Each week, I send an email to help you connect, even during your busiest seasons. Read it to each other in bed or take it in the car with you. It’s made to be easy, like Sunday morning.
1 question to check in with each other
1 activity to get closer
1 intention for the coming week
The State of Things:
First things first… let’s check in about how things are going overall in your relationship.
Q: Are we laughing enough together?
Ask each other this question to check in about how much fun you’re having together. According to this research, shared laughter is an indicator of relationship wellbeing. It’s also a good indicator of how much quality time you’re getting together. While you might be spending a lot of time sitting side by side on the couch, if you’re not finding yourselves having laughs then it could be sign that you need to introduce novel time together or that you’ve got too much stress in your lives.
Getting Closer:
[Experiential Intimacy]
Fortunately I have a fun exercise for you. Unfortunately, there are no downsides. Together, use an improv game to add a little laughter in your lives. I especially like the “fortunately/unfortunately” game. In this game, partner 1 starts a sentence with the word fortunately. Like “Fortunately I got to see an old friend today” and the other person follows up “Yes, but unfortunately they are now your enemy”. You continue this way until someone finally slips up and can’t think of anything to say.
It might go like this:
“Fortunately, I got to see an old friend today”.
“Yes, you did, unfortunately they are now your enemy”.
“Fortunately, I don’t have many enemies. In fact, I needed more of them”.
“Yes, but unfortunately, this enemy isn’t a very good enemy for your enemy list”.
on and on….
Setting an Intention:
“This week, I will work on bringing lightness and humor into our lives”
What I read:
This week I read The Tools by Phil Stutz and Barry Michels. The book provides several tools that the authors believe lead us to living a fulfilling life. In the book, one of the concepts is something they call “The Maze”. Essentially, the maze is the thoughts loops we get stuck in that keep us distanced from another person (thinking how they’ve wronged us or imagining they don’t love us, etc). The maze keeps us stuck and makes it hard for us to truly love others and be loved by them.
The authors go on to say that when we get out of The Maze we are able to move from a “lower love” - the type of love that comes from reactions to our outer circumstances (how someone looks, what they give us, etc) to a higher form of love that is independent of our immediate reactions.
Perhaps you and your partner could connect today on how to move towards that higher form of love - one where you take a pause and think before reacting.
Know someone that would like this type of thing? Forward them this e-mail.
Forward them this email or the article link + suggest they subscribe.
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The "fortunately, unfortunately" game sounds fun...and we'll probably laugh within a minute of starting the game, have to give it a try