Is your Marriage like Hurricane Sandy?

 

As the East Coast braces for Hurricane Sandy today and tomorrow, I can’t help but wonder how many marriages are taking on hurricane-like tendencies as I write.

What is a hurricane?  According to FEMA – A hurricane is a type of tropical cyclone or severe tropical storm that forms in the southern Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and in the eastern Pacific Ocean. A typical cyclone is accompanied by thunderstorms, and in the Northern Hemisphere, a counterclockwise circulation of winds near the earth’s surface.

Some issues that can constantly swirl out of control and create widespread damage in your marriage are:

• Constantly arguing about issues and getting no where
• Constant negativity
• Having long periods of not speaking to each other
• Talking about divorce due to irreconcilable differences, money problems or dealing with infidelity

Like Hurricane Sandy which is on track to affect approximately 60 million people, the high winds and heavy rainfall of negativity in your marriage can have not just long-lasting damage to you as a couple, but can deeply affect your kids, your family and friends and your job.

Hurricanes in marriage are inevitable, so what precautions can you take to minimize the damage.

• To begin preparing, you should build an emergency kit and make a family communications plan. – Have someone you can go to for support. Sometimes you can’t see past the problems that a certified coach, or an unbiased person can see.
• Know your surroundings. – Take a step back and see how the negativity in your marriage is affects others. Looking at your marriage from a different perspective may help you fix things faster.
• Learn community hurricane evacuation routes and how to find higher ground. Determine where you would go and how you would get there if you needed to evacuate. – Find a place that is peaceful and tranquil that the two of you can go. The positive atmosphere can change your view in your marriage.
• Make plans to secure your property – Above all else, hunker down in your marriage because outside forces will try to step in and destroy what you have taken the time to build.
• Be sure trees and shrubs around your home are well-trimmed so they are more wind resistant. – Cut off the negative things that are causing problems in your marriage. i.e. if you are constantly arguing make a plan to affirm your partner until it becomes second nature.
• Install a generator for emergencies. – A little electricity(i.e. more sex)  in your marriage can jumpstart everything.
• Consider building a safe room. – Individually find a safe place that you can go to help you calm down, meditate, pray in order to bring clarity to the situation.

What other preparations can couples take to reduce the storms in their marriage?

I would love to hear from other Strivers?  Stay dry and more important of all stay safe?

 

Coach Keith

Do you have the Magical Kitchen when it comes to Love?

For all you foodies out there, you take your kitchen to heart. But do you have the Magical Kitchen when it comes to Love. Here is an excerpt from Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Mastery of Love that explains what I mean.

Imagine that you have a magical kitchen in your home. In that magical kitchen, you can have any food you want from any place in the world in any quantity. You
never worry about what to eat; whatever you wish for, you can have at your table. You are very generous with your food; you give your food unconditionally
to others, not because you want something in return from them.

Then one day someone knocks at your door, and it’s a person with a pizza. You open the door, and the person looks at you and says, “Hey, do you see this pizza? I’ll give you this pizza if you let me control your life, if you just do whatever I want you to do. You are never going to starve because I can bring pizza every day. You just have to be good to me.”

Can you imagine your reaction? In your kitchen you can have the same pizza – even better. Yet this person comes to you and offers you food, if you just do whatever he wants you to do. You are going to laugh and say, “No, thank you! I don’t need your food; I have plenty of food. You can come into my house and eat whatever you want, and you don’t have to do anything. Don’t believe I’m going to do whatever you want me to do. No one will manipulate me with food.”

Now imagine exactly the opposite. Several weeks have gone by, and you haven’t eaten. You are starving, and you have no money in your pocket to buy food. The person comes with the pizza and says, “Hey, there’s food here. You can have this food if you just do what I want you to do.” You can smell the food, and you are starving. You decide to accept the food and do whatever that person asks of you. You eat some food, and he says, “If you want more, you can have more, but you have to keep doing what I want you to do.”

You have food today, but tomorrow you may not have food, so you agree to do whatever you can for food. You can become a slave because of food, because you need food, because you don’t have it. Then after a certain time you have doubts. You say, “What am I going to do without my pizza? I cannot live without my pizza. What if my partner decides to give the pizza to someone else – my pizza?”

Now imagine that instead of food, we are talking about love.

I knew PG was the one, but I still had to ask questions?

It’s hard to explain and even harder to imagine, but when you meet the one, it just happens. After years of getting phone numbers, dating, break-ups, I finally met PG. The funny part about it was it was totally unexpected.

When you meet a person, just after the “hello,” he/she starts sending you information right away. If it’s right he/she willingly will share their dreams with you. They will open up and won’t even know they are doing it. That type of connection can be intoxicating, and oftentimes lust can get in the way. Somehow, we still seem to mess things up. Why?

According to author Don Miguel Ruiz, in the The Mastery of Love,  we don’t ask the right internal questions. Eve though, I knew PG was the one for me, I still had to ask some important questions:

• In reference to my last post, was she the dog for me, or should I be with a cat, or a horse. When you aren’t clear on who you want, and you make the wrong choice, you try to make it work.  You are responsible for your own choices, if it isn’t working, simply make another choice. Ruiz says, “You must know what you want, how you want it, when you want it.”
• In order to deal with a person on an everyday basis, you must find a person that is closely aligned with you. PG and I are total opposites in almost every way except for our values and our love for family. When you meet that person, don’t be afraid the person isn’t exactly like you. If you compliment each other, go with it.
• In the beginning project who you really are. This will take a little maturity on your part. Ruiz states, “In order to buy, you want to see the quality of what you are going to get. But in order to sell, you need to show others what you are.”
• Continue to keep your eyes open. Don’t be blind or pretend to see what’s not there. Over time, the person may reveal their true identity. If you see something that doesn’t align with what you want, have the courage to walk away.
• If you have been in a relationship a long time and have struggled connecting, you might have to look internally and accept who you are. Once you do that, truly accept who they are.
• Finally, relationships are work and I mean WORKS of art. In order to keep the two of you happy, you must work to keep your half perfect.

So Strivers, if you are struggling with your half of the perfect relationship, what step can you take toward making it better?

Why can’t we love our spouse, like we love our dogs?

I know  you may think this sounds crazy, but let’s think about it. In 2011, Americans spent over $50 billion for their pets. According to the ASPCA, the first-year cost for a medium dog is $1580. And why do we spend that amount of money? Because we have the perfect relationship with our pet.

Let’s break it down, what makes the dog/human marriage perfect?

• It doesn’t matter what you are. They are dogs, and they are going to be dogs.
• You can’t change them into a horse, or a pig. They are going to be dogs.
• A dog doesn’t care what you do; it just loves you. (Dogs will even put themselves in danger to find you in the hospital.)
• A dog in only responsible for its half of the relationship. They bark, wag their tails, pant etc..
• Most humans have perfect relationships with their dog. They feed them, take it for walks, and might even for over board and buy quality clothes.

Most people can imagine this type of relationship with their dog, but WHY NOT WITH A WOMAN OR  A MAN.

STRIVER’s I would love to hear why not?

 

 

 

 

Things your spouse says that makes you ? your intelligence.

You may be a man, that is well respected on the job, or you may be the E.F. Hutton of your community, but you know sometimes when you speak to your spouse, they have a way of making your conversation STOP and question your intelligence. Don’t get frustrated, please share them and have a laugh about it.

From time to time, if I hear conversations, or am in the middle of one myself, I will share these nuggets my fellow STRIVERS. I hope you enjoy them, or feel empowered to keep talking to your spouse. Eventually things will get better.

Here is one that happened this past weekend.

Here is the backdrop. My daughter goes to a Catholic school, and she needed to have her skirt dry cleaned, so I took it upon myself to take it to the cleaners as a way satisfy one of my wife’s Love Languages (Acts of Service).

Here is how the conversation went.

PG: I see you went to the cleaners.

KD: I did!

PG: And you took Livvy’s skirt, right?

KD: I did. (smilingly)

PG: You only took one skirt, right and not both of them, that would leave her with nothing to wear on Tuesday.

KD: Of course, why would you ask me that?

PG: Because you have done it to me before?

KD: Oh!

Definitely an exchange that had me questioning my intelligence. Men, has this ever happened to you before and you would like to post. Please send an e-mail to strive2succeed@comcast.net

Mastering Love requires you to switch tracks!

In order to master the track of love we have to move from trying to control the entire relationship when our relationship/marriage is operating on the track of fear.

We operate from the track of fear when we respect our partners, or feel our partners aren’t intelligent enough to know what’s good for them. So we take it upon ourselves to control what things are being said, as well as what actions they take. In essence, we try to control the whole relationship.

No matter how great your relationship may seem to you, the other person brings their own dream, their own perspective of the relationship no matter how hard you try to control it.

Don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Mastery of Love, uses the example of a couple playing tennis together. If you are playing tennis, you have a partner, you are a team, and you never go against each other – never. Even if you both play tennis differently, you have the same goal: to have fun together, to play together, to be playmates. If you have a partner who wants to control your game, and she says, “No, don’t play like that; play like this. No, you are doing it wrong,” you are not going to have any fun. Eventually, you won’t want to play with that partner anymore. Instead of being a team, your partner wants to control how you play. And without the concept of a team, you are always going to have conflict. If you see your partnership, your romantic relationship, as a team, everything will start to improve. In a relationship, as in a game, it’s not about winning or losing. You are playing because you want to have fun.

So I ask you, would you rather operate from the track of fear and control the entire relationship, or operate from the track of love and enjoy it. When you move to the track of love, it involves giving more than taking. You will also have to take action when your partner tries to sabotage your relationship based on them living in the track of fear.

In order to live on the track of love remember to:

• Understand that everyone has their own dream.
• If you understand your own track of love versus your track of fear, you can clearly shift to the right track when you start to veer of course.
• Finally, which is the most important, no one else can make you happy!  Happiness is the result of love coming out of you. No matter how many books you read. LOVE in action produces happiness.

What do you think? How has your actions of love created happiness in your life?

Keith Dent is a certified relationship coach, and President of Strive 2 Succeed Coaching Services.  Whether it’s a discussion about who to look for in a soul mate, how to improve my relationship, or a discussion about the opposite sex and creating healthy relationships, couples are looking for someone to acknowledge their issues and provide solutions. I have been working with couples for more than 3 years helping them to explore their passions and dreams in their relationships, and the necessary steps to achieve them. He can be reached at strive2succeed@comcast.net for questions and appointments.