The Partner role in your relationship asks, “Can I rely on you?”

The Lover asks, “Do you make my life exciting?”

And the Friend asks, “Do you really know me?”

Remember my framework of Partner, Lover, Friend? I’ve identified 3 roles inside your singular relationship: Partners want to achieve together. Friends assure each other we belong together. Lovers want to explore together.

1. Valentine’s Day is coming up and there is a lot of pressure to have THE PERFECT date, but I want to challenge this notion of THE PERFECT date.
2. Instead, I’d like to talk about great dates for the three roles inside your relationship. Let’s break it down into three episodes to talk about each role: Partner, Friend, and Lover.
3. Today we’re talking about designing a great date for the Partner inside your relationship.

If you’re new to my podcast and you’d like an overview of the three roles, listen to my last episode with Dayna Haig-Conway, a therapist in Fernie, British Columbia who recently interviewed me.

Habit for Your Happily Ever After

This week’s habit for your happily ever after is to create a recipe for a Partner date at your house. I use 5 steps when I’m coaching couples to find a Partner date:

1. Identify a conflict.
2. Identify the dream you each have for a shared life.
3. Build a bridge from conflict to your dream.
4. Plan to fail.
5. Begin again.

Date Night Discussion

I invite you to have a discussion with your sweetheart about how and why you appreciate the Partner you already have.

This week invite your sweetheart for a slice of toast, a cup of coffee, and tell your sweetheart 3-5 things that you appreciate about sharing a life with them.

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“What if relationship conflict isn’t about communication SKILLS–but about misunderstood needs?”

This is the foundational question Fernie resident and Counselor, Dayna Haig-Conway asked me when I got to be a guest on her podcast–CAMP Conversations: Keys to Resilience–recently.

I’m eager to share her conversation with you. Dayna’s approach is to search for “the needs behind the needs,” and I am thrilled I get to introduce you to this gem of a human being:

1. You’ll hear how The Partner, The Lover, and The Friend can unintentionally compete with each other, confusing your communication and making it tough to see what each person truly needs.
2. You’ll hear why naming HOW you communicate matters as much as WHAT you’re saying. Hint: your animal body communicates too.
3. You’ll get some simple language shifts that will reduce defensiveness and cultivate understanding with your sweetheart.

Connect with Dayna Haig-Conway

1. I invite you to listen/watch her podcast.
2. Explore the world of resilience and service she’s building for front line caretakers like nurses and teachers.
3. Or book a discovery call with her to see how she might be able to help you locate the needs behind your needs.

Visit the show notes here.

Buy my book.

Listen to my book.

Please subscribe to my newsletter here. This unlocks personal invitations from me only available to my subscribers.

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Reach me at 970-210-4480

What’s the best thing you can do to create momentum with a habit?

If you want to form a new habit, psychologists tell us the biggest momentum builder is a positive emotional rush. Joy. Today we talk about the most important part of the habit-building cycle: celebration.

1. You’ll learn why celebrating those tiny changes in the directional vector toward your destination matters so much
2. You’ll hear about the biology of celebrating and how it contributes to habit formation
3. And you’ll get a host of questions to help you celebrate to strengthen your own efforts at habit formation rather than relying on circumstances to make you feel better.

Habit for Your Happily Ever After

This week’s habit for your happily ever after is…to celebrate!

To help you celebrate better and more consistently, I’ve designed a couple questions to guide you. Use these questions to help you mine for the positive emotions associated with the way you’re living your life.

Date Night Discussion

Today the discussion I want to suggest isn’t with your partner, but rather with yourself.

And it’s a simple question. I invite you to ask yourself, “Did I truly let myself see and celebrate the tender habit of hello (or whatever habit you are building) I am creating?”

Visit the show notes here.

Buy my book.

Listen to my book.

Please subscribe to my newsletter here. This unlocks personal invitations from me only available to my subscribers.

Follow me on Tik Tok.

Reach me at 970-210-4480