Happiness = Goals With A Soul

Recently, I worked with a couple that was on the verge of divorce. They were so sad because they truly loved each other but had grown up and away from one another. They weren’t feeling how they wanted to be feeling in their marriage. They were no longer willing to be unhappy. They’re individual goals, that they had set in their early years had changed. They had changed. They didn’t think the other person understood them. Quite honestly, at that point, each of them didn’t have a clear understanding of themselves. So, we took a few weeks and as their clarity emerged, divorce came off the table and their love for each other re-kindled. They saw themselves in a new light, re-established their goals and accepted that working towards happiness was not the same as working towards not being unhappy. They aligned with happiness.

What if we have it all wrong; setting our goals early, making our to-do list in the hopes that one day, when we accomplish these things, we’ll feel a particular way.

Instead, what if we sat down and really thought about how we truly, deeply want to feel in the different areas of our life. Then, we established our goals and our to-dos around the feelings we want to have, every day.

Danielle Laporte says that in life, we're not really chasing the goal itself – instead we're chasing the feeling that we hope to obtain when we complete those goals.  She says "when we make feeling good a priority, everything changes…" and when we get real about the feelings we truly crave, we might surprise ourselves, with some new choices. We might let go of goals and relationships that no longer serve us and hold tightly onto others.

So ask yourself, how do you truly, deeply desire to feel in these areas of your life; your marriage/relationships, creativity/learning, spiritually, physically, financially and emotionally?

You may experience some resistance as you're trying to get some clear adjectives to define how you truly want to feel. You may feel a little vulnerable. Take some time with this practice. This may feel foreign because who’s ever asked you this before? Sit in a peace-filled place as you explore as many adjectives and positive feelings as you can.

Once you’ve established how you want to feel, narrow the words down to 3-4 main words in each category. Now as you revisit each area of your life ask yourself if your goals are aligned with getting you the feeling you want to have every single day. If so, yay! You are truly getting a glimpse of your happiness every day. If not, what needs to go, stay, change so you are experiencing how you want to feel, every day?

Like my couple from a few months ago, your life could change for the better as you align with happiness.

For a cheat sheet of words go to the last pages of this PDF: http://www.daniellelaporte.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/TheDesireMap_SampleChapter_TheMagneticsOfFeelings_SinglePages.pdf

The Secret to a Happy Marriage/Relationship –Lean into The Tough Conversations

How many times have you heard the question…”What’s the secret to a good marriage?” You’ve probably heard this or thought about it 1000 + times. How often have you heard an answer that makes sense to you? If you’re like me (and I see couples all the time), rarely! The dreamy answer of  “Never go to sleep mad” lingers with me in a romantic kind of way; but then I think about all the people who are up all night because they don’t want to go to sleep mad and then my brain gets fuzzy and I get fuzzy and my brain jumps to a new topic. Then, I’m left one more time with no answer to this burning question.

 After many, many, ma (I get 1 “many” for every 10 years) of practice & training, I have settled on a few things when it comes to marriage / relationship:

1. All marriages go through tough times. This isn’t saved for the crappy ones.

2. When marriage / relationship gets hard, this isn’t a universal indicator that it’s time to bail.

3. Divorce / separation doesn’t end pain. It just morphs it for a while.

4. Never going to sleep mad takes super human determination that may be only available to superheroes & cheesy movie characters.

5. Couples feel more understood and connected when they talk (to each other :-).

In the beginning, of a relationship, we’re often more generous with our time and more thoughtful with our words. But, there are times in all marriages when things get tough, when we want to run away. So what do we do? We go silent, we fight and sometimes, we run away. This strategy may work a few times, but it’s not the recipe for a “Happy Marriage”.

It turns out that happiness is only sustainable through connection and conversation. To be heard and feel known - to be understood by the person you love, that creates happiness. 

When a topic is tough or times are hard, you may find yourself avoiding significant conversations in your marriage. You find yourself “leaning out”. You can’t bear the discomfort, the sadness or maybe the anger. So, you wall off and over time disengage, maybe just one topic at a time until you feel alone in your relationship. (And this is where trouble can come knocking.)

The statistical research on couples shows, and I see it everyday in my practice, that the greatest indicator for success in a marriage / relationship is the couples’ willingness to have tough conversations. The willingness to “lean in” to the discomfort; take a chance; to move slowly. When couples “lean in” to the tough conversations, they are essentially saying to their loved one: “I care about you / us so much that I’m willing to take a chance, a roll of the dice – that we’ll find our way through this and be strong on the other side.” It says “I have your back and I don’t want you to feel alone in this world.” It says, “You’re worth it. We’re worth it”

So the next time you hear the question, what’s the secret to a happy marriage? And you hear the answer “Never go to sleep mad,” you can interpret that to mean: don’t clam up and ignore the tough stuff. Don’t “lean out” when things are hard. “Lean In” to the tough conversations; the rewards are immense.