With the hustle and bustle of the year end activities and holiday preparations and festivities, it is no wonder that we might feel a little over extended and perhaps have been neglecting our selves and loved ones. With the New Year just around the corner, it is time to shift gears and change our focus. It is time for fresh starts and new beginnings.
If your relationship has been feeling deprived, stuck, troubled, or just needs a little pick me up, now is the time to infuse it with new life!Think on what you want your relationship to be like. Close your eyes and see it in your mind’s eyes. Take a moment to really see what your dream relationship with your partner would look like. Take a deep breath and take in positive energy, hope, wisdom and love. Exhale out any reservations, resentments and negative thoughts.
Try to see the ins and outs of your relationship: How do you relate? How do you make decisions? How do you resolve conflict? How do you have fun? How is your sex life? How are you otherwise intimate? How do you enjoy personal time? How do you enjoy couple time? How do you manage dual careers, jobs? How are your finances? How do you share responsibilities? Do you have children? How do you relate with them? What does your home look like? What are your couple and family rituals? How do you feel as a couple? How do others see you as a couple? How do you deal with your family-of-origin, in-laws, and friends? Really see your relationship. Feel it. Once you have a sense of it. Open your eyes. Put a smile on your face.
With the beginning of a new year comes the promise and hope for new, different, and better. The opportunity to start anew and fresh is here. In the New Year we usually feel recharged, hopeful, open minded, motivated, and open. Now is the time to tackle your Relationship Vision. Make a commitment to making your relationship vision a reality, and pour your refreshed and ready self into your Relationship Enhancement Journey! Make relating more intimately and connecting more deeply a priority. Start creating your relationship vision today!!
Happy Fresh Starts & New Beginnings, and Happy New Year!!
~ Your MetroRelationship™Assignment
Share your relationship vision with your partner, invite them to visualize their own, and then integrate the two to create a Joint Relationship Vision! Here is how to make your joint relationship vision a reality: Pick one of the items in your joint vision that you want to work on and make a reality right away (you can schedule in your calendars a session / date to review your vision and create more goals to keep the momentum going!).
Once you chose your target item create a concrete goal around it and get to it!! Your goal needs to be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time limited.
It needs to include who will do what, when, where, and how. Also, it is very important that you attach the sensory effect and emotions of your item to your goal (how will achieving the goal taste, feel to the touch, smell, sound, look like, and feel emotionally?).
For example, let’s say that your joint dream relationship includes having fun together but you are currently lacking in that department and want to enhance this part of your relationship first.
Your goal could look something like this: We will take turns scheduling weekly couple outings that are no farther than two (2) hours away, last three (3) hours in length, take place on Saturdays, for the next three (3) months.
Having accomplished our goal will taste sweet and bubbly, feel smooth and velvety, smell like pink and peach roses, sound like a running brook, and feel exciting, alive, connected, safe, and loved.
Copyright (c) 2016 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.
It never ceases to amaze me that what we believe and think we create… I recently had the pleasure of connecting with a fabulous person who shared, “I started having the Good Things falling out of the sky…” What a lovely, powerful and faithful statement! I want this for you. I want you to have a life of ease and beauty. I want your Journey to be out of this world…
All it takes is to have positive believes, to align our values, and to clean our thinking and expectations for what we expect we get… This prescription is easer written than sold. There are many who are resistant to this concept and appear to choose a life of hardship instead. I’m witness to this in my work with couples everyday.
Partners expect their partner to be selfish, unsupportive, unfaithful, greedy, self-absorbed, needy, demanding, critical, uninvolved and many other unloving ways. Isn’t this crazy?! Of course this is not what they say they want in their relationship and from their partner, but they operate and have an ingrained belief system that this is how relationships and partners work. And, so it is for them.
This is tied-in with our feelings of Self worth and value. At a deeper level, we don’t believe we deserve better, to be treated well, to be cherished. If we don’t value ourselves how can we deserve. This is painful and devastating. Our Ego jumps in to protect us from this pain. The result is more shields, defenses and walls that further hide us from our selves, our loved ones and the world. The result is that we lose our Self.
Unknowingly we perpetuate this self-sabotage, defeating, and annihilating approach. We end up being unfaithful, dishonoring our purpose, and cheating those we are meant to be a hero to out of their Hero! This is completely unacceptable. We get an F in the course of life. We fail our mission to earth…
We have been blessed with the Gift of our Partner. We are contracted to assist each other on our Journey. Through our relationship we get to learn (remember) our Self worth and value, to own our Self, to embrace our magnificence, to stretch and become whole (again), to bring our best Self forward – to Be our Self.
This is the goal of our relationship. This is the reason for our Partnership. I know that when I settle in my Journey, lose faith, and sit by the side of the road for a moment that my relationship suffers.
My husband and I have not contracted for a “mediocre”, purposeless, life. When I break our contract we suffer… This has only become obvious to me in the recent past. I know now that I have to stay in the game for the highest good of all concerned… I can’t forfeit. Not embracing my magnificence is not an option.
Unfortunately, sometimes I’m not as much of a quick-learn as I’d like to believe. I’m still learning that when I’m tired I need to do more Self Care, have more Fun, and Recharge, and that being tired does not mean being on the wrong path… I’m learning to read my relationship queues better and really capitalize on this Gift and Blessing. I’m learning how to better Leverage this Partnership.
This is my Guide, my Compass. My husband is my Angel. He is my Gift. He provides the lessons I have to learn… The more I accept and embrace the lessons with courage and determination the more fulfilling, joyful, peaceful, empowering, loving, rewarding and down right awesome my Relationship and Journey become…
My relationship is my classroom and school is in session. I show up everyday ready to learn and pass with flying colors. This is how I create awesomeness. I highly recommend this approach to your relationship to remember your worth, get what you deserve, Be your best Self and have an awesome relationship and life! Receive the Great Stuff falling out of the sky…
Complete the MetroRelationship™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start experiencing your awesome relationship, and Authentic Life…
Happy Receiving!
~ Your MetroRelationship™Assignment
Make a Sitting Date™ with yourself. Get comfy. Get grounded. Open up to see clearly and be open to receive… Take stock of your relationship and interactions. Do a review of what you love and enjoy, of what recharges and uplifts you. Rejoice. Do a review of where tension happens, of what can use sprucing up, and any impasses. Step back and observe these.
What’s their common denominator? What’s the theme? What’s the repeating Script? What is the lesson you have to learn, the code you have to crack, the stretch to Be your whole Self? Sit with this. Think of your next move, make it specific and concrete, to practice and demonstrate new competence in your area of growth… Add this to your Tool Kit…
Copyright (c) 2016 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.
The Holidays do all kinds of things to people. They provide a year-in-review, showcase our progress and success, spotlight our communion and belongingness, highlight our relationship dynamics, and nudge our very Soul for wakefulness. Add to this all the demands, expectations and hassle and bustle, and it is no wonder that the Holidays are rough for some.
The Holidays create stress, anxiety, depression, paralysis, withdrawal, mania, shame, overindulgence, overwhelm, crashing, loneliness, and other goodies. How do the Holidays affect you? If you generally fair well, still take note however minor the impact.
The Holidays can be treated as an opportunity for growth and healing… This is definitely fertile ground to work with! Why not take advantage of the opportunity available for the taking? When anything is framed as opportunity, its energy, meaning, impact and potential change. Now the situation is a gift and not a nuisance.
There is positivity built-in the reframe bearing optimism, strength, courage, hope, compassion, love, understanding, ownership, authenticity and awesomeness… Let’s shoot for getting more than just presents this Holiday Season!
Let’s go back to how the Holidays highlight our relationship dynamics. Whatever our dynamics they get amplified during this time. It’s as if our dynamics are on steroids. What you see, witness, experience is your usual dynamics to a heightened level.
This gives you an opportunity to better understand what usually bothers you and what doesn’t work that might have been difficult to pinpoint before. Before we knew interactions annoyed or hurt us. We knew are needs were not met. We complained, fought or sucked it up in hopelessness.
But now we have the chance at a magnified experience where we can see the crack. We have the chance to look at the crack up close and personal, and study it. We get the chance to see how it needs mending. The trick is to know what to look for: The theme, the broken record, and your script. What keeps replaying?
What is the lesson you are to learn? What is the code you need to crack? How are you to stretch to grow and heal, to break the impasse? This is the driver behind the dissatisfaction. Your call to action is to do something different for that in and of itself is Change…
It’s time to shake things up. It’s time to take a risk.It’s time to have better expectations. It’s time to raise the bar. It’s time to honor your Self, to Be your Authentic Self, and to bring it to your interactions. It’s time to be courageous and not be afraid of what could be. It’s time to go for it. It’s time for the next book in the series.
What does this look like? How do you go about it? It’s actually quite marvelous and simple. All you have to do is have a different response than your usual in your interaction. And, to do this for your Self without any outcome, expectation or intention of changing your partner in mind… So if you usually complain, call things out, whine or other some such in your interactions, your different response could be not say anything or to focus on the positive.
If your usual way is to suck it up, keep the peace, avoid conflict, and cave in, then your difference response could be standing up for your Self, speaking up, sharing what you are experiencing, or setting a limit or consequence.
The point here is not to go about changing your whole relationship, getting better results, inviting your partner to respond differently, and the rest of our usual intentions. This one is the mother load. This one goes for the jugular. This approach is for Us. Can you imagine? For Us… It is to build the muscle that has been dormant and which upon awakening saves the day…
Give it a try. Be gentle. Be courageous. Bring out the part of your Self that has been screaming to come out. Make space for it. Create safety for it. Nurture it. And take a leap of Faith, use it in your interactions. Go for it. Give it a try. The pay off is unimaginable…
Complete the MetroRelationship™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start experiencing your awesome relationship, and Authentic Life…
Happy Awakening!
~ Your MetroRelationship™Assignment
Take a look at the weeks ahead. What significant events or plans are coming up? How will you be celebrating? What traditions will you follow? What rituals will you enjoy? Sit with the plans and the answers above… Hold them in your heart. Suspend judgment.
Are your plans in alignment with your core beliefs? Does your celebrating honor your Authentic Self? Do your traditions transmit your values? Do your rituals strengthen your identity, sense of Self, connections and bonds. Do they impart love, acceptance and adoration? Do they embrace our Human Experience…?
Connect with what comes up for you as you explore this. Where do you need to show up differently? What concrete change will you make for your next event or plans? Put it in action now… Add this to your Tool Kit…
Copyright (c) 2016 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.
It saddens me to witness people’s struggles, to watch them get in their own way, to drown in a glass of water, to miss the bigger picture. Maybe this is compassion for my Self as I can certainly be in that place… This is one of the lessons I’m still learning.
This is part of my Journey. In its course I grow, heal, learn and further embrace my Calling… It is amazing to step back and take in the machinations, the alignments, and the perfection in how everything plays out, always for a reason… It all adds up…
At the end of the day, this brings me back to the sadness, compassion, for others for at least I can see the hidden gift, the blessing, and the opportunity. I draw strength and inspiration from this. This is what makes me a gifted healer and a leader in healing.
This is part of my Purpose… But for those who are not yet privy to this, all the tumultuousness of life is just pain. I can’t imagine not having the higher perspective. My heart truly goes out to those who struggle.
Having a higher perspective doesn’t exempt us from the happenings of life, and it is not always easy to hang on to it. But being able to see things from a different angle than merely seeing them as things happening to us makes a heck of a difference. This is where our human experience manifests.
Seeing the good in everything around us, even the so called “bad”, is where the opportunities abound, the promises lie, the gifts reside, the blessings are bestowed, the magic happens. This is where the beauty of the mystery of life can be found, if we can only but awaken…
Of course this applies to our relationship. Everything that happens in our relationship happens for a reason. The state of our relationship and everything that we get from our partner we have invited, we’ve co-created. Everything that goes on is a blessing, though sometimes a blessing in disguise.
When things are not to our liking or when we are in pain it is a sign that something different is needed. It is an opportunity to become intentional about our approach and our Being.
It is a call to realign, to stretch, to grow, to become whole and more empowered by adjusting our attitude, thoughts and behaviors. It is an opportunity to let go of Ego and defenses and to more fully embrace our Authentic Self. Thus creating the Awesomeness we wish and deserve.
This is why our Partner is a Gift to us. They provide the fertile playground where we get to play, stretch, develop, grow, heal, create and role model… Our interactions are blessings. They are all opportunities for us to embrace our human experience, and for us to be our Best Self.
In Relationship we have the opportunity to reach, embrace and engage our Authentic Self. Our directive is to look at everything through this lens and see where we need to stretch, grow and learn. It is ALL for us.
Everything happens for a reason. There are opportunities and blessings at every turn. Our job is to recognize them, to awaken to this Mystery and use it in our Journey. When we wake up and open our eyes, when we don the blessings lens on, and when we translate misfortune or aggravations into opportunities we recognize how Graceful and truly Bountiful life is. Go ahead, open your eyes, and be Thankful for all the Blessings in disguise.
Complete the MetroRelationship™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start experiencing your awesome relationship, and Authentic Life…
Happy Thanks Giving!
~ Your MetroRelationship™Assignment
Take the high road. Step away from your (overt or covert…) steadfast position on an impasse with your partner. Put on Your Enlightenment Lenses™. If you were to look at your situation from a transcended perspective, what would you see? How would you say the situation is prodding you to change? What are you being taught? What are you supposed to learn? How are you supposed to grow?
How is this inviting you to become your Best Self? How are you to stretch to get there? Sit with what comes up. Hold off resentment and other Ego driven feelings and thoughts. Hang in there. Weather the uncomfortableness… Hang with the new perspective. Take a moment to design two concrete behaviors that you will implement consistently to honor this call and step into your new reality… Add this to your Tool Kit…
Copyright (c) 2016 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
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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.
In most relationships usually one partner wants more closeness and togetherness than the other. The partner that wants the togetherness and closeness derives their safety, meaning, and joy from being in relationship and in connection.
They are the ones that do the “relationship work”, make the plans and keep the social calendar, they make sure everything in the home runs smoothly and that everyone has what they need, and are the ones that need to be in “touch”. When this is disrupted in anyway they don’t feel safe, comfortable, grounded, happy, important or valued. In their worst moments, they have the experience of being pushed off, or falling off, a cliff.
These partners tend to be controlling to prevent having this experience and come across as “nuts”, bossy, demanding, critical, mean, uncaring, selfish, reactive, needy and the like. What an irony when their underlying feelings are so raw and vulnerable, when they are feeling so powerless and unloved. Because of their approach to getting love, feeling connection and being together they actually create the opposite.
They push their partner away. They shut down their partner. They are usually a force to be contented with, which their partner is not equipped to do… For you see, they tend to attract a partner who is sensitive to feeling smothered, criticized and not feeling good enough… Therefore with the approach at hand they end up shooting themselves on the foot.
To make matters worse, these partners have a difficult time receiving love, attention, care, appreciation, nurturing, and other niceties… So, even if their partner is able to Stretch to stay in the intensity and stay connected, they are usually not received well… This creates a catch 22 for them, leaving the partners in pain.
The partner seeking the connection has a difficult time trusting the connection being offered because they know it won’t last and the anticipation of the impending “separation” is too much to bear. Also in connection they are “seen” and “see” themselves kicking-up (triggering) all sorts of goodies (shame) exacerbating this dilemma. Connection involves showing up…
This is the challenge. They need to show up for their partner and in their interaction, when they don’t even have their Self… The partner seeking attention and connection is so used to doing for others and caretaking that they are not fully in touch with their Self.
Their sense of Self is not fully developed or strong, making it difficult to bring it out to play… The thing they desire most, connection and attention, is then very scary and threatening. They end up doing funny business when they do get what they desire, giving their partner mixed messages and rejecting the very thing they are after. What a conundrum!
At the end of the day the partner that complains that their partner is not available is not really available either… Ha! This angle on the dynamics is very challenging for the “connecter” to see. They are all about connecting, feeling their partner and being together that at first glance this doesn’t seem to fit…
They’ll make all sorts of claims about how much they wait for the other, how much they reach out, how they do all the nurturing, how the make all the plans, how they do all the asking and taking care of things, and on and on. And, they are right.
They do all that, but that doesn’t make them available… When their partner responds they are met with criticism, nagging, demands, Doing, and such. They are not really Showing-up. They are not Present. They are not Available.
The trick here is to Be, to be available, to be able to feel the other. When we are present we can connect. A lot to times our “disconnector” partner is looking for us and they can’t find us, they can’t “see” Us… Our shell, our body, our noise, our Defenses are there – but We are not… We are busy Doing because we can’t sit with the uncomfortableness of not doing.
We don’t know how, we feel lonely, alone and unworthy – noise and stuff is better to our untrained psyche, our Ego. But in stillness and quiet we can Be, we can feel and know our Self. We get to connect with our Self… We can feel the bond with our Authentic Self, our Higher Self…
When we feel our Self, connect with our Self, we are not alone. Not only do we have our Self, but we are also connected to our Higher Power… We are NEVER alone… When we connect to our Self, our Authentic Self, our Awesomeness is available. And, it is not only available to us, for our Purpose, but to our Partner. They can now feel us. They can now connect with us. They can now be safe around us…
It is time to stop complaining that your partner is not available… Turn to your Self instead and really see if You are available. Do this when you are open and receptive, and in a Self Growth Place™. Doing it at any other time is counterintuitive and defeats the purpose for you won’t See… When you do get in touch with this, you will have moved to a new phase in your Journey.
Investing in your life and relationship becomes Fun… You’d have transcended the stuckness, and now you’d have a blank canvas in front of you to create Connection to your Heart’s content…
Complete the MetroRelationship™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start experiencing your awesome relationship, and Authentic Life…
Happy Connecting!
~ Your MetroRelationship™Assignment
Take a moment to review the last two weeks and notice when you were not available to your partner. Go deeper than just not being around or being busy… Even when you believe you were available, assess if you really were… How are you not fully available? How are you not Showing-up?
How are you not Being your Authentic Self? How are you rejecting connection from your partner (who is supposedly the unavailable one…)? Take a deep breath and give your Self compassion… Think of 3 things you can do differently to become available… Add this to your Tool Kit…
Copyright (c) 2016 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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