Transforming Relationships through the Power of Appreciation
Jul 24, 2023Season 5Episode 5
Nandi Camille
What if the key to a vibrant, long-lasting relationship resided not in grand gestures, but in the simple act of appreciation? As I share my personal journey with my husband, Tyler, it becomes apparent that the secret to maintaining passion and connection is rooted in gratitude. In this episode, I reveal how focusing on appreciating my partner's efforts has been instrumental in keeping our bond strong.
Let's face it, stress and frustration are inevitable aspects of any relationship. But what if we decided to redirect our energy towards the positive things our partner does, even amidst the chaos? Tune in as I delve into the power of gratitude and effective communication in relationships, with a focus on appreciating your partner's efforts, no matter how small. Learn how having constructive conversations, coming from a place of love and collaboration, can lead to solutions that strengthen your bond. Additionally, find out how regular check-ins and acknowledgement of your partner's efforts can enhance joy, connectedness, and passion in your relationship. Trust me, this shift in perspective can revolutionize your relationship, just as it did mine.
ENJOY THE PODCAST? Leave us a 5-star review so more people can find us!
What if the key to a vibrant, long-lasting relationship resided not in grand gestures, but in the simple act of appreciation? As I share my personal journey with my husband, Tyler, it becomes apparent that the secret to maintaining passion and connection is rooted in gratitude. In this episode, I reveal how focusing on appreciating my partner's efforts has been instrumental in keeping our bond strong.
Let's face it, stress and frustration are inevitable aspects of any relationship. But what if we decided to redirect our energy towards the positive things our partner does, even amidst the chaos? Tune in as I delve into the power of gratitude and effective communication in relationships, with a focus on appreciating your partner's efforts, no matter how small. Learn how having constructive conversations, coming from a place of love and collaboration, can lead to solutions that strengthen your bond. Additionally, find out how regular check-ins and acknowledgement of your partner's efforts can enhance joy, connectedness, and passion in your relationship. Trust me, this shift in perspective can revolutionize your relationship, just as it did mine.
ENJOY THE PODCAST? Leave us a 5-star review so more people can find us!
Hi, friends, and welcome to Believe Like a Boss. I'm your host Life Coach, nandu Kamil. Join me as I teach you how to smash your goals and expand the possibility of your life through mindset management, spiritual alignment and authentic action. I'll teach you how to create what I like to call a life of thrive, with ease and authenticity. It's time to play with what's possible. Are you ready? Let's go.
Speaker 2:
In this episode this week, I want to talk about focusing on what your partner is doing well. Now, this may seem like a mundane topic, not important, and, to be honest, at first glance, when I was thinking about bringing it to the podcast, I felt that way. But after looking at it a little bit closer and recognizing the impact it's had on my relationship, I wanted to bring it to you all. So when I'm going to back up a little bit, tether and I give you a little background. Met in Colorado. I'm in Colorado. When I flew here from Florida for a two-week trip, I had two weeks worth of clothes in my suitcase and I tell that whole backstory, actually in a recent blog. So if you go to my website, go to the blog and I give my whole backstory. But when we met, it's really easy. When you're in the beginning of dating, it's really easy to just notice everything that's going really well. Your brain is looking for evidence that this could be your forever person. Now you're on the. I would say I was on the lookout for things that are not in alignment with your 10 is the way that I phrase it with my clients, whenever we're working on dating, I always tell them, who's your 10? And we write that list, your 10 things that your 10, your person, embodies. We don't use terminology of the one. I use your 10 because there are multiple 10s for us out in the world and it's just a matter of us identifying for ourselves what's important. And so when you're dating in the beginning, we all know that you are much more in the giddiness, the giggly, the looking for everything that's going well, getting really excited about. I'm not going to call it small things, but I will say later on, if you were to get married, you might consider it a small thing. Opening up a door, oh my gosh, you get so excited about the fact that he opened up the door for you or the fact that he sent you a good morning text message, right Things that later on in the relationship you might require as normal, necessary, regular cues to help you know that you guys are still connected. So in the beginning, where you're really excited about that, really that good morning text message, call it. Six months, one year, down the line, you expect that good morning text message and it's not that it's any less special, but it doesn't have the same zing it does in the beginning. And so now.
Speaker 2:
Tyler and I have been together for seven years. No, yeah, seven plus years, seven years and 10 months. We've been married for 10 months. We got married on our anniversary because it was not about having two different dates. I wanted to have one. I remember growing up everybody that I would meet that was married would say oh yeah, we've been married for 15 years but we've been together for 24. We started dating on this day and we got married on that day, and for me it was just too much for my brain. I must have known I had ADHD as a small child. I was like I need one date. So we got married on our seven year.
Speaker 2:
We've been married for about 10 months now and one of the things that I've had to work on is, on purpose, reminding myself of the things that he's done. That I appreciate because I'm noticing that when I don't, I take it for granted. So, for example, dishes that's a very easy example in our house, tyler and I have, I wouldn't say, 50, 50 split chores. I wouldn't actually know what the percentage is. I, of course, I would say that I do more chores than he does. He might argue that because he does all the outdoor work, he does as much as I do. I don't actually know, but we have it set up so that other certain things that I do and there's certain things that he does. Like, I always do the floor, sweeping and mopping, and he always does the dishes and the laundry and I'll help with the laundry, I'll do the folding, but he's normally on top of putting everything in the wash and the dryer bringing it out and we'll do what we call a folding party together, where I used to get really probably excited and was way more grateful for and notice the day to day chores and Tyler making effort there. I have over time kind of taken it for granted of like he just needs to, he just needs to do the shoes. That's just what he does.
Speaker 2:
But in the same way that I don't want Tyler to do that with me cooking dinner because I'm the cook and the cook family, would I love him who could love it if he, like, learned how to make a few things? Does he know how to make a few things? Yes, would I love it if he learned more? Yes, am I ever going to put that pressure on? Absolutely not. I really truly do believe in people doing what they enjoy and gravitating towards what they enjoy. And when I don't want to cook, he takes us out and he pays for dinner. So it's a good little trade off. But in the same way that I don't want him to expect me to make dinner every night Well, where's dinner? When's dinner happening? Even though it is something that I take on, I'm the one that prepares dinner. I prepare the menu for the week. It is my responsibility, is what I do.
Speaker 2:
He also recognizes that I do not want him to show up from a place of expectancy of well, where's dinner? Where's that? Because you hear that tone. Right, we've gotten to a rut with that tone of I expect you to do this, and it's missing gratitude when you hear that tone where's dinner? How come you haven't done the dishes yet? It's missing gratitude, it's expectation in a shooting. You should have done this already. Why hasn't this been completed yet? And nobody wants to be spoken to that way. Whether you're a child or an adult, no one wants to be spoken to that way.
Speaker 2:
And so what's been really important for me is taking the time to notice me so grateful for the things that he's doing, being so grateful for the dishes that he's doing, being grateful for the things that don't even that impact me, but, inadvertently, the job he's doing, his job is taxing sometimes, it's frustrating sometimes, and so I'm even grateful I'm trying to take more time, for I'm so grateful for the work that he's doing and how he's showing up and how he's applying himself, because, y'all, there have been some moments because he's also going to school. Right now, he's getting his executive masters in business administration and going to school while working a full-time job. Thank goodness that we don't have babies yet. He's stressful. He's stressful. He has papers to do, he has assignments to do, he's also trying to talk to his teammates and get different things rolling and all of this stuff.
Speaker 2:
And so, even in the moments where he's now feeling a little bit more stressed and I'm noticing him being really short this is helping me out there too Cause I'm like why is it that he's short, instead of me just being like he shouldn't be rude to me, he shouldn't be upset, he shouldn't be stressed out, and acting that way Do I want him to, to transmute his stress in a way that makes him feel more peaceful, and then absolutely and he's a human being on the planet, and so I get to check in and let it be an opportunity to what can I be so grateful for? For?
Speaker 2:
my husband right now. I'm so grateful that he's applying himself, I'm so grateful that he's showing up right now and, as a result, he's a little bit cranky, right. But again, your energy goes where your focus, or rather, your energy flows where your focus goes right. And so if I'm focusing on all the things that are making me irritated and frustrated, how am I going to feel about my relationship? Just point blank period.
Speaker 2:
If you've been feeling frustrated about your relationship, if you've been feeling disconnected from your relationship, from your partner, what have you been focusing on that might have been creating that feeling, and what might you focus on instead that might make you feel more connected to them? For me, that's gratitude, noticing the things that he's doing on a day to day basis, noticing how he's trying his best. Wouldn't it be so nice if everyone in your family, but especially your partner, always spoke to you in a way that affirmed that they knew that you're doing your best? That is the way I want to speak to my husband, and that is the way I want him to speak to me, and that's the way I want to speak to everybody, but in particular with his lifelong close romantic relationship. That sometimes gets under my skin. I have to practice on purpose, noticing what's going well, noticing where he is showing up, noticing what he is doing, because if you continue to focus on, we can always find things that people are doing wrong. We're humans, we are humans. There will always be something we're quote doing wrong, right or not, at the best or highest level, there's always something. We always have room for improvement. It is created that way, it's supposed to be that way. So I can always find something to be upset with Tyler about. I could always find something that maybe he's not doing good enough, that maybe somebody else in the world is doing better, but that does not serve me, that does not serve him and it does not serve the relationship.
Speaker 2:
So I want you to check in and I want you to see where. What have I been thinking, what thoughts have I been thinking about my partner and if that's hard for you to identify. One of the ways you can know the flavor of the thoughts you've been having is by the emotion you've been feeling. If you've been feeling perturbed by them, frustrated by them every time they walk in the room, you roll your eyes and want to go somewhere else. You're having some thoughts about them that are not serving you or the relationship Now it doesn't mean that you don't address those thoughts. I think it's very important to address those thoughts right, to address what is not serving you, to address what is not working and to address what is working Right.
Speaker 2:
So if there is something that's coming up in the relationship and it is bothering you, maybe they are not holding up their end of the bargain with their chores, or you know how you split things up and the dishes have been piling up and that's what your, your partner does and they're supposed to do. The dishes that just keeps piling and piling and piling. I'm not saying ignore and focus on how they're working so hard and and all these things. Now I will add that it's helpful in a moment where you could be so upset with them for the dishes piling up. It isn't a moment, it's an opportunity to be like all right, well, why might they have piled up? Again? We get to go back to how is my partner doing their best, right? Why might this have piled up? How can we empathize, right? And if your brain's up here like no, mhm, they are playing video games, they're out with their friends, they are not doing the things that they need to be doing. They're not supporting the relationship and these dishes have been sitting here while they've been going out every single night and it's just been piling up. It's not okay. Great, then you need to have that conversation. It doesn't feel equal fair, supportive to me when, on every single moment of downtime, you don't take the opportunity to do your part, which is doing the dishes. What can we do to work together? What can I do to support you? What's going on? Right, have a constructive conversation, but again, notice the flavor. That conversation is coming from a place of how can we work together to solve this problem? How can I support you to make sure this gets done? Has anything changed? Right, that's where we're coming from. Versus, this should have been done. You're a piece of crap because it wasn't done. When are you going to get it done? Piece of crap, right, we?
Speaker 2:
I have shown up from both places. Let me say that I have shown up from both places, and when I show up from the place of attack, I do not get the result that I want, versus when I show up from a place of love. I'm going to note that I don't always get the result that I want because I might be showing up from a place of love, but Tyler might not be in that place in that moment. I might not get the result that I want, but I'm more likely to. I'm far more likely for us to land in a place of being on the same team, feeling connected and having a solution. That's a win-win. When I show up from a place of love, when I show up from a place of, they are doing their best. So that's what I want to offer to you all this week.
Speaker 2:
Look around in your life and notice all the ways that your partner is showing up as their best. If there's anything that you need to address, please address it and make sure you're clear on this is what's going on right now. That's not working for me. This is why it's not working for me. Make sure they understand that and then get to the place where you're on the win-win. This is what I would like to see. Make sure it's what they would like to see too. Find that common ground and agree upon that. What is the cue that we're looking for moving forward? What is the behavior change that we're looking for moving forward? What is the thing that is going to be different that we agree upon moving forward.
Speaker 2:
The objective here is to remember always that we're on the same team. You and your partner are on the same team, whether you are in the beginning of your relationship or you are married. Check in, just check in. How are you showing up? From what place are you showing up? How are you feeling about the relationship? What thoughts are causing that feeling and what thoughts might you think instead to create more feelings of joy, connectedness, delight, desire, passion, whatever it is you want to feel in your relationship? As always, my friends, take what's next, you leave the rest. I'll see you next week.
Speaker 2:
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Speaker 2:
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