Successful Relationship with Emma

Special *1st Anniversary* Essentials Compilation from Episodes 1-11 - Part 1 (Ep. 23)

• Emma Viglucci • Episode 23

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Woohoo, we are celebrating our Podcast’s 1st Year Anniversary! Super excited and proud of this accomplishment. It's been so amazing to host these conversations and bring you curated pertinent topics to support you in your Journey. We are here to assist you with your personal development and relationship enrichment for a Grand Human Experience…  

To celebrate this milestone, we are doing special Essentials Compilations episodes with key takeaways for immediate implementation and results… AND, giving Celebrations Gifts... 

In this episode the topics cover: Creating intimacy, toxicity in relationship, managing relationship finances, managing food and stress for more health, wellness and vitality, and more. You can access the full original episode linked in the list below.  Hope you enjoy this Essentials Compilation! 

From Episode 1, Carole Cullen on Ingredients for a Successful Relationship
From Episode 2, Nermine Zakhari on the Impact of Personal Strengths
From Episode 3, Yours truly on Tactics for Everlasting Love
From Episode 4, Christine Luken on Making Money Management Sexy
From Episode 5, Richard Heller on Engaging Men in Our Relationship
From Episode 6, Yours truly on Thriving During the Holidays
From Episode 7, Stacy Francis on Practices for a Financially Successful Marriage
From Episode 8, Yours truly on the Power of Self-Love
From Episode 9, Deborah Donenfeld on Embracing Change and Transitions
From Episode 10, Bridgette Zeitlin on Having a Healthy Relationship with Food
From Episode 11, Yours truly on keeping the Love and Spark Alive   

*Visit its Page for the Video and to get Gifts from our guests,  AND get our FREE Relationship Enrichment Mini Course!  

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DISCLAIMER: This content is meant to support your Journey and not as a replacement for professional assistance. Additionally, the ideas and resources provides by our guests are their ideas and recommendations alone and not necessarily a reflection of the host’s.



Emma Viglucci:

Hello, lovelies, and welcome to another episode. I am so excited for today's episode. We are doing a celebration. We're celebrating our podcast's first year anniversary. So exciting. Last year at this time we were putting together our first episode and it was with so much excitement. For a longtime dream come true. And now it's a year after and I'm so happy that we have been able to bring this to you two times a month, on Wednesdays, and share with you colleagues, friends and experts on topics that I find super interesting and that I think that will support you in your journey.

Emma Viglucci:

So today's episodes are it's a compilation of highlights or segments that I selected from the first set of episodes from last year. So it's like nice quick, rapid fire content so that you could have a whole gamut of things to play with and find what resonates for you the most that you want to play with. So if something that's resonating for you a lot and you're like, oh interesting, I love this guest or I love this topic or that content sounds really interesting, feel free to go check out the full episode for that particular guest. I also did a few solo episodes, so feel free to dive into those if the content resonates for you and that's what you're looking for. So this is a celebration of the first year of this podcast. We're doing in this episode the first set of the year. We split the episodes into two, so we're doing one set in this episode, another set in two weeks from now. So stay tuned for those and enjoy the highlights. Take away what serves you, enjoy and implement and play away with those. Feel free again to dig into the ones that resonate the most. That, if you want more, in the description you will find the list of all of the guests with a direct link to the particular episode. If you want to dive deeper and if you're interested, go to our podcast page. We have a new page, by the way, too, so excited about that MetroRelationshipcom forward slash podcast. There you have access to a gift that we have to our visitors the Relationship Enrichment mini course. But in that we're also going to add a compilation of all of the guests with a direct link to their episode and the gift that they share with us. So you don't have to go digging through all of the episodes for something or searching for the things. You're going to have everything in one compilation handy in your inbox, if you're interested. So feel free to check that out Now.

Emma Viglucci:

Today we're going to cover, like I said, the first half of the year and enjoy, enjoy the segments, enjoy the takeaways, enjoy the snippets and stay tuned for two weeks from now. The second part of this, and we're celebrating the guests and the topics. All of that is for you, to support you in your journey. The guests support you, I support you. I bring these topics and conversations to deepen the connection with yourself, with your partner, with the world at large. We want to have a grander experience, create our best relationship and our best life, so all of the topics are selected for that purpose. If you have specific topics that you would like to hear, please let us know in the comments. I would love to know what's of interest to you. We recently did a poll, so we're going to take that into consideration going forward. But feel free to always let us know what you want more of and when you enjoy. Feel free to always let us know what you want more of and when you enjoy.

Carole Cullen :

Now, without further ado, for today, enjoy the selections for you and have a fabulous one. Prioritizing quality time with your partner is about spending focused, intentional, scheduled, sometimes time with your partner for connection, intimacy, fun, playfulness, joy, lightheartedness, humor. I do think a lot of couples get stuck here. But let's talk about what quality time is first, and then we'll talk about ways in which people get stuck right, connected in a way that you used to be early in your relationship, and I think we just forget that that's important and we forget how to connect in that way, because life gets busy, right, and that's one of the ways that we get barriers is, life gets busy and we don't prioritize that. So focusing on scheduling time first is going to be really important.

Carole Cullen :

Scheduling a date night or scheduling time just to talk is a way that couples can build the bond in their relationship. It allows for their partner to feel like they are important to their partner because they're making time to spend with them. So it's just the fact that you put it on the calendar and make that time is the step in the right direction to show your partner. It builds trust too, right? I can trust and count on you that you're going to be there for me when I need you because you're already doing it in times when it's not critical. So if you can do it in times when it's not critical, I know I'm going to be able to count on you to be there for me in ways that are important when I do need you. So it's building trust in the relationship as well as connecting.

Emma Viglucci:

I love that you brought up that angle right, because people have a reaction to scheduling things with their partner. I mean, they might have plans right, but scheduling couple time is scheduling um dates. They might be able to do date night fairly simple, but like the consistency of scheduling it and making it, keeping it ongoing is challenging. And sexy time forget it. Don't even tell people to schedule sexy time. That's a whole other conversation. But I love what you're saying right now, that if you schedule the time or if you make the time for that connection, for being together in whatever capacity we're talking about, and your partner shows up, that that is building trust. And a lot of people ask how you build trust right, especially when they have certain situations going on. This is one of the ways. So good, so good. So anything else about quality time connection, the different types of quality time you were going there yeah, I think also.

Carole Cullen :

Just um, sharing in activities together. It has been a very tough topic to touch with couples at times, because you'll get a lot of couples that will say well, we have nothing in common, we don't do anything together, we don't like any of the same things, and that is probably very true for them, right? Maybe one likes to golf and the other one likes to knit, maybe the other one is social and the other one is not social, right? So they probably are very different and so having shared activities is really hard for them. So I think couples that are successful find ways to share in activities together that work for both of them. And sometimes sometimes, emma, you're not going to believe this, but sometimes we do things we don't always like in a relationship because it's important to our partner. Can you believe people do that like in a relationship because it's?

Emma Viglucci:

important to our partner. Can you believe people do that? Well, I would say that very cautiously, carol, because when people say, well, then I'm always doing stuff that I don't like or I don't want my partner to do things they don't want, right. That also gets in the way of the conversation, and what I usually offer around that conversation is you don't have to love the activity, but you could can love the time together, right? And so it's not about the activity at the end of the day. If you're in this side of that spectrum, so don't get hung up on the fact that you might not like this thing or this activity, this experience. It's not about that at the end of the day. It's that in the joining and the doing of it together, that is what counts. People get lost in the different sides of things that are not that important at the end of the day and they make it their thing and it's not their thing.

Nermine Zakhary :

We will have people in our world that we clash with, that we might have some conflict with or we don't understand. We don't see eye to eye on things Right, and oftentimes it's people that are close to us where their strengths and how they operate and the way they see things very likely sit in my, sit in my oh, m g, so you're talking shadows.

Emma Viglucci:

Now that could be a whole different podcast, but this is amazing how it's all coming together, wow. So that's why they aggravate us, because we don't see the benefit of them, whatever. But we may have them too, which is not getting in touch with them, and so so whatever bothers us about somebody else, but we may have them too, which is not getting in touch with them, and so so whatever bothers us about somebody else is we usually have. That's the shadows work yeah it's really right, also have.

Nermine Zakhary :

But I mean in the context of from a strengths lens perspective, sure, and assuming that we have, it's very likely that my strengths might sit in your blind spot and your strengths might sit in my blind spot. And that means that there's an opportunity, a greater opportunity, for us to clash because, because we don't understand how the other person operates or why, why they operate the way that they do Nice. So, and then the thing we don't understand we tend to reject. Yep, we go on a really interesting journey when we begin to understand. Okay, so intellectually, we understand, we get. You know I can do things, and and you know that, uh, you might not do as readily, and vice versa. Okay, we understand that.

Nermine Zakhary :

But when we take a look at the 34 strengths and start to think about I have adaptability, maybe I lead with adaptability, but it might be number 34 for my husband. So then where does that take us? So, as far as he's concerned, my adaptabilityability, he doesn't understand why I need this flexibility and all these options, and really you're mean another pair of shoes and and and what have you right? My strength could be in someone else's blind spot. That understanding that they don't see it, they don't understand. It allows us us to take the thing that we used to reject and maybe come to a place where we can tolerate it, because now I understand. Okay, the thing is, I don't understand it because it's not something that I have, so we've taken.

Nermine Zakhary :

Now we've shed a layer of a barrier that might be between us and I'm able to see a little bit more clearly that, okay, I get that this is something that comes naturally for you and is important to you.

Nermine Zakhary :

The next thing now that I can tolerate that we have this difference, I might start to notice more openly when you're using it actively and I might notice the positive. I might notice how you contribute in a really interesting way or the impact that you made in an area that I really didn't know how to handle. And so now I become a little bit more accepting of that difference between us. I become a little bit more accepting of that difference between us. Later on, now that I've become more accepting, I might invite you to use that in a very specific situation. That really helps me out. And now I begin to appreciate that gift that you have. That's been this difference between us and now what a blessing it is that you're able to do that and bring that into our relationship and look at what we can accomplish together because of our combined strength.

Emma Viglucci:

Amazing. I love how that all comes together. So now I am going to give you some more specific takeaways. To do this is your assignment, or your homework, if you may. The first one is to invite your partner to have a what I like to call a state of the union conversation. So you just say, like you know what, let's check in how are we doing, how's life? You know, how are we doing as a, as as a partnership, as a couple, in terms of creating the life that we want to create, and don't make it intense or heavy or shaming or critical or heavy. You know, like, take it easy, it's okay, it's supposed to be light and fun and curious, just nice, right. So then from here, we're going to build stuff, we're going to have fun, we can reach our relationship and we create awesomeness. So go into that conversation with that approach, with that energy, and then part of that conversation is going to be out of these five elements I'm going to recap in again in a second the five, so that you have them handy which one do we want to focus on? Which one feels like it needs a little bit of attention from us? That will serve us. If we pull that lever, it will make a lot of difference to create a big shift in our relationship in another life. Right, just bring things to the next level. So the five elements again are number one context and mindset. Number two communication and alignment. Number three clarity and dynamics. Number four connection and intimacy. Number five collaboration and partnership.

Emma Viglucci:

Okay, so takeaway number two is two things One, build into your routine a self-love practice, because when you're taking care of your needs and you're taking care of yourself, you become a lot less triggerable. You create more resilience, you rewire yourself, you repattern yourself, you do all kinds of goodies and in that you're not going to be so easily trippable when you have an interaction with your partner where you go into a loop. Okay, so you have recurring things happening. If you take care of you, you'll become less likely to get stuck there. To get stuck there. And the other one with this is create a partner love practice. And a partner love practice is what I was talking about in terms of the connection habits. You're putting stuff into your routine where you just focus on nurturing your partner, giving them special touches and acts of kindness and just beautiful things, so that you take care of them and you show them your love and you seamlessly enrich the relationship and you nurture the relationship.

Emma Viglucci:

And then three for takeaway, and this is what I had promised earlier.

Emma Viglucci:

This one is as part of the connection habits at nighttime, before bed or any part of the day that makes sense for your life, and if this feels like too much, it doesn't have to be daily.

Emma Viglucci:

It could be a couple of times a week or during the weekend that you pick the cadence that makes sense for you. And that is to build in appreciations. So doing appreciation sessions with your partner, where you take a few moments to share with each other all the things that you appreciate about them, that you love about them, that they did recently, how they showed up for the day, how they're working on things, how you could see what efforts they're making or what stretches they did, or whatever. You could highlight all the good stuff that you're noticing, that they're working on or just showing up with, because they're showing up with their awesomeness and you notice it, or their strengths, right. So anything good that you love about them or that you appreciate that they're doing, you could share with them and then they could share the same with you. So you both, you do an exchange of appreciations, and that's the quickest way to add some good, positive stuff into your relationship.

Christine Luken :

You know, I think it's very important for us to be patient with each other and, you know, just because someone wants to do things differently, it doesn't mean that it's wrong. Really, really, we're allowed to disagree. We are allowed to disagree, we are allowed to disagree. And in fact, you know, I do think that it can be important for spouses and partners to have some separate spending money so that they can feel like they have complete autonomy over a piece of their finances and really not owe any explanation to the other person, right? Because sometimes we can feel like, when we enter into a partnership, that none of it really belongs to us, right? Or you might feel like your partner scrutinizes your spending, and it's so interesting because a lot of people think that going onto a budget is actually going to make things harder for them.

Christine Luken :

Now, I don't like the word budget, and tomorrow I'm actually recording an episode about the whole topic of budgets and why people don't like them. I prefer to call it a spending plan. That is part of your overall prosperity plan. There's actually a lot of freedom in the spending plan, because if we have decided that we're going to spend $400 on clothes this month, then when I come in through the garage with my packages and my spouse says well, what are you buying? Now I'll say less than what was in the budget, right, you know, it doesn't matter if I walk in with one package or six packages, like we've already agreed that this is what gets spent on clothing this month, and as long as I'm there or under, then it removes the fighting from the financial situation.

Emma Viglucci:

I love it. You know that's interesting that you approach that concept from that place of it's okay to have our own money. I'm encountering with couples a little bit of the opposite, so I'm wondering if we could talk about that as well, which is couples come. They're professional people, progressive, independent, established. They all already have their own money. They all already have their own stuff. Yeah, and the problem is, how do we create that joint piece? Yes, right, this is huge. We create that joint piece yes. This is huge.

Christine Luken :

Yes, how many thoughts about that? Yeah, it can be huge, especially when you've got second marriages, when you've got blended families. It really can add a lot of complexity and, honestly, when you've got situations like that and you've got people who are high income earners, you probably need to bring attorneys into the situation. As far as things like estate planning and potentially, you know prenuptial agreements etc. I am not against any of that. In fact, I think it's very smart, smart thing to do.

Christine Luken :

I'll tell you how my husband and I handle our finances, because I find that for a lot of people, this works well. When we got married, we were basically we were on pretty equal footing financially. As you know, part of my story is that I crashed and burned financially in my mid-20s, despite having an accounting degree, and that was because I was engaged to a guy with horrible money habits, and so once I got out of that relationship like I was in a hole. You know, my credit was all messed up. I had debt that needed to be paid off, but by the time that my husband and I got married, I had rectified the majority of that and we were making about equal incomes. So what we decided to do is, we opened up a joint account and we basically deposited a certain amount in. So it's like one week I deposit, the other week he deposits, and we just, you know, we figured out, okay, this is what we need to pay the mortgage, to pay the insurance, pay the utilities, you know, vet bills, etc. And then the rest of our money was ours to spend.

Christine Luken :

Now, as the years went by, we have changed our approach. You know there's been times where my business wasn't doing great and he had to kick in more. You know there was a time, you know, he was laid off for four months and I kicked in more than he did. Because it's about having a partnership right, and I think when you agree on what your main goals are, it's much easier to do. That Can both people contribute equally to all the household expenditures, and I think that's when having a financial coach and potentially a relationship coach also, can be a really good idea. Yep.

Emma Viglucci:

Yes, so some of the things that come into mind that deal with some of these things. They might not have the blended family situation, they might not have the complexity, but they might have a disparity in earning potentials. So when a partner who makes a lot more than the other expects them to kick in the same amount, how does that even make sense, especially when they have an expensive lifestyle?

Christine Luken :

Right. So in that situation I would have it not be equal, I would have it be proportional. So, for example, if one person is bringing in 60% of the income, the other person is bringing in 40% of the income, then when we look at what needs to go into the bill account, then the person with the higher income is putting in 60% of the income. Then when we look at what needs to go into the bill account, then the person with the higher income is putting in 60% and the other person's putting in 40%.

Rich Heller :

And you know, usually what the man really wants is they want to have a loving relationship and a happy family right and they're just freaking clueless. We are clueless is the problem.

Emma Viglucci:

I wouldn't necessarily say that. I think I you mentioned that a few times that you might be showing, the guys might be showing up a certain way, but there's all this emotion going on underneath and that might be confusing to the interactions in the moment. And so for both partners to honor that, I might be yelling but I don't mean to, I'm not, you know, I might be angry but I'm not angry at you. Or I might be angry at you but my intention is to reconnect with you. Yeah Right.

Rich Heller :

So and anger can be expressed that way safely. That I hear. I think there's. This is kind of a missing piece for men though it's. We don't make it okay for men to have feelings. I think part of it is to make it okay for the man to know that there are times when it's all right for him to be vulnerable, to be sad, to feel hurt, to feel fearful. You know that you won't think he's less of a man for having it. And of course, the problem with those feelings for the man who instinctively wants to be the protector is you can't protect anyone when you're in those feelings, when you're in those feelings you feel like a victim.

Emma Viglucci:

Right. Well, you feel incompetent or it's not good, Like how are you going to be protective if you're feeling weak?

Nermine Zakhary :

Right.

Emma Viglucci:

So, oh my gosh, I love that incongruency for guys. I feel bad. I totally hear that and I think that if us women, if we could have that compassion for how we might set guys up in that predicament, that we might get a lot more mileage out of the situation. The other things that happens during the holidays is that we get to have more contact with our family. What happens now, when we're closer to family members, when we're in proximity to our family of origin? First of all, you might have unresolved conflicts. You might have differences of opinions, different preferences. It might be conflicts going on. There might be cutoffs going on. There might be all kinds of different dynamics happening and playing out.

Emma Viglucci:

Family members. They might have addictions and other things that they show up with that could trigger you. Even if you don't per se, you don't have an addiction yourself or you don't have a particular issue yourself, their stuff is significant and it just triggers our own nervous system, right, they just make us prickly. It triggers us back in some regard. So all of that in and of itself plays out. Then you might have throwbacks to past traumas, right? So the scents, the music, the decorations, the smells, everything that has to do with the holidays, the rituals, the traditions, the way that things feel and look, throw you back to things that might have happened in the past that maybe weren't so satisfying and potentially even very traumatic. Right Depends on depending on what kind of background you came from. So not only do we have the family members showing a funky that might trigger us, we have a throwback to how things might have been that might trigger us. We might have active current conflicts and issues going on. We might have things like being worried to disappoint, to let down, to embarrass. We might have competition things going on, we might have loyalty things going on. So, as you could see, just the context is loaded. So things that I mentioned before were kind of leading up to family gatherings, like planning and doing the holidays, and now we're in the family gathering and you're in the face of all this additional potentially triggering things. And again you could get triggered mildly because you're pretty stable usually and it just kind of rattles you a little bit. Or you can get significantly triggered if you have more instability going on usually or you have some mental health things going on. So again, this could be very challenging times.

Emma Viglucci:

There are things in here also like I'm supposed to be happy during the holidays. The holidays are supposed to be magical, so I'm sorry if I put out content about that that might be triggering. The intention is to inspire ways of creating that for yourself, not to give you, not to create pressure for you. Okay, so you feel whatever you want. You're not pressured to do anything that you don't want to, or feel bad if you don't do it. Okay, it's just a little side note there for you.

Emma Viglucci:

But again, about this, you might feel sadness, you might feel lost and grief, depending on what's happening in your life. You might feel let down, you might feel that you're not measuring up. There are so many things that get kicked up right. So what we want to do here is figure out how to manage all this stuff, and that's what I'm going to go into next. So I'm going to give you a few things to help you. First of all, get ahead of this as much as possible. Then help you manage it whatever comes up for you as a practice, but also in the moment, right. So I'm going to try to have you back as much as possible here, and then some of these things that I'm going to offer are also going to help you with the post-holiday blues.

Stacy Francis :

To make sure that your financial plan the plan that we'll talk about of like what needs to be included. What are the things you need to think about? We'll talk about that, but having both included, I will tell you, is one of the top secrets to a healthy and financially successful marriage.

Emma Viglucci:

You know, I love how you started with that and your suggestion, for both partners need to be involved in the finances. What a concept, right? But so first let me say that a lot of couples don't divide and conquer the rest of their responsibilities and they create hell because they don't know who's supposed to be in charge of what and who's taking care. I mean, there's all kinds of things in couples and relationships. So the fact that you even said you might be conquering, dividing and conquering yes, guys, that's a given. You should be doing that. So that's number one. But number two we don't want to do that when it comes to finances. Maybe, to some extent and in different ways, maybe we could talk about that as we go in this conversation today. In what ways does it make sense to divide and conquer when it comes to finances? But not in terms of your vision, not in terms of your plan, because you both want to have your minds together on that. You want to be on the same page, right?

Stacy Francis :

Exactly and getting on the same page is really important. And the other thing I would just say, too, about couples is that you're combining two people with completely different money DNAs and knowing that you each may have different hopes and dreams. You also may have different ways of how you feel about money. You may have different ways about how you spend or save money, and that's fine. In fact, I married someone that is the antithesis of me.

Stacy Francis :

If I have a dollar, I try and save too. I have a dollar, I try and save two. Saving money for me is exciting. My husband, if he has a dollar, he tries to spend two, and he'll be the first to admit it. So we have very different money personalities, but what has made our marriage work so well, and also what has made our financial plan work so well, is we've each communicated what we need. For me, I need to make sure that whatever dollar amount we're supposed to save each year, that we do it. And that gives me that feeling of safety, of comfort, because for me, saving equals safety. And for my husband, he, you know, of course wants to save money, but for him, he also wants to have experiences. He loves to go to concerts with my son. He loves to go to Broadway shows. He loves to travel and bless Emma. He loves gadgets. If anyone ever has a gadget that they need researched, just reach out to me.

Stacy Francis :

My husband's a professional at it especially if you're going to buy it and we're not going to buy it, but very important for him then to know, like this is the portion that you can spend. And it took us a while to get there, but now we have very clear goals and we can honor what each of us need. And for us, our goals have been set up in three places. We have a retirement goal of when we each want to retire and what our lifestyle is going to look like and cost. Number two, we have an education goal for our children of being able to help them, if not ideally pay for everything for college. And number three, a ongoing lifestyle experience goal that's more so for him than me of being able to experience life to the fullest, essentially live as full of life as possible. And so we continually talk about that. We check in and update our financial plan at least once a year to see are we on track? And, if not, what do we need to be doing to get us back on track?

Emma Viglucci:

I love that, yeah, so I like how you're setting up the different DNAs, right, because what you described is very common, right? There's the two people in the relationship who have very different styles of managing money and their relationship to money and what they think about saving and spending and all this kind of stuff. I mean, this is like, yeah, that's what happens in couples, right, and the thing is okay. So how do we deal with the differences? So I love what you're describing. I'm going to hook you up with all kinds of goodies so that you could turn this mood around if you're not feeling so hot, or make it even better if you're feeling okay and you just want to really rock and roll in the new year. Okay.

Emma Viglucci:

So some things that you might be experiencing for yourself. Personally, you might feel things like I was saying unmotivated, sad, let down, uninspired, lonely, disconnected, not good enough. Just all kinds of feelings of not just not feeling yourself or feeling well. Now, if this is a more pervasive feeling for you, you might be like well, that's how I feel all the time. Then, still, that's not the way that we usually should feel as a human and therefore this still applies, regardless if this is your normal state or if this is how you're feeling right now, temporarily. Okay. Now there's this whole spectrum there as well. So you might feel really, really, really blue, which we might call an episode of clinical depression and some other diagnosis. I don't need to throw diagnosis around or you're just kind of like, eh, you know, I'm not feeling so hot, you know like I haven't gotten into the group of the new year yet, so again it could be like a whole spectrum. Now, the way that this might also show up is that you might have like all of the mental health symptoms right, Like anxiety, depression, your OCD might get kicked up, your ADD might get kicked up. It's all kinds of your stuff might be more heightened, might be more obvious, and you might experience just things not working out for you as much as you would like them to work out for you, Like things feel grindy.

Emma Viglucci:

The other way that it shows up is in relationship. Now, in relationship, it might look something like you're not getting along with your partner, your partner's getting on your nerves. You find that you're bickering more, or that you are getting into more arguments, or that your arguments or your disagreements escalate, that things could feel really hopeless or that you might feel really stuck. Or you might feel that your arguments or your disagreements escalate, that things could feel really hopeless, or that you might feel really stuck. Or you might feel that your relationship is not moving to the next level, or that your marriage is not what you would like it to be, or your relationship is not as committed or as loving or as wonderful as you would like it to be.

Emma Viglucci:

You might find within your family unit that your children are acting out. Your children are symptomatic. Your children are doing well in school, your children are getting into trouble, right. So you might think, like what? What does that have to do with post-holiday blues or winter blues? This has to do with just our state of being, creating a reality. How we are showing up and how we're feeling is actually coloring how we are experiencing our relationships, our interactions, our environment, and we're impacting those around us as well. Okay, so whether it's obvious that you know we're cranky and we snap at somebody and therefore we affect their mood, or it might not be so obvious, just our demeanor still has an impact. Just the way that we're being has an impact, even if it's not very obvious.

Emma Viglucci:

And then you might have things like actually, before I go to the next one, there's a whole range there as well, right, you could just be like feeling a little disconnected and a little off with your partner and your children, giving your hard time at bedtime one day. Or it could go the whole spectrum where there's just there was some severe things going on in your relationship Betrayals, financial betrayal, romantic betrayal, all kinds of all the betrayals and it's a whole gamut there as well, all kinds of all the letdowns. You might also have just different degrees of things, right, infertility. You might have more severe issues with your children, right. So again, the whole gamut. And then the last one is actually in your family, I'm sorry, in your life in general, where everything in your home breaks down, like your car doesn't work or your electronics go on the first all of a sudden. I'm sure you experienced this like this right, where just like nothing goes right.

Emma Viglucci:

You're just like, oh my gosh, let me just go back to bed because, like today, let me start the day over. So again, the whole spectrum. It could be something temporary where you have a, you know, a bad morning, or just your life is like, oh my gosh, one thing after the other, right, like severe things, like people's homes burning down and I don't know. I don't want to put bad vibes out there, but you know what I mean. Just like more severe things in life happening, right, chronic illness, like noses, and just not feeling well all the time. Just things happening. So again the whole spectrum losing jobs, losing family members. Now you might, again you might say what does it have to do with my just post-holiday blues and just me feeling a little blue? What I'm showing you is how we are and how we feel actually has a ripple effect in all of our life, and all of the things that we create and all of the things that we manifest and how we end up showing up at the end of the day impacts all the things around us. And I'm not saying that your bad mood made somebody die or that it made your house burn down. That is not what I'm saying, please, right, but just like just our life has a flavor to it, right, we're part of creating that flavor, just like we're just in a state where just things don't work. So that's what it might look like. So what we want to do is whoa right?

Emma Viglucci:

First, identify out of those three levels self relational and just life in general. How am I doing? What does my spectrums look like? Am I just a little grindy at the beginning, just like little flavors, or is my stuff pretty severe, like higher in the spectrum of things? So that's for me to show you like a quick assessment in terms of how you could gauge, right, you will know that you're, of how you could gauge, right, you will know that you're not feeling well, obviously, right, that's what that's. That's maybe why you're listening to this. But your environment, your external world that you're creating, will be a reflection also of how you're feeling and how you're doing. And so, between your feelings and your external world, your inner and your outie, your innie and your outie worlds, will show you how you are showing up to your life. That's creating your state of being, how you're feeling and your life. What does make changes and transitions challenging, like why? Why are they? Why is change hard?

Deborah Donenfeld :

I think that change is hard. Well, first of all, a little bit about what we were just talking about. Like we have an idea of how we're supposed to feel about them and then, when we don't, we have all kinds of judgments about that, and I think the unknown is really really hard for people. Just for humanity. We don't like to jump into something, a big dark hole. We don't know what's going to happen on the other side. We like to have control, we like to know what we're getting into, and especially when we're forced into a change that we didn't want, we haven't even had time to maybe prepare ourselves mentally for it, and so it really that jumping into the unknown can be very, very scary. I think that that's a big part of why we don't like it.

Emma Viglucci:

You know what a good point, exactly, especially if it wasn't something that we sought out right. So I mean, as we said, they are challenging, even with things that we want. So, even with things that we don't want or that just got sprung on us, it can be harder, because now you have to adjust to this whole new thing.

Deborah Donenfeld :

That's right, and just imagine if it's hard to make a change that you wanted. How much harder is it going to be to make a change that you didn't want? And we like to get settled into our lives, think we know what to expect, even though we know somewhere in our minds that we have no control. Really, we have very little control over what happens, but we fool ourselves into thinking that we do have control because that makes it easier to put one foot in front of the other and take the steps that we need to take to move forward in our lives. And this is like a rude awakening kind of like having a child. The child is there, I think, first and foremost to show us that actually you thought you have control over your life. You don't have any control.

Deborah Donenfeld :

Things are going to happen that you cannot control, and that happens with a lot of different kinds of change.

Emma Viglucci:

Yeah, absolutely so right. So, even if you like it, it's hard. Even if you want it, it's hard, nevermind if you didn't want it, and especially if you weren't anticipating or expecting, and if it just if it surprises you, because now everything's upside down and you're not ready, and you're not ready for it, You're not ready for it and it may just not be how you saw your life moving forward.

Deborah Donenfeld :

If you saw yourself living in a particular home for the rest of your life within your community and now suddenly you have to move, that's a real, it's a jarring effect. Or if you're getting a divorce when you thought you were going to be staying together and then you're worried about the impact on the kids. Also, if you have children, it may also be changes that you it's hard to see the benefit because you're so invested in the benefit of your life being the way it is and the way you had planned for it to be.

Emma Viglucci:

That is perfect, Right? I think that's a huge thing, Aside from trying to have control and we know that we can't right, Because things just play out and no matter how much we exert control or power over something, things still potentially go sideways or play out differently than we had expected. But aside from that, I love. What you just said is okay. You expected things to be a certain way or to play out a certain way, or you were committed to the thing or the person and you had this idea of how things were going to be, and now it's not. So earlier you mentioned a loss. Now we're talking about adjusting to something different, so having maybe like an identity tied into also what was or what is and what is happening was to become, and that's just like woohoo.

Brigitte Zeitlin :

I think what trips a lot of people up, but like what most women are doing wrong if we will when it comes to to weight loss, is they're hyper-focused on what they're taking out, what they're eliminating from their diet. They're not eating carbs, they've gave up bananas or fruit, they're no longer eating dairy, they're not eating gluten, they're not eating this, they're not eating that. But when it comes to when it comes to your nutrition and your health and your waistline, it's really, really all about what you're adding in, right, not what we're taking out. But what are we putting into your life? What are we putting into your day?

Brigitte Zeitlin :

If you're let's say you're if you're giving up you know any food that you're giving up, it's only as beneficial for you as the food you're replacing it with, right? So the foods that you're making more space for, the foods you're eating more of, are what matters, versus what you're eating less of, what we're including into our diet, what we're putting into our bodies, and I think when women first reach out to me to work together one-on-one, they're frequently like no, but I don't understand. I don't understand why the scale isn't coming off. I've given up. I gave up the carbs. I haven't had a bagel in years and this, and I'm not eating this and I don't eat that, but the scale isn't budging and I'm like great, what are we eating? Right, what are you putting in?

Emma Viglucci:

What a good point. Because half the time, you know, whenever I'm air quotes, watching more or being more mindful in my way, I'm sure that after a conversation I'm gonna be like, hmm, maybe not so good, but those during those times, potentially the thought is like, well, can't eat this, can't eat that, can't eat that. They can not deal with the end, the other thing and the other things. Like, well, what the hell can I eat? And you know, like what can I eat? So I love the way that you're setting this up and it's it's not about all the things that you're taking out, but it's more about what you're putting in instead yeah, exactly like you know what is on your plate, what is getting into your body.

Emma Viglucci:

That's what matters so much more, so, so, so much more very good, lovely, well, and so what do you want to go from here? Do you want to describe what some of those things should be, or? I know that one of the things that people worry about is okay, so when I eat these things I get bloated or where's my gut health? And I just go right ahead Like what? What is the best way to set ourselves up to have good food experience?

Brigitte Zeitlin :

Absolutely. That's a great question, I would say. If, if bloat and gut health is something you're you're interested in, or or weight loss is something you're focusing on, you know, a good place to start for both of these two things are is a food journal. To keep a food journal and not something where you have to obsess and like, weigh everything and write it all down. None of that, but just a journal of like what time it is, what day it is and what you're eating for breakfast, what you're eating for lunch, what you're eating for a snack, if you're having a snack, what you're eating for dinner, and this will help you in multiple ways.

Brigitte Zeitlin :

But let's say we're talking about bloat. If you're also writing down how you feel after that meal or throughout the day, how you feel after that meal or throughout the day, you'll be able to start to notice a pattern, like when you eat legumes, right, maybe you're feeling bloated. When you have dairy, maybe you're feeling bloated. It's really easy to if we're keeping it all in our head, right, if you're not writing things down on paper, it's really easy to think like everything makes me bloated. Every time I eat, I get bloated and maybe, maybe that's true, but you might notice some really, really specific patterns Once we take it out of our head and put it down on paper.

Emma Viglucci:

What's the deal with my relationship? Where's my relationship at? What's the status of my relationship? Do I need to build a relationship because it's feeling unsafe, not secure? To build a relationship because it's feeling unsafe, not secure, unstable, conflictual, disconnected, funky, right, which is all of those things? This is usually where people come to see us for couples therapy or marriage counseling, because it's just not feeling right, like you're not synchronizing, you're not getting your needs met. You might be fighting a lot and getting on each other's nerves, potentially considering even leaving each other, just because you just can't make it work. If that's the case, then we need to do relationship building.

Emma Viglucci:

Now. If your relationship is fairly good and you're just like, hmm, we have an amazing relationship, but we're having a hard time getting to the intimacy place more better, just because all these things you know, life happens just like we've been talking about today and I would just love to spice it up a bit. Let's make the relationship even better. How do we get to the eroticism and romance and passion and the yummy stuff, and for that we call it passion building, okay, so choose for yourself, and of course you want that too. If you're building your relationship, I get it, but it's hard to build that stuff if you're not getting along okay. This is where people get tripped up. So we got to do first things first. It doesn't mean that you never have sex again, that's not what I'm saying. That means that you continue to do your intimacy, like you usually do while you do your relationship building. And we could do some other things in there too. Right, once you hear what I'm going to offer, it doesn't mean that you don't work on that at all, don't invest in that at all, don't play with that at all. That's not what I'm saying. But you're more focused on the other side, because once your relationship is stronger and more built, then it's much easier to do the other stuff and more fun, right. You'll get more bang for your buck, if you may. Okay.

Emma Viglucci:

So for relationship building, what we want to do is address your attachment, love. Usually, what's happening here is that you're not feeling very secure or very loved or very connected, and what would need to happen is to do nurturing of the relationship and of each other, and so we would do that through connection habits, okay, and I'm going to give you some examples of those in a second and then, if you're working on passion building. What we want to work is on passion, love, and what that looks like is that we want to building alluring habits, and for the first one, we do nurturing, for the second one, we do enticing. So if your relationship needs more building, we're going to do nurturing, we're going to work on attachment, love and creating security and connection and making it work better. And if you're looking for passion, we're going to do enticing love, where we're gonna build in some alluring habits just to spice things up. And this is on our spectrum, guys.

Emma Viglucci:

Okay, so it doesn't mean that you know that, um, the different worlds it might feel like the different worlds, um, but you could slide back and forth depending on the status of your relationship, but at any given moment, okay, so it doesn't mean that it's so discreet and it's either this or this. You could slide. Nobody's stuck anywhere. Sometimes we might feel much better about our relationship and it's easier to go to the other side, where you could be more spicy. And then all the times, we were really struggling, and there's no way that we're going to be intimate, right, and so it depends on what's going on at any given time in the season of life that your relationship is in and it's still good. There's no right, there's no wrong, there's nothing. There's nothing happening. You just play with what you have and you make the best of it and you create what you like.

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Emma K Viglucci, LMFT

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