How are you doing with your New Year Relationship Resolutions or Intentions? How are you doing with staying loving and nurturing post VDAY? Are you keeping up with your Connection Habits™?
Remember that to create change we have to keep a focus on what we want to achieve, focus on the progress and the result (not the lack of!), and how to continue to invest, tweak, and course correct to make it happen.
Creating and sustaining Connection is not easy. Partners might have a wonderful connecting moment, or intimacy, to soon after feel completely disconnected, alone, abandoned, and floundering…
The dance of connection and disconnectioncan become too much to bear. Partners learn to play it safe avoiding being vulnerable, intimate or close to prevent feeling let down and worse off afterwards.
Some partners work too hard at creating closeness and intimacy that they end up shooting themselves on the foot. The attempt becomes forced, inauthentic, restricting to the point that the intention to feel close is completely thwarted. We don’t want to force connection, intimacy, fun. The mere attempt has its opposite effect.
We want to be flexible, organic, real, present… When we show up with our authentic interested self, the rest is almost inevitable… Remember, your partner is just as interested in feeling loved and connected…
A lot of times the partner that needs more connection, as opposed to their partner that needs more space, thinks their partner is not interested in love and connection. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The only difference is in how they prefer to get love and connection. And, this encompasses timing, duration, intensity and so on…
Connection is impacted by how we choose to interpret moments and interactions, how we feel in our own head and body in general, how we choose Be in that moment or as a person… How we choose to do our Life… The more we have our own awesome life, the easier it is to create a joint one with our partner…
Here are 5 Tactics for Creating and Sustaining Connection:
~1~ Meet Your Own Needs ~ Too often partners have the misconception that their partner is there to meet their needs, even all of their needs! How ridiculous is this? Yes, partners can meet each other’s needs, but it’s not their job to meet the other’s needs. Partners are not to depend on their partner meeting their needs…
This might sound shocking to you. It is actually up to us to make requests, set up interactions and show up so that we inspire and create interactions that meet our needs… See the difference?
~2~ Your Partner is There to Be Loved ~ Your partner is in your relationship as a Gift to you. They are a mirror to help you continue to evolve… They are there for you to practice and enjoy giving love… They are not there for any other reason. The rest is a cocreation to have a lovely joint life and further enrich your human experience…
~3~ Find the Middle Ground ~ Relationships are usually made up of a Pursuer Partner and a Distancer Partner… One needs more togetherness (usually the more female-energy partner), the other needs more separateness (usually the more male-energy partner)…
This is actually evident in our brain structures. Females have a larger “connection” area in the brain! I’ll spare us the evolutionary and biological aspects of this. But suffice to say, that we have different needs, expectations, preferences, and such. Our job it to find a balance between both styles and preferences, and to take into account individual idiosyncrasies…
~4~ Be Strategic ~ This is where all your Relationship Tools and Skills come into play. This is where you orchestrate interactions that meet both your and your partner’s needs. Where you identify good timing for specific types of interactions. Where you approach interactions appropriately to get your needs met.
Where you know how to show-up so you meet your partner’s needs. Where you have a reaching-out, checking-in, dating, intimacy, and such intentional approach so you create and sustain connection that satisfy you both.
~5~ Invest in Commonality ~ Be curious, explore, develop and invest in common interests. And, I don’t want to hear you have tried and can’t find any! Keep at it till you crack this. Having something in common to jointly play with builds connection and intimacy.
When you go about creating connection, closeness and intimacy this way, you are less likely to trigger and scare yourself and your partner and therefore minimize the need for the Dance of Connection and Disconnection…
The Dance is just a built-in mechanism to keep partners feeling emotionally safe… If you create safety off the bat, then there is no need to pull away to feel safe, regain stability… You can connect and pretty much sustain the connection…
Creating and sustaining connection doesn’t have to be so elusive and/or challenging… You can do this, just focus on how you are approaching it and what you need to adjust.
ASSIGNMENT: Take stock of how your Relationship Mindset, your believes about Connection, and your approach to connection and meeting needs are getting in the way of enjoying more connection, intimacy and joy with your partner.
Identify where you need to upgrade your believes, approach, tools or skills
Take an action to proactively address it
Create a recurring behavior around it to consistently invest in the change
Here is to another Loving week! Make every day count!
QUICK UPDATE: I’m postponing the upcoming 1day virtual Relationship Enrichment Bootcamp™ a little to allow me to create an even better experience for you. 😉 Stay tuned for the new date and how to register! I can’t wait, it’s coming out fabulously!!
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 Connecting!
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 is the most romantic, loving, nurturing, pink/red week of the year going for you? Doesn’t it feel so lovely to step up the usual TLC and focus on treating your partner? What do you do when you want to step up showing your love?
You don’t have to go the whole pink/red flavor, but do put on a more Loving lens… Let’s commit to stepping up our Loving game every day! [To this end there is a sneak peek announcement at the end of the post!]
I don’t know about you, but I’ve learned, admittedly a little later in life than I would have preferred, that to grow, evolve and become our full, best, truest and most authentic Self we have to embrace the stretching in a very particular way…
Obviously, I do I believe in change, growth, development, always improving and such… But this stretching I’m talking about has a slightly different flavor… It’s almost imperceptible to the inexperienced eye…
I’m talking about Commitment… And, obviously I also know and understand commitment… So, to be singling this out as part of the secret sauce that makes all the difference is bizarre. Anyone who is married or in a long-term relationship, or professional career, or business, or any endeavor that requires an all-around investment from themselves would say they are committed to that endeavor.
That’s exactly the point. We commit, but do we really Commit?
This brings me to today’s issue, Part3 in our 3-Part Series on Enhancing Love in Your Relationship:
Part3:Really embracing commitment…
The Commitment I’m referring to goes beyond being in something and even being in it for a long time, and even being in it for the long haul. That’s the commitment we usually think of and live by. We commit and we stick it out.
But the Commitment I’m referring to, oh boy. It’s that commitment x10. Can you even imagine it? Again, I’m no stranger to commitment, but embracing everything with this level of Commitment, oof that’s where the juice is… That is what creates real movement, gets real traction, manifests epic change, transformation…
This next level of Commitment means there are no outs, ever. This means we show up with our best self, always. This means we put in our best effort, all the time. This means we stretch beyond our comfort zone consistently and learn to live with being uncomfortable… This means we make this a part of life, a part of our Journey.
Yes, we are not perfect. But, when we strive for the above we are our most perfect Self in those moments… That’s what I’m talking about. This level of Commitment where we go above and beyond as often as possible, as much as possible, as best as possible. Yeah…
Can you honestly say this is how you live your life day-in-and-day-out? There aren’t many who can say yes. For if you were, you would be living at the top of your game in all areas of your life… Are you there? How are you settling? Where are you settling? Where are you not investing enough? How are you not showing up?
When we keep our commitment to ourselves, we build integrity, self-esteem and success.
When we keep our commitment to our partner, we build trust, intimacy and a strong relationship.
And, this goes from the smallest of commitments like keeping your word to take out the garbage, to stepping it up every day on how you show Love…
It takes guts to live life and show up to our relationship with this level of Commitment. It takes guts to play full out in all we do. It takes guts to live our Best Life and to create our Success Relationship.
This level of Commitment, to keep really stretching into your bestest Self and into being the bestest Partner you can be is where the rubber meets the road. This is it.
Don’t just be committed. Be Committed. Play full out. Step it up. In all you do. Transcend the little you, your Ego, and embrace your Higher Self. Show up with the good stuff, ALL. THE. TIME.
Is this challenging? Heck yeah. This even intimidating if you are not used to thinking close to this way… We are not used to giving it our all. We are not used to not getting sucked into the noise of life. We are not used to not getting mired in the drama, the options, the exits, the easy and superficial way of life. There are so many ways in which we do this…
Start paying attention to how you take the easy way out. How you let yourself off the hook. How you show up with the less than your most splendid version of yourself.
Start noticing how this way of life has let you down, for you are not where you want to be yet in all areas that are important to you. Start noticing how you let others down and how you don’t create the best relationships you can. Start noticing how you are settling and sabotaging your best life and your best relationship(s)…
Is this how you want to go down? How you want to be put to rest? How you want to have lived your life? Is this how you want to have spent your Human Experience? I hope the answer is NO.
So, what are you going to do about it? How are you going to mean your commitments? How are you going to be Committed to living your best life and creating your best relationship?
Valentine’s Day is tomorrow. Use this as an inspiration. Again, no need to do the pink/red if that’s not you. But again, how will you step up how you show up? Tomorrow is also Friday. And, the beginning of a long holiday weekend. Hey, the sky is the limit. How will you step it up in your life and in your relationship?
How will somebody else looking in know that you are Committed to your Cause? What will they see you doing differently? How will you be stepping it up?
ASSIGNMENT: Are you ready to enhance the love in your relationship?
Make a list of all the ways in which you fall short of being the partner you want to be.
Make a list of all the ways you’d love to be if you were the best partner you want to be.
Commit to eradicating 2 behaviors / habits that perpetuates the Fall Short list.
Commit to establishing 2 behaviors / habits that fuel, inspire, motivate and drive the Best Partner list. Consider becoming great at Connecting…
Create a system, routine, to support the Commitment to becoming the Best Partner… Enhance your routine with Connection Habits™.
Wishing you an amazing relationship overflowing with Love. Have a fabulously loving Valentine’s Day!
And, to keep things rich and gorgeous past Valentine’s Day, I finally get to share it!, we are having a virtual Relationship Enrichment Bootcamp™ on 3/7/20!Yay! This is going to be a fabulous event to help you learn how to take your relationship to the next level, regardless of the current state it’s in… Stay tuned for registration information, in the meantime SAVE THE DATE!!
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 Committing!
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.
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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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