Unfortunately, it’s common that partners feel stuck in their relationship dynamics. They find that they reach an impasse, that they can’t see eye-to-eye or get on the same page, or simply that they can’t get their relationship to the next level. Meaning that they are looking for a deeper connection, more meaningful interactions, and enriched intimacy and passion. What is challenging is that they get stuck in their power-struggle…
The Power-Struggle
When partner’s get stuck in their power-struggle they experience a tug of war as to whose needs get met… Each feels the other is dismissing them, disregarding them, trumping them, cancelling them… Or that they are made wrong. They don’t feel important and cared for.
They experience an existential threat… This is why they dig in their heels so their own survival is guaranteed… I know this can seem dramatic, but know this is not a logical or mental construct… This is all emotional, experiential and at a deeper level… This is the part of us that we are not usually in touch with, our unconscious and subconscious minds. And the parts of us that are actually running the show… This is where our programs come in…
Our programs show up in the form of defense mechanisms, habits, preferences, and ideas we might have about ourselves, others, and the world at large…
This is why when we try to make changes solely from an intellectual, discipline and pushing approach it is super challenging to move the needled to then have our progress revert to the usual to boot!
The Programming
We have a preset program going on that needs to be tended at the deeper level for it to reset. This reprogramming is what allows us to dissolve our sensitivities, to not take things personally and so seriously, to have more resilience, to be more compassionate, to be more flexible, to be more open, to give more generously, to be a better receiver, to experience more joy, love, and abundance…
When we address our programming, our relationship and our life are not so much work… They become a form of play, an experience, an adventure- fun… Shifting to this mindset and estate allows to truly create what our heart desires…
There are a multitude of ways, services, programs, modalities, protocols, and tactics to address our programming. The key is to be open to healing and evolving ourselves, to do the work. And it starts by fully connecting with ourselves, being present and in the now…
Then imagine just bringing that version of ourselves in and of itself to the interaction with our partner what a difference that would make…
As we continue the reprogramming, the power-struggle resolves just like that because we are now in the conscious relationship stage…
As soon as we become intentional and conscientious, we move into a conscious relationship where then anything is possible…
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.
With Springtime we embrace the chance for rebirth and for new beginnings, a cleansing of what we don’t need, no longer serves us, and holds us back to create space for the new… How about doing more of that specifically in our relationship? How about putting focus on removing any toxicity from our interactions…
As we continue our personal development Journey, becoming more who we are every day, we encounter friction in our relationship that is meant for our growth at the end of the day… Our circumstances and our partner are a mere projection of what’s inside us… If there is something we do not like, it behooves us to investigate how that is about us, and for us…
Instead of reacting by pointing the finger and focusing on how our partner has fallen short of our expectations and desires, how about we take personal inventory instead…
It is toxic to react with our egoic patterns regardless of how our partner shows up… This might be a tough pill to swallow, but there is a reason why something triggers you and other things don’t, and why what triggers you might not trigger someone else… All of that is just for you…
So how about keeping that knowledge handy to inform our awareness and perception, so we can more easily not react and be toxic in our relationship…
If we know what patterns we tend to create, what we want to change, and who we want to become, then let’s start by not showing up with more of the usual… Let’s be intentional about how we show up.
That intentionality can start first thing in the morning, when you choose to:
~ Remember you are more than your memories, your identity, your egoic patterns, and your habits…
~ Align with your true self, not the story of you…
~ Show up this day with who you are becoming and what kind of partner you want to be…
You have a choice in all this. Yes, the habitual aspect makes it difficult to do something different but that’s where the power of intentionality comes in. Activate it first thing in the morning and reset it throughout the day when you find you have veered off course…
You have a choice on:
How to take something your partner said, did or didn’t do
How you’ll respond or address it
What you’ll focus on
What you show up with
How you continue the interaction
What you do after
How you move on
Where you go from there
How you choose to show up the rest of the time
How you show love…
Let your intentions guide you and serve as your beacon of Light…
APPLICATION: Acknowledge and embrace that your partner is a gift to your growth and evolution…
~ Identify where the most friction happens in your relationship and what info is there for your growth- the friction is not because your partner sucks!
~ Identify what kind of being you really are deep inside and how you need to be to Become more who you really are…
~ Identify what kind of responses, actions, and new habits and practices you’ll start to support your becoming and your radiant relationship…
Cultivating your Best Self and bringing it to your interactions consistently is what the doctor ordered to manifest 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.
Plenty of research shows that the way we communicate impacts our relationship’s success, and this is true for all communication across all disciplines and contexts. But do we really need the research to tell us that? Can’t we immediately tell when we are in an interaction with someone else if we are being heard and understood? Can’t we immediately tell if we are connecting and resonating? Yes, we can! If we pay attention, we can see that the way we show up to our interactions impact how those interactions pan out… The more authentic we show up the better the interactions go…
I’m sure you’ve noticed that when you show up whiny, judgy, critical, controlling, demanding and the like, that you encounter resistance from the other side…
I’m sure you’ve noticed that when you show up open, vulnerable, compassionate, understanding, accepting, collaborative and the like, that you encounter receptivity, willingness, cooperation, resonance, and flow…
The key then is in how we make sure we show up for better connection and more resonance…
We want to show up with a clear conscious, which means we take full ownership of ourselves and accountability for our actions, we stop the blame game and waiting for others to change, we do what we know is right without making others wrong, and we take the high road even when others insist on pulling us into the low road…
We want to show up with our Best Self, which means we are resourced (not hungry, tired, disregulated), mindful, available, present, attuned, interested, intentional about having a clean, meaningful and loving interaction…
We want to show up with our heart, which means we check our ego and notice our patterns giving us the ability to be caring, forgiving, compassionate, generous, kind and tender, and specially to be vulnerable, forthcoming, and to speak our truth…
For this is where the connection and resonance will happen… When we truly show up to an interaction without all the layers of protection, defenses, and pretenses, is when we are truly showing up as ourselves and that is when we can be truly seen, accepted, and loved…
Unfortunately, most interact from pretentiousness, superficiality and shallowness. Then they wonder how come they feel alone, lonely, unseen, rejected, unappreciated and such.
If you are not showing up, there is nothing to appreciate…
If you are not showing up, there is no one with whom to connect…
If you are not showing up, there is no one with whom to vibe!
So take stock of where you are suffering, what is bothering you, what is not working in your life, what you would like to change, and see how much YOU are really showing up to those situations…
Take a look at the quality of your presence… Are you being conscientious, showing up with your Best Self and speaking from your heart?
Note, speaking from the heart and honestly doesn’t mean you have no filters and you have a out-of-jail-free-card where you can let it rip and give unsolicited feedback and share all your grievances about how someone else such- you see how damaging and inappropriate this is?
No, speaking from your heart means speaking YOUR truth (not the truth about others LOL). It means sharing your inner world about yourself (not your critical thoughts and impressions about others). It means sharing your hurt, your desires, your dreams…
Speaking from your truth means putting yourself out there to be seen, to be known, to be loved…
This also means using your intuition and judgment about whom to share yourself with, when and how… This is very important- we don’t want to set ourselves up in any way… Discernment is a virtue…
Start taking stock and making your shifts to speak your truth, gently and lovingly, more assertively when necessary, making sure you show up with who you really are and share your heart…
Show up with love, be love, and you’ll receive more love…
APPLICATION: Identify have you haven’t been fully authentic and true to yourself…
~ Make a list of things you hide, keep to yourself, have never shared, secrets, parts of yourself you hide, dreams and desired you suppressed, and everything else that is significant about you that you don’t let out- that you don’t honor at the end of the day…
~ Make a commitment to slowly but surely start showing up with more integrity, more authenticity, more vulnerability, more truly yourself…
~ Mark the items you want to do this with first and set the intention to mindfully and intentionally go about sharing yourself more…
It is time to start really showing up more to your relationship and your life…
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.
With the start of Spring, a New Season, just around the corner, it behooves us to get ready for a fresh start, so we can ride the wave into a New Beginning… The key is to create the space for this by letting go of the old…
That could mean anything from things in our environments, aspects of our routines and habits, commitments and attachments, mindset and limiting believes, even our identity as we covered in last week’s article… But most importantly, we can create a new beginning by letting go of resistance…
What we resist persists… and then we don’t have space for the new… Then uplevels, upgrades, and change can’t happen…
When we focus and complain about all the ways in which our day went wrong, how we didn’t stick to our diet, how we failed in our parenting, how our partner didn’t show up as the partner of our dreams, and so on, we are in a perpetual state of negativity…
This perpetual state of negativity keeps us focused on what doesn’t work or what is not working, making it bigger and bigger… And eventually all consuming. Have you noticed how bad a bad thing can get…
A negativity focus creates more friction and resistance…
But what if there is a different way… That of having a different focus, creates a different perspective, which in turn creates different possibilities… This loosens things up and now we are open for change…
What if we let go of focusing on how things should be, the principle of it, the unfairness of it, the discomfort and such. What if we focused on what is already working, what has improved, what could be, what is possible…
What if we focused on what is amazing, what brings us joy, what we love…
And no this is not about burying our head in the sand. This is about also noticing and being grateful for the good stuff…
From a fresher, cleaner, gentler, more open, and less resistant position and energy, we are more agile, expansive, resourced and able to allow the new to come in…
We are able to see new ways, new options, new opportunities and therefore Allow in and Receive Newness… From this more flexible and expansive stance and perspective we are able to create our New Beginning…
What if we stop constricting and contorting ourselves to fit into some ideological mold we are after…
What if we stop creating so much friction and resistance by controlling, forcing and pushing…
What if we let others be who they are and we Be who we are, freeing ourselves to continue to Become who we truly are and living a much more harmonious, peaceful, joyful, loving and abundant life…
This is accessible and possible for all of us at every moment… We just have to choose it, realign and course correct as necessary, and keep tweaking how we show up to honor ourselves more and more every day. Let’s let go of the dead weight, the friction, the resistance and let’s flow going forward.
Here is to simply and beautifully letting go, and to New Beginnings…
APPLICATION: Take stock of how your relationship and your life feel… Where there is tension, friction, breakdowns, hassles, annoyances, disappointment, resentment…
~ Identify how you might be showing up with resistance- negativity, close mindedness, control, exertion and the like…
~ Identify their driver of what you identify- limiting believes, expectations, habits, lack of skill, support, attention, etc. and so on
~ Address the most prevalent one for immediate relief… Letting go of it, freeing and lightening yourself…
Cleanse yourself of old ways, allow the new to flow in…
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.
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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