Declutter Your Love | LQ045

Welcome to our love space today. So out here on the West Coast, it's really feeling like spring is trying to get sprung, even before the end of the month, which is really the first day of spring. But I'm really feeling it out here. I'm really feeling spring like just this past weekend, the crocuses are like, popping up in the front yard and the backyard, which is like, amazing and and all everywhere I walked down the street, you can see those little purple flowers popping up everywhere. You know, at just there's like, when the sun comes out, it's starting to get that warmth, right. As soon as it goes away, though cloud comes by, it's freezing cold, but, but you can tell that really, like the newness and the freshness of spring out here is really trying to come to fruition. And, you know, I, like, I even had drinks on a patio this past Friday, which is just lovely. That's really, you know, that freshness and that newness and that kind of emerging from our winter hibernation feeling. I am all about that right now. And I love this new fresh energy because it really makes me want to get ready for the year, which is maybe sort of a weird thing to think about. But, you know, I really often think that New Year's, you know, is like it kind of gets us thinking about the year, but spring, the coming of spring just has that, that seasonal start to it, right? That's when we start, you know, if we're people who garden, or farmers, or things like that, you know, like spring is when we start planting the seeds for what's going to come to fruition, for what's going to bloom and grow in the next year, right? And that what we're going to get to harvest in summer and in the fall, and then, you know, comes winter again. So, you know, and I really think it has that growth cycle. That's what we will get. Always get that urge to also to spring clean, right, to kind of get everything out that doesn't serve us anymore. Right, to plant the seeds, to plant the things, to do the organization, to do the pieces that are going to set us up for, you know, a time of success and a time to reap those benefits of all of that spring cleaning that we do. And you know that often, when we organize and when we declutter that spring cleaning piece, right? When we get all of that, get rid of all of that stuff that doesn't serve us, that is a actual, a mindset piece, right, when we get rid of everything that we can visually see that is clogging up our house, right? That's clogging up our rooms, that's like, if you're like me, you have like a doom room. Maybe when you start to weed through and sort through that stuff, it gives you like, it gives that room like a space to breathe. It gives you a space to breathe in that room. So this has gotten me thinking, right? You know, me always thinking about so how other pieces of life really can be reflected into our relationships, and how we can take these wonderful things that we do in other parts of our life and also take them over to our relationships. So what we're going to be chatting about, actually, we're going to do a little three part kind of mini series on this is on spring cleaning, our relationships. And today we're going to be thinking of the first part, which is decluttering. We want to declutter a relationship. Because, as you know, spring cleaning until we kind of sort through all of that junk that we don't need, that junk that's not serving us, or that stuff that you know no longer is for us. Until we get past that part, we can't organize. We can't see what new things we need, right? Same thing if you're a gardener, let's do that metaphor, right? You have to go in. You have to pull out all the weeds. You have to get out all the dead, you know, stuff from last year and that died off in winter. You have to turn that soil over, right? You have to declutter that garden to get it prepared so that you can plant those seeds that are going to grow. And so this is going to be the first step in spring cleaning our relationships as well. So, you know, it makes us think of sorting stuff, throwing stuff out, you know, finding a deciding what sparks joy, right? If we think of Mary Kondo and that super fun show that without, I feel it's only a few years ago, but maybe it's more than that, you know, where she got people to kind of hold a piece of to hold an item, and get them to really stop and think about whether it sparks joy in their life. And that's what we're going to do. We're going to do the exact same thing with our relationship. We're going to take a pause, right? We're going to take time to step back, time to be vulnerable, and we're going to see what stuff isn't working for us, right? And we don't want to wait. We do want to be proactive. So, you know, I because this is my job, because I love relationship, work and social health, and I love love, and I'm so passionate about this. You know, this is probably a process that happens all of the time. In my personal relationship with the love of my life, we are constantly. Certainly decluttering planting seeds and, you know, enjoying our love space. But if you're that's not everyone, right? And I know this, and that's why I get to do this wonderful work with all of you, is because it's not in everyone's, you know, it's not in everyone's mind to pause and stop and think about how to declutter their relationship, or to pause and stop and think about what is no longer working in your relationship, or what has become cluttered in your relationship and is stopping the growth. Is stopping the connection. And you want to be proactive, because I just found out this interesting stat, and I think this came out of the Gottman Institute in Seattle, but most couples, apparently, the stat is that most couples wait an average of six years of feeling miserable, horrible, cluttered, like not enjoying each other's company, before they will seek support. So before they'll go to marriage counseling or seek out, you know, a relationship coach, that that is what they will do. They will live in drudgery and horribleness for about six years. Okay? Now, if you pause and think about that, it's always better to be proactive, right? Like staying in shape is always easier than getting way out of shape and trying to get back into shape. And if you think of a couple that has been on a downward slide, that has been unhappy, that's made bad patterns, that has built up resentment, right? That's not been vulnerable with each other for six years. How long is it going to take to declutter that and to get us doing growth things right? That's going to take a while, like I I would even think, you know, I don't think that the stats are out there to prove this, but I would think it would take you just as long, if it's taken you six years to to get here by accident, maybe, maybe it'll take a bit less, because we're being more intentional and mindful, but it's going to take a while. It's not going to take a month to fix things if we've waited six years. So let's not wait. Let's be proactive. Let's take a pause, and let's declutter now. So I'm going to give you a few topics to guide you on your decluttering process, because you're probably sitting there thinking crystal, how do I know what to declutter?

I I'm pausing, I'm sitting back, I'm trying to think of what I need to declutter, and I have no idea perfect. Don't worry, I have a few questions to go through, to think about, to reflect on, to kind of explore and delve into with the love of your life. And again, you guys can listen to these. Think about them, come together. You know, I love a good two first. So this exercise, not only is it going to, you know, help you refresh and re energize your relationship, and if it and if your relationship already feels fresh and energized, right, like, if you're a newlywed or you're, you know, on your way to getting married. That's okay, because this is going to be an amazing exercise that you can come back to every spring. You know, when you're decluttering your little physical love space, that you can declutter your emotional love space with each other too. And it's going to be a great thing to come back to. And if you start doing it again, as you know, I always preach, if you start doing this while things are are going awesome and super smoothly and spectacularly, it is just going to get easier and easier every year. Or when we go through a season that's difficult, the difficulties are not going to be as big. Okay, so topic one, or question one that you can pause and think about is, do you have any repetitive arguments? Are there any topics that you just keep arguing about, or any situations that just keep coming up? Okay? Because that is something that we want to get rid of. It does not serve us to keep arguing over and over again about the same things. That means that we haven't really come up with a plan to move forward. If we have and we're still arguing about it, then great that you've had a plan that you tried something new, it's probably not working, so let's try something else new, perhaps, right? We really need to be coming together and sort of solving these miscommunications. So if there's anything that keeps coming up repetitively, we want to really get rid of that, and we want to figure out why we're getting stuck on that. Because if that keeps coming up, that's one of those things that's going to build one of those walls in between us, right every time we have an argument about the same topic, right, or about the same situation, and one person is like, Ah, this is still driving me crazy, and the other person is like, Ah, I'm still going to keep doing it. We're kind of starting to come to an impasse. And every time that happens, we're putting that brick in the wall, and pretty soon we're not going to be able to see over that wall, and that's going. To make communication even harder when we can't see eye to eye because of other arguments that we've been having. Okay, our next question that we can think about and ask ourselves is, Are you falling into any communication traps? So I just did a quick little fun episode on communication traps. I think that was episode 44 so if you haven't listened, do go back and listen, because it touches on, I think three really common ones that people who are just starting out their relationships can run into just as often as people have been together for 510, 1520, years. Okay, so are we falling into any relationship traps. So that means like, are we having any stuck thinking right? Are we trying to control the love space? Do I think that I am always right and you are always wrong? Or that does one person have the way to do everything perfectly and the other person has no idea how to live life? We know that's not true. You got together with that person, or that person got together with you because you knew how to live life, right? You knew how to be a totally functional adult. I've also had, I also did an episode, if you want to look back to last year's episodes on being a partner and not a parent, right? You partnered up with that person thinking that they were a totally fine adult, and now you're trying to parent them. That's not cool. Are you falling into that trap? Okay? Are you often playing the blame game, right, instead of working as a collaborative team? Is it always someone's fault when someone goes wrong, right? Are you just assuming that they did something like, even if something small, like, if you're like, the TV won't turn on. If the first words out of your mouth are like, Did you do something to the TV? You're I know, I know, as you hear that you're like, Oh my gosh. That probably comes out of my mouth all the time. It happens to all of us. But that really is the blame game when our first assumption is, oh, that person I lived with obviously touched this in some way, or did something in some way, that makes this not work anymore. We're just blaming them right out of the gate. Okay, so are you guys doing that right? Is someone looking to be right all the time? Are both of you looking to be right rather when you come into miscommunications or arguments, rather than looking for the way to move forward or the way to get past this communication, right, or why this communication happened. That's why we should be like, I don't want to say arguing, but that's why you are discussing things. That's why you're having a miscommunication. Is because you want to find out what happened. How do we not think that the same thing has happened, and how are we going to move past that? That's what's going to keep you connected and in love and your relationship flourishing, not one person admitting that they're wrong and the other person admitting they're right, right? As we know, Miss community. No one's perfect here, right? No one's perfect in this love space and miscommunications are never 100% one way or the other. The other thing you know, a common miscommunication trap we can run into, is receiving info defensively. So when our partner brings something up and is like, Hey, I've been feeling like this lately, or, Oh, I do think we've been arguing a lot about this, or maybe they bring this up to us, like, hey, we would love to, I would love to do a spring clean of our relationship. If that is met with like, oh my gosh, why is some is something wrong? Did I do something wrong? Or, like, we don't need to do that right? I run into so many couples, especially when I do the what the wedding shows, and I come out to spread the word on destigmatizing, right, working on our relationships when they are awesome and fun, and keeping that excitement going. I run, I do run into a few couples, and actually, I have to say, it's been fewer and fewer lately, so that's fantastic, but I always run into a few couples are like, Oh no, we don't need that. Well, you know that's not true, right? Everyone

needs to stop and think about the relationship and put energy into it. And if you're telling me, as soon as I say, like, Hey, I'm spreading the word, that you could put some some extra love and time and attention into your relationship, and your first thing is to say, Oh, we don't need that. That's being defensive. I didn't say that you needed it. I just said that this is a possible thing that people out in the world could do, right? So right there, that person has their guard up, right? They're thinking, I'm saying that their relationship is not good enough. They're not in love enough. They need someone to you know, help them out. Help is great. Support is great. You know, we have that thing about children, like it takes a village to raise a child. I also think it takes a village for us all to survive, right? We are in a very disconnected society nowadays, but it does. It takes. A village. It takes a support system of sometimes some professional help, of sometimes some friendship help, of sometimes some family help to keep us all going with our social health and in our relationships. And that is great. That is okay. That is nothing to feel ashamed of, that's nothing to be defensive about. Okay. So are you? Are you having any of those communication traps next? Has everyday life gotten in the way of affection for you? Are we just rushing off to work without any time for spicy time, right? You know, I talk about sex, right? Relationships do need a certain amount of physical connection and affection, a lot of non sexual physical affection, but also sexual physical affection. And again, we're going to have a spectrum of people of how much everyone needs of that, but we're just two little mammals, right in a relationship, in a love space, and we need that. So what has gotten in the way of our affection, whether that's being able to exchange our love languages with each other, or whether that's our physical affection, or, you know, our sexual affection for each other. What has gotten in the way? Have distractions gotten in the way? Right? Has zoning out to Netflix, but not in a quality time way, or zoning out on our phones, or constantly looking at work emails or texting everyone but our love of life, what things have gotten in the way of daily affection in your relationship? Is there anything next? What things are you prioritizing ahead of your Mega moments of love. So you know here we call date nights mega moments of love, because that really helps us focus in on the fact that it doesn't have to fit into any box, right? Your your Mega moment of love doesn't have have to be a dinner out, doesn't have to be on a weekend. It doesn't have to be anything in particular. It is what makes you feel connected and together and without distractions, right? Having extended a moment of time without distractions, that is going to grow your connection, your affection gives you time to be excited to hang out with each other, right? That's what we're looking for, is that excitement in spending time together. Okay, so it Are there things in your life that are de prioritizing your Mega moments of love together? Right? Some of us will have time to have mega moments every week. Some of us will have time to have them once a month. How often do you think you would like them and what is getting in your way? Let's declutter that. Let's declutter whatever is de prioritizing our big moments of connection, because we need those big moments of connection. And this is really especially true. I'm going to say for parents, and I'm going to say for newlyweds, or for anyone who's going through a life transition, right? Because getting married, that's a transition, whether we think it isn't or not, that's it's a shift in mindset. It's a shift in daily life rituals, okay? And same thing with having children, that's a shift. That's such a life transition. And we really, really need, we really need to make sure that we are making time to stay connected, especially like, you know, if we have kids, do we want to model for our kids? You know, parents that just run around, that just run around and do these, all these other million things in life, and don't pay attention to each other. Is that the kind of relationship we want to model for our kids? Or do we want to model that? Hey, life, you know, oftentimes is busy and can have some stressors in it, but we still make time to show and love and appreciate each other as a husband and wife. Okay, so what do you need to declutter to make that a reality? Alright, we just have a few more here, three more for you. So is there anything that's blocking your vulnerability with each other. Is there anything Have you gotten out of practice with being vulnerable with each other? Have we had a few too many miscommunications where we don't feel we can be vulnerable? Is there anything we need to declutter in your relationship? Anything we need to identify say hey that doesn't serve us and get rid of it or find a way to work through it so that we can plant our little low seeds and keep our relationship nourished and growing. So is there anything blocking our vulnerability? Very important our next is, are you still being kind to each other. Is there anything we need to declutter that is stopping our kindness, right? And I often use the word kindfulness, right? We've already talked a little bit about decluttering distractions, right, so that we can be in the moment with each other. Is there anything we need to declutter? Is there anything we need to address? Yes, so that we can have more positive interactions with each other, so that we're using our pleas and thank yous with each other as always, these seem like such little things, but it is so easy. It is so easy to use all of our manners and our politeness with strangers out in the world, and forget to use it one of the most important people in our life, right? With the love of our life, with our little lol over there. Okay, so what is blocking our kindness? Is there anything we need to get rid of that's blocking our kindness for each other? Super important, right? Because the more positive instances of interactions we have with each other, right? That's that ratio that I often talk about, that the gottmans came up with, right? That five to one ratio for every one negative interaction, prickly interaction, we need to have five positive ones just to get back to okay or to neutral with each other. So, and I'm hoping that we're having more than that, right? I'm hoping that we're having 1020, 30, 100 positive interactions for every prickly one we might have, okay, but because that's going to make us even more Spark, more connected. But are there things that are blocking us from those positive interactions? Because if there are, we need to declutter those, because then we're not, we're not getting those positive interactions that are going to balance out those hard times, right? We all have prickly days. We all have days where we're tired, where there's work stress, there's kids stress, right? For me, I sometimes have some hormone prickliness. I will own up to it and totally confess Yes, there are days where things come out my mouth, and even after, it's like two seconds after they come out my mouth, I will be like, Oh my gosh, sorry.

That's not 100% me talking. Okay, some of you may be out there going through that as well. Okay, but we need some, we need some positive instances to balance out those everyday life things. So what can we what do we need to declutter and get rid of to get to that? And last, are there any ruts that you're stuck in? So this could even be for your date nights, your Mega moments of love. Are we just doing the same thing over and over again and it feels boring and blah? Are our weeks too predictable? Are weeks not predictable enough in life just always feels like a mess, right? What do we need to declutter? What do we need to get rid of that's not serving us and that's boring us, right? Do we always just have the same routine after dinner? We just always turn on the TV, zone out? Maybe we're getting a bit of a snuggle in, but maybe it's getting a bit boring. What do we need to do. Okay, what do we need to get rid of? What do we need to change? Okay, that's that. This is all the piece for decluttering. So as you can see, I hope I given you, I know it's a lot of kind of questions or things to pause and reflect on, but the more that we take a moment to pause and reflect on these, the more you're going to really be able to focus in on the things that aren't serving you or the things that are standing in your way of being more connected with each other, right? Those are the things that are holding you back from love. Are the things you need to declutter and being able to chat and share about this with each other. Like I said, this is a wonderful exercise and vulnerability. You can even make it a three for one, right? And so not only are you doing some spring cleaning with your relationship, not only are you chatting and being vulnerable with each other, but maybe make this a mega moment of love. Plan to cook a nice dinner together. Go out for a walk together, or, you know, a hike, right? Make it a little. You know, time for you guys to connect and be vulnerable with each other and know what you want, know what you don't want, so that you can move forward. And it's going to feel, it's going to feel like you're opening that door for spring to come in, like you're opening that door in your relationship for growth to come in. It's going to lift a weight off of you as a collaborative team, right? It's going to lift a weight off of your love space in order to talk freely about some of these things and to get back on the same page with each other, right? Taking that time to declutter your emotional love space with the love of your life is going to keep you sparked.