Awe

Awe doesn’t ask our permission to wow us; it just smacks us in the face with something bigger without bothering to argue us out of our tedium. Awe can come in a single glance, a beautiful sound, a heartfelt gesture. Think of how we can slog along in our little tunnel of daily life, back and forth, and then one day pass a lilac bush in bloom. The fragrance catches us first and then the beauty of the full blossoms. In pausing to appreciate it, we receive a reminder of the spectacular. Much like that, awe can bring this invigorating sense of novelty into everyday relationships that might otherwise feel stale or dull.

— Sharon Salzberg, Real Love, p. 282

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, January 29, 2016

Path to Peace

Forgiveness can also be bittersweet. It contains the sweetness of the release of a story that has caused us pain, but also the poignant reminder that even our dearest relationships change over the course of a lifetime. Regardless of the decision we reach about whether or not to include someone in our present-day life, in the end, forgiveness is a path to peace and an essential element of love for ourselves and others.

— Sharon Salzberg, Real Love, p. 199

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, December 4, 2018

Liking Yourself More

As we have explained, you can feel connected whenever you want, simply by choosing to feel connected. You can even do it in your head, if your partner is unavailable. You can do it when you’re irritated with your partner just as easily as when you’re enraptured with him or her — if you truly want to. And why would you want to if he’s acting like a jerk or she’s being a nag? Well, for one thing, he’s less likely to act like a jerk if he feels connected to you, and she’s less likely to nag if she knows that you care about her feelings. But the more important reason is that you like yourself more when you feel connected to people you love than when you don’t. You like yourself more when you are nice to your partner than when you’re not. You like yourself more when you are true to the most important things about you than when you are not.

One of the most destructive phrases to emerge from modern therapy and self-help books is “getting your needs met” or its variation “What about me?” These little words, and the self-centered attitudes they represent, have done more to promote entitlement and resentment and less to nurture love, compassion, and connection than just about anything that has passed for relationship advice. They fly in the face of a known law of human interaction: You must give what you expect to get. If you want compassion, you have to be compassionate; if you want love, you have to be loving; if you want cooperation, you have to be cooperative; if you want appreciation, you have to be appreciative day by day.

— Patricia Love and Steven Stosny, How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It, p. 210-211

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, December 26, 2014

Approach Mode

Fortunately, approach modes that include attempts to understand and appreciate are almost as contagious to our partners as avoid and attack modes. In other words, if you are interested in your partner, he or she is likely to become interested in you. But if you dismiss, avoid, or devalue, what do you think will be the likely response?

— Patricia Love and Steven Stosny, How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It, p. 173

Photo: Gundersweiler, Germany, October 2000

Appreciation and Value

Appreciate means to value your partner. Appreciation, in turn, makes you feel more alert and alive; you increase the value of your own life when you appreciate your partner in any way. When your partner feels your appreciation, you don’t have to worry about whether you compliment or praise him or her enough. And if you felt your partner’s appreciation, you wouldn’t feel so bad that he or she doesn’t think to compliment you. As a matter of fact, compliments seem empty if they do not convey in some sense that your life is better at this moment because of the person you appreciate.

Patricia Love and Steven Stosny, How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It, p. 101-102

Photo: South Riding, Virginia, November 24, 2017

Gratitude and Love

Today, look at who it is you love. What are you really enjoying in your love for them? Allow yourselves to feel your natural gratitude toward this person or situation. Gratitude allows you even stronger resonance with the very gift you are experiencing. Your gratitude not only opens the door to love, it increases love.

— Chuck Spezzano, If It Hurts, It Isn’t Love, p. 327

Photo: Skyline Drive, Virginia, October 1999

Improve!

When you inspire yourself to improve, you try to make things just a little better — 1 percent will do to start. Thanks to the powerful human inspiration to improve, you don’t necessarily have to “fix” the problem to feel better. You just have to make it a little better. If you’re feeling bad and you think about what you can do to make it a little better — you don’t even have to do it, just think of it — you’ll start feeling better. If you’re upset at your partner, and you think of how you can make yourself feel a little better — shower, take a walk, smell a flower, call a friend, watch a game, chop some firewood, read a book — you’ll start to feel better. Making things a little better frees more mental resources in the neocortex, the problem-solving part of the brain. These added mental resources allow you to make things even better, freeing up more mental resources that enable you to improve yet a little more, and so on. Even if the improvement is only in your head, it will change your emotional demeanor and that will make negotiations with your partner go much better.

— Patricia Love and Steven Stosny, How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It, p. 101

Photo: Wildeshausen, Germany, May 16, 2004

It’s All About Connection.

We communicate well with our intimate partners when we feel connected and poorly when we don’t. When you feel connected again, your desire to explore feelings with your partner will practically vanish. It’s a great combination: He’ll be able to do more of it, you’ll want less of it, and you’ll meet in the middle.

The bottom line is, think connection, not communication. Then you won’t shame him and he won’t make you afraid. Nor will he drive you away. Instead, he’ll fall back in love with you long before you walk out the door.

— Patricia Love and Steven Stosny, How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It, p. 64

[Photo: Longwood Gardens, Pennsylvania, March 17, 2012]

Surprises

Feelings of apathy as they relate to our relationships often stem from insufficiently paying attention to those around us. Remember: everyone we interact with has the capacity to surprise us in an infinite number of ways. What can first open us up to each of our innate capacities for love is merely to recognize that.

— Sharon Salzberg, Real Love, p. 127

Photo: Sky Meadows State Park, Virginia, July 3, 2017

Choosing to Bless

Our worry is a form of fear, and all fear comes from our attack thoughts. When we worry about someone, we have no confidence in them or the situation. Our worry says that negative things could happen, so we are using the power of our mind to create a lack of confidence in them and to allow fearful elements in the situation. Worry attacks the situation; choosing to bless it would help build the situation and those in it.

Today, every time you feel tempted to worry about someone or something, give your blessing. Your blessing is your trust and your positive choice for the best thing to happen for everyone in the situation.

— Chuck Spezzano, If It Hurts, It Isn’t Love

[Photo: Falkenstein, Germany, April 27, 2000]