Writing Wedding Vows--Whose Model is it Anyway?

You will write your own personal and unique wedding vows based on certain expectations you have for your life.

I refer to this as the dream you have for your life together. By being clear about the way your want your life together to be, writing it down as vows and then pledging and promising what you will do to keep those vows alive, thriving, vital and intimate you stand a better chance of living the life of your dreams.

Yet what if those dreams are almost entirely driven by the models you have had in your life? Your parents, your grandparents, your friends parents, and other couples close to you. All of them have influenced your life in ways you can’t imagine.

Those models drive the behaviors that run your relationships. Those behaviors are what I am referring to as your default operating system.

So I will ask you two questions: Are you repeating the behaviors of the people who came before you? Do you want to repeat those behaviors?

This is not a judgmental question. I ask it just so you will have to think about the answer.

Were your models strong, loving, supportive models or were they weak or dysfunctional?

That awareness and honesty can change your life!

I want you to get as clear as you can how you want your life to be like. Forget the ‘what is my purpose’ stuff. You can’t wait around to find out your purpose. Get clear about what you want your life to be like and create a dream from that. Your purpose will appear as you live your best life.

You do not have to throw out the baby with the bathwater, however. Be aware of what aspects of your models you want to keep. Forget about what you don’t want. You want to focus on the positive and life-enhancing attitudes and habits.

What you focus on is what you will reproduce! Which is why it is good if you train yourself to see only what supports the life you want to lead.

Review those vows over and over again. As you do that you keep that dream of the life you want to live in front of you. The way you react to life, to each other, to situations and experiences will begin to change because you begin to reprogram your default operating system.

You are going to add new emotional software that little by little erases and reprograms your life.

Then if anyone asks you, “Whose life is this anyway?” you will be able to answer, MINE!

Love, light and laughter,

Rev. Linda, The Wedding Vow Coach

Helping couples write down the dream and then live it!
www.WeddingVowsandCeremonies.com

Writing Wedding Vows-A One Page Miracle in Disguise

Your wedding or commitment vows are actually a dream in disguise. They have the potential to attract to you, with absolute precision, what you really, really want, in your individual lives and the life of the marriage.

That won’t happen if you don’t have a clear and powerful dream and vision:

* For yourself
* For your spouse or partner
* For your marriage or partnership

This is what I want you to know about why you must write your own wedding vows so they have a life beyond the end of the ceremony. . .

So they keep going and going and going . . .

So they live as long as the two of you do . . .

So they really can become a one page miracle!

You write your vows together in shared and inspired conversation, infusing the dream you have for your life together into every letter, word and sentence. You don’t actually write your dream word for word into your vows, however. Your vows are for the purpose of promising what it is you will do to keep the dream alive and sizzling. They are for the purpose of creating a one page miracle!

I want you to take a little time to get yourselves prepared before you sit down together to talk about your life and your vows.

Do you realize that most couples never take the time to talk about important things. Things like money and sex–the two most quoted reasons for divorce–and children and careers and spirituality or religion, or in-laws, or houses and cars and things are often never brought up.

Amazing!

Here’s a quote from someone who picked up one of the brochures for my one day event:

“I am going through a divorce right now. When I read your brochure I realized that my husband and I did not take any time to talk about important areas of our life. If we had a program like this I believe things would have been different!” Anne S.

Before you sit down together to write your vows take a little time to think about some of those areas of your married life.

Write each aspect or area out on a separate card. Then every once in a while pick up one card and carry it around with you. Place it in a conspicuous spot so you will be reminded of it. Then pay attention to the thoughts that pop into your head. Or the conversations you hear around you.

You may find articles in magazines, or turn on Oprah and right there is someone discussing that very topic. You will be surprised at where and how insights and thoughts or answers come to you.

When I say ‘you,’ I mean the two of you. This is not good if both of you are not engaged on some level in ‘big’ thinking.

I want you to come up with what some of the big thinkers refer to as Big Hairy Audacious Goals. You want your goals and your dreams to be too big for the two of you to effect on your own. I want you to tap into an invisible power that knows how to bring to you everything you need to be ‘living’ that BHAG.

You are going to have an amazing life that just keeps going and going and going and going because you are going to use one of the most important discoveries ever!

It’s this: Your subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between what is real and what is imagined!

That one discovery about how the mind works has vast and very important implications for you because you can make your mind believe whatever you want.

You create a BIG dream, you write it into your vows by promising to do whatever it takes to live that dream, and then you keep reviewing those vows over and over and over until you have installed those vows as your personal operating system.

All that from your vows. I would call that a mega miracle in disguise!

Love, light and laughter,

Rev. Linda Bardes, The Wedding Vow Coach

Helping couples to write down the dream and then live it!

I help you to write down the dream in my Ebook, THE SECRET LIFE OF VOWS-How to Write Vows that Create Powerful Marriages and Partnerships.

Writing Wedding Vows–Tap Into the Sizzle of the Universe

The time around your wedding or commitment ceremony and the writing of your personal vows is the most highly charged time you will ever experience as a couple and you can consciously use it.

What happens is that there is all this energy and creative excitement focused around you and You and YOU! The florist, the caterer, the cake maker, the wedding planner, the wedding attire people, your family, the guests, absolutely everyone is focused on your best life.

This creates an energy that sizzles like an electrical storm. It’s the entire world praying on your behalf with absolutely no doubt of the outcome. Whatever you introduce into this storm is what will get taken up and reproduced in magical and mystical ways. I want you to consciously tap into this spiritual or universal potential. I want you to create strong, powerful personal wedding vows.

Those vows are like a super strong magnet. They become synergistic. That means that 1 + 1 does not equal 2 it equals 11!

There will only be a few times in your life as a couple that will carry the same positive attention and energy of so many people. This highly charged energy can be consciously directed to create a powerful future.

The power and potential that I am talking about comes from sitting down and having a shared conversation about what is important: To the marriage and to each of you individually. Do not go off into corners to write vows and surprise each other. I want you to weave magic by creating a strong and powerful intention and that has to be done together!

When you are mindful about what it is that you want to experience in your relationship and marriage, talk it out, play with it, shape it a bit, and write it into your vows. When you do that your vows become a powerful blueprint or intention for the future. You literally explode the probability of that dream being true.

Since the mind doesn’t know the difference between what is true and what isn’t–science has proven this–your mind and Higher Power goes to work bringing in people, things and experiences that support those powerful desires.

Please . . . do not squander this time.

Write powerful wedding or commitment vows. Dream BIG. Give the Universe something splendid to unfold for you. It’s just waiting for you to choose.

I can help you do that with my guidelines for writing ‘vows that create powerful marriages.” Check out the Secret Life of Wedding Vows.

Love, light and laughter,

Rev. Linda, The Wedding Vow Coach

Helping couples write down the dream and then live it.

Writing Wedding Vows is Like Putting Money in the Bank!

Wedding or commitment vows are for the purpose of creating dreams that give a couple passion for life and each other, according to Linda Bardes, ‘The Wedding Vow Coach’

The reason a couple writes their own personal wedding or commitment vows is to create an opportunity to sit down together and have what may well be the most important conversation the couple could ever have in their entire married life.

What I’m asking you to do is take a little time to create a mental picture of the life you want to lead. I want you to dream the biggest dream you can think of then deposit that into the treasury of your subconscious mind to create a Law of Attraction.

By talking about money and sex, careers, children , in-laws, religion or spirituality, houses and cars, travel, food, health, and philanthropy or any aspect of their marriage that will be of importance in the next 5-10 years, you will begin to infuse that dream into what could be called the operating system of your lives.

As you talk about the dream write it down on paper. This is for the purpose of getting it out and down on paper.

The dream is not the vows. The vows are a result of the dream. The vows are the promises you make to each other saying what each of you will do to keep that dream alive.”

I want you to be so inspired by the dream or vision you have of your life together that you will be willing to invest attention on making daily deposits into the emotional bank account of your marriage. Because, sooner or later you will have some challenges and if the bank account of your marriage is empty there will be nothing to draw on.”

Another aspect of writing vows that is is equally important is revisiting the vows.

When the ceremony is over, you are not finished with your vows. The power is in repeating those vows over and over and over again. Just like a pianist practices a symphony until it is installed in memory, so you will continues to review your vows every day until those vows becomes the chief operating system of your lives.

Sometimes you will read those vows alone and other times together. By reading them together you open doors for conversation. That way no problem or situation ever gets so completely off tract that you forget what the real problem is.

When you install your dream into your mind and your body so that it becomes a way of life, through the Law of Attraction everything you need to support your dream–the people, things, opportunities, ideas, and experiences–will show up almost effortlessly. Like a miracle.”

Indeed, you could call your vows a one-page-miracle because of the spiritual and emotional power infused in them.

I don’t want to tell you that there won’t be challenges. But if you keeps the vision or dream alive and vital, investing small amounts of physical and emotional currency, the marriage doesn’t have to be hard work. Intimacy thrives.

Reading those vows and putting attention on the little things, like saying ‘I love you’ every day, praising and complimenting each other often, never going to bed angry, holding hands for one minute every day, reading the vows every day, writing little notes, are all currency that will pay big dividends.”

You can find out more about Rev. Bardes and her work around writing wedding or commitment vows by following this link. or click on sign up on right.

Love, light and laughter,

Rev. Linda, The Weddng Vow Coach

Helping couples write down the dream and then live it!

Writing Wedding Vows--It's Wake Up Time for Your Cells

In case you thought I was joking about biochemistry and how it drives our lives and how by writing your own wedding vows and continuing to review those vows on a regular basis you can actually affect and sustain the level of intimacy in your relationship, I am adding a little copy that came in an Email from Joe Vitale. He is promoting the book, Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton.

“The Biology of Belief” will forever change how you think about your own thinking. Stunning new scientific discoveries about the biochemical effects of the brain’s functioning show that all the cells of your body are affected by your thoughts.

Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D., a renowned cell biologist, describes the precise molecular pathways through which this occurs. Using simple language, illustrations, humor, and everyday examples, he demonstrates how the new science of Epigenetics is revolutionizing our understanding of the link between mind and matter and the profound effects it has on our personal lives and the collective life of our species.

And writing your own personal wedding or commitment vows!

The line to pay attention to is the line ” all the cells of your body are affected by your thoughts.”

Remember that silly song, “Every little cell of my body is happy. Every little cell of my body is fine?” You can wake up your cells, introduce some positive affirmations (your wedding or commitment vows) and permanently live the life you have imagined.

I am suggesting that you write your wedding or commitment vows as a result of a shared conversation. Talk about your life together and visit aspects of your marriage or partnership, such as money, sex, family, careers, houses, cars, etc. Get emotional, exaggerate your dream.

What you are doing is energizing, entertaining and installing an actual physical chemical pattern. When you continue to revisit and reinvigorate that pattern by rereading your vows over and over and over and over again eventually it becomes permanent. At some point, just like learning to play the piano, you will have committed that pattern to memory and you will be playing, or living, it with ease.

I am asking you to consciously give voice to a dream or vivid vision that you pledge or promise to support in your vows and then continue to review those vows over and over and over and over.

In your case you are not so much trying to change your thoughts as to take the passion and persistence that you arrived at in your relationship and maintain it, heighten it and expand it in beautiful and measurable ways that then becomes your every day experience. With ease. That’s what I mean about your vows affecting your biochemistry.

This is incredible stuff.

As Jeff Herrick, the Article Guy says, “Go use this stuff!” (GUTS)

Here’s a link to my Ebook, THE SECRET LIFE OF WEDDING VOWS. This will help you get that cell transforming dream down on paper. Check out the blog for lots more articles.

Love, light and laughter,
Rev. Linda, The Wedding Vow Coach
Helping couples write down the dream and then live it!

Writing Wedding Vows–Guidelines for Keeping Intimacy Alive and Well

This is a post about writing wedding vows. But it’s also a post about keeping intimacy alive. Because intimacy is the emotional ‘glue’ that keeps a relationship fresh, and sizzling. Writing personal wedding or commitment vows is a way for a couple outline what they will do to keep and maintain the intimate life of their marriage and relationship.

A while ago I wrote a post about keeping a marriage or relationship alive by activating biochemicals through sex.

I still think sex is an important topic and what I have been trying to get across to couples is that through taking the time to sit down together and get very clear about the dream they have for their marriage by discussing aspects of their life like money, and sex, and children, and in-laws, careers, fun activities, houses, cars, philanthropy, etc. they are better equipped to keep intimacy and their sex life alive.

Intimacy is a big loaded word. I did research a while ago about what women want and what men want and what I found is that men and women want the same things–intimacy. According to the sources I read, women want emotional intimacy and men want sexual intimacy.

However, after reading some of the commentary from a TV show that Oprah did with marriage counselor, M Gary Neuman, author of The Truth About Cheating, it became obvious to me that the reason men equate intimacy with sex is that they don’t know how to go about establishing a truly emotional and intimate connection with their partner.

Here’s a quote from the show: “It’s not just about having sex; it’s about emotional attachments. It’s about showing your private self to others. It’s about going to another person for what you should be holding personal for your wife, and continuing to put your energy somewhere else draws you that much more away and [makes it] harder to get back to your spouse.”

Women don’t really know how to go about creating intimacy either. There seems to be some built-in genetic something or other–that mother thing–that is helpful but women are as hard pressed as men to ‘know’ what or how to do this thing called intimacy.

Writing wedding vows together, however, forces a couple to actually think about, talk about, write about and then pledge what they will do to keep the ‘dream’ alive. That dream has a lot of elements such as money and sex, careers, houses and cars, but it is even more about establishing a conscious intimate connection that they can then build on and keep nourishing.

Writing and pledging wedding or commitment vows is not the end all and be all, but it is a beginning, and by repeating and rereading those vows over and over and over again the couple locks in their dream and it becomes their life operating system.

Rereading their vows together also creates opportunities for conversation so that problems can be solved almost before they begin.

The real work comes in setting up some guidelines to follow. That is what writing wedding or commitment vows are for. To establish guidelines that help a couple create a powerful, intimate, and sustainable marriage.

I want you to have the best life possible and not to have to ‘work’ at it so hard, because working at putting a marriage or relationship back together after it has cracked is where the ‘hard’ work really is.

Create a dream for your life and the life of your marriage, infuse that dream with excitement and passion, getting clear about all the important aspects and elements of what makes up a successful life and relationship. Tell your partner what you need from him or her to help you keep those dreams alive. That should be included in your vows.

Because your vows are all about what you are going to do to keep the dream alive.

See my Ebook, The Secret Life of Wedding Vows, to help you in your quest for the most amazing life ever!

Love, light and laughter,

Rev. Linda Bardes, The Wedding Vow Coach

Helping couples write down the dream and then live it!

Writing Wedding Vows-Using the 7 Tools of Creation

When writing personal weddings or commitment vows, there is a way to do it so that those vows can be the template for something spectacular. By using the 7 tools of creation, an individual, or a couple, can create something of lasting value that can defy all the odds. And do it easily.

The seven tools of creation to use when writing your wedding or commitment vows are:

* Thought or contemplation
* Writing
* Talking
* Pledging or promising
* Review and repetition
* Affirmations and prayer
* Saying ‘Thank you!’

Thinking-By taking a question, or a particular idea you need clarification on, in this case the life of a marriage or committed relationship, and allowing it to roll around in your mind and in your life, you open yourself to expanding your thoughts to arrive at new and bigger ways of living your life. You are not trying to make anything happen. You are open to a higher way of thinking that can come in many ways through books, magazines, radio or TV, casual conversations, intuition, etc.

By making a conscious decision that you want a higher perspective and answer, and voicing that to yourself, you set in motion a process of ‘allowing’ where information, ideas, and awarenesses just sort of ’show up.’

Writing-Writing allow you to ’see’ your thoughts. They become more real and you have a greater perspective because you are outlining, describing, or concluding. The process helps you to access many parts of your brain. By writing an idea out you can more easily decide if you are actually clear about your thoughts on a particular subject. I’ve been at workshops where the answers to important questions were written with the non-dominant hand. This bypasses some judgmental thought processes to get to a raw essence of an idea.

You may write about your wedding vows and the dream you have for your life together more than once. By writing about your life and your dreams, for yourself or your relationship, you can get into the feeling, the picture and the emotion of the thing, thereby driving the energetic pattern into the cells of your body. In metaphysics we call this ‘embodying an idea.’ This means that you have ingrained the idea or made it your operating system so that you will automatically do, be, and say what it is that supports the dream you have crafted for your life together.

Talking-Talking takes your thoughts to a higher level and accesses other parts of your brain. By actually hearing your dream for your life explained or expressed in words you speak, your vision is amplified. It becomes more real. The template you have created, becomes what can be called the Law of Attraction. As it is impressed into a unified field of awareness that field, or God, or the Universe, or Spirit, or whatever you want to call it, begins to go to work for you on your behalf. Bring you to people, things, experiences, ideas and awarenesses that support your dream or your vision.

By talking about your life together as you work through the process of writing your wedding vows, you are establishing an intimacy for each other and the dream you have for your marriage or partnership that you can easily return to.

Pledging or promising-When you promise to do whatever it takes for you to stay on purpose and in passion of and for the dream you wrote into your wedding vows you are becoming a decision maker. There is power in a decision. You activate an energy that helps keep you going even when there are tough times. Robert Schuller has a great phrase he made into a book: ‘Tough times never last, but tough people do.’ Promising to stick with something until you have made it your operating system, or your way of life, activates will power, right thinking and right action.

Reviewing-When you have written and pledged your vows you are not finished with them. You are going to take those wedding vows, and read them over and over and over again. Every day! The more you read those vows, the more real they become. The more real they feel, the stronger a magnet they are. Everything you need to be living your dream shows up, almost magically and mystically. So keep rereading them over and over and over and over!

You are learning to play the symphony of your life. Every great master of any subject practiced it over and over and over again until they had that skill ingrained in their minds and bodies and the very fabric of their lives.

Affirmation/prayer-This is where you ask for help! In affirmation or prayer you are affirming that there is something bigger than you are, call it a Higher Power, that can take some of the load off, that knows how to do anything, and is delighting in ‘pressing down to overflowing’ everything you want and need to make your life extraordinary, passionate, creative, prosperous, meaningful, and fulfilling. This is where you stop trying to make things happen and allow them to happen to you by reminding yourself that you are worthy, that you deserve to be living your dream, that there is nothing that can block, hinder, slow down or other wise keep your good from you.

This is where you get out of your own way!

Saying ‘Thank You’-The bible says that before Jesus prayed he would say,’ Thank you, Father, for answering my prayer.” He ‘knew’ before he even finished the prayer that the outcome was a given. So every day you begin your day by saying ‘thank you:’ to yourself, to Higher Power, the Universe, your family, your life, and everything in your world. You are in effect opening your arms, your mind and your life for good to come from everywhere in every form.

Another way of saying ‘thank you’ is to give voice for all the good things that show. This includes, parking spots, someone who went out of their way to be helpful, for a good idea, for your partner. In fact, for everything that shows up. Get in the habit of saying ‘thank you’ for just about everything. You are also saying to the Universe, ‘I appreciate all I have and you can bring me more.’ The more you have the more you can give away, which is another way of saying ‘thank you!’

I want you to have the most amazing life possible. If you take a little time once in a while to stop, think, write, speak, pledge, review, pray or affirm and say ‘thank you,’ you will have retooled your life to seeing, experiencing and sharing the spirit of possibility.

Love, light and laughter,

Rev. Linda, The Wedding Vow Coach

Helping couples and individuals write down the dream and then live it!

www.weddingvowsandceremonies.com