Life Vows-How to Lift Morale or Kill it!

When I was growing up the philosophy about raising children in my family did not subscribe to lifting moral.

It was about criticizing instead of praising.

I suspect that a lot of us grew up that way. If that was the way your family operated that is the behaviors you will bring into your marriage. It’s important for you to be aware of how you point out faults or criticize each other.

It has been proven that the less we criticize and the more we praise, the more cooperative and successful people will become.

Here is a great story that points up why it’s important to praise and say ‘thank you” instead of criticize.

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Writing Wedding Vows–Check Your Communication Skills

I have asked you to begin writing your personal vows together in shared conversation where each of you talk about the dream you have for your individual lives and the dream you both have for your marriage or partnership but what this really is, is an exercise in communication.

You are going to find out if you really are on the same page, so to speak. This means that you both are going to question what it is you think you heard your partner say.

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Writing Wedding Vows-Lining up Your Sight With Your Vision

When writing your own personal and unique wedding or commitment vows, what you are doing is lining up your sight with your vision. You are going to intentionally begin seeing with new eyes.

Sight is the mechanics of seeing what is out in front of you and taking it in and making judgments based on that information.

Vision is the dream you have for your life together created first in your imagination and then seen it through your eyes.

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Wedding Vows-Setting Up Your Emotional Bank Account

When you begin writing your wedding or commitment vows you are actually setting up your emotional bank account against which everything you do as a couple will either be a deposit or a withdrawal.

The balance in your account will be a huge determining factor on how intimate, easy and fun your relationship is.

The promises you write into your vows are the guidelines that you can use to keep the currency flowing into instead of flowing out.

I want you to write your vows in such a way that you are depositing emotional dollars into your accounts on a daily basis. That way when there are some challenges that arise you will have the emotional capital to draw on.

If you wrote your vows as a result of outlining the dream you each have for your life and the life of your marriage, then wrote down what it is you are going to do to keep the dream alive, you have set up the parameters of your account.

By reading those vows every day, following the 10 Commandments of Marriage, and remembering you are both in it for the long haul, you set up automatic deposits.

“Every experience we have with our spouse, be it positive or negative, affects the love and balance of our relationship, says Willard F. Harley, writing in his popular book “Love Bank”. He says, we are either making deposits or withdrawals in our love bank account each day. . . Should negative feelings and bad habits dominate in a couple’s relationship, the account can be seriously overdrawn. The couple can begin to hate each other and the relationship goes into a serious deficit.”

He identifies the four most destructive habits:

1. Nagging-Nagging includes persistent faultfinding. As one comedian quips,”Women always marry a man and hope he’ll change. Men always marry a woman and hope she’ll never change.”
2. Angry Outbursts-Outbursts of anger often takes the form of shouting, put-downs, criticism, or sarcastic name-calling or attempts to punish partners because they have done something that displeases.
3. Criticism-Constant criticism of the partner is the strongest predictor of separation and divorce.
4. Irritating habits and annoying behaviors- In spite of the fact that a woman is motivated by love to change and improve her partner, her mate might perceive it not as love but as rejection and manipulation.

I think that you can take all the habits and roll them into one thing, and that’s not following commandment #2, Honoring each other.

If you are reading your vows every day and reading them together at least once a week, this is the opportunity to bring up habits and actions that each of you find annoying.

By making deposits into your emotional bank account, then these discussions can be entered into and concluded in a positive way, which automatically puts more emotional dollars into your account.

YOUR RELATIONSHIP DOES NOT HAVE TO BE DIFFICULT OR HARD IF YOU ATTEND TO THE LITTLE THINGS AND CONTINUE TO PUT EMOTIONAL DOLLARS INTO YOUR ACCOUNT.

Pick up your FREE copy of the 10 Commandments of Marriage, put them in an in-your-face place, read them occasionally, practice #10 over and over and over and over again: Lighten up and laugh often!

If you only follow this one practice, your emotional bank account will be so full you’ll have to start giving some of your dividends away. People will line up to receive them. Then you have dividends coming from everyplace.

You will be rich beyond measure!

So begin writing your wedding vows with the idea that they are your banking rules. Then consciously continue making deposits.

You can download a totally free copy of the 10 Commandments of Marriage by following this link. They are totally free because they are my gift to you. 10 Commandments

Love, light and laughter,

Rev. Linda, The Wedding Vow Coach

Helping couples write down the dream and then live it!

Rev. Linda has an innovative and revolutionary philosophy about the importance of writing your own personal wedding or commitment vows. It will change the way you think of vows, your relationship, and the ease with which you can do this thing called ‘marriage.’ Read more: www.WeddingVowsandCeremonies.com

Writing Wedding Vows-Heading off the Infidelity Problem Before It Happens

Lately I am hearing all sorts of news about the problems with new marriages. This last item was about infidelity. It’s estimated that within the first year anywhere from 20%-50% of couples will have been unfaithful to their partners. The explanation is that this is a cry for help because of intimacy issues! It forces conversation and help.

The best time to talk about infidelity is not after it happens but before it happens, when you are sitting down and in the process of writing your wedding vows. That’s why I put together my innovative and unique perspective around writing wedding or commitment vows.

BECAUSE I WANT YOU TO HAVE EVERY CHANCE POSSIBLE TO HAVE A HAPPY, PASSIONATE AND INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP.

IT DOESN’T JUST HAPPEN.

A STRONG INTIMATE MARRIAGE HAS TO BE PLANNED FOR!

It begins by having those intimate talks BEFORE, not after there are problems.

When you know what it is you are working for, have a vision and goals, you have something out in front of you that you can direct your energies to and gather your activities and actions around.

By casually repeating vows you haven’t written yourself, or writing vows by yourself with no conversation, you are squandering the most important and energetic time you will ever have in your life!

If you don’t sit down and consciously and specifically get clear about what it is you want for yourself and for your marriage you have no rudder, no sails, and no wind!

Your dream or vision creates the goals. Those goals are the rudder. The sails are the actions you take to work towards and accomplish those goals and the wind is the passion and intimacy that grows and expands and gets stronger and stronger.

Sit down together and talk about the life you want to create together. Talk about careers, and children, sex and money, family, houses, cars, vacations, philanthropy, etc.

Talk about it NOW! Not later when there are so many problems that some of them cannot be overcome.

You will have the best chance for happiness if you know what makes you happy and you make plans on how to keep that happiness, intimacy, love and passion alive.You think that because you are infused with energy and passion now it will last all on its own. It may.

But most likely it won’t because there is too much competition for your time and energy these days. You’ve got to craft a dream, a vision, a set of life goals for yourselves, then write your vows promising what you will do to keep that dream alive.

Then keep reading those vows every day.

You CAN have a happy and long life together. But you’ve got to PLAN for it! You begin by writing your wedding or commitment vows TOGETHER IN SHARED CONVERSATION WHERE YOU WRITE DOWN THE DREAM YOU HAVE FOR YOUR LIFE TOGETHER!

Then follow the 10 Commandments of Marriage, which mainly is about doing little things every day to keep it all alive and thriving.

I have a totally free copy of the 10 Commandments of Marrriage for you. Totally free means that you will not even have to leave your Email address. Because it’s my gift to you! 10 Commandments

Love, light and laughter,

Rev. Linda Bardes

The Wedding Vow Coach

Helping couples write down the dream and then live it!

I have an innovative and unique philosophy around writing vows. You can read more about it here: www.WeddingVowsandCeremonies.com

Writing Wedding Vows--Keeping the 'High Watch'

Writing wedding or commitment vows is the opportunity each of you have to talk about the highest and best intentions that you can imagine for yourself and for your partner.

Your vows are the place where you promise to support yourself and your partner in becoming the highest and best each of you can be.

The first of the 10 Commandments of Marriage is Honor Yourself. The second commandment is Honor Each Other.

It may seem strange that the first commandment is about yourself. Yet if you hold yourself high with integrity and self respect and never compromise your values you can trust each other absolutely.

This trust is the basis for everything else that defines your life and your marriage.

Write this in your wedding vows: “I promise to hold myself high with integrity and self respect and never compromise my values.”

When you stay ‘high’ from living out of your core values and practice doing what makes you come alive, you have more patience, more love, more compassion for everyone including your partner

Here’s a priceless quote from Marianne Williamson:

“Part of working on ourselves, in order to be ready for a profound relationship, is learning how to support another person in being the best that they can be. Partners are meant to have a priestly role in each other’s lives. They are meant to help each other access the highest parts within themselves.”

You are meant to access the highest parts of who you are and in the process learn to see the best in your partner.

Constantly strive to expand your capacities for learning, playing, loving, trusting, praying (whatever that means to you) and playing.

The strongest relationship develops when each partner can hold the ‘high watch’ for the other.

This means that when your partner has forgotten who they are, where they are, what they are doing, or where they are going, you remember for them.

You continue to treat them as though they were still present in their fullness.

You continue to see the best in them.

You practice forgiveness!

This may not be easy to do. That’s why it’s important to keep reading your vows over and over and over again.

Every day affirm that you are awake, aware, and living your highest and greatest good.

Write this in your vows and then put it on a card in the present moment so you have to look at it every morning:

“Everyday I will remember to live my life from the highest perspective I can imagine.”

It helps you remember every day who you are, who your partner is, where you are going and how to recognize when you are off the path.

Can you see what an amazing tool writing your own wedding or commitment vows can be? They are your compass, your map, and your course correction.

Look and read them often and you will never get lost; you will be able to continue to see the best in yourself, and the best in your partner.

Love, light and laughter,

Rev. Linda Bardes, The Wedding Vow Coach

Helping couples write down the dream and then live it!

Linda has a unique and innovative approach to writing wedding vows and how to keep living the dream! You can read more at www.WeddingVowsandCeremonies.com.

Be sure to download a copy of the FREE ebook, 30 Minute Miracle. I originally wrote this for people who show up at the web site looking for help but they have only a few days or minutes to write their vows. The phrases, words, poems and other materials are helpful to everyone. www.WeddingVowsandCeremonies.com