Sometimes our life feels like smooth sailing, at other times it feels like an uphill battle… Of course, we enjoy the easiness, the flow, the joy. We don’t question it much and wonder what’s working… But when we struggle, it’s not so pleasant. We wonder what the heck is happening and why things are so hard. I hear this all the time from couples that are having a challenging time in their relationship. They say things like, It should not be this hard…
But let me offer, that it doesn’t have to be hard! Yes, challenging times are rough, and nobody likes those. But we can make the challenging times worth the sticking through them… Though they are hard, they don’t have to be insufferable or devastating. Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional…
The key is to fully embrace our Human Experience, to continue to become who we really are without all the muck covering our radiance. By being super intentional about how we do ourselves and our lives, we are able to create much more ease, joy, and love…
How do we do this, because sometimes we might think that’s what we are doing but yet our relationship and our life are still very challenging?
The answer is that it is not just about what meets the eyes… It’s not just about all the doing we do and how we do all the doing…
This is what is getting in the way. We get too focused on our conscious processes and our behaviors without addressing any of the drivers behind them… This is the surest way to spin our wheels and not make any progress. This is why our relationship and life feel too hard…
Our programming, patterning, and conditioning have their way with us if we don’t do something about them… They are the drivers of everything in our life. Everything about our life is created 95% by them, and 5% by our conscious mind… Yikes! We better get to straightening all that stuff out!
To that end, let’s address some of our shadows (disowned parts and unknown aspects of ourselves) today…
~ Disowned Parts – Have you noticed that there might be characteristics about your partner or other people that just irk you? Have you noticed that sometimes your partner or others do stuff that just get under your skin? In these instances, there is something about those characteristics or behaviors that resonate within you at some level… You might have these in you or some version of them that at some point and somehow you rejected or villainized. When they show up in others, they stick out to get your attention. It’s not the other person that’s getting on your nerves… It’s your own stuff calling out to you to come home…
~ Buried Aspects – This is where there is a lot of potential for healing and growing… These parts are aspects of you that were present when you had traumatic or very painful experiences and so had to be buried to survive the pain. When accessed and taken cared of through understanding, compassion, forgiveness, letting go and such, they release the stuck pattern and energy allowing for further evolution and expansion…
~ Golden Shadows – These are my favorite and not for the faint of heart. These are the ones that hold the lessons, the ones that are a gift to us, the ones that when we experience something we might say, Things happen for a reason… These are the ones that show up the most clearly in the form of repeating themes in our life… There is stuff there for us to use in creating our Best Life, in having our Grand Life Adventure, in having to do with our Purpose for being in this life…
Our shadows need to be identified, reclaimed, owned, and integrated for us to become whole… For us to undo programs and conditioning that our holding us back. For us to break out of repeating patterns that create our suffering. For us to be our full glorious selves, with warts and all. To us to be our perfect imperfect version of ourselves. For us to have a real awakened full Human Experience…
Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional…
Let’s become more whole and who we really are, shall we?
These can get you started, and join our membership for much deeper dives into all this!
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) 2024 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 have a new season, and Spring at that. With it comes the promise of fresh starts and new beginnings. As nature comes alive we let go of the gloomy, the sedentary, and the stale. Any new season or transitions actually bring with them the opportunity for new beginnings, but Spring is really special as we witness mother nature have its fresh start. This is a perfect moment to ride this wave of momentum for newness.
This is an opportunity to let of things that suffocate us, that unground us, and misalign us…
We can focus our “Spring Cleaning” in 3 main areas:
1~ Environments, routines, calendar, workload, projects, systems and such 2~ Relationship, family, friendships, community, networks 3~ Body, mind and spirit…
When we are cluttered and toxic in these areas we experience:
1~ Overload and exhaustion 2~ Conflict and disconnect 3~ Unwellness and disease
Then it behooves us to declutter, detox, and deprogram these areas to release any stuck energy and create bandwidth and space for the new…
For each area we can do an overhaul or a minor tweak, whatever makes sense for our life at this time.
Here are minor tweaks for immediate results:
1~ Clean out a few little spots in your environments that are cluttered 2~ Change your self-talk or interactions with your loved ones to have a more accepting, compassionate and kind tone 3~ Identity a trigger that still gets you and address it at the core- identify the driving need behind it and meet it yourself and through your relationship… (This is Couples Therapy at its best to change emotional programming…)
Of course, we can do so much in each of the above areas. And, you are welcome to do as much as your heart desires. Everything can stand to be revisited, streamlined, or spruced up… But know that even the littlest “spring cleaning” will create a refresh. Be wise about what you choose, go for what gives the largest impact… That gives the largest release and creates the most spaciousness…
We talked about clearing for your refreshing to allow the newness… But I’d like to go further with this and offer ways to ride the momentum of the freshness that’s in the air and to capitalize on your refresh to actually realize new beginnings…
And that is aligning with the sacredness of life for balance, flow, and aliveness…
The first way to do that is to honor and sync with the cycles of life: ~ nature’s seasons ~ lunar cycle ~ hormonal cycle
The second way is to embrace divine nourishing practices: ~ eat nutritious food, hydrate and sleep well… ~ relate authentically with openness and vulnerability… ~ pray, meditate, reflect…
When you create the spaciousness and infuse it with nourishment, you’ll get the aliveness, connection and upleveling you are seeking. This is how you uplevel your self, your relationship, and your life…
This refresh will quite down all the noise in your life… This quite, stillness, expands and elevates your consciousness, where you become more who you really are, one with Oneness. And this is the access point to accelerate the transformations, creations, manifestations, and realizations in your life… You have access to all you need… Just open up to this new realization and let the newnessflow in…
The only thing left in this process is to be really intentional about what kind of newness you want… And then take a first step towards creating something new… Towards creating a new beginning…
Here is to your refresh and all the newness you desire…
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) 2024 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.
Let’s face it, there are a lot of reasons to be in a long-term loving romantic relationship. One of which is my absolute favorite- that of utilizing the relationship as a vehicle for evolving ourselves, and as the partnership in our Journey for having our best Human Experience and for creating our Best Life. A tall order, I know… But I love this reason because it places everything that happens in our relationship and in the time we share into a more meaningful context… And, no matter what happens we are in it together for our highest good… Then you can never go wrong! Your relationship can even help you bypass your current ego (your egoic defensive patterns)…
We’ve been doing a lot of work in reprogramming ourselves from all kinds of angles…
What if we take this whole thing to a new level? What if we find a hack to do all this so much easier? What if we transcend our usual experience with a simple shift…?
Now, I’ve touched on this before when I covered doing Identity work… This is that and more…
Creating an Alter Ego…
Our usual ego keeps us stuck and small… It sabotages us… And it takes what feels like a herculean effort to reprogram it and dismantle it… But what if there is a hack in the meantime to help create what we desire?
The hack is creating an Alter Ego… An Alter Ego just completely bypasses our usual patterns! The key is to properly design and intentionally engage our Alter Ego…
ENVISION – Have a vision of a new version of you. A version of you that you want to be, become more… What part of you is usually forgotten, goes unnoticed, can’t be easily tapped into, or you even believe you don’t have, that you’d like to have in your life. What kind of person do you want to be? What dimension would you like to add to yourself?
IDENTIFY – Given the new persona you want to become or add to yourself, what beliefs would that version of you have? What kind of worldview world they have? What kind of feelings would they feel? What kind of preferences would they have about things that are important to you? What personality characteristics would they have and what strengths? How would they approach your partner, relationship, and life differently?
EMBODY – Then, start showing up as this new version of yourself… Embrace this Alter Ego for them to be the new main character of your story, you might even want to give them a name… Show up as them in certain circumstances if that’s where you need them, or as much as possible if they are you 2.0… Tweak your habits and your appearance to match this new persona. You might even want to use a totem of sorts to channel your new you… Wearing non-prescription glasses, a specific piece of jewelry, a scarf or collar, a hat, and the like…
Integrating the New You
As you flesh out this new persona and start embracing it, think about what kind of standards they have, what are their musts and deal breakers, what are their expectations, how do they want to be treated, what kind of boundaries do they have, what values do they have and how do they live by them, how do they treat others, and so on…
Here we want to make sure that the Alter Ego is in alignment with our values and the core of who we are… We are just helping a great part of you come out to play… We are not creating something that doesn’t make sense nor support you and your life… This is an enhanced version of you that normally gets covered up with the muck of your egoic patterns…
We are bypassing our egoic patterns- we are coming out through the back door!
Remember, we are doing this to support you in Becoming the Best You. The you that’s in there and has challenges coming out to play… And, that this version is much more alluring, it’s magnetic, it gets what it wants, it easily manifests your Best Life with its magnificence.
In this version you are the King or Queen of your castle… Treat your partner like the Royal you are, and you’ll get the royal treatment back!
Your relationship is where you get to role play, have a dress rehearsal, and put on the show. Here is where you get to explore, practice, tweak and continue to Become…
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.
When we focus on ReParenting ourselves as a reprogramming and healing tool, most often the work is not broken down my Mothering and Fathering… But it is super helpful to identify what we need and give that to ourselves more specifically… With the Mothering comes the Nurturing, with the Fathering comes the Disciplining… If you are feeling alone, neglected and abandoned- you need Mothering… If you are feeling overwhelmed, stressed, unmotivated- you need Fathering… But let’s go deeper today with the stories and limiting beleives playing out in your life that are holding you back from what you desire…
It’s amazing that what we believe informs and creates what we experience… That’s how powerful our thoughts are…
I’m sure you are familiar with thoughts and believes that go something like this: We are not good enough, that we can’t make a difference, that no matter how hard we try we still can’t get what we want, that we’ll always be disappointed, that we have to work hard to make things happen, that we have to do things ourselves if we want them done well, and so on… These come from the Lack, Expectation and Control Ego Patterns…
But there is nothing a little Fathering can’t do to reprogram this thinking and related habits that hold us back from creating the relationship and life we desire…
Give Yourself a Little Fathering
As Fathering has to do with safety, security, stability, structure, routine, and discipline, we can connect these to specific Ego Patterns to better understand what kind of fathering we need to give ourselves…
Safety & Security are related to the Expectation Ego Pattern. Here is where you feel let down, disappointment, and resentment, like you can’t count on others and like they won’t be there for you. Not knowing the status of the relationship, when you’ll connect next, plans, who will take care of what and the like create too much uncertainty. This doesn’t feel safe and so you might become demanding, owning, confrontational and such.
You might want to explore your scripts and believes around safety and security. About being able to count on people, about being able to be vulnerable.
You can reprogram this pattern by adding habits and tactics in your daily routine that provide consistency, reassurance, and connection to create that emotional safety and security…
Stability & Structure are related to the Control Ego Pattern. Here is where you feel overwhelm, stress, and anxiety, and like you have to take care of everything and be the one to make things happen. Not knowing if others will follow through, keep their word, do a good job, or properly show up is just too stressful. This is when you micromanage, are overly involved, become controlling and such.
You might want to explore your scripts and believes around stability and dependability. About being able to let go, about being able to trust.
You can reprogram this pattern by adding habits and tactics in your daily routine that provide sharing, updating and debriefing to create that stability and dependability…
Routine & Discipline are related to the Lack Ego Pattern. Here is where you feel alone, sad, and depressed, and like there is something wrong with you and like things are not good enough. Not knowing how to measure up, how to fix things, and how to get your needs met creates hopelessness. This is when you self-numb, become judgmental, make others wrong, and such.
You might want to explore your scripts and believes around worthiness and personal power. About self-love, about being lovable.
You can reprogram this pattern by adding habits and tactics in your daily routine that are part of a self-love practice, partner-love practice, and gratitude practice to create abundance and personal accountability.
The Actual Reprogramming
Once you explore and clean up your limiting believes and debumk your scripts accordingly, the next piece is to add the habits and tactics into your daily routine, and other cadences, for the actionable part of creating change…
Note, as soon as you implement a new habit, you are automatically targeting your ego pattern… You undermine your ego, dismantle the pattern, with the new behavior…
Sometimes it’s difficult to figure out what the habits and tactics can be implemented to address the patterns… But this doesn’t have to be complicated. You can have your own back here by embracing a 30-Day Challenge that aligns with what you are trying to reprogram…
Personal Development, Relationship Enrichment, creating the relationship we want, creating the life we want, don’t have to require so much effort. We can actually have fun addressing things that might get in the way!
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.
When our relationship and life get challenging, we might wonder what we are doing wrong or what we need to do to fix them… What I’ve found to be true not only with our clients but in my own life is that it’s not necessarily what we do out there that makes the difference.
It’s really what we do in the inside that does. When we tend our inner world and are intentional about who we are, that’s when our external world becomes more magnificent… This is a simple way to change your programming…
Tending our inner world has to do with minding what thoughts we allow ourselves to think, what scripts and narratives we entertain, what mindset we subscribe to, and what kind of information we consume.
Tending our inner world has to do with minding our feelings, emotions and states, and honoring and meeting our needs.
The Challenge
Our brain and mind are the helm of our vessel if you may- they generate the thoughts, feelings and states, and give instructions for our actions. If we don’t take charge of them, by being intentional and deliberate about how they operate and let them run rampant, it shows in our output and what kind of relationship/s and life we create!
We can try as hard as we’d like to change our habits and force the good in our lives but if our internal world is messy, we’ll find that the changes we try to do not hold. We can’t stick with our commitments if they are just coming from our mouth and hands, and are not driven by a stronger purpose and program…
Oftentimes we are not in touch with our purpose and oftentimes we haven’t upgraded our programming…
This means that we are banging around life creating drama and sabotaging ourselves.
This means we are creating our life by default.
This means we are not living our full potential…
When we let our outdated programming run the show, we are easily triggered, we show up with chips on our shoulder, we are reactive with our defensiveness, and we just operate from the low-road, with our Lower Self… We operate from victimization, blame, and symptomatology- not our best look.
The Solution
The key is to tend our inner world so we reprogram and upgrade ourselves… So we don’t walk around like a ticking bomb or wasting our life away or having a real hard time of it…
How do we reprogram and upgrade ourselves?
In a lot of different ways… But for the purpose of this writing let me offer that a great approach is to pay attention to your feelings because they carry messages and then to attend to those messages…
This is where your partner comes in handy. They are the most important person in your life, your Life Partner, and the one that has the ability to trigger you really good. LOL Your partner is like a mirror, they get to reflect to you all the places that need tending… When they trigger you, that’s a sensitive area that needs attention…
So when you get triggered, identify what the trigger is about. What emotions and feelings are coming up. Expand on these feelings, don’t settle for just the reactive and protective feelings- anger, frustration, annoyed… Do deeper.
What is coming up for you- neglected, ignored, rejected, unwanted, alone, abandoned, dismissed. Or, small, criticized, controlled, not good enough, inadequate, unappreciated, devalued. These are just a small sampling. Pick out your flavor. Find your theme. Your wound…
Pay attention going forward, that every time you have a fight or conflict with your partner, that your wound got triggered… Find these vulnerable feelings in those moments. Those moments are not about making your partner wrong, being right or winning! Those moments carry information for your own healing. Tend to the feelings that come up.
When you tend the feelings and address what is causing them is when the healing happens and the reprogramming… You’ll become less and less sensitive to the usual triggers and they will no longer influence how you go about your relationship and your life…
This is how you take charge and really fully honor and take care of yourself. This is how you then create your radiant relationship and meaningful life…
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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