Maybe We Should Talk Less -- And Communicate More 

The first thing we would like to recommend today is that you begin your days with some quiet prayerful meditation: Ask God, Source or your Spiritual Persuasion, to help you focus on WHAT YOU WANT IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP. Not what you DON’T WANT. Be as specific as possible: “Just for today I want to be present and engaged with my partner.”

Next we suggest that you make prayerful meditation a regular part of your morning routine: it could be writing in a journal, just letting the thoughts flow out of you on to the page, with no editing, no judgment, no commentary and see what comes bubbling up.

If writing is not your thing, sit in a comfortable chair for at least five minutes, focus on your partner, see her/his face experiencing the joy and happiness that you know s/he has the capacity to feel, because you’ve been there with him, you’ve done that with her. And now spend 30 seconds visualizing that face and those feelings. And while you are at it, visualize the whole day going by with that happy, joyous, and free partner in front of your mind’s eye.

Be careful at this point, because you may experience negative and limiting thoughts popping up in your mind. Remember, from your Imago work thus far, 90 to 99% of these are programmed into you from accumulated pain from your past, be it your childhood or your ex relationships. “I could never experience that joy again.” “It’s all over!” “I am in this world to suffer, and never have the relationship of my dreams.”

If you combine prayerful mediation with focused ACTION, and continue to do that consistently, then you have greater success in realizing the relationship of your dreams. So what is to be done? Release the negative thinking. How to do that? In a variety of ways. The point is, what we teach in our workshop and in the Imago dialogue: if you think the worst thought about your partner, most likely you will have terrible feelings accompanying that thought. The law of attraction says that the more intense your feelings, the more intense will be the attraction to you of those very thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that drag you into the abyss of despair, loneliness, and hopelessness.

So, the key is to free yourself from the negative thinking, by using one or more of the following techniques:

1. Use external images, concrete sensuous pictures of what you want, desire, and need. Snapshots of your beloved laughing and smiling; pictures of your kids happy, healthy, and free; whatever you know brings that smile to your face and that feeling of well being to your tummy. (One of my favorite images that I can see in my mind is my wife laughing from her infectious belly laugh at our youngest daughter, when she was about 9 or 10, doing one of her silly routines; her mother was laughing from that spontaneous place where her whole being exudes light; and when she is that bright, everything and everybody around her lights up).

2. Create a Vision Book, where you keep all those images of the way you want to be, the way you visualize the relationship of your dreams, where you don’t just write about it, you actually picture it and you can visualize your perfect outcome, then you can add the words, such as “vitality,” or “authenticity,” “respect,” and “empathy,” We want you to SEE them, before you TALK about them.

3. Now, find some way to speak those images out. In our Workshop or Individual Intensives we will show you how to create a Personal Growth Plan, which embodies the best of your core values in a large picture of yourself, which you then will pronounce to the entire group: “THIS IS WHO I AM!” “I AM WHAT I AM,” and “I CAN BEGIN EVERYDAY BY STANDING UP AND ANNOUNCING THE TRUTH OF WHO I AM TO GOD, SPIRIT, AND THE UNIVERSE.”

4. Start paying closer attention to the way you go through your day having feeling-thoughts that are not congruent with your core values, those thoughts-feelings of resentment, disappointment, frustration and anger about your fate, your circumstances—and remind yourself that, if you think the worst, you are going to feel the worst feelings—and begin to shift your thinking to the thoughts that make you feel better. Focusing your thoughts on those things that bring you joy—your lover, your kids, that safe place where you last vacationed—and on the behaviors that you love in yourself—making love to your beloved, playing with your kids, doing your special activity or hobby—and begin to notice the shifts in your body, how you are feeling in yourself.

5. Finally, take some moments every day to focus on those things for which you are most grateful. This can be at the start of the day, or at the end of the day. Take all the things you take for granted, and express appreciation for them. The more we can acknowledge our blessings, the more we attract to ourselves the very things for which we can be grateful.

6. Use one of the Four Critical Moments of your day—remember them? When you awaken in the morning; When you say good-bye to each other each day; When you greet each other again that day; When you go to sleep at night-- to express what you are grateful for to your partner. Perhaps in the form of a simple appreciation of her or him for something s/he did that day, or that s/he is gifting you with everyday, just by being who s/he is.

Blessings, and may you continue to realize the relationship of your dreams by focusing on the simple things of life.

-- Janis & David