Just like Maude and Paul who were focusing on Partnering Goals, you might try changing some of your weekly routines or daily habits to see how it feels, to spice things up, to get you out of ruts. Think about your goals and how rigidly you might hold to a specific vision of how you'd like things to turn out.
Such a vision might lead to fulfillment, but it could also hinder you from seeing other possibilities - and prevent you from experimenting and exploring with your partner. Why not become more experimental and explore your goals together until you "feel your way" toward what is right for the two of you?
You can still envision what you'd like, but as you feel your way toward your goals, your choices become organic to both of you. Let me further describe what I mean by choices evolving organically. It is the difference between following a goal created only in your head versus following a vision that satisfies both head and heart, a vision that develops with experience.
One reason change takes time is that we need time to learn from our experimentation - to sense whether we have become enriched by our experiences. I am not suggesting that you engage in experiments that cause you to stray from your goals. I am referring to the experiment and exploration that lead you to self-knowledge about what gives you pleasure, what suits you, what is truly satisfying. Sometimes experimentation and exploration new doors, especially when you include other people's feedback, perspectives, thoughts, and experience.
As you apply your newly invented options, you can stretch your creativity even further by consciously experimenting and exploring, individually and together.
Reevaluate and Refine Your Action Steps
In Relighting Romance Partnering, the process of defining and reaching your goals is an ongoing, cyclical one. As you funnel your differences, disagreements, desires, and dreams into Individual, Couple, and Family goals, and invent new ways of accomplishing these goals together, your connection will stay strong and your relationship will remain vital. Win Your Lover Back New Relationship
Once you have experimented and explored, ioine together at a scheduled a regular talking time, over coffee, on a dinner date, or in a family meeting - and share how far you've come. This is the time to evaluate together what things are working and which things you'd like to refine as you work toward your goal or goals.
If problems have arisen, reach into your toolkit and listen for understanding using the Intentional Dialogue. Once you understand, then you naturally circle back into inventing new options, choosing new w/n/win solutions, and applying them to your goals. This is how reevaluate, refine, and eventually achieve your goals together.
Below will be the exercise you can use to practice.
Using Each Other's Ideas As Building Blocks
Individually, practice using the phrases in all of your communications this week. Do this playfully at first if the suggested phrases feel awkward. Gradually, the process will become more natural as you find your own favorite phrases.
Notice if there is a difference in your conversations as you practice building creatively on each other's ideas. Share your observations with your partner when you come together to invent new options.
Practice Generating New Options
This week, as you work on your partnership goals, practice creating new options with your partner. Refer back to your list of goals. Choose one or two daily details that were previously problematic to focus on first in these exercises. Your goal is to invent new solutions together so that the daily details are smoothed and no longer problematic.
As you become adept at resolving daily details, then apply the exercise to a Relighting Romance Dream.
Here's a more detailed look at how this process might work. Have a number of sheets of loose paper handy. Start by writing the goal or problem you are trying to resolve on a sheet of paper both of you can look at as you work together. Be sure to identify the previous problem - or newly stated positive goal - in terms that you both understand. For example, Dan and Sue, a couple in a Relighting Romance workshop, stated their problem as follows:
We need to refurbish our current kitchen and makes some updates. Dan would run out and simply purchase new appliances in a day and have them installed, whereas Sue loves to do research and find out everything she can about the best possible range and different vents, types of flooring, and so on. This takes her months, We want to use this process of coming up with new options to make decisions about our kitchen update. We want to complete the process within one month from today.
Under your stated goal, draw your Relighting Romance universe with Individual and Our World circles. Use one whole sheet of paper for drawing your partnering table. Draw two circles in the partnering table. Write your solution to the problem/goal in one circle and write your partner's in the other. These are options A and B. Win Your Lover Back New Relationship
Returning to Sue and Dan,
- In Circle A, Sue wrote that she preferred a particular brand of range that was top of the line and very expensive. She knew she and Dan would need to figure out their budget to make this $5,000 purchase. She wondered if that dollar amount would allow her to also have the other appliances and the tile flooring she would like to have installed.
- In Circle B, Dan said he had researched the budget and felt they could afford about $6,000 total for the updates. He would rather spend a lesser amount on a number of good appliances and have enough left over for a tile floor.
Then, together, brainstorm a list of six to ten other possibilities. Some ideas may be practical; some may be wild and crazy. Write all of these ideas on a separate sheet of paper.
Discuss Which Inventions Are Mutually Satisfying
Now discuss each new idea and identify those that best satisfy both your needs. If we could observe Sue and Dan, you'd hear them agreeing that $6,000 was a pretty decent budget assessment. Sue said she really did know that the $5,000 range was extravagant. She just wanted a better range because they loved to cook together, and they liked to entertain. Dan said he could understand but asked if Sue would be willing to research together good but less expenswe appliances.
They put this approach on their brainstorming list along with the $6,000 budget. They listed stores and Web sites they could research for high-end products with low-end prices. Within fifteen minutes, Sue and Dan had multiple options and simply needed to research them. They needed to experiment and explore. They divided the research and agreed to meet back at the dining room table within one week to continue working toward a mutually satisfying solution to their kitchen update.
Keeping to a timetable was meant to slow Tim down and speed Sue up! They agreed to stick with the one-month timetable they had chosen. Win Your Lover Back New Relationship
Choose Solutions That Are Win/Wins for Both of You
Now it is your turn. Look over your list and draw three, four, or five circles floating outside the Our World circle for options C, D, and E. Once you have dialogued, put the top ideas into these circles. Continue talking and listening to each other in order to agree on the option you would most like to try out together, This option goes into the Our World circle.
Close the Loop and Agree on Applying the Win/Win Solutions
Let me give a final note on Sue and Dan's kitchen. They proudly came back to the Relighting Romance workshop two weeks after their first brainstorming session. Each had spent a few hours researching tiles and appliances. Sue had agreed to give Dan the lead on tile and she took the lead on appliances, finding an excellent second choice for a range she would love. Dan found some tile options and out of the six samples he brought home, they chose their favorite together once they ran the costs and decided that any of the tile samples would fit this need.
Once the main choices for tile and range were completed, Sue and Dan had $2,200 remaining in their budget for the other appliances and gadgets. They smoothly made these choices. Sue agreed to place all the orders and prepare for deliveries and Dan called their repairperson, plumber, and electrician. The kitchen was fully installed within one week of their desired due date. They planned a dinner party with close friends to celebrate!
So do you envy how Sue and Dan worked things out peacefully? You can do it too! If you need more help, you can check out Win Your Lover Back New Relationship right away!
