This is about the toughest week of the year… This is when we have Blue Monday, supposedly the saddest day of the year. Bills come in from the holidays, attempts at new habits start falling to the wayside, hibernation is knocking on our door, and things just feel heavy. It’s rough to get going on creating our Best Year Yet… What’s needed is an influx of energy to set us on the right path. The best way to do that is by Embracing Self-Care and Resilience…
Self-Care is one of the 4 Aspects of Self-Love we are working on to help us start the New Year right…
Self-Care is about taking good care of ourselves- with having a wholistic self-care practice that generates vitality, health and wellbeing.
There are a lot of definitions and information out there about how to do a Self-Care Practice. My Self-Care Practice is on steroids and became the Self-Love Practice we’ve been working on… LOL
I like to look at Self-Care as solely the activities that nourish and take care of our body and wellbeing: Sleep, exercise, nutrition/supplementation/hydration, grooming/hygiene and relaxation/mindfulness.
When we give these activities the proper attention, we are taking care of our “meat suit”, our human vehicle, so that it allows us to have a beautiful, full and long human experience…
When we take proper care of ourselves, we slowdown the aging process, we increase our health, vitality, longevity and ability to truly enjoy our life. Who wants to get to an advanced age and be decrepit? Or, worse be decrepit now or have a short-lived life?
Having a rich Self-Care Practice allows us to have boundless energy and larger bandwidth, be healthy and fit, look and feel amazing, have more focus and stamina, and the ability for higher performance in all areas of our life.
A rich Self-Care Practice gives us the ability to feel happy and joyous more consistently, to better self-regulate and to be less triggerable… It helps with our wellbeing and resilience…
Watch the video for Tactics to uplevel the 5 Pillars of your Self-Care Practice… Enjoy!
APPLICATION: Some see self-care as a mysterious concept and have the mindset that only privileged or lazy people can afford it. They might consider it a luxury or a waste of time to do things to take care of themselves… Or, they truly believe they don’t have the resources for it… If this is you, I challenge you to consider that you can’t afford not to invest in taking care of yourself…
You don’t have to invest a tremendous amount of resources doing self-care tactics, you just need to make targeted investments to get the results you want.
STEP 1 – Decide what is it you want in terms of your fitness, health, and wellness. How are you doing in these areas and how would you like them to be, how would you like to feel?
Take stock of your energy level, mood, health, fitness, and appearance. What can use some upleveling?
STEP 2 – Review the Pillars below and choose one to focus on that will address the area you want to target and that will give you the most immediate results.
Depending on your current state and lifestyle, you might need to start with the basics, or you might want more advanced and nuanced strategies.
I provide a range of ideas here to get you going, feel free to do additional research to take charge of the Pillar you identify as your current focus.
Pillar 1 – Sleep: Research shows that most people are sleep deprived. When sleep is the thing that detoxes and cleans, repairs and heals, and recharges us. We tend to short-change ourselves when it comes to sleep.
At the end of the day, it’s not really about the amount of sleep but the quality of sleep you get that allows you to go through all the sleep cycles several times a night to get the most benefit from your sleep.
The key is to have good Sleep Hygiene:
💤 Reverse engineer what time you want to get up in the morning, and back up to what time you’d need to go to bed to get up at that time while giving you an average of 7 hours of sleep.
💤 Start shifting gears for sleep two hours before your bedtime – no food, drinks, blue light
💤 Start your night routine at least 30 min before you want to be asleep – account for all the things you want to do before you fall asleep…
Like: Prepping for the next day, doing your skin care routine, activating your soothing bedroom environment, gratitude journaling, connecting with your partner, reading
💤 Commit to lights out and shutting down by your sleep time
💤 Set your alarm to wake you up at the time your chose and turn off snooze, get up when your alarm goes off
Pillar 2 – Exercise: You might be doing everything right, but if you are not exercising you won’t achieve your fitness, health and wellness goals… Which are needed to support the rest of the goals in our life and to truly live a well-lived life…
There are tons of myths about exercise, and exercising as we used to understand exercising is more harmful than good. For example, spending hours doing cardio to lose weight has proven to be an ineffective tactic (you lose muscle mass which slows down your metabolism)…
What seems to be better supported is a combination of:
🏃♀️ High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) 🏋️♀️ Resistance Training 🧘♀️ Flexibility Training
You can create a basic workout routine that incorporates all 3 per workout session or on rotation that makes sense for your life and that is enjoyable for you.
And you can choose what types of activities to do for each. You can put in as much or a little into this as you wish as long as you cover your basics.
*Consult your doctor if you have any medical conditions.
Pillar 3 – Nutrition, Supplementation and Hydration: The key here is to understand your goal and to feed yourself accordingly in a nutritious and healthy manner… There are so many ways of eating and so many different diet protocols and they all contradict each other- your head can explode trying to figure out how to eat…
My suggestion is that if you are just now beginning to take charge of your consumption that you start small and with the basics:
🤩Reduce your caloric intake- consume calories in relation to how you spend calories, reduce to a reasonable intake that still provides you with enough energy and nutrition (for women an average of 1500 cal/day does the trick but do your own research to match your situation)
🥙Eat cleaner- just stop eating all the processed foods and junk, and greatly reduce your alcohol consumption!
🥗Step it up to even cleaner eating- reduce any inflammatory foods you recognize your body doesn’t like (bloat, pimples, constipation, foggy brain, etc.)- like gluten, dairy, soy, eggs, peanuts/other nuts, corn, cruciferous vegetables, beans, nightshade vegetables, sweeteners, onion/garlic, caffeine (increases cortisol levels!).
📞Consult a nutritionist or functional doctor– get specific guidance if you are lost, confused or need additional support for creating a plan that works for you and your body… And for proper supplementation.
💧Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate- Shoot for 32 to 64 onz (1 to 2 liters) of water per day and you can step it up as you desire… I’ve been using this bottle to give me a visual of how I’m doing…
*Consult your doctor if you have any medical conditions.
Pillar 4 – Grooming and Hygiene: This is totally a personal choice of course. But I have it here as part of taking care of our body. A groomed body looks better, is more youthful and lasts longer…
👁Taking care of our skin, hair, teeth, eyes (hydrating with eyedrops helps maintain good vision!), etc. goes a long way.
💄Minding our products is super important as we try to become radiant from the inside out and minimize the toxins we put in our bodies…
🧹Adding a detoxing routine is a great practice – like body rolling, face rolling and skin brushing.
Pillar 5 – Relaxation and Mindfulness: Can you believe that we forget to breathe? LOL
We might shallow-breath to get air in for survival, but in general we don’t breathe well. We don’t get enough clean air circulating through our body.
Additionally, we don’t stop to smell the roses. We are always on go mode or mindlessly taking a break or so called relaxing.
We don’t properly restore, recharge and rejuvenate.
Our daily routine needs to include practices for being present and grounded, intentional breaks, and restorative activities like:
• Meditation • Visualization • Breath Work • Taking a break from our computer and other devices • Stretching • Connection calls • Pursuing an interest or hobby
Regardless of where you are with your Self-Care Practice, it’s always nice to shake things up, spruce them up and uplevel them. Focus on the Pillar that makes the most sense for you to address first, then tackle the rest as you make progress.
Don’t take all this on at once. It can be very overwhelming to make so many changes at once, and you won’t be able to fully integrate them into your life if you start slipping up (which you will if you do too much at once).
Once you selected your Pillar, do the research, set up the routines, set up the supportive environments, put all the things in place to help you work your Pillar.
Have fun with this. This is a lifelong pursuit. Enjoy the process!
Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…
With Much Love & Light!
Copyright (c) 2022 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
Are you feeling like you are moving slow getting the New Year and your Best Year Yet started? The first couple of weeks of the year are always rough. Either we overcommit to new stuff to create our new life, or we just can’t seem to get it together to get moving… Either way we are not properly approaching the changes we want to make to get the results we want… But there is a better way and that’s Embracing Self-Management and Flow…
Self-Management is one of the 4 Aspects of Self-Love: Self-Honoring and Being Self-Management and Flow Self-Care and Resilience Self-Connection and Radiance
Self-Management has to do with taking full responsibility for ourselves- with learning how to properly manage ourselves and strive for excellence and high performance. It is about flowing through our days creating our Best Life…
Embracing Self-Management in our Self-Love Practice allows us to truly have our own back and support ourselves in our Journey…
Self-Management is a multifaceted endeavor, it includes managing our thoughts, feelings, behaviors, energy, time, space, and everything else…
For the purpose of our Self-Love Practice, I’m honing-in on how we set up and go about our days to effortlessly achieve our goals, experience joy and fully live our life.
Watch the video for 5 Tactics for managing yourself… Enjoy!
APPLICATION: Self-Management is a super skill. When we manage ourselves well, we are unstoppable! Here are tactics to help you easily start better managing yourself for more high-performance, productivity, and flow… Let your Core Values guide you as you work through this exercise.
Set some time aside to Design the Life You Want to Live…
🌟Time Mapping – Decide how you want your weeks to flow… Design your Ideal Week. Designate days with themes and part of the days for different Life Areas. For example:
–You can have writing or content creation days, client days, meeting days, admin days and such.
–You can have Self-Love/Me Time, Couple Time, Family Time, Chores Time, you get my drift.
This guides where you add your commitments in your calendar, where you focus your attention and what you work on, and helps you manage how you use your time, energy, and bandwidth… This is a one-time exercise that you tweak as you see fit.
🌟Time Blocking – Now, within your Time Map, you get to drill-in how you use any given time. You designate time chunks for tasks and commitments. This is a weekly task where you plop in what you want to work on and accomplish into specific times of your week.
Be sure to judiciously block time including buffer time and transition time. We want to allow for context shifting and build in grace for when things don’t work out as planned. This ensures more flow and ease in your days…
–This is a great activity to do on Friday before the closedown for the day, so you are ready for the next week and avoid the Sunday Scaries (AKA Sundaynitis in my home). Or, a Saturday Morning Reset activity, or a Sunday Afternoon Reset activity. Whatever makes sense for your life.
Decide when you’ll do your weekly Reset with Time Blocking. Add it to your calendar as a recurring event…
🌟Routines – This is my favorite. When we create rich routines, we can make any change we desire in our life. We don’t change in a vacuum. Creating change is very challenging and routines provide the context where the change can happen. It reduces friction, creates support and motivation. The things you are trying to do happen automatically without you having to white-knuckle your way.
–Choose a time of day where you and your family experience the most stress, where most conflict happens, where everyone ends up crying, yelling or both, or where you’d like to add more richness for a better life… This usually includes mornings, evenings, and bedtime, and other transition times like Friday evening, Sunday evening, before and after vacations or trips, and such.
–And, in terms of adding richness: Self-Care/Love Routine, Bedtime Routine, Skin Care Routine, Food Prep, Family Night, Couple Time, Date Your Partner, etc.
–Select your time by activity to improve, richness to integrate, most stressful to eliminate, by whatever you’d like to tackle first that will have the most immediate impact in your life…
Then design a routine that will address the friction and issues you encounter. For example, choose a time to start transitioning to the evening routine and what does that entail- daily review, organize for next day, closedown technology/work, connect with family members, discuss timing of next activity, start meal prep, etc.
Once you design the look and feel, tweak your schedule/calendar and your environments (declutter, layout stuff, set reminders, send notices, and such) to support your design…
🌟Habits – These are the ingredients of your routines!
Depending on what segment of the day or routine you are targeting to create more ease in your life, you can implement new habits to make that routine or time of day work better.
AND, to achieve your goals, you must have repeating targeted behaviors, tactics or habits to go along with them. Goals are achieved through taking consistent action…
—Health/Wellness Habits do very well as part of a morning self-care routine and part of weekend reset routine (meal planning, food shopping, food prep).
—Connections Habits do well as part of transitions, evening routines, and weekend routines.
—Success Habits do well as part of targeted work time blocks…
🌟Special Days – These are the exceptions to your routines and the sparkle sprinkles! Think of different ways of playing hooky if you may. LOL These are theme days to take care of things and enjoy things outside your regular routines.
–Specials days can be used as: Fun Day, Me Day, Mommy-Daughter Day (or other family combos), Adventure Day, Admin Day, Reset Day, Shoot Day, Lazy Day, and so on.
Make a list of all the Special Days that would make sense and that you would enjoy in your life. Then add them to your calendar as recurring events or keep as things to be scheduled during reset or planning days.
And that is the powerful way of taking charge of your days and creating the flavor of your life.
Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…
With Much Love & Light!
Copyright (c) 2022 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
As we start a New Year, we are looking forward to a new chapter, and possibly a new book, in our life. The thing is that the person that got us here, our current self, is not the person that can get us there… The person that got us here and only do more of the same…
For us to create something new, we have to be able to Be in a new way… The new self can create our new chapter, our Best Year Yet. A way to the new self is through Embracing Self-Love and Being.
Part of our Human Experience is to continue to grow more into who we really are… To continue to evolve. Shedding the slumber, the character defenses, the defense mechanisms, and other unconscious patterns to become our Best Self. This is the pursuit of Self-Growth…
I’m looking at the pursuit of Self-Growth as having two key components:
🌟Self-Love Practice for our Being
🌟Personal Development Practice for our Becoming
This month’s series will focus on our Self-Love Practice with today defining Self-Love and setting us up for a deep dive into developing a rich practice that really honors who we are and takes care of us.
Self-Love has to do with:
💖 Self-Honoring – Respecting and honoring ourselves- our values, our needs, our body, our feelings, our intuition, our perspectives, our space, our time, our preferences, our wishes, our dreams and so on.
💖 Self-Management – Taking full responsibility for ourselves- with learning how to properly manage ourselves and strive for excellence and high performance.
💖 Self-Care – Taking care of ourselves- with having a wholistic self-care practice that generates vitality, health and wellbeing.
💖 Self-Connection – Having a strong relationship with ourselves- with fully knowing and accepting all parts of ourselves, with keeping our own company, with having our own back, with being more present, with nurturing ourselves.
Each of these can be a whole newsletter or blog in and of themselves. LOL Nonetheless, we’ll be covering some aspect of each in the coming weeks, starting today with respecting and honoring ourselves.
Watch the video for 5 Tactics for honoring yourself… Enjoy!
APPLICATION: You’d think it’d be easy to be us. To be who we are. To be ourselves… As you might be aware, this is actually not the case and our Journey is about learning and evolving ourselves… Therefore, it’s imperative that we integrate tackling this intentionally in our lives…
Set some time aside to give yourself some Self-Love…
💗Values – We have to know our Core Values to help us filter our decisions and pursuits in our lives… Complete the Identifying Core Values exercise, and let your discovery inform other practices and tactics for more cohesiveness… Get the guide HERE.
💗Essence – We have to choose what flavor human being we want to be. LOL In your journal, list qualities of people you admire and who you consider role models.
1️⃣Underline the qualities you have in common with them. 2️⃣Circle the qualities they have that you’d like to embrace more in yourself… 3️⃣Summon the essence of that quality and strive for integrating it into yourself… Do this when you need a little pick me up, inspiration or motivation.
💗Feelings – Thoughts lead to feelings… Therefore, we can generate whatever feelings we like!
1️⃣Decide what kinds of feelings you want to experience more in your life…
2️⃣What kinds of thoughts would you have to have to generate those feelings? 3️⃣In your Journal, capture the thoughts so you can reference them as needed if you are having a hard time generating them, and their related feelings, on any giving day… 4️⃣Make it a habit of choosing the feelings you desire for the day first thing in the morning and go about generating them…
💗Intentions – We can be pretty chaotic in how we show up to our life and the days in our life if we are not intentional about it… Intentions are a powerful thing… You can choose how you want to show up everyday, and self correct at any giving moment…
1️⃣In your Journal, make a list of intentions about different ways you’d like to show up in your life.
2️⃣Keep this handy to draw from as needed to bring more intentionality and personal engagement in your life… 3️⃣You can use these as daily intentions, weekly themes, sprinkles for kicks and to keep things fresh
💗Roles – This one is super important. I often discuss this in our work with clients in terms of what kind of people they want to be regardless of how the people in their lives are being…
1️⃣Ponder on what kind of human you want to be, what kind of man, woman, or other gender, what kind of partner, what kind of parent, what kind of “child”, what kind of sibling, what kind of in-law, what kind of friend, neighbor, boss, and so on… 2️⃣In your Journal, capture your musings. 3️⃣Identify where you’d like to tweak how you are being in any relationship and get to making the corrections or upgrades…
Isn’t this work just so delicious!? This is a quick way to embrace you and Be more of who you want to be, who you really are… You’ll just be intentional about really Being you…
Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…
With Much Love & Light!
Copyright (c) 2022 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
It feels terrible when we have the same arguments over the same disagreements, over and over again… Doesn’t it? It’s so frustrating to feel like we are living in the twilight zone, or that we are having a Groundhog Day experience… It’s tough to know that we’ll have the same conversation without resolution, yet again. Feeling like beating your head against the wall? Having repeating arguments, how you’re your relationship dynamics?
Having the same fight, or conflict, over and over might have to do with communication skills, but most importantly it has to do with your relationship dynamics… For you see something happens before a fight ensues, before a conflict is identified or sometimes even before verbal communication is started. And that is being triggered…
Being triggered means our sensitivities get perturbed. Or that core or old wounds or trauma get poked. The poking engenders strong emotions such as anger, fear, anxiety, sadness, numbness, or feeling out of control.
When these feelings come on strong, they are accompanied by higher activation of neurotransmitters in our brain and hormonal release. The cocktail floods us and monopolizes our brain activity, becoming less engaged with our higher executive functioning. This is where the amounts of skills or tools you have don’t matter as they become inaccessible…
Our getting thrown off might result in our isolating, shutting down emotionally, becoming argumentative, or becoming physically aggressive. At this juncture the partners resemble toddlers in their ability to manage themselves.
This is why it’s so important to do our personal development work. For healing and growing ourselves up, so we don’t walk around with gaping wounds and sensitivities that are easily triggered. And that drive our approach to life and our relationship, and our relationship dynamics…
In interactions with our partner, we have the opportunity for healing and growing ourselves up. This is the bonus benefit of being in relationship with our Partner and their perfect imperfections that perfectly complement our own…
It behooves partners to not lose sight of this gift, and to transcend the recurring dissatisfying patterns by addressing their triggers through the Relationship Enrichment Lifestyle™.
When getting triggered in our relationship, there is a built-in opportunity to now get what we didn’t get growing up (to heal)… And, for learning how to stretch ourselves to meet our partner’s opposing needs (to grow up, become whole)…
Once we integrate this into our relating, we are able to tap into our inherent relationship synergy… This is when the waters part, and life is our oyster… LOL
Learning what drives the dynamics (our and our partner’s triggers) and how to work with them for our evolution and more meaningful Journey, is a marvelous lens and mindset to embrace in our relationship. This is when we stop the power struggle and becomes allies. This is when we become a true Partnership…
This is then our conscious and intentional relationship. Being aware of our triggers and being mindful and intentional about addressing them, is the way to change the relationship dynamics and to create the relationship we want. This is the key to our transformation…
Changing the Dynamics
It’s very easy to feel stuck, frustrated and hopeless when it seems that we just go around and around in our conversations, if we even have them, without getting anywhere. The same issue/s keep creeping up and no matter what we do we can’t seem to crack the code. But with a little mindfulness and intentionality we have the keys to the kingdom.
The Reactivity
The key is to pay attention to the reactivity. Start noticing when you get prickly, what gets on your nerves or annoys you, what are you sensitive about, what touches your sensitivities, and such. Now do this by observing what happens to you, what comes up for you. Don’t do this by focusing on what your partner is doing or not doing, and taking yourself on a ride about them…
Then notice how you respond in the interaction or situation. What do you do outwardly and inwardly? What are your “emotional behaviors”? Shut down, withdraw, distance, dismiss, minimize, and the like? Or pounce, attack, pursue, nag, control, maximize, and the like?
The set of reactions you identified are your go-to Defense Mechanisms…
You can be on a spectrum from Distancer to Pursuer… The higher the conflict in the relationship, the more the polarization…
What are you feeling behind your defense mechanisms? Controlled, smothered, suffocated, cornered, unappreciated, inadequate? Or, abandoned, rejected, unwanted, unworthy, unsupported, alone?
These feelings are your Wounds…
The Distancer feels – Controlled, smothered, suffocated, cornered, unappreciated, inadequate
The Pursuer feels – Abandoned, rejected, unwanted, unworthy, unsupported, alone
Share the instructions with your partner and have identify their Defense Mechanisms and Wounds… I’m sure that by just doing your side, you can probably identify your partner’s as well. But it’s best for them to identify and own their own experience…
Regardless of how you arrive at identifying your partner’s side, I’m sure you’ll notice that you are opposites… A little or a whole lot.
Now, don’t let this scare you as Opposites Attract… And, once you start doing your work, you’ll become less polarized and learn to work with your differences to the satisfaction of you both.
Your Reciprocity Loop
Your dynamics is a reciprocity loop, a recurring repeating pattern. Actually, it’s a beautiful dance between the oppositeness…
You want closeness, they want space.
You want to discuss things to process, they need time on their own to think to process.
You want to be flexible, they want to run on schedule.
You want to do things together, they want to do things on their own.
And, so on…
Partners might get triggered in the face of the different preferences… Specially if there is already some disconnection and unappreciation going on at the moment…
The Looping: Something happens. Partner A gets Triggered and responds with their Defense Mechanism. Which Triggers Partner B, who responds with their own Defense Mechanism. Resulting in Partner A having their Wounds/Feelings additionally triggered, to which they respond with more of their Defense Mechanism. Additionally, triggering Partner B’s Wounds/Feelings. And on it goes…
Let’s say:
Partner B announces they’ll be away for the next three days.
This makes Partner A feel unwanted, rejected and abandoned.
They react by demanding why the partner is going away, asking a million questions about the trip, requesting a gazillion things get done before they go away, asking them to come back early, and such.
Partner B now feels controlled, nagged, and trapped.
They in turn don’t want to provide details on the trip, are evasive about the possibility of coming back early, forget to do some of the tasks requested, and such.
This makes Partner A feel more unwanted, alone, dismissed, unsupported. So, they become more controlling, demanding and such.
Now Partner B feels more controlled, unappreciated, and suffocated.
And it can really escalate…
Does this sound familiar? I know, you are not alone!
The Transformation
Without spelling out therapy sessions here, the first and most basic thing to do is keep your understanding of your dynamics top of mind.
So, when your partner does something that triggers you, you can put it in the right context for yourself and address what comes up differently…
And so, equally as important, is to be mindful to not operate or react in a way that triggers your partner…
Giving each other a different experience, especially a different outcome in the face of a trigger is what’s healing… These are reparative experiences.
Another way to be healing is to ongoingly and proactively do behaviors that are antidotes to the Wounds. So, what’s needed is provided without having triggers making noise to get needs met.
For example, build-in couple/connection/togetherness and individual/alone/separateness times into your routines…
The additional beauty here, is that in stretching to give our partner their preference, we grow… So, it’s a win-win.
And that’s how you do it. Hang on to this golden ticket my friend, play with this concept to transform your relationship. You’ll be amazed at what’s possible once you crack this code! Enjoy!
ASSIGNMENT: Make a concerted effort at becoming a conscious and intentional couple… Keep your dynamics and working them top of mind!
Identify your Defense Mechanisms and Wounds
Identify your Loop
Identify behavior and attitude changes to avoid Triggering each other
Identify and implement ongoing Habits to tend to the Needs related to the Wounds
As with anything, when you bring consciousness, focus and attention to something, Awesomeness happens. I wish this for you in your life and your relationship.
Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…
Copyright (c) 2021 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
Hey, we can all relate to being annoyed by our partner at one point or another. But sometimes this goes beyond our idiosyncrasies, quirks or habits. Sometimes we just pick, pick, pick and go around and around. We argue to make our point and prove ourselves right. We get into fights about how we are talking and arguing. And the fights might even escalate to epic proportions. There is no fun and love in that.
I you are bickering and fighting, how are your communication skills? Have you considered this as part of the issue?
I’ve been giving this topic more airtime recently to really help partners get over this hump:
Having great communication skills is a must in our relationship, actually in any relationship, for the partners, or parties involved, to feel good about the exchanges being had. In a love relationship this is paramount for helping the partners feel heard and understood, repair and apologize, get on the same page, make decisions, address issues and resolve conflict.
This is primarily where the safety and flavor of the relationship is created. This is where the partners get to gel, feel close and create intimacy, feel belonging and acceptance, address how to create their dreams and the rest of it.
When partners keep missing each other in interactions – when they force their perspective and miss their partner’s, when they hear what their partner is saying in terms of how it impacts them instead of understanding their partner’s experience, when they are not attuned or available, how are they to get on the same page and feel understood and accepted?
It is impossible to get on the same page when we say something, and our partner responds not to what we said but to what they interpreted and assumed we meant. And, when we do the same to them…
The key here is to listen with an open heart and compassion. To listen with the intent of understanding what is going on for our partner, regardless of what that means for us. And to definitely not make it about what it means about us!
So, just listen. Try to understand what they are saying without getting stuck on the words being used. And try to understand what it means for them, what is happening for them, given what they are saying. Don’t make assumptions, translate or play therapist!
Then, reflect back what you are hearing, repeat to them what you heard them say: “I’m hearing you say __________”.
When partners feel genuinely heard, they stop repeating themselves, they stop using pejorative and blaming language and they soothe any agitation or intensity…
This very basic skill is a game changer! Give it a good try.
Debriefing Chats
Couples experience the most difficulties during transition times in their routines and life flow… Moving from work mode to couple or family time is usually a major friction point and when most of the arguments happen…
Building in some time to realign as you switch gears is key to pave the way for being together, honoring each other, and enjoying what’s up next.
All it takes is intentionality. Start by agreeing when the transition time is… This in and of itself is massive. Usually, partners are not on the same page about this and are automatically set up for conflict…
This would look something like: Having “Morning coffee/tea” at 7 am Touch base at lunch at 1pm Dinner time / evening routine starts at 6:30 pm Reconvene at 1 pm on weekend days
Once you have a time, use this time align – share what you’ve been doing, things you experienced, what’s on your mind, address any lose ends or concerns, recap game plan for what’s up next and such…
This ensures you flow and operate well together. It prevents all the nonsense couples experience and build-up of minutiae and concerns and therefore chaos and resentment… Implement this immediately to take charge of your day and flow with each other. Enjoy!
Appreciation Sprinkles
It is hurtful to not be seen and recognized in our relationship. Especially when we try to be loving, kind, generous and attentive and it seems to fall on blind eyes and deaf ears. Better yet, might feel like our partner is in a sensory deprivation tank or another plane of existence! LOL
Don’t get me wrong, they might feel the same way. It might seem to them like we are in a sensory deprivation tank or another plane of existence…
There are many ways to address this, but the easiest and fastest is to simply be mindful…
What does this mean in this context? It means to be present and aware, to notice. And then to action this awareness…
At any moment in time when you see your partner, let them know a couple of things they’ve done that day or how they were that you appreciated.
To remember to do this, you might do it at specific times in your routine: When transitioning from one part of the day to another or from one activity to another, before meals, at bedtime and such.
This minor caring gesture is super powerful in shifting energy and reconnecting… Play with this one with gusto. It’s super rewarding.
These are so easy to implement and yet powerfully transformative.
ASSIGNMENT: Decide which Communication Hack you’ll embrace first and make a Habit of it. Add it to your Habits list / tracker and play full out with it:
Reflective Listening
Debriefing Chats
Appreciation Sprinkles
As with anything, when you bring consciousness, focus and attention to something, Awesomeness happens. I wish this for you in your life and your relationship.
Wishing you much joy, connection and love today and always…
Copyright (c) 2021 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
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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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