Sex for Saints

All couples have disagreements, but the ones who learn to solve their problems by fighting differently and fair are the ones who tend to stick together.  In this episode I share 5 steps to fighting fair with your spouse.

Continuing our topic from last week on communication, Celeste Davis, from MarriageLaboratory.com, joins me in discussing different experiments she and her husband have conducted in their marriage to improve communication.  She also discusses a practice they call their Marriage Inventory, a weekly check-in that helps them communicate better and increase the connectivity in their relationship. Show Notes: The Work of Byron Katie You can find Celeste Davis here: MarriageLaboratory Facebook Instagram Podcast

One of the keys to communication in marriage, is communicating well during a conflict.  Conflict is inevitable in any marriage.  Learning how to resolve those conflicts is key to sustaining that marriage.  The most popular approach to resolving conflicts, advocated by many marriage therapists is empathetic listening.  On today’s podcast we will discuss 14 ways to to learn how to listen to your partner empathetically.  This is not a skill that comes easy.  It takes sincere effort and practice.  But it is definitely possible and if you apply the skill, it can go a long way in helping the communication skills in your marriage. Play In A New Window Download

“By Small and simple things are great things brought to pass.” The little things we do to build and strengthen our marriage add up.  They compound.  What small choices are you making daily that contribute the demise or the strengthening of your marriage? Play In A New Window Download     Show Notes Get the Tips!

When something negative happens, our brains automatically make up a story to protect us.  What are the stories that you tell yourself to protect yourself from feeling negative emotions?  What stories disengage you from your spouse or make them into a villain?  While this is a great way to protect ourselves, it takes us further away from creating the emotional intimacy and connection that we all crave in our relationships.  So what stories are you telling yourself?

Have you ever thought “Did I marry the wrong person?” or  “Are we really meant to be?”  Just about every married person I know has had those thoughts.  But in this episode, we talk about why those thoughts aren’t serving you and your marriage.  

The word SHOULD indicates an expectation, an obligation, a duty, and is typically used when criticizing someone.  And usually when we “should” on others we have an expectation that they be LIKE US.  And not only do we think they should be, think, or do like us, we expect them to be the perfect version of us. We have a personal set of rules of how people should conduct their lives.  And when they don’t, it totally sets us up for anger, negativity, and disappointment.  Talk about a set up for failure! Right?  But when we drop the “shoulds” or the expectations we have of people, and just LOVE them we are able to create much better results in our lives, better relationships, and better marriages. Play In A New Window Download       Show Notes Spiritually Minded Mom - Episode 25: Mothering a Child with Mental Illness

In several scriptures in the New Testament it says that the Savior was “Moved with Compassion” and then a miracle followed.  When we have compassion for ourselves and compassion for our spouse and others, what kind of miracles will we see in our own life and around us? Play In A New Window Download Show Notes In several scriptures in the New Testament it says that the Savior was “Moved with Compassion”  The dictionary says: Moved means: to prompt or rouse to the doing of something AND Compassion means: a sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it So When it says the Savior was “Moved with Compassion” because he was a Sympathetic person He was Prompted or Roused with to do something to alleviate the distress of someone. And then if you keep reading in the scriptures when He’s moved to compassion some sort of miracle followed… So compassion for someone brought about a miracle… I talk to my clients a lot about acting from emotions that produce their best self.  I feel like LOVE is one of the best emotions we can act from to produce our best life.  Love for ourselves and love for others. That is why I called this podcast Live from Love.  So we can LIVE and ACT from our Best Self and LOVE produces that result. But often when a situation or circumstance happens to us or around us, we think thoughts that don’t prompt love, but prompt other emotions that don’t show our best selves. Anger, Irritability, Sadness, Jealousy, Frustration…. these kinds of emotions don’t MOVE us to act with LOVE and Compassion.  They often MOVE us to act in ways that are not our best. So When my clients have thoughts that produce these emotions and they are not acting as their best selves, I talk to my them about  Having Compassion for themselves Having Compassion for others, which eventually brings LOVE, even when its hard. Having Compassion for Ourselves We are human.  It is part of our journey here on earth to make mistakes.  In fact, that was an essential part of the plan.  Our Heavenly Father knew this.  He knew we would make mistakes.  He counted on it.  That is why He gave us a Savior and the Atonement. So why do we beat ourselves up so much when we make mistakes?  When we don’t handle things exactly as we should?  When we aren’t our best selves? Our Heavenly Father loves us so much.  He VALUES us so  much.   It says in The Book of Moses that his entire purpose is to bring us back to Him because he values our imperfect selves SO MUCH  “This is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” Who are we to say otherwise?  That we are not of value? That we are not worthy of love? That who we are, who He created us to be, is not enough?  That mistakes He knew we would make make before we even came to earth would make us unworthy to be loved by Him and others? It’s just NOT true.  It’s a lie we tell ourselves.  It’s a lie that Satan wants us to believe. So I coach my clients a lot on loving themselves and having COMPASSION for themselves FIRST.  Having compassion for the mistakes that they make.  Having compassion for our natural human inadequacies.  Having compassion for the thoughts our brain automatically thinks.  We were created in our Heavenly Father’s image.  He has compassion for us.  He embodies compassion.  So should we.  For ourselves and others.  Compassion is our deepest nature. Our brain I want you to think about when you put on a pair of pants.  Now when you were little, your mom probably had to teach you that you make sure you are putting them on the right way, that the tag goes in the back.  And then you put one leg in and then the other, and then you pull them up and do up the button and the zipper.  And when you were little you had to think about each little step.  But as you learned how and did it over and over, it became automatic.  I bet you don’t even think about it anymore.  You just put on your pants.  That’s because that was designated to the lower brain.  It’s a habit.  It doesn’t need much thought. Our brains are often on autopilot.  The lower brain - the one that gives us all these thoughts to protect us is really good at being on autopilot.  That’s its job.  When we form habits and we don’t really have to think about things much anymore, like putting on pants, those things get designated to the lower brain,  That’s what our lower brain is really good for.  When we leave it unsupervised, it’s default is to keep doing what its used to doing and to keep us alive.  To protect us.  Protect us physically and emotionally.  It’s watching out for tigers and mean girls. So when something happens that it thinks is a threat - it starts sending us all sorts of thoughts to help keep us safe.  That’s its job.  That’s what it is supposed to do. But those thoughts are not always helpful.  So that is why I tell my clients that they need to be compassionate with themselves when they start to notice these thoughts that aren’t helpful.   Remember that its just our brain trying to protect us and we need to engage our higher brain and have a  sympathetic consciousness of the lower brains distress and try to alleviate it.  We have COMPASSION for our lower brain doing its job trying to protect us. We need to have COMPASSION for us being who our Heavenly Father created us to be - a human who makes mistakes. Developing COMPASSION and eventually LOVE for others. Sometimes that is hard to do.  Especially when that person has done something to hurt us or someone we love.   So let’s take it to the extreme first.  Because when I work with clients on the concept of unconditional love I often get push back about the extremes.  How can I think thoughts that make me FEEL love for rapists and murderers? So say that someone murdered your neighbors child.  Your lower brain - wanting to protect you - tells you to think thoughts of HATE for this person.  WE can not LIKE him.  We definitely can not LOVE him.  No way.  No how.  Your lower brain doesn’t want you to think loving or compassionate thoughts for this person because its trying to keep you alive. But I want you to engage your higher brain.  I want you to get curious about what this person must have been through in his life to make him think that murdering someone was an ok thing to do?  Someone probably severely abused him.  He was not taught right from wrong.  He wasn’t taught that he had any value on this earth.  He was in such emotional pain that he thought murdering someone was the right choice. Isn’t that sad?  Isn’t it so sad that someone could do that to another human being? That they could be in such emotional pain that they would make such a horrible choice.  My heart goes out to that person.  And while I know what he did was wrong, I can have COMPASSION for him and LOVE him for everything he has been through to bring him to this point.   When I am trying to have compassion for the other person, I try to see them as the Savior would see them.  Would He see them as some evil individual who is not worthy of any sort of compassion or love?  No!  He would see them as His brother and someone who is damaged and hurting and needs LOVE and COMPASSION in the worst way. Compassion and LOVE does NOT excuse the behavior.  It does NOT mean that there shouldn’t be consequences for behavior.  It doesn’t mean you need to spend time with or be around that person.  It just means that you are trying to understand where that person is coming from and loving them for who they are (a valuable child of God) and not for what they have done or not done in this imperfect human existence. How can we have more compassion in our marriages?  Can we see the other person for who they really are?  What their human struggles are?  Can we get curious as to why they behave the way they do instead of judging them for it?   Let me give you an example -  I have a client who’s husband often says unkind things to her and tries to control everything she does.  Her first thought is “He shouldn’t do that” and she often questions her own value and self-worth because of the things he says to her.   She says she is having a hard time loving him. So I asked her to get curious about why he says those things.  Could they be true? What would prompt him to say unkind things to her?  We talked about how it is NEVER ok for someone to mistreat you and it’s important to set boundaries when that happens.  But we try to  be curious about WHY and have COMPASSION for that person and the challenges they face in their own mind.   Eventually, after setting boundaries, and not letting herself be mistreated, she asked him about it.  He had been abandoned by his mother and was afraid of losing her (like he lost his mom).  So he was trying to control everything she did so that he wouldn’t lose her.  But in the process, he was driving her away. When she understood WHY, she felt compassion for him.  She was able to let him know that it wasn’t ok what he was doing.  That controlling her was actually making her want NOT be with him.  But she wanted to stay married to him.  So if he would be kind and loving, they could build a loving and lasting marriage.   That marriage could have ended.  She could have left because of the way he was treating her.  But she hasn’t left him.  The marriage is still a work in progress, but it is still there.   She is loving him and having compassion for who he is and what he has been through instead of just being judgmental about his judgements and hurt by them.  I think that’s a miracle. When we are moved to compassion we transcend ourselves to the level of someone else and help raise them to a better place.  And when we do that, miracles can happen. I love this quote by Dieter F. Uchtdorf “Great marriages are built brick by brick, day after day over a lifetime….If you keep adding pebbles of kindness, compassion, listening, sacrifice, understanding, and selflessness, eventually a mighty pyramid will begin to grow.  If it appears to take forever, remember, happy marriage are meant to last forever.” Isn’t that’s great? How to have compassion in our marriages So besides getting curious about why our spouse (or others) are the way they are, having compassion for that, and loving them despite their imperfections.  I wanted to share with you a few more ideas on how you can be more compassionate in your marriage.  Let go of expectations - we’ve talked about this one a lot in past episodes.  Letting go of expectations and just loving our spouse for who they are is VERY compassionate. Stop asking “What’s Wrong” and instead as “What day you need form me in this moment”  Crappy days happen for everyone - understand that they can happen for your spouse too and its ok for them to be in a bad mood sometimes. Ask your partner what compassion means for them.  It might mean something completely different than it does to you. Be there for them physically and emotionally.  You don’t even have to say a word - a kind touch and a listening ear can often be all that they need. Admit that you might be wrong.  Your way isn’t always best. Be truthful.  Honesty equals compassion.  Even when its hard. Examine your motives.  Are you being compassionate out of expectations of return or because you truly care? Draw the line.  Compassion doesn’t mean over giving or co-dependency.  Compassion simply allows you to care without losing yourself. Take care of yourself too - being compassionate with others doesn’t mean "putting your needs aside. This week I want you to think about when your spouse has shown compassion for you.  How has that helped raise you up?  How has that helped your relationship? How can you do that for them?  How can you create more miracles in your life and the lives around you by showing compassion to yourself and your spouse?

Do you often feel overwhelmed with life and everything you have going on? In this episode we discuss what is really the cause of you feeling overwhelmed and how you can overcome it so that you can be more confident, organized in your daily life, productive, and feel better. Play In A New Window Download    Show Notes I hear a lot of women today talk about how overwhelmed they are with their life.  And believe me, I’ve been there too.  We are overwhelmed by our homes, our jobs, our kids activities, our church callings.  Everything is just so overwhelming. So if we think about the The Model that I taught in Episode 17  The FEELING of overwhelm would go in the F line.  And as we know, our feelings are caused by our thoughts.  Now, lets think about what kind of THOUGHTS bring on the FEELINGS of overwhelm. Thoughts like “I don’t have enough time” “There is too much to do” “I can’t get it all done” “I’m not capable of all this” are usually some of the thoughts that bring up the feeling of OVERWHELM And when we are overwhelmed, what do we do? What is the A line (the action line) of our model? I would say for most people the feeling of OVERWHELM brings INACTION.  When we feel overwhelmed, we don’t do anything or we do something to AVOID doing what actually needs to get done (like watch netflix or scroll Instagram) am I right???   And when we do this, what is our R line in the model? Our result?  We don’t get anything done and now we have LESS time because we sat around and drank our diet coke while scrolling instagram for way too long! Do you see how thinking those thoughts actually made things worse? I like to say that OVERWHELM is an indulgent thought.  Now think about what indulgent means.  Mr. Webster defines indulge as “taking unrestrained pleasure in, to yield to the desire of, or to treat with excessive leniency, generosity, or consideration” So in being “overwhelmed” we are taking an unrestrained pleasure in, yielding to the desire of,  and treating with excessive leniency the thoughts that we entertain so that we don’t actually have to do what needs to be done. So how do we not feel overwhelmed? I know, as wives and mothers we have so much on our plates.  Sometimes it is more than we can physically do.  But that is where taking control of our thinking comes into play. I want you to think back to Podcast 18 on Setting Goals.  We talked about having 6 areas of our life (mental, physical, social, spiritual, family, and work) and having a VALUE statement for each area, and then making long term goals, short term goals, and breaking it down to daily tasks.  Doing this gives us a way to prioritize what is truly important in our lives.  This also makes things more ORGANIZED in our mind. When we know what we value, we can more easily organize our time and our tasks by what is truly important. If our mind isn’t organized, we will never be able to organize our lives. We have to get things straight in our brain first.  Internal organization creates external organization. Now one thing you may not know about me, is that I LOVE to organize.  Organization is something that comes really easy to me and its something that I love to do and I’m really good at. So when I am organizing a drawer or a closet or a room, I first take everything out, sort through things, get rid of all the unwanted and unneeded items, and then put things back in an orderly fashion by categories.  Everything has a home. The same is true with our minds.  You need to examine your thoughts.  Sort through them. (memories, subconscious thoughts, judgements, negative self-talk, positive self-talk, plans, gratitude, etc.) Get rid of the unwanted and unneeded thoughts, and decide what you want to keep.  Is there any new thoughts you want to add in there?  Make sure its something you really want and have a place for. When I am at the store, say Target, there are ALWAYS a ton of cute home decor items I really want to buy.  I could easily go and spend a few hundred dollars buying cute things for my house and then get home and have NO WHERE to put them.  So when I do purchase something, I am very deliberate about it.  I think through and decide beforehand exactly where its going to go, and possibly what I am going to get rid of so that there is room for this in my life. The same goes with my thoughts.  I am deliberate about what I am choosing to think.  Each thought is chosen for a reason that will get me closer to my goals and aligns with my values. So bringing this back to OVERWHELM - I am going to purposely choose thoughts about my life and about my tasks at hand that don’t bring me into overwhelm.  I don’t want room for those kinds of thoughts in my brain.  I want to deliberately choose thoughts that will make me feel confident, empowered, and able to take on whatever life throws at me. So when you have a lot on your plate and your thoughts naturally go to “This is too much” or “I can’t handle this”  I want you to just notice what your brain is doing.  It’s doing its job.  It’s trying to protect you.  Thank you brain.  But then deliberately choose to think different thoughts.   Now some thoughts you might want to try on when those overwhelming thoughts creep in are  “I can totally handle this” “I have exactly the amount of time I need to get things done” “I am capable and I’ve got this” These thoughts make me feel confident and able and then my mind is clear and I am able to find solutions and get things done.  Sometimes that means reprioritizing tasks for another day, finding someone to help me, or being compassionate with myself that I am doing the best I can and if I don’t get everything done, that is OK! So yesterday was a day that I was running from one thing to the next.  I had to get the kids off to school, then I had coaching sessions with my clients, I recorded an interview for another podcast, my daughter had a doctors appointment, I had a coaching call with my coach, my son had a music lesson, I needed to go to the grocery store and fix dinner, and then another daughter had a double-header for softball.  I could have chosen to be overwhelmed with everything, but instead I chose to believe I could get everything done, no problem.  Well guess what, by the time I got home from the grocery store to fix dinner it was almost time to leave for softball.  The dinner I had planned was scratched, we threw something else together, and were on our merry way.  It was a great day, even though it was so busy.  And I could have been so overwhelmed and really not done a whole lot if I had chosen to indulge in that emotion.  But I organized my mind, organized my day, chose empowering thoughts, and it all worked out, even if dinner didn’t go exactly as planned. So relating this to marriage.  We often blame a lot of our overwhelm on our spouses for not doing their fair share.  We expect them to know what our needs our, to pick up some of the slack, and when they don’t, we are hurt and use it as evidence that they don’t love us or they don’t care about us, because if they did they would see what we need and do it. I want to encourage you to DROP the expectations.  Absolutely communicate your requests to your spouse, but do NOT make them not doing something mean ANYTHING about you.   “Honey, I am running late, would you please start dinner” “I have a lot going on today, could you run Johnny to soccer practice this evening” But you can NOT expect them to see your needs and do it if you do not COMMUNICATE with them.  And even if you do communicate with them and they don’t do it or they can’t do it, it’s still not about YOU.  It’s about them.  Maybe they aren’t doing a good job communicating what is on THEIR plate.  Maybe they are feeling overwhelmed with all of their own responsibilities.  Be understanding that each person is doing THEIR best in that moment, even if their best isn’t great.  We are all human, and we all need a little compassion and understanding.

Part of being an emotional adult is taking responsibility for our own emotions.  Even in our marriage.  It is not our partners responsibility for making us feel loved, secure, and happy.  We have to do that for ourselves.  Listen in to find out how… Play In A New Window Download       Show Notes So today we are going to talk about how to quit blaming others for how you feel.  So in the world of life coaching we call this emotional childhood vs. emotional adulthood.   As children, most of us were taught that we can make others feel a certain way.  We’ve probably inadvertently taught that to our children as well “Don’t do that or Mommy will be sad”   “We need to share so that Sally’s feelings won’t be hurt” “You need to invite Johnny to your party so that he doesn’t feel left out” So all of these little things taught us (and we in turn teach our children) that we  have control over how someone else feels by what we say or how we act. So if we have power over someone else’s emotions, people can have power over ours as well, right? We believed that whatever is happening in our lives in the cause of our pain rather than being aware of the thoughts that we are thinking that are creating these emotions in us.  But if you remember in our model (which I teach in Episode 17) our thoughts come from our circumstances, and that is what gives us our emotions. But, as children we were not taught this or taught how to understand our own emotions or how to deal with them.  So even as adults we react to our emotions, act out, or avoid emotions, rather that taking full responsibility for them and choosing thoughts that will create the emotions we want to experience. Essentially as adults we are still functioning as emotional children. This is what we call Emotional Childhood. So much of what we have learned in this life is how to avoid pain.  We use things to “buffer” away our feelings - food, shopping, pornography, sex, netflix, social media, exercise, work, etc.   The only way to achieve emotional maturity or Emotional Adulthood is through self-responsibility.  So what does that mean?  What does Emotional Adulthood entail? We take control of our own thoughts and don’t blame other people for our emotions or the results we are getting in our life. Take responsibility for our own pain and also for our own joy Not expect others to make us happy Not expecting others to make us feel secure. Appreciating that we are the only ones who can hurt our feelings, and that we can do that with our own thoughts. And we need to do this at all times! No wonder it feels like such hard work to begin thinking about our own thinking and realize that we can actually choose how went to feel, no matter what other people do or say. This is awesome news, because this means we have power over our own lives.  When we blame someone else for how we are feeling, we are handing our power over to another person.  Handing over that power makes us dependent on that person for how we feel…a dependent is otherwise known as a child.  But when we understand that we are in charge of how we feel because of our thoughts, we get to take all that power back. So let me give you an example -  I have a client who has quite a temper.  When he gets stressed out at work, he likes to blame everyone else for his frustration and anger.  He does NOT like to take responsibility for it.  It’s always someone else’s fault that he is angry.  This is so disempowering!  He’s handing over control of his emotions to someone else.  But really, his emotions are coming from his thoughts about what is happening at work.  And if he would take responsibility for those thoughts, realize that he gets to control his thoughts and therefore how he feels about what is happening, then he gets all of his power back.  Now, he may still choose to be angry about the situation, but understanding that the anger is coming from his thoughts and not blaming the other person, he is still acting like an Emotional Adult. So when applying this to marriage - we are often looking to our spouse to make us feel loved, secure, sexy, and happy.  But as we know, how we feel comes from our thoughts.  And no one can make us THINK certain things, all of our thoughts are a choice.  So if we want to think thoughts about being loved, secure, sexy, and happy, then we have to choose to purposely think those thoughts and that is what will make us feel that way. But because we tend to think that our partner can make us feel these things, this is why traditional therapy often doesn’t work.  You sit down in a room with your spouse and the therapist says “ok tell your spouse your needs in this marriage and vice versa, and then the spouse is supposed to do what they can to meet your needs to make you happy.   But it never does, because they never can.  You are the only one who can meet your needs.  You are the only one who can choose your thoughts to make you feel how you want to feel.  Your spouse, even if they are trying, will never be able to meet your needs.  They may make it EASIER for you to think thoughts that make you feel loved, and secure, and happy.  But you are the ONLY one that can think the thoughts to make you feel that way. A couple sits down in marriage counseling and the the therapist says “Ok - wife, I want you to list all the things that make you feel loved and secure in this marriage” I need you to tell me you love me every day I need you to bring me flowers I need you to tell my I am beautiful I need you to come home from work and help me with the kids etc. If you do all that you will make me feel loved and secure.  And the husband says…”ok..I can do that”  - And he tells hers “I love you” every day Now she can choose to think “Oh, he does love me” and she feels loved or she could think “well he’s only telling me he loves me because I told him to” and then she doesn’t feel love - she feels resentment and anger See how her choice of what she thinks impact how she feels even if he does the exact same things??? So if everyone is responsible for how they feel, does that mean we can say or do whatever we want?  Are we responsible for how we treat our spouse and others?  Ultimately how they feel is on them, right? Even though you aren’t responsible for someone else’s feelings, you are still responsible for how you behave.  It’s up to you to decide how you want to show up in the world. Being an emotional adult is hard.  It definitely takes more work and more effort.  But it really is worth it. Taking the step to manage ourselves and our minds so we aren’t dependent on other people for how we feel is awesome!  Because that is how we can truly be happy.