Three Ways To Create Connection In Your Marriage Ep 19

Three Ways To Create Connection In Your Marriage | Relationship Coach

Missing connection in your marriage is something many of us struggle with; I certainly did. Maybe it’s something you’ve always thought you didn’t have enough of in your relationship, or it’s something that you feel has slowly dissipated; either way, it is 100% possible to bring connection into your marriage relationship, the type of connection you want. The journey to feeling connected in my own marriage has been an interesting one and one I have struggled with since the early years of our relationship, I think even before we got married. I had a belief that really did not serve me one bit; I believed that we didn’t have any connection and that he needed to change for me to feel connected. I had a vision of what connection meant for me and that vision was all about him.

This belief kept me from creating the connection I wanted because I was looking at why he wasn’t creating it. When I was able to step back and see that this could be something for me to figure out, I started the journey to taking my power back.

My own thoughts about lack of connection produced many arguments and were the basis of many of our sessions when we worked with different therapists over the years. When I found coaching and started working with my coach, she shared a different perspective that completely changed my life. There was a point in our work together when my coach questioned my thought about connection with Jeff and asked me what connection meant for me. I, of course, had lots to say about what it should look like. She asked what I thought about the possibility of us actually having great connection exactly the way it was, I told her she was ridiculous. After the session her question kept chasing me, I asked myself “what if?”, what if we did have great connection? How would I show up if I thought we had great connection?

Needless to say, from that point on, I have been on a journey to create the connection I want in my marriage. One, please notice how that coaching session worked for me. My coach didn’t tell me how to create good connection, she helped me think about it differently, and when I was able to think about it differently, it allowed me to come up with ideas of how I wanted to create connection in my marriage. That is what we do together, you and I; you share what you are struggling with, and I help you see what it is you are struggling with from different perspectives giving you new ways to problem solve and create solutions that work for you. Secondly, connection is something we create for ourselves; it is an emotion. It’s possible to feel connected when you’re not having a conversation with your partner or when you are. It is possible to feel connected talking about the weather or talking about the law of relativity because connection is a feeling we produce in our minds; it isn’t what your partner is or isn’t saying.

Something is compelling about doing the work of creating connection in your marriage. When you do the work of creating the connection you want with your partner, what happens is you will notice your partner starting to participate in conversations. When you don’t judge how they should show up, what they have to say and how they say it, you can simply enjoy your time together, creating connection!

Decide what different ways you want connection in your life and through conversation with your partner discover which ones they are willing to fulfill.

As humans, we want connection; we want to be included with others. It’s something we do from an early age on through our life, including when we get married, we seek to feel connection with our partner. Along with creating connection with your partner, I think it’s essential to learn how to build a relationship “family” that meets all of our relationship desires. Over and over again, including in my relationships, I see people disconnect from connections they have established once they meet their partner. We start spending most of our time with this new person while forgetting to keep our other connections alive; we look to our new partner to fulfill all of our connection needs which sets us up for expecting our partners to fulfill connection needs that they might not be interested in filling.

Remember how you did things with your partner not because you enjoyed the activity but because you wanted to be with them? Not a problem but also notice how many of those activities you might not care to be included in anymore and how might this be true for your partner as well? I call this took the “turning the table” concept where we take what we are struggling with and change roles which helps us better understand what might be happening instead of our partner not loving us anymore.

This step is about creating a list of all of the ways you might want to connect with others, think broad and think about connection that you might be wanting from your partner but aren’t getting. A few examples might be:

  • Adventure travels exploring new activities and locations
  • An art and creative partner
  • Art festival companion
  • Food adventurer
  • Romantic connection, physical touch
  • Someone to tell life secrets to
  • Dream conversations about what is possible in life
  • World traveler companion
  • Political banter companion
  • An accountability partner to follow through on dreams you want to fulfill in this lifetime

Our partners will not want to fill all of your connection desires, and I don’t think we would want them to, just like you might not be interested in fulfilling that connection desire your partner has around spending the weekend in a boat on the lake throwing out lines with bait on them. You will also have some connection desires filled by multiple people and some that are filled by one; you might do outdoor walks with your partner and still have another friend who joins you in outdoor activities and can look completely different. A relationship “family” is your group of people who help you explore life and your interests together. Some of these connections may come and go over time, or your connection doesn’t happen very frequently. As you expand your relationship family, you might start adding new ways you might want to connect with others, and then you start that search for a new partner to fulfill your new connection. Through this process, you may also discover that some of your current connections are no longer working for you and decide to limit or deprioritize those connections for those that are more fulfilling for you and the life you want to live.

Let go of your expectations of what connection should look like

When I started questioning what connection might look like with Jeff, I stopped arguing with what was currently happening as well as what had happened in the past. Instead, I started being curious about what could happen today and moving forward. I started opening up to conversations that felt awkward in my head but led us to some interesting conversations and laughs. When I started questioning that car rides should always include fun conversations, I started to get comfortable with the silence. When I got comfortable with the silence, I started coming up with conversations.

When you can see that you have a handbook for how your partner should show up and participate in a conversation, that’s when you can start closing the handbook and start coming up with your own style of connection and conversation. Check out my earlier post about Why Our Marital Handbooks Don’t Work.

What if it is ok that your partner doesn’t start conversations and when they do, how do you participate? Are you curious, or do you shut them down? Remember that “Turn The Table” tool I talked about earlier? Do you have expectations of how they show up, but when the table is turned, are you showing up the way you’d like them to for you?

Without your handbook of how conversations should go, you can start getting curious about when conversations might be best received, and you can start planning intentional time to chat. Share your intention with your partner, learn how to ask great questions, check out my blog post How To Ask Great Questions to get you started. What do you want to know about your partner, what do you want to talk about, and start creating that which you want?

Find a structured “meeting” time or schedule that works for you, just like a work meeting, where you discuss relationship basics as I share in my relationship huddle meeting.

Suppose you and your partner haven’t scheduled meetings before, this concept might seem a bit awkward at first. I used to have a Friday night catch-up with my daughter when she was growing up, and I looked forward to those nights because we shared discussions about things that came up for us during the week, but we didn’t have the time to hash them out and then we would turn it into a family night where we did something fun after the conversation. The same concept with your hubby, we have busy lives, and things come up for us during the week but then when the weekend comes if we don’t plan with intention, everything slips aways only to fester under the surface and eventually erupt.

Remember that this is your idea, you are taking steps to increase connection in your marriage, and that it’s quite possible that your partner might not bring anything to the meeting. If this happens you might find yourself wanting to blame them for not participating and being a partner, but I would challenge you to think about him not bringing anything to the meeting is a problem. Instead you could make it mean that you have the power to change this relationship that you want connection in.

To get started, I want to suggest you read my article about The Relationship Huddle; it will give you a structure to get your meetings started, and over time you can shape them into your own signature version. There is a reason we come together in meetings at work; it brings us together to talk about important things going on, things that have happened, and things we want to create; how important is it to do this same sort of meeting in our marriage?

Lastly, I want to suggest that you be willing to do the work to get what you want in your marriage, no matter how difficult it feels.

A bonus tip for you today is around the idea of commitment to do tough things. We are all familiar with the statement that nothing worthwhile is easy (or something like that); as my listener, you’re here because you believe your marriage is worthwhile, your happiness is worthwhile, and I fully agree. Worthwhile is work and is intentional. It is completely ok to set it down here and there and decide you need a break from the work; no problem, the problem comes when we set it down and don’t pick it back up again. When we don’t pick it back up, we will continue getting our old result which brought us here. Creating exceptional relationships is work because it requires us to step out of the comfort of staying the same, do something that might be new and that someone else might have an opinion about.

Your man might think what you are doing is ridiculous until he starts to see how it isn’t. When he sees that you are actually creating connection in your marriage, better enjoying time together, feeling more involved in your relationship, and creating more physical intimacy, well, I guess that it’s not as ridiculous as he thought.

You, my friend, have the power to create the connection you want in your marriage, and all it takes is a little nudge from inside to make it happen. Trust me, all of those little nudges you take action on will add to you creating a marriage worth coming home to!

I am a life coach who works with individuals to break down relationship barriers by awakening their true self. My process isn’t about changing your partner, it’s about discovering who you are so that you can AwakenYou in your marriage. If you’re ready to take your life and your love relationship to the next level then schedule your program inquiry call today and let’s decide together if this is your next step to creating the life you’ve been dreaming of

Marital Jealousy And How To Let It Go Ep 16

Marital Jealousy And How To Let It Go | Relationship Coach

Jealousy is an emotion that most of us have felt on some level in our romantic relationships and is quite different from envy, a word often used interchangeably. Today I’ll chat a bit about the difference between the two while focusing on jealousy within romantic relationships and how it can bring up emotions that can push our relationship apart if we don’t recognize the root of why we are feeling this emotion. I will also share how to address jealousy to best support our own mental health and wellness. Let’s dig into what marital jealousy is and how you can start the process of letting go and building a more connected relationship with your partner.

Let’s first look at the definition of envy:

Envy, from Wikipedia, is an emotion that occurs when a person lacks another’s superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it.

First, let’s look at our reasons for wishing someone lacked the quality, achievement, or possession. Wishing someone else lacked that quality that we are feeling envy over is us thinking that we can’t have what they have and because we think we can’t have it, we could feel better about ourselves if that other person didn’t have it.

I actually love being curious when I notice feeling envious of someone’s achievement, quality, or possession. Typically, I will initially notice a feeling of discontent around what someone else is doing or something they have. I notice myself judging them as possibly being irresponsible or maybe better than I am, making me feel inferior. When I become aware that I am judging them, myself, or the circumstance, I enjoy asking myself what it is about what the other person is doing, or what they have, that I wish I could do or wish I had. At this point, I can decide whether I want to pursue what they are going after and doing or if I want to admire them and let go of envy. At this point, I can actually reach out to them from a place of admiration and gratitude. Gratitude because their accomplishment has pushed me to become better and to become aware of a weakness in myself and admiration for their ability to step into fulfilling a desire in their life.

All of our emotions are signals that we want to be aware of, just like the traffic signals; if we ignore them, we will eventually get to a place where we are hurting and become victim to the emotion or a place of dissatisfaction in ourselves because we aren’t stretching and growing into our capability. When we can slow down, pause, use the signal to help us decide where we want to go next, we can let the emotion guide us to a place of spacious, conscious thinking that allows us to let go or open up to a new adventure in our life. When we’re able to process the emotion of envy, it can open us to inspiration around something we’ve been wanting to do but haven’t allowed ourselves permission to do so.

The definition of jealousy:

Jealousy, according to Wikipedia, generally refers to the thoughts or feelings of insecurity, fear, and concern over a relative lack of possessions or safety.

Jealousy is a human relational experience that becomes evident in the early ages of human development and envelopes other emotional aspects like anger, resentment, fear, inadequacy, worthlessness, disgust. When we look at jealousy within the confines of marriage, it can tear a relationship apart and cause a couple to create distance between themselves. Still, when we look at it from a different perspective, we can see jealousy as a place where you can work on your own personal growth.

Oftentimes, jealousy is rooted in low self-esteem, lack of self-compassion, self-trust, fear of unmet needs. It is often insecurity within ourselves around our desirability, ability, and worthiness to be a good partner, and we project that insecurity onto our partner. Seeing this fear within ourselves opens up a beautiful opportunity to dig in, explore, look inward and grow.

Going back to listen to episode 1 (How To Start Loving Yourself), episode 10 (One Simple Way To See If You Trust Yourself), and then episode 12 (Three Steps To Building Self Trust) will help you start taking steps to build your self-confidence and allow you to start the process of letting go of the grip jealousy might have in your marriage relationship.

When we start looking at our jealous feelings, we start looking at what is going on within ourselves and see what is triggering the emotional response. Learning how to process your emotions helps you to see where the weak link inside of you might be and then opens up your mind to the possibility of creating a conversation around what you are experiencing without putting the blame on your partner.

When we start looking inward, becoming aware of the fear that is arising within ourselves, and then do the work of processing through what thoughts are coming up for us, we can start separating out what is simply insecurity within ourselves and possibly something we might want to discuss with our partner. If we choose to have a conversation with our partner, it will come after taking time to access and manage, coming up with what you might say and how you will say it in a way that centers around you and your thoughts and feelings, without placing any blame on them for creating how you feel. We can state the circumstance, and what thoughts it generated for us, and how those thoughts made us feel; we do this process through a thought download (read more about this tool in my post “A Daily Tool To Manage Your Mind”) and then running some of those thoughts through a thought model (learn about what the thought model is and how you can use this tool in my post “Self Coaching Model”) so that we can see how we are producing our current result. When we discover the result that WE are producing and see that it is all being created within ourselves, this is often the point where we can start exploring a different option, an option that feels better for us.

When we’re open to having a conversation about what we are experiencing it opens up a vulnerability in our relationship which helps us create a more deep intimate connection with each other and helps create awareness for both parties. These conversations will often open us up to a different option for ourselves and for our partner. We went through an intimacy series recently and this type of conversation where you are opening up to how you are feeling helps build emotional intimacy, you can go back to episode 6 to learn more about emotional intimacy and how to increase it in your marriage.

Let’s briefly talk about three different types of relationship jealousy:

Projection jealousy

Projection jealousy is when we are projecting our own thoughts onto our partner. For example, we are being overly aware of our partner’s actions, jealous of things they are doing or saying, and then turning around and seeing how we might be doing the same thing, creating insecurity around ourselves and our relationship. We are projecting ourselves onto our partner to find evidence of how they may be doing the same thing. Possibly we are looking for validation outside of our marriage because we don’t feel like we are getting it within our marriage, so then we are looking for the same thing in our partner’s actions instead of focusing on ourselves, validating ourselves, and treating our partner the way we want to be treated.

Protection jealousy

Protection jealousy comes when we want to protect ourselves from something that we think might hurt us. It could show up as us attempting to control our partner’s actions to feel better and feel safe. An example could be checking your partner’s email or text messages to protect yourself from something that might be happening that could tear your relationship apart. When we build trust in ourselves, we start letting go of the control we have been placing on our relationship; we’re not ignorant to what is going on in our relationship, we’re actually more in tune with what is happening because we are engaging with our partner instead of sneaking around, focusing on something that isn’t building up the relationship and not trusting them.

Building our self-trust and self-confidence brings us awareness when we feel negative emotions and helps us dig into the why’s of that emotion versus placing the why in the hands of our partner. It empowers us to create the change we want without waiting and needing our partner to do it for us. We actually have a clearer focus of what we are creating in our relationship and trust that we are building a loving, connected, intimate bond with our partner.

Competition jealousy

Competition jealousy is when we are jealous of what we see other people getting and feeling jealousy that we aren’t getting that attention. When we look at this in our marriage, we could look at it from the perspective of scarcity, that we feel like there isn’t enough love and attention to go around, that it all has to be directed to us and if it’s being directed towards our spouse it means we are lacking. I really believe that there is plenty of love to go around when we manage our minds, and we see how emotions like jealousy are limiting our ability and capacity to love. When we take a look at the thought creating this type of jealousy, we will often find that we do not share the love that we wish we were getting, thus depriving us of the love in return.

Feeling the green eyes of jealousy isn’t such a bad thing; it means that we want something from our partner that we feel we aren’t getting for ourselves. We can let this green monster make us angry and resentful, have us pulling away from our partners, taking us further away from the relationship we want or, we can use it as a sign of love and compassion we have for our partner. A signal of an area for us to grow and a way to share with our partner how we would like to be treated and shown love and affection, an opportunity to be the one to take the action that you wish he would take.

Today could be the day where you take your jealousy and use it to pull yourself closer to your partner instead of pushing them away. If you are feeling jealous of your partner and are struggling with how to move out of it, I would love to have a conversation with you about the ways you can turn that jealousy into learning more about who you are and what you want in your marriage. You can book either a free coaching session or a program inquiry call today and notice how that action alone will create some ease in your life!

I am a life coach who works with individuals to break down relationship barriers by awakening their true self. My process isn’t about changing your partner, it’s about discovering who you are so that you can AwakenYou in your marriage. If you’re ready to take your life and your love relationship to the next level then schedule your program inquiry call today and let’s decide together if this is your next step to creating the life you’ve been dreaming of.

Old Story, New Lessons

I have a morning routine that includes reading the Bible, meditating upon what God is teaching me through those words and how I can implement the lessons into my day.

I’ll be completely honest in saying that some of those days I find it difficult to find the message, kinda like I grasping for straws. As a side note, I decided to research the googles to figure out what the phrase “grasping for straws” truly means. I found it interesting and applicable in that it’s similar to a drowning person grasping at the weeds to try and save oneself.

The longer I practice, the longer I yearn to learn without any expectation, the more I hear the teaching within the words.

Surprise. When you remove the noise, that’s when you suddenly hear the teaching.

That’s what happened today.

Luke 15:11-31, which is the story of the lost son, commonly know as the prodigal son.

There are three characters in the story and since I’m not a biblical scholar I’d like to stick to how the story can parallel some of our own lives today.

First there is the younger son, the lost son, who asks for his inheritance early, took his money to look for something better. Truly seeking pleasure at his own expense without looking into the future at how his current choices might affect his future results. In the story we’re not surprised in how he loses all of his money through pleasurable experiences and ends up destitute, starving, working in the fields feeding the pigs. Finding himself in a place of desperation, he swallows his pride, admits his powerlessness, returns to his father to repent and ask to work as one of his father’s hired hands.

Then there is the father, full of love, giving his son the free will to do as he pleases. He doesn’t attempt to control him and isn’t angry or disappointed in him when he returns. He throws a party in celebration of his son’s return.

Lastly, we have the eldest son who stays home, works the farm by choice, possibly in hopes of being the “better” son in the eyes of his father. The eldest son is looking for validation for his hard work and diligence, so much so that when his brother returns he refuses to join the celebration. Jealous and acting like an emotional child, he’s not all in on his choice and blames his father for not treating him with the love he is treating the “lost” son with.

Maybe you know someone who could fit into one of these three roles.

Maybe you see yourself in one of these three characters.

Maybe, like myself, you see a little of yourself in each of them.

My attention was mostly drawn to the older son.

He had a manual for how his father should be respondin so that he could be happy. He wanted his father to act differently towards the younger child, as well as himself, so that he could feel better.

He was judging his brother for his choices in an effort to make himself feel better.

He was being an emotional child by not taking responsibility for how he felt, blaming both father and brother.

Basically, he wasn’t managing his mind.

Managing your mind doesn’t mean we have to be happy all of the time.

It means recognizing what is causing us to feel the way we do.

It’s recognizing that we always have a choice as to how we feel, without having to change what is happening outside of us.

After finishing my Awaken You program the older brother would have recognized the cause of his anger, see the results that anger produces and from that place; determine if he wanted to go to the party or not.

He could be all in on his choice from a place of love for himself, and everyone else, not from a place of blame and resentment.

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My Awaken(TheTrue)You program is for people who want to discover their true self, discover the missing key, find their purpose and then start building a legacy from pure power. I have made it my mission to show you how.

I’d love to offer a free call for you to work out whether or not my program and life changing promise is a fit for you. Either book your call now or send me an email with your availability before your subconscious primitive mind tells you to run and hide.

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