Marriage Advice: Upgrade Your Marriage By Changing Your Focus
|
As the story goes, a Cherokee elder was sitting with his grandchildren. He told them, "In every life there is a terrible fight-a fight between two wolves. One is evil: he is fear, anger, envy, greed, arrogance, self-pity, resentment, and deceit. The other is good: joy, serenity, humility, confidence, generosity, truth, gentleness, and compassion."
One of his grandchildren asked, "Grandfather, which wolf will win?" The elder looked him in the eye and replied, "The one you feed."
This brief story contains a far-reaching truth. You choose which traits, attitudes, beliefs, and values you will give attention to. And what you focus on will grow and expand. For example, if you value honesty, this value will affect all of your dealings and interactions with others. If you nurture and "feed" resentment, it will eventually take over your life.
Continually focusing on marriage problems makes the relationship seem even worse than it actually is. If you continually talk about how you've been done wrong and how angry you are at your spouse, your anger will grow and blot out your memories of more positive times. When that happens, you are unable to see a balanced picture.
The more energy you devote to focusing on the negatives in your relationship, the worse and more hopeless everything seems. And when you're feeding your negativity, your creative energy is frozen. Thus, you don't have the ability to generate helpful options or a fresh perspective.
You influence your perception of reality by the thoughts you think, the beliefs you hold, and the attitudes you cultivate. According to Katherine Mansfield, "Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different. Life would undergo a change of appearance because we ourselves had undergone a change of attitude."
In each moment, you decide whether to make negative or positive interpretations about the events and people in your life. These interpretations shape your experience of reality and impact your capacity to be all you can possibly be. They also affect your expectations about what is possible.
Choosing to develop qualities such as compassion, honesty, serenity, and joy can transform your marriage and your life. And choosing to reduce the resentment, anger, deceit, and fear in your life can lighten your emotional load and leave you will more energy to generate creative solutions to your marriage problems.
As you become more positive, you bring more positive energy into your interactions with your spouse. When this happens, surprising things can happen in your marriage. The sharp, prickly edge of anger can start to soften between you and your partner. New insights and understandings about a situation can occur, and you can be more likely to find the middle ground of compromise.
The following tips can assist you in training yourself to focus more on what's right with your marriage and your life:
1.Take the time each day to list the things that you are grateful for in your life. Remember to include the things people often take for granted, such as three meals a day, a hot shower, heat, a stove and refrigerator, running water, medical care, and friends.
2.Each day, remind yourself of your spouse's positive qualities and contributions to your life. Think back to what attracted you to your partner initially. Reflect on how your spouse has caused you to stretch and grow and on how much you've learned from the experience.
3.Write in your journal about what positive qualities in yourself you want to cultivate and develop. These are the attitudes, beliefs, and values that you want to focus on and encourage to take root, grow, and thrive in your life.
4.Visit a library or bookstore and select some inspirational reading material and inspirational tapes or CD's. Find the time each day to read or listen to something that is positive, encouraging, and inspiring. It's important to refill at the well of inspiration daily.
5.Spend less time with friends and family members who are negative and leave you feeling depressed and fatigued. There's a name for those individuals who drain your positive energy-"energy vampires." Instead, cultivate new friends who are positive, supportive, and encouraging and who bring out the best in you.
Nancy J. Wasson, Ph.D., is co-author of Keep Your Marriage: What to Do When Your Spouse Says "I don't love you anymore!" This is available as an e-book at http://www.KeepYourMarriage.com ,where you can also sign up for the free Keep Your Marriage Internet Magazine to get weekly ideas and support to help you improve your marriage. Nancy can be contacted at Nancy@KeepYourMarriage.com.
|
|
|
Marriage Counseling: How To Keep Jealousy From Destroying Your Marriage
Jealousy has often been called the "green-eyed monster," and with good reason. The "monster" ...(related: Marriage Wedding)
Moissanite Bridal Rings ?true Choice Of The Young Heart
What best way can a bride think of rising to the very special occasion in her life, if that occasion does not have the glitter of jewelry in it! Brides today need not despair and give up hope if diamonds are outside their reach. Welcome to...(related: Marriage Wedding)
Want To Get Married In Las Vegas?
Only in Las Vegas can you find everything for your wedding from the most lavish, private accommodations in t...(related: Marriage Wedding)
Wedding Favors: A Brief History
For many centuries wedding favors have been a part of traditional wedding ceremonies, across a wide range of cultures. Initially wedding favors were an extravagance at celebrations hosted by European upper classes, who had the wealth to provide elaborate gifts to guests. The early wedding favors began as small fancy boxes, known by their French name of bonboniere. A bonboniere was fashioned of crystal, porcelain or gold and often encrusted with precious stones. The delicate...(related: Marriage Wedding)
Renewing Your Marriage Vows - On The Right Side Of The Law
Movies, sitcoms and soapies made in the United States could mislead Australian couples into inad...(related: Marriage Wedding)
Budget Tips For Your Wedding Reception
Wedding receptions are expensive affairs and can set you back a pretty penny. However, most brides have their heart set on an all...(related: Marriage Wedding)
Family Law
A frustrating lack of permanence plagues modern relationships. Approximately one of every two marriages ends in divorce and the average length of a marriage before divorce is only five years. Many couples today chose cohabitation over traditional marriage. What happened to the idealized family depicted in Father Knows Best, Leave it To Beaver, The Donna Reed Show and Ozzie and Harriet?No simple answer exists to this question: our intimate relationships have been affected by the industrialization of society, urbanization, continued changes in the traditional roles of the sexes and greater ...(related: Marriage Wedding)
Wedding Photography: Preserving The Memories
A person's wedding can be one of the most important times in their life. They will have memories that they want to treasure forever and then pass on to their children. Wedding photography helps them do this. Having pictures taken at the wedding and then at the reception can capture those precious memories in freeze-frame and help you keep them forever.Pictures are important so you want to be sure you get good photos, high quality photos that you can enjoy forever.Most people w...(related: Marriage Wedding)
Chocolate Wedding Favors
Providing chocolate as a wedding favor has been a time honored tradition for many centuries. The practice of distributing wedding favors began with the European upper classes, who had the wealth to provide elaborate gifts to their guests. Wedding favors began as small fancy boxes known as a bonboniere. A bonboniere was fashioned of crystal, porcelain or gold and were often encrusted with precious stones. The boxes were meant to hold bonbons or other confectionery delicacies, at a time when sugar was quite ...(related: Marriage Wedding)
site-map - Copyright © 2006 | Contact Webmaster | Weddings & Honeymoons | All Rights Reserved. | Marriage Wedding