December 1, 2014
Last weekend Jonny and I were picking out a Christmas tree
and ended up getting in a fight about what color lights we wanted to put on the
tree. I wanted white – he wanted
color. It was stupid and silly,
but part of the reason we were fighting wasn’t because of the lights, but it
was really because we weren’t feeling heard and understood by each other.
The real problem was that Jonny hadn’t been feeling
appreciated by me in the past few weeks or so and he felt like I had been
paying more attention to what he was doing wrong
than what he was doing right. And while I thought that I was doing a
good job of making him feel appreciated, he told me that my nagging and calling
him out on mistakes overshadowed any feelings of appreciation that he was
receiving from me. While he was
talking, I realized that he was right and that I hadn’t been as loving and
appreciative as I really wanted to have been in the past few weeks. Because the thing is I ADORE
Jonny. I am crazy about him. And so if he wasn’t feeling that
adoration from me, then that meant that I was losing sight of how wonderful he
is to me and wasn’t paying attention to what he really wants, which is just to
feel loved and respected by me. So
last night I started thinking about ways that I could show him my appreciation
and decided to create an “Advent of Loving Calendar” for him where each day
between Dec 1 -24 he will open something from me that will express my love, appreciation
and gratitude for him.
I’m doing this for him so that he realizes how loved he is
by me. However, I am also doing
this for me. Because even though I
am a Life Coach and help bring out the positivity and goodness in my clients,
at times I lose sight of that within my own life. So by committing to finding new things that I appreciate
about Jonny on a daily basis and writing them down and sharing them with him,
it will be an amazing exercise for me as well, as it will keep me focused on
the positive and help me stay in my loving.
Because here is the thing ladies – when we continue to nag
our men and criticize them it is like death to our man’s soul. Our men want to be admired by us and
they will work really hard to earn that admiration (or at least Jonny does),
but they also need to feel totally accepted and loved by us, as that makes them
feel safe and worthy.
Oftentimes when women criticize their men, they do it because on some
level they think that it will help to control them and make them do what they
want. However, this will not
change a man – it will only tear them down and make them pull farther and
farther away from you. So instead,
we must admire and appreciate our men, help boost their ego, focus on telling
them what they are doing RIGHT instead of what they are doing WRONG. Little things like this will go a long
way.
So for both men and women, as you continue to head into the
stress of the holidays, try to look for what you appreciate in your partner and
to tell them about all of the goodness you see in them and share with them
about all the ways that you see them making your life better – it may just help
make your holidays just that much more special.
--
Note: At the
time of publishing this post, I am currently on day 19 of our Advent of Loving
and our relationship continues to get sweeter with each day. Jonny even started writing me notes
back as well and now we are both leaving letters of love and appreciation for
each other everyday. We are
appreciating one another more and communicating more about what we love about
each other and its amazing at how looking for the good in one another and
sharing that with each other can massively transform a relationship. Try it for yourself and let me know how
it goes!
