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: Am I a good listener?.
Getting Closer:
[Intellectual Intimacy]
Learn to listen together. Practice what I call the Mac + Cheese conversation. I call it this because I once helped a couple turn a conversation about their Macaroni and cheese lunch into a 1 hour long deep conversation.
Directions:
1. Start by deciding who is the speaker and who is the listener (don’t worry you’ll each get a turn)
Speaker, your job is tell a mundane story about your life over the past week. Make it about 4 sentences. (Think, a story about your lunch, ride into the office, or making lunches before school).
Listener, your job is to listen to the speaker without allowing your thoughts voice (or hands) to distract from their short story. While you listen, just take in what is being said so you can summarize. After summarizing you are going to get curious to see how much you can learn and how long you can prolong the conversation.
Whoever makes it go the longest wins! Tell each other what you want to win before starting (I.E. a massage? Dinner?)
Alright get started!
Speaker: Tell your story - 4 sentences
Listener: Listen. When speaker is done, repeat back and ask if you missed anything. If you missed something, ask them to remind you.
Listener: Now, it’s your turn to get curious. Ask as many curious questions about your partner’s mundane story as you can to try to go deeper. Questions that help you go deeper focus on details, missing information, feelings, and hopes. Avoid too many yes or no questions like “was the macaroni and cheese good” and move on to detail oriented questions like “what made the macaroni and cheese good” or “how did you feel when you were eating it?”
Once you’ve taken the conversation as far as you can go, switch.
Setting an Intention:
“This week, I will work on listening with curiosity”
What I read:
This week, This Book Is Cheaper Than Therapy by Liz Kelly, LICSW was hanging out on my lap. I love the way the book breaks therapy concepts into digestible chunks. It covers many areas of life, including relationships. Check out the listening passage below :)
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.
A Better Life Therapy
I founded A Better Life Therapy, LLC in 2013 with the goal of providing top tier relationship and mental health support. At A Better Life we believe that things can absolutely get better and that sometimes everyone needs a little (or a lotta) help.
Serving Colorado, Delaware, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Utah, we offer individual and relationship therapy services.
Want to work with a therapist? You can take this therapist matcher and we will offer you suggestions based on things like the issue you’re struggling with, your location, and your availability.
I Want This To Work
My book, I Want This To Work, teaches you the top skills that I teach couples every day in my therapy office. Available everywhere books are sold.