Love and Relationship Advice Blog

Feeling stressed lately?

Feeling a little bit (or maybe a lot) of overwhelm?

Or how about "frazzled?"

If so, you're not alone.

You'd have to be pretty isolated not to pick up on and create stress about what's happening globally and in your home town.

We don't have to remind you of the multitude of ways and reasons that stress can accumulate...

--Loss of job or potential loss of income

--Higher prices for the things you need or want to buy--and less income

--Wild stock market fluctuations that leave savings in a precarious state

--Attempting to sell a house and buy another one

--Kids leaving for college

--Responsibility for aging parents

--Health issues with a family member or yourself

--Any major change in your life

--And many, many more reasons

What's more...

We probably don't have to tell you how all of these stressors can affect your relationships...

But what might fly under the radar is what any one of them might do to kill the spark in your intimate relationship.

This summer, the two of us took on a very major project of moving our entire online business to a new, very complicated software platform.

Even though when we get everything we need to do in place, our business will run more smoothly for both us and our customers and clients, this moving process has been very, very stressful for us.

Have we let stress get to us and in the process, lost our "cool" and our connection throughout these long hours and days of work?

Sure.

But what we also have done, even when it's been difficult, is do the things that we know will help us to regain our connection quickly and keep the spark that's between us alive and growing.

Here are some ways we've been practicing keeping our relationship strong, healthy and full of passion that you can try in your life too when stress threatens to pull the two of you apart...

1. Remember to breathe deeply.

When you're stressed, you breathe very shallowly and high in your chest.

If you start to feel tension that becomes overwhelming, take a few deep breaths in your belly. Soften your eyes,
your jaw and any other place in your body that you are tense.

Remind yourself to relax inside.

2. Break your "worry" habit

Often, stress comes not necessarily from an actual event but rather from fearful thoughts of what MIGHT happen or what HAS happened in the past.

Bring yourself into the present moment and just deal with what's in front of you.

If you catch yourself worrying about the future or the past, stop and ask yourself if what you're worried about is true right now.

If it isn't, then do something to break what we call the "evil spell."

You can ask yourself something like this...

"How can I create what I want and get control of the stories I'm telling myself that only make my stress worse?"

Along with challenging your stressful thoughts...

You might do something to distract yourself by taking a walk around the block, petting your dog or cat, do a crossword puzzle or do some type of exercise like yoga to switch yourself off from worry.

Worrying does nothing to help the situation--and in fact, it hurts you.

So don't pretend that you're helping yourself or another person by worrying.

Break your "worry" habit by questioning your thoughts and by redirecting your focus.

3. Remember to be kind and that you love your partner (or other loved one)

When stress gets the better of the two of us, we tend to act in not-so loving ways.

In other words, we revert to old habits that maybe we thought we'd left behind--but are still there underneath.

Because this software we're working on is so complicated and has so many steps and parts to it--and there are two of us working on those different parts, we've had to really communicate well with each other.

And when we were so tired and overwhelmed with stress that we couldn't even hear the other's question, let alone understand what was being asked...

Instead of getting angry with each other, at those times, we started asking each other to "slow down" and ask the question again.

Then we ended up laughing together.

If you say the wrong things and need some help saying the "right" words--especially when it's difficult--download our Magic Relationship Words book and audio program and go through it as soon as possible.

The bottom line is that when you're in stressful times (like right now), find ways to be kind to one another and even laugh so you can keep connected.

4. Find times to connect and rebuild your spark

Even if you're very tired, take a moment each day to connect in whatever way works for you.

Throughout all of this, we've kept our morning time of connection and love-making and also we've connected in the
evenings before we go to bed by rubbing each other's feet.

The point is that it's important to create your own moments of connection and time to re-charge your spark--no matter what's going on in your life.

If you or your partner have been under a lot of stress lately, take a moment now and do something to bring the two
of you closer and rebuild your spark.

There's no time like the present to begin!

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 12:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In almost every relationship, the passion and spark fades after awhile--when it doesn't have to.

It sounds so simple to "fix" but when the passion and spark fades in a relationship or marriage, it's often not so easy.

One big problem in relationships is that after a short while of being together, most people stop doing the kinds of things that keep the closeness, passion and spark alive.

Whether it's complacency ("I've got you now I don't have to do anything to keep you") or you and your partner allow other things become more important...

We think this is not only tragic but damaging to your relationship.

Since we're always looking for ideas to pass along to you to keep the passion, love and spark alive in your relationship...

This past week, we introduced you to Michael Fiore's program called "Text The Romance Back" that shows you how to use tiny little text messages sent from your cell phone to perk up the love and passion and send
the spark through the roof again.

Since we work in the same office and are together much of the time, we don't "text" each other much.

But the fact is that millions of couples are apart most of the day and could use some easy ideas on keeping the spark alive.

While we love the idea of sending certain kinds of tiny "text messages" to keep the fires burning brightly between the two of you...

One guy wrote to us and totally disagreed with us.

Here's what he said...

Reader comment >>>>>

He said...

About this "texting the romance back" thing...

"It's really stupid--Now you are really disconnecting the human emotion between man and woman."

Our comments and feedback>>>>>

While we appreciate this guy's feedback, we couldn't disagree more.

We agree with our friend and creator of this "Text The Romance Back" program, Michael Fiore, that if you can send text messages to your beloved one or more times each day that it will increase your love, passion, desire and connection and NOT decrease these emotional aspects of a relationship.

Unfortunately, our reader has missed our point.

The point is that no matter how long you've been together, to find ways to keep the spark and closeness alive between the two of you.

While texting your beloved short messages to keep the connection is certainly not the only way to keep the connection and spark alive, it can be a very important and powerful way.

Maybe texting isn't your idea of romance or connection but the idea is to find something that helps the two of you feel more connected to each other.

And it's never too late to start.

It may feel a little strange to suddenly start connecting more if you haven't been doing it--and if that's the case, start small and do something that maybe you did when you were first together that ignited the spark between the two of you.

One guy told us that he started giving his wife a real kiss when he came in from work instead of a peck on the cheek.

It didn't take any more energy for him to do that but it did take him to remember to get out of his habit of impersonal pecking to allowing himself to truly connect with his beloved.

One woman told us that she stopped making her husband wrong all the time, as was the habit she had fallen into.

She would make him "wrong" about very small, silly things and it always separated them--making both of them feel
terrible.

She learned how to stop herself from saying hurtful things to him and to counteract those critical voices in her head.

They became closer and there was more passion between them because she became more loving toward him.

So you can see that there are all kinds of ways to increase the spark in your relationship.

The idea is to start doing something that will take you closer to your partner instead of further away.

Whether it's texting the romance back or something totally different, we encourage you to find some unique ways to keep the spark and romance back.

If you want more help, we have some really good ideas you can steal from our "Restart the Spark" program.

Just know that the love, passion, romance and spark NEVER has to die.

This is a choice that we all make sometimes consciously and sometimes totally unconsciously.

Every day in our own relationship, we're renewing the commitment we have to keeping love and the spark alive
and we hope you will choose to keep the spark alive too.

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 03:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)