I hope things are wonderful in your world. I hope you have been taking my advice to heart and simplifying your life. I hope you are entertaining, if not embracing, the concept of Essentialism. For in pursuing the Essentialism Lifestyle™ you allow yourself to live a fuller and more meaningful life…
There is peace, joy and abundance in the spaces in between, in the taking a breath, in the quiet, in the focusing your attention, in the saying No to the extra, in the asking for help or support. There is Flow in this… There is more bandwidth, energy, effectiveness, productivity, impact, and reward…
With a more streamlined approach to life, you get to be in the moment more. To enjoy the little things more. To savor life more. To connect with your loved ones more. And therein is the magic…
Before the Holiday Season is upon us and we wonder what happened to Autumn, let’s make sure we take this concept seriously to slow down time…, keep our sanity, or better yet to enjoy much happiness and wellness. It is with much pleasure that I bring to you the Autumn Bucket List!
This is not to do everything on the list and pack your free time with extra stuff. Rather, this is meant as an inspiration to create more free time to allow you to enjoy the good things in life… Don’t make it a goal to cross of everything on this, or your own list… Rather, look at this list for inspiration, glee, amusement and replenishment…
Take a look at your Teams – your family members, your coworkers, your colleagues, and such. What kind of team member are you? I’ll bet, because you are reading this, you tend to take on more than your share…
It’s time to own the concept of simplicity, of putting better systems and accountability in place, of working off strengths, of setting better boundaries, and of focusing on priorities. Focusing on the vital few commitments versus the trivial many is where the rubber meets the road!
Here are a few pointers towards Essentialism:
Protect your time from interruptions and distractions
Limit time with energy-zapping people or activities
Only make commitments you want to keep
Compassionately and gently tell others you can’t meet their request
Set clear expectations and accountability
Let others carry their own weight
Select your Big Focus and safeguard it from the rest
Block off “unscheduled time”
Use the “unscheduled time” to nurture yourself, to ponder, to Be
This brings us back to sprinkling joyful activities into our life. If you plan an outing with the kids or your partner in the name of sprinkling joyful activities but you end up more stressed out, tired and aggravated, maybe it’s time to reconsider how you refill your cup…
Obviously, how the activity is set up and carried out, and how the interactions are allowed to play out are important in and of themselves. But this is for another topic. In the meantime, focus on what actually gives you Joy. The benefit is exponential…
Remember to complete the MetroRelationsip™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start creating your Successful Relationship and Meaningful Life…
Share your experience by leaving a comment below!
Happy Sprinkling!
~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment
What areas in your life create the most chaos, are overflowing with to-dos, are the least productive, and give you the most agita?
Make a commitment with yourself to tackle this area from an Essentialism angle: streamline, cut out, set boundaries, FOCUS.
Stay on this till there is more room to breathe, then reward yourself with a super fun or nurturing activity.
Add this to your Tool Kit…
Copyright (c) 2018 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 doesn’t fully look like Autumn yet, but it’s beginning to feel like it with the slight chill in the air and the days getting shorter. It feels cozy but not in a lazy kind of way. It feels like newness, inspiration, motivation, new beginnings. Do you feel it?
This feeling comes with an energy that rumbles, gets a grip and gnaws at you till it’s put to good use. It feels like an engine revving. I love this feeling, this is when I want to start a million new projects and have to be mindful about what I choose to take on. They all feel exciting, important, and fun.
This is when the minimalist concept I like to play with comes in. I’ve actually updated this to the concept of Essentialism… Where we focus on what is important, what gives the fastest and better results, what has the most meaning, the most value, the most impact, and such… This is one of my growth places for I like complex things, I like to be busy, I like to tackle a lot, and such… I’m known for this in my circles. LOL
But, I recognize non-essentialism and its related pain a mile away now for myself, and others. I’m aware I’m on the spectrum with this, and I like it that way. I’m not shooting for complete, pure essentialism (I might one day, one never knows!). I am though shooting for continued movement towards more sustained ease, peace and joy. And, this is where the pursuit of essentialism holds a lot of promise…
As the new season, back2school, and Q4 are here, these are dangerous times. This is when the revving rears its ugly head. In anticipation, I tackled some of this towards the end of the summer in my writing, posts, sessions, and of course my personal and professional life. But, it’s feeling imminent to be more direct and assertive about it now as I watch those around me being seduced by the allure.
There are a few factors that play out in this magnetism to our demise. We make decisions in a vacuum, we look at each instance on their own merit and not as part of the whole. We make decisions based on our values but still following the more is better approach. We pursue our commitments blind, unprepared, un-resourced, and alone. We take a “spaghetti against the wall” approach when looking for solutions.
We react, put out fires, try this and that in an effort to fix issues that are more systemic in nature. We meddle, mingle, dabble without enough knowledge and commitment for our efforts to make a difference. You get the gist. This is a life lived by default… There is no overarching structure, plan, Design…
I’m witness, as I’m sure you are, to people running from one commitment to another. They are double, and triple booked. They squeeze in something into every second of the day. They try to do it all. They say yes to everything. And, even if they don’t they say yes to a whole lot.
There is no guiding master plan. There are no in-betweens. There is no just being. There is no milking the moment. There is no ease. There is no flow. There is little inspiration. And, what little inspiration is there it can’t be acted on because there is no room to do so!
Then there is another breed, that might think they don’t fall into the category of the above because they pursue only what they want… But they way overdo that! They end up in the same boat and missing out on other Opportunities…
Where do you fit in? Is your life demanding and you are now recognizing that it’s too full, even of the good stuff? Did you have good intentions of not overdoing it again this season but here you are with a spilling over plate again? Are you so stretched out that you can’t even think straight to begin to remedy the situation?
Are you so taxed that you can’t sleep, don’t feel emotionally well, and even physically well? I have seen these people’s lives not pan out as they desired. Their health suffered. Their marriages didn’t make it. Their children were impacted. Does this make any sense, to pursue a full life that ends up being too full for our own good?
Here is where the concept of essentialism can help. Can you get on the spectrum? Can you be curious about the concept? Can you start playing with it? Can you put on the “essentialism lens” and run your decisions through it to prevent overdoing it?
Can you take it a step further and use the lens to review your current lifestyle and see what feels like too much, even of a good thing…? Start there. Start by assessing and beginning to get a grip. Then, it’s ok to let this momentum get going, and start streamlining… This is good to entertain. Your Life depends on it!
Remember to complete the MetroRelationsip™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start creating your Successful Relationship and Meaningful Life…
Share your experience by leaving a comment below!
Happy Streamlining!
~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment
When do you feel the most frazzled? When do you become the most irritable? When do you feel like throwing in the towel and running away? When do you collapse from exhaustion?
What commitments, projects, teams, groups, responsibilities, get on your nerves? Frustrate you the most? Zap your energy and creative juices?
What areas of your life suffer from lack of adequate attention? What areas of your life do you wish you had more time for? What areas are getting a lot of coverage and others not enough, according to your value system?
Start making the necessary adjustments to live the life you want!
Add this to your Tool Kit…
Copyright (c) 2018 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 is my sincerest wish that you have gotten everything you’ve wanted out of the Summer Season this year. If as you read that statement there is a little voice that says, I wish, or, Yeah right, it’s not too late! Regardless of which camp you are in, look at the next two weeks of August as a time to milk the last of the Summer Season.
Make it good! Now is the time to review your Summer Bucket List and squeeze in any activity or experience you would still like to have. Get in touch with what would make it a successful, satisfying summer at the end of the day and go for it!
As we are beginning to wrap up the Summer Season and setting up for a smooth, productive, and abundant Fall, I’m playing with the concept of success habits… When it comes to doing our everyday actions, we usually go about our day in autopilot and through habits.
This is great because it allows us to use our energy, focus and mental bandwidth for higher executive endeavors. The caveat with this is that our automatic habits were created by default, reactivity, and on the fly. This lack of intentionally sets us up to undermine ourselves as we go.
The lack of intention on how we set up our days, the routines we follow, the vices we allow, the thoughts we entertain, and just how we show up in our life creates a mediocre, or downright horrible experience. I too often witness people bumping along in life… They have no ownership, no clarity, no direction. They go through the motions, they aspire for little, they sell themselves short, they get in their own way…
These same people don’t have much life satisfaction and meaning, experience poor health and relationships, their life is riddled with drama and excuses. They move slow and don’t make much happen. They are not really living to their full potential, to their greatness, nor experiencing life the way they were meant to. They are not fully Living their human experience…
We want to systematize and automate as much as possible, so our bandwidth is available for more meaningful activities and not just the management of life… The key is to own our system and our automation, for us to program, instruct, and set up how the program is to run…
They key is also to set it up efficiently, streamlined, and on target. We all have ways we do things, but how much thought went into creating that way. Does the way actually support, serve and honor us at the end of the day?
This is where Intentional Habits™ come in. Intentional habits flow from our values and are meant to automate the building blocks of our daily life, allowing us to experience an amazing Journey. When the basic of life is intentionally set up, we create a strong foundation from which to build the Life we want. What is important to us in our life?
Loving and nurturing Relationships, health and longevity, financial and other abundance? When we identify what is important to us and what we value, the rest of our decisions flow from there… These decisions include how we do our days.
We don’t want to overthink every decision to make sure it lines up with our values, or to overthink every behavior or action we take. That’s way too much work. This is why we set up routines as we identify and implement Intentional Habits™.
We want to get rid of any habits that undermine our wellbeing and our desires in life, what we value…
We want to create habits that support our wellbeing and our desires in life, what we value…
We want to build routines (systematization, automation) around these for ease of implementation and sustainability.
Clean-up, set-up, line-up and move on!
Every action, every behavior, every thought, everything we do every day is what creates the fabric of our Life. It behooves us to own we do, to intentionally choose it all, so we create what we desire. It behooves us to get out of our own way, to stop sabotaging ourselves, to stop holding ourselves back. Embracing Intentional Habits™ makes this possible, makes our life well Lived possible. Don’t choose to just survive, choose to thrive!
Remember to complete the MetroRelationsip™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start creating your Successful Relationship and Meaningful Life…
Share your experience by leaving a comment below!
Happy Thriving!
~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment
Start out by identifying immediate, blatant habits that undermine you. Tackle these with a vengeance. Eradicate them! Start with one or two at a time, be gentle and compassionate with yourself as you go.
Replace undermining with supportive habits, implement Intentional Habits™. You choose the habit (mediating, exercising, juicing, giving hugs, sending Hello texts, date night, family night, reading, cutting expenses, adding to savings, etc.) and add it to a thought out simple yet powerful daily/weekly/monthly routine…
Add this to your Tool Kit…
Copyright (c) 2018 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.
Happy Friday! Feeling frisky yet? Fridays are powerful, they are the gateway to another dimension. They invite us to leave behind the realm of responsibility, to-dos, and commitments, and to enter the realm of Play.
I love it when people share about their 4-day-work-weeks, dress-down-Fridays, team-Friday-happy-hours, weekend trips, and such. And, what better time to fully embrace the concept of Frisky-Friday™ than during the summer months when the sunshine just beckons us to play!
Even though most people have their version of Frisky-Friday and how they enjoy their weekends, I notice that they don’t fully enter this other dimension. They linger somewhere in limbo, a world of carried-over chores, noise in their head, and spending time engaged in “commitments” or “making fun happen”… All of this is a lot of doing, which actually ends up eluding the benefit of Frisky-Friday’s Dimension…
Frisky Friday Meaning
To continue with our current ongoing theme of “getting the most of summer”, of having a Meaningful Summer™, it is important to take full advantage of our weekends. Weekends are not to be squandered. Weekends are to be milked for their inherent benefit, that of transcending the usual, Being… The meaning of Frisky-Friday is about embracing the seduction of pleasure and fun to engender well-being.
Our brain is hardwired to seek out pleasure, it is a network of “pleasure pathways” and “pleasure centers”. When these are stimulated by activities we consider pleasurable (soothing scents, enticing aromas, wonderful touch, gorgeous sites), they release brain chemicals that are associated with feeling good.
What is really amazing about this concept is that aside from the obvious benefit of feeling good, when these centers are activated they are an antidote to stress and its harmful impact.
The stress and pleasure centers of the brain are mutually exclusive, they cannot be triggered simultaneously. When in a pleasure state, we cannot also be in a stressful state therefore foregoing any harmful effects. This is the benefit of properly participating in our weekends, bypassing the impact of stress for pleasure – this is the formula for well-being!
But, does this mean we are slaves to pleasure-seeking, and potentially risky or what some might even call immoral behavior, with the host of related negative consequences? No, because pleasure is not just associated with the senses or what we traditionally think of when we consider pleasure and fun… There are all sorts of pleasure and fun to be had!
Which brings me to Values-Based Pleasure… This is pleasure associated with a sense of higher purpose that is the Key to Well-Being… The Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley focuses on research to this end, and provides a wealth of information and resources for the pursuit of well-being and making the world a better place.
They have identified 10 related building blocks, virtues, that when embraced rewire our brain, marinate our mind with positive cocktails, and change our life experience…
So, if you haven’t come up with your Summer Personal Project™ yet, you can use these Virtues as inspiration… Which virtue do you want to explore, expand and embrace more? Pick one and create a project for it, for example:
Develop a community service project on a cause dear to your heart
Indulge in a literary, conceptual or industry body of work
Expand your emotional range, language, expression
Research ethnic, other minority, or needs groups and how to support them
Clean your thinking, focus on the positive, share appreciations
Implement a gratefulness and mindfulness practice
Join a new group that shares a common interest
There are five weeks left to the summer season, and if your children go back to school early then you have even less weeks. If you’re still scratching your head asking yourself the meaning of Frisky Friday, it means to make the most of your time off and (currently) what’s left of summer, for the best summer yet!
Remember to complete the MetroRelationsip™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start creating your Successful Relationship and Meaningful Life…
Share your experience by leaving a comment below!
Happy Pleasuring!
~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment
Let the concept of Values-Based Pleasures seduce you this summer.
Maybe you want to indulge in exploring Virtues – their meaning, application, implementation, impact. Maybe you want to play at incorporating them into different aspects of your life – incorporating them into your mission, relationship, parenting, service, team building, book, any way you want!
Copyright (c) 2018 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.
Don’t you just love Summer?! What do you love about it? I love the weather, of course, the change in routine, the more leisure pace, the focus on fun, the wardrove, the aliveness in nature, and I can keep going on. But, most importantly what I love about Summer is that it’s conducive to Dreaming… Summer is inspiring and motivating. It jump-starts the creative juices and energy flow. It resets us, if we allow it.
Usually by the time Summer rolls around we are tired again, cluttered again, having let go of our wellness and self-care practice again, putting out fires as opposed to working from inspiration, again. And, so on… Right?
This is why I like Summer Personal Projects™. Regardless of their nature, I find these super productive in different ways than the usual endeavors. I find this is time for personal development, relationship/family nurturing, home improvement, life-style enrichment, purpose and meaning exploration, and leading-edge thinking…
I find this time super fun. This is when we make major shifts in our family. This is when we set up for a successful rest of the year and beyond.
So, this leads me to share about my latest intrigue, the concept of Minimalism… I have to admit, I’m a complete novice compared to those that have fully embraced this concept. Which makes it perfect as a personal project. Even though I usually write about streamlining routines, decluttering, letting go of commitments, clearing calendars, and the like, I’m embracing this concept to a whole new level! Yay!
Now, this is a personal challenge as I like to keep, track, record, document, and be prepared for anything… I overpack. I have several file cabinets in my office. I have back-up-systems for my back-up-systems. Our attic has “things we can still use.”
Until very recently I had every email I ever wrote and calendar event I ever scheduled, including all of my team members’ over time! Colleagues connect with me for documentation from almost 20 years ago… And, I have it! LOL
I have systems for keeping this tamed, organized, automated, and such. It has worked and served its purpose all this time. But now, I’m finding the need to further clear, let go, untether, minimize… It’s a very interesting experience. It’s a very interesting feeling, of not caring to hang on…
The Minimalism concept promotes letting go of stuff, to be able to add. The point is to let go of things that are unnecessary, superfluous, redundant, undermining, energy sucking. This creates space for things that are more value driving, meaningful, and life-enriching. When our life is full of junk, we have a junky life… When our life is full of meaning stuff, we have a meaningful life…
Embracing this concept is one of my current Summer Personal Projects™ that I’m sure will take a while to integrate more fully, but I’m up for the challenge and the fun to be had!
What is your focus during the Summer, aside from entertaining the kids off from school and going on family vacation? How do you milk your Summer time? How do you not miss out on the gems of Summer? Which of the above areas of Summer Personal Projects™ resonated for you? Are you tackling any? Which would you tackle? Which would inspire, reset, shift you…?
Aside from the inspiration to share about this, I also felt compelled to see what others might be doing on this topic. I came across this invigorating compilation: The Power of 30-Day Challenges. What a wonderful way to jump start Personal Projects!
What do you say, will you join me in having a more Meaningful Summer™? What will it be, a project of your own creation or following one of the 30-day challenges? Pick something that feels exciting to you to take on. It doesn’t matter what it is, the size, or the length. What matters is that you are enriching your experience through this focus, and that’s where the juice is…
Remember to complete the MetroRelationsip™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start creating your Successful Relationship and Meaningful Life…
Share your experience by leaving a comment below!
Happy Shifting!
~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment
Summer Time is just great to do our life differently, and to create momentum to shift as we desire…
What say you about taking on a Summer Personal Project™?
Make it fun, exciting, intriguing, outside your comfort zone, growth inducing and motivating!
Let this reset, rejuice and inspire you.
Enjoy!
Add this to your Tool Kit…
Copyright (c) 2018 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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