I hear how every year appears to go quicker and faster for some as their lives get busier and more complicated in their attempt to keep up with the pace of our ever moving society. This is a challenging pull to evade fraught with consequences for the relationship. We become distracted from our partner, our connection, and our love and in so doing we loose sight of each other and move away from our happiness.
Recently I had a client question why partners become disconnected. In the discussion that ensued, she very creatively metaphorsized. the relationship between partners as being like the tide, with partners moving in and moving out.
She envisioned the partners being in sync with one another in their need for closeness and space, and problems occurring when the partners back away from the incoming tide and thus getting out of sync. (Thanks Sandie for the great image!)
As we get side tracked with life and get busy not making time surf we get out of practice with being intimate. When we see the waves rolling in, we become frightened and either don’t move in to join them or run away from them. Our insurmountable daily tasks and chores usually keep us from being fully present in the moment and available to ourselves and our partner.
We keep pace without taking moments to be in our life. Inevitably, we loose sight of who we and our partner are. It is scary as heck to be intimate with a stranger and not knowing what we are even bringing to the interaction! This is dissatisfaction in the making!!
Therefore, I want to invite you to resist the pull to do more and faster. I want you to slow down and start savoring each moment. Become aware of your state of mind and physical being as you do this. Just check in. Look for the beautiful in your day. Get reacquainted with yourself. Recognize the blessings in your life – there are many as you start to pay attention, be grateful.
Feel contentment envelop you as you acknowledge what you already have and the beauty in the world around you. We work very hard for more but we can’t have more until we acknowledge and savor what we already have. We are usually spinning our wheels. Stop the madness now!
A more grateful and appreciative, relaxed, attuned, aware, and awake you makes for great company for yourself and your partner! This is a place of abundance. This is a place of Joyfulness and Peace where Giving becomes spontaneous!!
Happy Giving!!!
~ Your MetroRelationship™Assignment
Slow down! Clean out your to do list. Simplify tasks and projects. Automate. Delegate. Hire out. Streamline. Declutter. Make your new mantra: Less is More. Organize and keep order. Create systems to make doing easier. This creates more time, space, and serenity – wonderful resources to gift to your relationship.
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 is a wonder that couples figure out how to get along and create a joint life together. Partners usually experience love, attention, intimacy, communication, conflict, money, holidays, time, space, and everything else differently. They bring to their experience their history, upbringing, culture, spirituality and many other influences. Yet, they still have one very important thing in common, their need to feel loved, valued and accepted.
The kicker is that even though this is one of our prime directives, and a main objective of our human experience, we manage to botch this. We want love, attention, affection and connection, but we do everything in our power to actually not get this… We sabotage our relationship satisfaction, our happiness, and the success of our Experience every chance we get.
We walk around with blinders on oblivious to our brilliance, oblivious to the gift that is our partner and to all the opportunities for growth, healing and creating that are thrown our way. If only we could just wake up. Oh wait, we can!
Unfortunately, I’ve been acquainted with those that want to stay asleep and love blaming their misfortune on everything and everybody else. The pity is that they are not aware that they are sleeping and refuse to see anything remotely telling… They sit in their self-righteousness, entitlement, ignorance, and arrogance. They love their box.
Oh, do they love their box! These are the partners that do really funny stuff in their interactions and do all kinds of funky behaviors in the name of “normalcy” and “self-care”… These partners cross boundaries, dishonor themselves, have poor accountability and live as victims…
All it takes is to say – NO MORE! Make a commitment to opening your eyes, to embracing your full Authentic Self, to partnering with your Partner…
Do you want to connect more deeply and intimately with your partner? The strategy around this is to remain flexible. Often times we control the plan, event, situation, interaction, routine, and ritual in order to supposedly get what we want. And wanting we’ll remain…
The trouble with this approach is that it guarantees just the opposite for in rigidness we can’t show up and be our Authentic Self. To boot, there is no space for our partner to show up either. We set up this perfect conundrum over and over, and then wonder how come our relationship and our life are not working.
So, in flexibility there is opportunity for slowing down, syncing up, seeing each other, witnessing the other’s brilliance,receiving our Partner, enjoying the beauty of the moment, getting grounded, Being present. This is what makes up all the little moments that create our relationship.
This is what allows for larger and more meaningful moments to take place. This is what allows for spontaneity to happen and therefore Life. When we are flexible our energy flows, we are Alive.
The opportunities to be flexible are endless. Our job is to make sure we are flexible where it counts. Most of the time we are flexible in areas that harm us and are inflexible in areas that enrich us. We’d have no problem eating an extra cookie, but should our partner ask to spend time with us when we are busy we are quick to deny the request.
We love being busy. We believe that if we Do we Exist, so we do more. We derive our worth from our “busyness” all but forgetting to Be. In our Doing we become rigid getting ourselves stuck and disconnected. Being flexible allows us to Be, to Live, to Love and to Be in Connection.
The next time your partner approaches you trying to connect, stay open and flexible. Slow down. Allow yourself the luxury of Being with your Partner. Enjoy your Gift. Enjoy your Connection!
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
Flexibility enables connection. Strengthen your flexibility muscle by considering different options when opportunities arise. Choose outside of your usual repertoire. Try this in all areas of your life for a fuller experience and expedited development. Be extra generous when entertaining the options in relation to your partner’s attempts at connection… 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.
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.
Right about now is when the end of year crunch and stress of holiday planning starts to creep in. People fall into all kinds of categories in terms of how they do the holidays. But whether they actively plan and try to dot all their “i”s and cross all their “t”s or by just wing it nonchalantly, everyone is affected… The holidays have this funny way of getting under one’s skin, hitting raw nerves, and poking at our soul. There is something primal about holidays…
The holidays seem to expose who we are as humans, how we are connected to our kind, how our family operates, how we relate with our partner, who we are as individuals… Not for nothing people struggle during the holidays. Our core gets shaken…
We compound all this with the overwhelming amounts of to-dos we impose on ourselves that push us further away from connecting, loving and Being. We create a nauseating cycle of shame… This is the struggle that people face…
The holidays become challenging when we lose sight of what is important. Some drown with the to-dos and expense of putting on the show. The focus becomes on the material and indulging. This only serves the ego and physical plane actually depleting our Spirit, our Soul. At a time of being Thankful and Giving, of nourishing ourselves and our kindred spirits we actually shoot ourselves on the foot and deplete ourselves further…
The challenge then becomes, how do we have a different holiday experience? How do we stay in Spirit? How do we stay connected to our Tribe? How do we honor our Selves and serve our Kin? The holidays have a way of becoming all about the food and gifts and other misplaced focus.
How do we refocus? How do we reinvest? How do we show up and reduce the doing? How do we Serve? And, a lot of time we might be busy serving others that we forget our priorities, how do we serve our Partner?
What do you think would happen in your relationship if your focus became to Serve your Partner? Think about this. How often have you sat and thought about how you can honor your partner, how you can stretch to meet your partner, how you can do more for your partner, how you can make their life easier and better?
Are these questions freaking you out? That in and of itself is indicative of where your energy needs to be… The more of a reaction you had, the more your attention is to be focused here… This is definitely true if you have been struggling or going through a rough spot.
Make a commitment now to shift your focus. Make a commitment now to prioritize your partner and to serve them, to really honor them. What would this look like for you? What kinds of things would you be adding to your repertoire? What kinds of things would you stop doing? How can you stretch to be of service to your partner?
See your partner as the kindred Soul they are… What is their purpose? What are they about? What are they trying to do? What are they meant to do? How do you usually get in the way of that? How can you now pave the way…?
And, after you answered those questions, think about what else. What else can you do to show your partner you cherish them? If you struggle having cherishing feelings, go as if you do… How do you show your partner adoration, that you treasure them?
What else can you do to show them they are your number one? What else can you do to pamper, nurture, shower them with the right attention and love? Remember this is about them, you have to do this their way not how you would want it…
Have this holiday season make a real impact on your relationship. Mindfully observe how you usually would go about setting up the merriment, and intentionally make changes so your approach honors your partner. Allow the holiday Spirit to be present in your interactions and shift your focus to Serving your Partner. Have a magical Holiday Season!
Complete the MetroRelationship™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start experiencing your awesome relationship, and Authentic Life…
Happy Serving!
~ Your MetroRelationship™Assignment
Relationship Challenge™
Have a brainstorming session of ways to Serve your Partner, and how to shower them with awesomeness and act of kindness. Make a list of 50 items… Join our Relationship Challenge™ by committing to shower your partner until the end of the year with items from your list. You are invited to use the comment section of this blog to share the honoring and serving ways you are implementing… Have fun!! 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.
Whoever said that Halloween is just for kids and trick-or-treating? Yes, adults have fun too with the decorating, costumes, and parties. But I’d like to also suggest taking this a step further by using Halloween as a relationship-building tool. Why not? Why waste a perfectly set up situation with built in opportunities for awesomeness?
Depending on the current status of your relationship and your relationship’s needs, there are different ways to take advantage of this holiday. I’ve come to recognize three levels of “involvement” in couples: Closeness, Intimacy and Passion, what I’ve termed the CIP Principal™. These levels are not necessarily mutually exclusive, progressive in nature, contingent on each other, or otherwise reliably related in anyway…
I have found that couples move between these, have them all, have none or have different combinations of them at different times… There is no normal or preferred way, there are pros and cons to everything, and relating is never perfect. It is what it is, and it is for a reason… We can’t force what isn’t nor give up on our desires… Our job is to determine where we are and what we need right now, and to go from there…
Determine which level you are in this week and what Stretch you are willing to make to move into the level of your current desire. Please note, that if you are struggling in your relationship that you might not even register in CIP. Don’t let this disturb you. This is where you are, and that’s OK. Choose the level in which you’d feel comfortably out of your comfort zone…, and go for that. If you are still not sure of where to start, go with Closeness.
I’ve tailored suggestions on how to use the holiday for relationship building and enriching according to “involvement” levels:
Closeness –Planning to partake in the holiday to varying degrees. Being aware of the holiday and discussing with your partner how to celebrate. This might include decorating the outdoors, setting up for and receiving trick-or-treaters, going trick-or-treating, going to a Halloween party or other related event.
Intimacy –Planning to enjoy the holiday to varying degrees. Inviting your partner to join in the fun. This might include dressing up, dressing up that plays off each other’s costumes, playing pranks, hosting a Halloween party, hosting pre event gatherings or after parties…
Passion – Planning to savor the holiday to varying degrees. Seducing your partner into more private fun… This might include more provocative and insinuating dressing up, attending more adult – “flirtatious and enticing” events or venues, hosting a masquerade party, hosting a seductive spooky dinner party, hosting your own “live-out your fantasy” private party…
These are guidelines to spark more specific ideas fitting your situation, relationship and desires. They can be extrapolated for use in other holidays and celebrations as well. Remember you can do whatever you want. Your imagination is the limit. Don’t let fear, ego, insecurities, and the like hold you back from having fun in your Life and Relationship, enjoying your Self, and Being with your Partner…
The more you invest in the interactions at each Level the more you’ll enjoy your involvement, and the more awesomeness you create. Go for it. Take a risk. Push the envelope. Get out of your comfort zone. And enjoy unnerving, provoking, exhilarating, and elating fun!
Complete the MetroRelationship™ Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start experiencing your awesome relationship, and Authentic Life…
Happy Enjoying!
~ Your MetroRelationship™Assignment
Identify what level of “involvement” you desire to Stretch into in your relationship this week: Closeness – Partaking Intimacy – Enjoying Passion – Savoring Approach your partner about Halloween Plans and Relationship Fun related to your desired level. Invite them to codesign a befitting activity or outing for some spooky and thrilling relationship fun! 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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