Being thankful and grateful are qualities, strengths, and states that go beyond the month of November and Thanksgiving (the US holiday). These make a difference in the experience of our life. People tend to look outside themselves and to external factors to feel good and have a happy life. They believe that happiness is dependent on their circumstances… But time and again researchers, scholars and thought-leaders have shared that happiness is an internal state and a choice. One that can be cultivated and nurtured…
Happiness, life satisfaction, and longevity are all impacted by gratitude, connection, and purpose… These are the ingredients for creating our long, healthy, and happy life… A good life. Our Best Life.
~ Purpose is simply pursuing what is meaningful to us, that keeps us engaged and having a zest for life… We are always in-charge of our own internal world assigning meaning to everything in our external one… We have a choice as to what meaning we assign things and how we choose to look at everything, and what we choose to pursue. As exemplified by the work of Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist that developed his theory while a concentration camp prisoner during WWII in his book Man’s Search for Meaning.
~ Connection to loved ones give us security and a sense of belonging… It gives our life further meaning and purpose… This is what keeps us going and what we live for… Robert Waldinger explains this in his TED Talk about what makes a good life describing the longest study on happiness.
~ A Gratitude Practice makes a big difference inour overall Happiness– Shawn Achor lists the key ingredients of this practice in his talks. This is what I’m calling embracing a #GratitudeAttitude. Which is looking for the good in things, focusing on the positives, seeing the blessings, appreciating the beauty in others and so on, adding dimension to our experience. It puts us in a different frame of mind. It raises our vibration. It transcends the minutiae and the mundane…
How about we take the pursuit of happiness seriously… And, by this I mean we take it easy in our approach to life and focus on the things that are actually important to creating the life we desire… Pursuing what gives us meaning including creating a successful relationship with our partner and minding our internal world including developing a #gratitudeattitude…
Let’s take being grateful to new heights by increasing our appreciations, acknowledgements and thanks-giving this month and going forward…
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.
A key element of a successful relationship is having good communication skills and tools. When we don’t, that’s when our relationship is riddled with misunderstanding, conflict, and fighting. This in turn leads to creating friction between the partners that only manifests into issues and disconnection in the relationship.
But it is optimal for creating our successful relationship to have a wider range of skills and tools. When partners improve their communication skills they can:
~ More easily get on the same page ~ Be better able to understand each other ~ Address their needs ~ Deepen their connection ~ Uplevel their collaboration
Improving communication skills is a must have to make all other facets of the relationship go smooth. When we can properly communicate with our partner we can address anything and create anything.
Things that usually don’t get addressed because the partners are afraid the conversation will turn into a fight include things like:
Expectations and thoughts about things
Broken promises and other disappointments
Feelings, needs and preferences
Wishes, dreams and goals
Desires for intimate life
Issues in the home
Challenges different areas of life
And more…
Gaining greater communication skills doesn’t have to be difficult.
In today’s video, I show you 3 levels of communication to start addressing any difficulties you might be having getting along with your partner.
I talk about, how to: ~ Improve Communication ~ Deepen Communication ~ Enhance Communication
Focus on improving your communication and you’ll create immediate ease and joy in your relationship…
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.
One of the main reasons couples argue is because they are not on the same page. It’s not so much because they might disagree on something, but it has more to do with knowing and understanding where each partner is coming from. Partners usually make assumptions about what is going on, what their partner wants, and that they both want the same thing… Partners don’t always share what’s on their mind, their wishes, and desires and expect their partner to somehow know… Not sharing expectations with your partner is a sure way to not be on the same page, to have disagreements, conflicts, arguments, and fights.
There are many reasons that partners might not share their expectations with each other, some include that:
~ They might not realize that it’s easier to get on the same page when the parties involved know what’s on the table
~ They might be afraid to share for fear of being misunderstood, judged, and rejected
~ They might be worried that their partner knowing what they want might cause disagreements, conflicts, arguments, and fights
What they don’t realize is that as they each operate from their own set of beliefs, opinions, expectations, and wishes that they are more likely than not to run into trouble. Can’t be on the same team, collaborate and work towards achieving a common goal if the partners are focused on different things and doing things in different ways.
When the partners are not aligned, they are each going in their own direction making it impossible to make progress creating the home life, family, lifestyle, and life they want. Not to mention that there is friction and conflict at every step of the way, making it challenging to get along, feel good about the relationship, and cultivate connection and embrace their love.
It is important for partners to get on the same page about their expectations so they can align and better collaborate, creating a strong partnership and successful relationship…
Clarifying Expectations
The first order of business is to own for oneself what our beliefs are about all areas of life and relationship to make sure we have a clean mindset to draw expectations from… If we have limiting beliefs, a lack mentality, and just overall poor mental hygiene, we are likely to have faulty expectations out of the gate.
Then not only would we not have communicated our expectations to our partner, but they are unrealistic and potentially out there as well. Talk about setting up our relationship to be a struggle…
So, back to the first order of business, review all the areas for yourself first. Scrutinizing your beliefs about them as to:
~ How realistic they are ~ Do they make sense ~ How did you come to believe them ~ Did you choose these or were they passed down to you ~ Do you want to keep them ~ Do they need to be upgraded ~ And so on
Clean up what you believe about each area to be really representative of where you stand with things. Fully own what you believe in its cleanest form.
The areas, topics, and concepts to review include things like:
Dating
Intimacy
Connection
Affection
Touch
Sex
Sexuality
Body
Gender
Gender Roles
Relationship
Commitment
Marriage
In-laws
Husband
Wife
Spouse
Partner
Partnership
Pregnancy
Nursing
Children
Parenting
Discipline
Education
Health
Illness
Death
Weight
Priorities
Goals
Collaboration
Support
Chores
House Keeping
Leisure
Vacation
Career
Success
Finances
Debt
Money
Spirituality
Religion
Politics
Social Systems
Social Institutions
And so on…
Explore as much or a little as makes sense for where you are in your relationship and add other things that are important to you that might not be captured on the list. Then you are ready to share with your partner…
As you can probably see, these are big things that we have all sorts of ideas, preferences, and expectations about that we might not be fully aware ourselves and that are impacting our relationship and our life.
And, as you can probably see, these can wreak some havoc in our interactions and our relationship if we are not proactive about what we belief and expect and about making that known…
Just remember when you have your sharing session with your partner, to be gentle, open, understanding, accepting and mindful. Both your sides are equally as valid, and you might find that you diverge on things.
That’s ok. That’s the point of this exercise. To find the differences so you can work on getting on the same page for improving your collaboration, partnership and overall relationship and life.
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.
It takes intentionality to become our best self, create our successful relationship, and live a meaningful life… Too often though we go about life putting out fires, banging around, and living by default. We do the grind and if we are lucky, we plan and enjoy time off.
But is this all there is to life at the end of the day? Is this the life we want to live? Have you given thought to what kind of life you want to live, what kind of relationship you want to be in? Have you given any thought about how to create these? For they don’t just happen…
To run a smooth household and create the life you want requires getting on the same page with your partner. About what you want to create and how to go about creating it. How to easily work together and collaborate in your marriage or committed relationship.
As we get back from the Summer and vacation mode, it’s time to assess how we go about our relationship and our life to ensure we set ourselves up to rock the rest of the year. Now is the time to realign with our life vision and get on the same page with our partner about our goals and the lifestyle we want to create. To make any adjustments to stay on the right track.
Consider how you’d like the rest of the year to go, what codes you still want to crack, and how you want to uplevel your relationship and your life…
In today’s video, I show how to identify what you want to create and how to go about creating it with your partner.
I talk about how to: ~ Have a Joint Vision ~ Divide and Conquer Responsibilities ~ Operate from the Same Page
Here is coming back from Summer strong!
Watch other Monthly Theme videos on our YouTube channel
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.
The concept of setting effective boundaries might feel a bit played out. But it’s interesting that most people still have no idea what setting boundaries actually means… We don’t set boundaries on others, give them consequences, or punish them… We have no control over others, we are not the boss of them- not even our children and our employees or team-reports!
We set boundaries on ourselves… We have to take charge of the things we do have control over, and that is ourselves… We very often disempower ourselves by focusing on what others are doing or not doing… Empower yourself by staying in your circle…
So, let’s put this into the proper context. Setting boundaries is an act of self-love. It means we decide what we allow to be in our life. Be it in our thoughts, our environment, our relationship, our work, our life in general…
When something is not working for us, we don’t set a boundary on the other person- we don’t tell them what to do. We set a boundary on ourselves, we decide what we’ll be willing to allow to continue. We decide to change our thoughts and how we look at things. We decide how to feel and how to respond.
We decide what our actions, habits, and routines are. We decide how we want to show up to a conversation. We decide what is acceptable behavior, treatment, responses, outcomes, and such. We decide everything we allow…
How does this play out in interaction with others? Beautifully… For when you fully own all of you, your needs, your desires, your expectations, how you show up, how you respond, how you set things up and such- things can’t but go smoothly…
You take care of yourself, you exude confidence, you are responsible for your results, you clearly express your expectations in a way that others can respond positively to them, and you appropriately address when the expectations are not met.
And this doesn’t mean punishing people- this doesn’t mean nagging your partner or giving them the cold shoulder. This doesn’t mean yelling at your children. This doesn’t mean berating your employee.
Addressing unmet expectations means you share how you were impacted, how you feel and how this doesn’t work and why. It means you address what might gone wrong for the other that they let you down.
It means you put something in effect to address what happened and a preventative measure. It means you consider the other person’s needs, skills, abilities, and such so your expectations can be met. You address the situation for a win-win.
We never set a boundary at the expense of another. They might not like your boundary of what you will not put up with or tolerate, or what you will no longer do. But you will never tell them to do something harmful or against themselves, nor tolerate this for yourself… And you are not to tell others what they need to do or not do, feel, or think. That’s in their circle…
This obviously applies to our relationship with our partner. We co-create with them, we inspire each other, we address our needs so we are both taken cared of. We don’t tell our partner that they can’t have an affair. We inspire our partner not to have an affair… We address our side being fully mindful and conscientious of theirs. We do not live in a vacuum. We do not do things at their expense, never.
Even should you be getting a divorce, you are still a fellow human being with a heart. Always go for the win-win… Always keep your side of the street clean. Always take the higher road. You are the one that has to live with themselves at the end of the day…
Even with our children – we don’t own them. Our job is not to control them… Our job is to discipline them- which by definition means help them learn… We teach, guide, set them up for success, and support them… We honor their feelings. We show them how to fully own and expand themselves…
Even with our employees. They have a job description, they have processes to follow, and milestones or goals to achieve. They know when they are not performing to what is expected. That is the conversation. We can’t “manage” people, we can inspire and “lead” them… Sometimes words are limited to fully convey a message, but I think you get my drift.
Even when we lovingly release a partner or an employee… It’s ok if they don’t like your boundary, they can choose what they need to do to meet themselves and you to continue to take care of yourself.
Everything that happens, happens FOR us- remember that… There is always a solution for the higher good of all…
This applies to everything in our lives… It’s ok if they don’t like that you will no longer be folding and putting away all the laundry. Decide what works for you and offer that. You can take the other’s preferences into consideration and together come up with a plan that works for both of you. But at the end of the day, you will no longer be folding and putting away all the laundry…
If the other is not cooperative, you always still do your side with the best of intentions for the highest good of all to the best of your ability… Honoring yourself is an act of self-love and imperative for a wonderful and magical human experience. When you operate from this place others cooperate, fear not…
Partners often want to start by having their partner change… They love being in their partner’s circle, then they wonder how come their partner is resistant or uncooperative. Wrong approach my friend! Always focus on your side and the other will follow suit, I promise…
Remember to set your boundaries in alignment with your values… Then they are more meaningful and a lot easier to honor them…
APPLICATION: Compile a list of annoyances and things that don’t work for you in your life… Write it with compassion and grace. Don’t judge yourself or others. They have all served a purpose… Now it’s time to no longer put up with them.
Addressing one at a time: ~ Explore how those things have contributed to who you are today and how you’ve gotten here ~ Identify what no longer works about them ~ Feel the impact they’ve had on you, feel it in your body, breathe through it ~ Thank them for what they have provided you and let them go ~ Identify a practical step to address the things and take an action step towards them today
Taking full ownership and empowering ourselves is not for the faint of heart. If you are serious about Becoming your Best Self, creating your Best Relationship, and living your Best Life- this is not an option. This is how you do it!
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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