Ask Dan and Jennifer » gratitude

Happy Relationships: How To Replace Fear And Doubt With Gratitude, Love and Trust

Dr. Joe Rubino — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:02:07 +0000

As human beings, we operate daily reflecting a wide range of emotions with a multitude of motivations fueling our behaviors.

All too often, we react emotionally to what others say or do. If our reactions are preceded by the emotions of fear, anger, or sadness, we forfeit our ability to act with personal power and effectiveness in lieu of a knee-jerk response.

The emotional reaction

This reaction is all too often sourced in fear and low self-esteem. We may focus on what’s wrong with us and our lives, fear being controlled, hurt, or taken advantage of.

We may overlook the many things we have in our lives for which we should rightly be grateful, doubt our ability to thrive and access the abundance we see all around us in the world, reacting instead from the concern of scarcity and the expectation of failure, hurt, and disappointment.

We may see ourselves in competition for the world’s resources and the love and attention of others rather than realizing that there is more than enough of all that is good to go around. We forget that we manifest what we expect rather than needing to compete for limited resources.

Whenever we forget that we are magnificent beings and that there is plenty of wealth, happiness, fun, and fulfillment to go around, we might feel the need to protect ourselves from what we perceive to be a dangerous world. We likewise tend to forget that others operate from the same lacking self-confidence, scarcity of gratitude, and deficient self-love that we often do.

The result of not seeing ourselves as good enough

So, whenever two or more individuals see themselves as not good enough to tap into the world’s abundance and get all their needs met from a physical, social, mental, and emotional perspective, conflicts are likely to arise.

The result is broken relationships, strained communication, emotional pain, struggle, and suffering. All of these are needless and optional for those who realize their ability to detach from the struggle and master their emotional response.

When we stop to realize that everyone else suffers from the same self-doubt and fear of being dominated and cheated out of getting their fair share of love, fun, money, possessions, and security, we can break the vicious cycle of endless competition and continual striving for domination.

Breaking the cycle

We can realize that cooperation and communication is more effective in producing harmony than competition and a focus on self-interest based on fear.

We can intentionally choose to trust that others are doing the best they know how to do based upon how they see the world. We can assume that they act from good intentions, even when we fear the opposite.

Creating win-win relationships

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Women: 5 Ways To Save Your Marriage

Michael Webb — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:03:47 +0000

Is your marriage in trouble? No matter how bad, there’s always hope and ways to turn your situation around.

Here are five common ways to help create a better, more loving and harmonious relationship with your husband.

1. Handle arguments differently

Every marriage and relationship has arguments, but it’s how you handle them that’s most important.

At Junior High School, I said ‘no’ to drugs. At my wedding altar, I said ‘no’ to fighting. Nancy Reagan’s "Just Say No" anti-drug campaign was a huge success.

Kids made a verbal commitment and a mental stance to avoid drugs before they were even of the age to be tempted. When they were introduced to drugs, they knew they could "just say no" and not feel alone.

Fighting is NOT harmless. It’s addictive and, if continued, is likely to cause irreparable damage. Certainly there are times when emotions get wrinkled, and the natural inclination is to blow your top.

I sometimes have to bite my tongue so I don’t say something I would regret later (since when is self-control a bad thing?) Having a naturally calm personality has admittedly made it easier for me to think before I speak than it is for some people. But that shouldn’t stop anyone from trying.

2. How to make him listen

In most relationships, a polite and sincere request gets much greater results than if you yell, nag or complain.

For example, the other day Athena saw my bath towel on the middle of our bedroom floor. She said "you might want to hang up your towel or it won’t dry out in time for your shower tomorrow." When my clothes pile up outside of the hamper, she sweetly says, "it would really help me out a lot if you put your dirty clothes in the hamper."

She was exhausted one morning and when Ashton (then five months old) began to stir, she turned over to me and asked if I wanted to "get up and have a little morning playtime with Ashton."

That was a much nicer way of asking me to help her out than saying, "Why am I the one who always gets up early to take care of YOUR son? I think it is YOUR turn for a change." Athena always thinks of nice ways to ask me to help out or to stop doing something irritating.

3. Turn gossip and bashing into praise

No one’s perfect. When wives get together and the conversation turns to complaining about “what their husbands do,” or male bashing in general, refuse to participate.

It shows that you respect and value your husband. For a man, few things are more devastating than to have his wife criticize him in front of friends. Instead, when a "gripe session" gets going, make it a point to start sharing some of his good qualities.

Usually, this alone will steer the conversation into a positive direction and help your friends to also praise their husbands — which in turn helps them to respect and appreciate them more too. Knowing that my wife refuses to belittle me in front of friends makes me love and respect her even more.

4. Change your routine of life

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Do You Know The Secret To Marital Bliss?

Melody Brooke — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 13:47:37 +0000

Wow! I’m so Glad I Married You!

The main thing I remember about being with my ex-husband is how angry I felt all the time.

I was always unhappy with him about something.

He didn’t care if the living room was covered with screws from the many computer parts he was constantly putting together.

He didn’t care that I was alone almost every night in a small town miles away from my family while he was working late at night. He disregarded my feelings about most things and pretty much did as he liked with no regard for me.

I had a long list of gripes, serious complaints and general dissatisfaction with him that ate me up every day. When I left him I felt such relief, just to not be carrying all that resentment any more.

Being Single for 10 Years Gave Me a New Perspective

After being single for nearly 10 years I finally met and married my current husband. And, I have to say, I did a lot of work on myself in the interim. The gripes that that I had regarding my ex-husband, I am chagrined to disclose, were mostly kept to myself.

That is, between my girlfriends and myself, they all knew; my husband didn’t.

So now, going into this marriage I was determined to speak my truths and not pretend that everything was okay when I was deeply or even shallowly perturbed with him. Needless to say my first year of marriage was tough.

After years of not speaking my truths I began to realize that my truths were not THE truth. The fact that there were other ways of looking at things, and other perspectives was a shock to me, in spite of my training and knowledge.

This left me with a new way to look at my life, and what was happening in my marriage. Maybe there were other ways to look at what was happening, and had happened in my previous marriages (yes, marriages, plural).

You see the funny thing is that both my most recent ex-husband and my current one are in the same line of work. They even share the same name, and initials, first, middle and last. Both are hardheaded and extremely bright. Both work very hard and care a lot about their family.

Yet the quality of my relationship with my current husband is light years from my previous one.

Honestly, while some of this has to do with their differences (they are not exactly alike, even with all the similarities) – I really don’t believe that explains it fully.

The Gift of Gratitude

The difference that counts is that I am different. I am so very different in many ways, but the one that hit me tonight is that I am now able to be grateful for my husband.

Understand, my husband is not perfect. He has, like all spouses, his quirks and…

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