Tag Archives: appreciation
You Need to Tussle–Just Like Other Mammals
OUR BIGGEST RELATIONSHIP WOWS OVER 40 YEARS OF MARRIAGE – PART 19 OF 31 We humans like to connect with our weight, to feel the impact of being fully met in our physicality and embodied presence. When our cats do this, we call it tussling, and it’s really a form of play that many grownups…
Who Loves Ya, Baby?!
OUR BIGGEST RELATIONSHIP WOWS OVER 40 YEARS OF MARRIAGE – PART 18 OF 31 People often in close relationships often look for their partner to fill the love gaps in their hearts. That’s a dead-end strategy. Everyone has gotten some wounds growing up, and those wounds distort a direct experience of loving yourself. Until you…
You Can Create Exquisite Variety Without Leaving Your Partner or Having an Affair
OUR BIGGEST RELATIONSHIP WOWS OVER 40 YEARS OF MARRIAGE – PART 17 OF 31 The culture has imposed some stereotypical stodginess on committed relationships, especially long-term ones. If you’ve worried that dull routine will take over your intimate connection, or if you’ve been tempted to create a new level of juiciness by venturing elsewhere, take…
Wonder Supplies the Rocket-Fuel for Juicy Relating
OUR BIGGEST RELATIONSHIP WOWS OVER 40 YEARS OF MARRIAGE – PART 16 OF 31 Wonder is the opposite of blame. Wonder opens all your brain and body intelligence power to make new connections. When you wonder you see your relationship as a magical realm where creativity and possibility keep expanding. You can access wonder by…
You Don’t Have to Completely Understand the Issue to Let Go of It
OUR BIGGEST RELATIONSHIP WOWS OVER 40 YEARS OF MARRIAGE - PART 15 OF 31 Many people have the same attitude toward relationship issues that they hold about certain vegetables (you know, like rutabaga) they were made to eat for their own good before desert could be served. They think they have to do the play-by-play…
Respond Or React? In Each Interaction You Grow or Defend
OUR BIGGEST RELATIONSHIP WOWS OVER 40 YEARS OF MARRIAGE - PART 14 OF 31 Let’s get right to the acid test for your close relationship, for any relationship really--getting undefended in the right-now moments of your days. It’s SO tempting to get righteous, indignant or downright peeved when it really looks like your partner is:…
Take On Your Partner as an Appreciation Project
OUR BIGGEST RELATIONSHIP WOWS OVER 40 YEARS OF MARRIAGE - PART 13 OF 31 If you are like most people, you intend to appreciate, you know how important it is, but you really don’t have an expanded appreciation vocabulary and you get seduced by the siren-song of worry, complaint or the compulsion to point out…
Let Your Mate Be Your Ally, Especially When You’re Stuck
OUR BIGGEST RELATIONSHIP WOWS OVER 40 YEARS OF MARRIAGE - PART 12 OF 31 When we decided to end blame and criticism in our relationship (yes, you too can do this), a tangential surprise occurred. We stopped seeing each other as the bad guy when we’d feel a jangle in our connection. The criticism habit…
Attention is the Currency of Relationship
OUR BIGGEST RELATIONSHIP WOWS OVER 40 YEARS OF MARRIAGE - PART 11 OF 31 Most of us learned that grownups are supposed to be emotional islands, self-sufficient and independent. This strong belief has truncated a vital source of support that we all require lifelong as much as food and water—that’s ATTENTION. Grownups need attention as…
Your Body Knows—Give Attention to More Than Your Thoughts!
OUR BIGGEST RELATIONSHIP WOWS OVER 40 YEARS OF MARRIAGE - PART 10 OF 31 One of our cats, Greta, loves to literally hurl herself at us in the morning to get attention. She’s so excited to have us up that she can’t contain herself and tries to climb up our legs or swoon back into…
Turn Fear into Flow to Give Fresh Fuel to Your Relationships
OUR BIGGEST RELATIONSHIP WOWS OVER 40 YEARS OF MARRIAGE – PART 9 OF 31 At the bottom of relationship issues you’ll find one central filter that generates separation—fear. The culture got on the adrenaline-fueled roller coaster of fear several decades ago, so many people don’t realize they’ve been pickled in fear perspectives and images for…
You Can Breathe Your Way into Relationship Bliss
OUR BIGGEST RELATIONSHIP WOWS OVER 40 YEARS OF MARRIAGE – PART 8 OF 31 Stress often makes us breathe up into the shallows of the chest rather than down into the space of our bellies. Or you might just stop breathing in a startle response, compress your breathing into invisibility or kink your aliveness hose…
