Thrive, Don’t Just Survive

Many people allow the two most important areas of their lives to drift to the very bottom of one’s “life list,” as life coach Nicola Ries Taggart puts it. These two essentials are: the time to nurture one’s self, and the time to nurture one’s love relationship. Have you been neglecting either or both of these? One easy way to tell is if you feel a lack of connection where it was once strong between the two of you, or if you are feeling oppressively distant from the one you are closest to.

Nicola claims you don’t have to spend lots of time nurturing your union, but that you do need to give it some heart. She further explains that quality trumps quantity and gives five simple examples on how to begin doing this today. Her closing bonus tip is to begin your day with the intention to recognize and act in small ways to more deeply grow your relationship together and, even better, talk with your partner about the concept of nurturing your relationship together while also checking in with each other at the end of every day. For more on Nicola’s advice and her five examples to get you started, see nicola-bestofbothworlds.blogspot.com.

Forgiving for the Benefit of Love

Fred Luskin, Director of Stanford University Forgiveness Projects, has conducted the largest research study on forgiveness to date. I found his brief blog post, Forgive for Love very interesting. Appreciative of the fact that it’s a wonder any intimate relationship lasts at all, with so many pressures and challenges, disregard for feelings, substance abuse…the list goes on. He states that it has all shown him just how essential forgiveness is and why it needs to be at the very center of our love relationships. Since there are many, many ways for relationships to become unbalanced just from the complexity of life, which easily leads to multiple disagreements, he says the important thing is to understand it’s inevitable, therefore we absolutely need to forgive and move on from a place of love. To read his concise and heartening post, check out loveandforgive.org.

Three Things…

SteadfastMom, a.k.a. Rhenda, blogged about the challenge she took to write something she loved about her husband every day for thirty days. She says it’s changed her life! Although the two of them had a solid relationship already in place, she has found that the refocusing has allowed her to see how much more she really loves him than she initially thought! Rhenda shares how easy it is to focus on every single undesirable trait or action of your spouse, but by refocusing through this exercise, she has realized you create a desire for that which you pay more attention to. She challenges us to think of three things we love about our partners and to be sure and let them know what those are too! Go to weblog.revivelife.com.