of our relationship allows the creation of our magnificent Life… Time and again in Visiting with couples it is obvious that they are stagnant, even struggling, in their life because the partners are getting in their own way and they haven’t figured out how to tap into the inherent synergy of the relationship… This is addressed through the prior Elements.
It is very challenging, a white-knuckling endeavor really, doing Life without having more fully figured out and addressed ourselves, and how we fit with our Partner… Once this piece of the puzzle fits, the rest of the puzzle just comes together beautifully with ease… Then focusing on creating our Masterpiece flows naturally and becomes the joyful endeavor it’s supposed to be.
Creating our Masterpiece has to do with Intentionally creating the life we desire. We get to Dream, Design, Develop and Display our ever-evolving Creation, throughout our Human Experience. This is where Living our life by Design requires Co-Creation. For we do not live in a vacuum, we live in relationship(s). And, that impacts and influences the quilt of our life…
Creating our Masterpiece also has to do with inviting, allowing and abiding by Inspiration. It is about having Vision, and not merely having an idea of what we want and setting goals to achieve it… It is grander and more meaningful than that. This is where we connect with our Why. Where we bring in Purpose. Where life makes sense. It has to do with having Inspired Intentionality™ at the heart of creating the life we desire…
It has to do with deciding, owning, who we truly are and are becoming more every day. It has to do with setting up our life to allow and promote this development. It has to do with deciding who we are as a couple, as a partnership. It has to do with defining our Personal and Couple Brand… It has to do with living authentically and honoring ourselves and our partnership.
Our Masterpiece is a weaving together of the Partners’ contributions, gifts, Essence. It is our responsibility to crack the code for a seamlessly weaving experience. So we do get to create a gorgeous and magnificent Masterpiece. We don’t want to end up with a mediocre masterpiece at the end of the day, for that would have been a wasted Human Experience… We want our Masterpiece to be our Legacy…
If all this sounds too grand to you, it’s time to wake up to your Life! It’s time to embrace what you signed-up for… Make this life the best it can be. Make your life a world-class life.
How? Dream, Design, Develop, Display… Here is your Prescription:
1 – Do your own Personal Development work (we can help!) so you don’t get in the way, encourage your partner to do the same… Combine your Learnings…
2 – Develop Courage to go for it! Own your Why, your Purpose. Make this your Life Lens, let it inform your Vision. Create a Joint Vision…
It’s the beginning of 2020, a New Year, a New Decade, a New Era, a New Version of You. You 2.0.Your Life 2.0. No matter where you are in your life, the formula above is pertinent… You can just be waking up to your life, or you can be a bit of a veteran on the Journey. Regardless, apply the Prescription to your current situation and you’ll be cruising along gracefully and joyfully to your best life experience yet…
ASSIGNMENT: Well? Are you going for it? If not, give it a good thought as to why you are holding yourself back from your Best Self and your Best Life… Isn’t it time to stop the nonsense and step up your game? Just saying…
If you are going for it, Yay! Congratulations! It might feel a bit scary, for we do have to deconstruct to reconstruct… Hang in there… You just made the best decision of your life… Seriously…
If you are going for it, have a heart-to-heart with your Honey about Committing to your Best Lives ever… If you find for whatever reason that you can’t do this, it’s totally fine and kind of normal… This just means YOU start the Journey… This is Your life after all… You are responsible for it. You are the boss of it…
Next is to decide what kind of life you want and to start making changes to create it…
Dream, Design, Develop, Display…
You can have a better life. It’s just a matter of how much you want it… I say, Just go for it already! And, Enjoy!
We completed this Series. Yay!! Stay tuned for a compilation of prior series for a richer integration… Here is to our Best Year yet. Here is to our Best Life!
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 Creating!
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.
There is truly nothing better than a full heart… When we appreciate, recognize, and are Grateful we Transcend to a higher estate infused with joy and bliss… If you are looking for the magic bullet in life, this is it…
We can do our Gratefulness Practice for two reasons: One, because it just feels great and has a major positive impact in our life. Two, because being appreciative, thankful, and acknowledging makes others feel good. This is a win-win.
Obviously, not everything we are Grateful for is other-related and we wouldn’t necessarily be sharing it. But anything having to do with others, why not? We don’t show appreciation and recognition enough. We don’t focus on the positives enough. So, if we see the good, let’s acknowledge it!
As we know, and as I’ve written before, we have a strong Negativity Bias (our brain’s built-in evolutionary protection). We just go around looking for what’s wrong, out of place, incomplete, imperfect, and the like. Go easy on yourself if this is you. For now, just acknowledge that this is a defense to feel safe…
It’s important to understand the things that create our insecurity and to address them… Instead of feeling the victim set a boundary, address a transgression, take charge and meet your needs. Don’t get hang up on this. Take care of it and move on. Shift your focus to the good stuff.
Interestingly, once we make a concerted focus to notice and revel in the positives, things start to shift… We start noticing that we are ok, that there are no life-threatening monsters coming out of the closet.
This dual focus creates momentum in breaking the Negativity Bias and allows us to enjoy the Blessings in life…
Whether you are a novice or a virtuoso at bypassing the Negativity Bias, full on embracing a Grateful Heart just makes for a better Human Experience… Not only does it feel good, but impacts our wellness, connection and success. It changes our brain, our estate, our health… It helps us connect, love and feel love… It influences our bandwidth, energy, performance and more…
Enjoying the Blessings in our life is what life is about, if we don’t intend to enjoy what is the point? Everything we do is to have a Human Experience, there is the enjoyment in and of itself… There is a Blessing in that… There is Gratefulness to be had about that… It only requires awareness… This part of the concept is a bit more advanced and not for the faint of heart… If you are not here, that’s ok.
Regardless, I am positive there are Blessings in your life. If you are having a difficult time seeing them, stretch a little and look a little harder. You might even want to ask someone else what they would consider Blessings in your life…
The key is to get out of our own way and to look more and more for all the Blessings… In doing so we retrain, reprogram our brain and Elevate ourselves… This shows in our health, our environment, our relationships, our accomplishments, our influence, and everywhere else. This is the estate to be in… And, it’s free (haha). Really, it doesn’t cost anything to be Grateful and the benefits are priceless…
Our tendency to focus on the negatives gets in our way of being able to see the Blessings. Our job is to put the negative in context and address it not letting it take over our life. Our job additionally is to see the silver lining, appreciate all we have, recognize what’s available, see the positives and be open to the possibilities. Our job is to Allow the good to show up… The more we focus on our Blessings the more Blessings are bestowed upon us…
What we resist persists… Let go of the negatives…
What we focus on grows… Focus on the Blessings…
This is Gratefulness. This is an estate of Abundance. This is the true definition of Thanksgiving.
ASSIGNMENT: For the next week, pull out all the stops. Have a perpetual running script playing in your mind. Look for the Blessings and what to appreciate everywhere. Be in a constant position of noticing, searching and being aware. Take note of how much there is to be Grateful for, how Abundant your life is.
How Blessed you truly are. Every second of the day. Keep this going and notice your physical, mental, emotional and energetic shift… You’ll be amazed… This is the way to go… Embrace it full on!
Hey, you might even consider integrating your Gratefulness Practice into an ongoing part of your routine… If you already do this, how can you take your Practice to the next level… Embrace it full on!
Wishing you an awakened and marvelous Thanksgiving.
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 Thanks-giving!
Copyright (c) 2019 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
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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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