Hello and welcome. We are going to have a fun episode today because it’s literally about fun. As I was preparing to record, I wanted to include a shout out to some of you who have left podcast reviews and say, thank you. So if you have left a review, thank you so much. Apparently the more reviews, the more it helps new people discover this show. So whether you have left to review or forwarded it to a friend, thank you so much. I appreciate you. And so I was thinking about the podcast reviews and I wanted to pick one to read and say, thank you to a loyal listener. And when I went to the page where all the reviews are on iTunes, the one that popped up when I clicked on the reviews happened to be from a very best friend, Mary, hi Mary. So I thought, no, I should pick someone else.
And then I remembered one of the reasons I decided to run my own business was to really have the ability to do whatever the heck I want. So I’m going to do a shout out to Mary, and I’m going to share a fun story with all of you. So I have known Mary since second grade. We have been through everything you can imagine together. Every up and down you can imagine, we’ve been through it. She knows all the behind the scenes about all the things. And she still listens to the podcast and will send me messages and tell me what she liked. Or a couple of weeks ago, she told me what she didn’t like. And that was super fun. No, really it was totally okay. Mary was the maid of honor at my wedding and she was so amazing. And I have to tell you guys, you know, I like to really keep it real.
And when I was getting married, I was stressed. And I had at least a couple moments, probably more, but a couple that I vividly remember where I will admit I was not embodying my highest and best self. I did not ask myself what would love do right now. If you’re not familiar with that question, episode two Power Questions listen to that one. But I did not myslef that question. And as I like to say, the cubanity was unleashed and Mary was so patient and so kind and just so always on my side, no matter what. And so that alone is awesome, of course. But, even more fun and even more awesome is my hubby and Mary really bonded back then and up until now and always, and now whenever we watch like almost any kind of romantic movie where there’s a best friend, you know how like all the Hallmark movies and other romcoms, there’s always like the best friend, right?
He will say it, or I will say, but we’ll turn to each other and we’ll say everyone needs a Mary. But just it’s the thing we do that we’ve been doing it now for like over 10 years, everyone needs a Mary, but I got this Mary. So you all need to go and find another Mary, okay. Which by the way, if you want help with that, definitely check out my new group program. It’s the Marriage Mindset Breakthrough Activator, or as I lovingly call it the Marriage MBA program. You can check it out at maggiereyes.com/group. And one of my highest intentions for the group experience is to really practice being in that bestie vibe where we get to have someone who’s just always on our side. I love that so much. Okay. Here’s a very said about the podcast. I’m going to read this to you.
She says, I look forward to a new episode weekly. I love the podcast so much. I look forward to it every week and not only do I love Maggie’s no nonsense approach, but she always has great suggestions that I can actually do now. I find myself hanging on her every word and actually excited to try things in my own marriage. There are a few episodes that have listened to and then played again from my husband and myself to listen to together. The podcast is not only educational, but it’s also fun. It makes me laugh, it makes me think. It also gives me time to reflect on my own marriage and how I can go from three stars to five stars. One last thing I just listened to the latest episode where Maggie’s special guest is her husband. I love their dynamic and I can really see she not only gives us all the great tips and excellent advice, but she actually practices what she preaches in her own five star marriage.
So great podcast, highly recommend. Please continue to make them. And I will continue to listen every week, sometimes two or three times, LOL. That is the end of the review. So first of all, as you can see, she literally knows all my stories. And then she listens to them again on the podcast, just for fun. And this is why everyone needs a Mary. So I want to do something fun for a podcast giveaway. So let’s do this. Share your favorite episode of the podcast on Instagram. Just take a screen cap and tag me. Or write a review of the podcast and take a screen cap of that, post to pic of your review on Instagram, tag me @themaggiereyes, and I will do a drawing and give away a half hour laser coaching session amongst whoever tags me. We’re going to make this giveaway expire October 31st, 2020 at midnight Eastern to be really precise.
So if you’re listening after that date, Hey, I’m happy you’re here. I love you. You can still tag me, but the giveaway will have ended. Okay. By the way, my favorite part of her review is when she mentioned that she shares her podcast with her hubby. And if you are a hubby listening right now, I just want to say, thank you for caring so deeply about your wife. I am happy you’re here and you’re going to have a great time today as we talked about flirting, okay? Okay. If you listen to the podcast for any length of time, you will know the foundation of everything I teach is based on three principles, perspective, partnership, and pleasure. I did an extensive analysis of what makes relationships thrive and you can kind of have an okay sort of motel-ish type relationship, one or two stars, maybe, if you have two out of three of those things.
So if you have perspective and partnership, or if you have, you know, pleasure and perspective, right. But to really thrive and go five stars, you really need all three. And what I have come across the deeper and deeper I have developed this concept is whether it’s your partner, your boss, your friend, a family member across any relationship you want to have. If you have these three things and you’re constantly cultivating them and deepening them and broadening them, you really will thrive in whatever relationship that is. And if you have a relationship in your life right now that isn’t thriving, just look at it and think about perspective. How are you thinking about it? Is it a problem? Is it a blessing? Partnership, how’s the teamwork, right? How’s team? I was telling my husband today about team. He’s like, I don’t think you’re using the word correctly.
I said, no. In my world, this is how I use team. We team here. That’s what we do. We use it as a verb, as a noun, as an adverb, he’s in every permutation. So perspective, partnership and then pleasure. Are you having fun? Are you having joy? Are you experiencing delight? Whether it’s physical, emotional, mental, delight, whatever it may be. Any relationship you’re struggling in, you thread it through that lens, you will immediately know what to work on because one of those things will be missing. Okay. Now, when a marriage coach talks about pleasure, most people think sexy times are ahead and they totally are. However, I find that most people forget that there’s a whole spectrum of pleasure. That includes mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual pleasure. And we really want to have pleasure in multiple areas of our experience to fully thrive as humans.
And so whenever I talk about pleasure, I like to think about it as the prism of pleasure. And when couples are struggling, one of the very first things that goes out the window is flirting. So it is like the entry level pleasure, the basics, right? Which is why I’m doing a whole episode on it today. So many of us can get amnesia when it comes to flirting. So I really want to talk about the super basics and you might think, Oh, you know, I flirt all the time. Or you might say, Oh my gosh, Maggie, when did I flirt, I can’t even remember. So whichever place you are right now in your flirting, just listen through the whole episode because I know you’ll find something useful that you can apply to really deepen the connection in your relationship. So first let’s be clear what we’re talking about when we talk about flirting. Merriam Webster dictionary says flirting is to behave amorously without serious intent.
Look at that. I like to call it lighthearted connection, just light hearted connection. There’s nothing super deep going on right now. I just think you look pretty today, right? I’ll say, Hey, handsome to my husband, just randomly throughout the day, light hearted connection. We all want to know how to communicate better when serious things happen. Right? And I will do a whole other episode on a new communication framework that I have been developing. I have tested it with my private clients. They have been using it and loving it and I will teach it to my Marriage MBA students as well in the group program. But along with being ready to communicate about serious things, it’s really, really important to have connection that’s lighthearted and not serious as part of the different ways that we connect with our partners and our honeys.
So flirting is actually really important. Flirting makes the tougher communication easier because you have different avenues of communication open that aren’t always the serious talk, right? So what we want to do is we want to get into the habit of flirting, of creating moments and opportunities to have light hearted connection. Flirting is a way that we show our partners that we’re interested in them, we’re just showing that we’re interested. That’s it. It’s not complicated. You do not need 54 steps. You need one thought: I will flirt with my honey today. In so many ways a better marriage, a five star marriage is just one thought away. It’s so close to where you are right now. No matter what you’re growing through right now, we just have to find that one thought. And every podcast episode, I really offer you different thoughts so that you can find the one that makes your heart sing and thrive.
Okay. Flirting means I’m interested. So if you stop right now and you ask yourself, well, what would show that I’m interested? It doesn’t necessarily have to be words. It could be eye contact. It could be a touch on the arm or on the hand. It could be a kiss in the morning when you wake up or a kiss when you get home. A warm welcome, a warm, loving goodbye. Something that I do that cracks my husband up, you know, we’ve been married over 13 years now and it cracks him up every time it never fails, which is also good. So I work from home and right now we’re on lockdown. So he’s working from home as well. But when he, he used to work outside the home, he’d come I’m home and I would run to the door, like a puppy. I would just run to the door and I would say welcome.
And I’d hug him and laugh. You would just say when wives attack and we’d have a great chuckle and that little moment of connection and laughter just set such a beautiful tone for the evening once he got home and it just brought to light to both of us. So that kind of fun, sometimes we can just be silly, right? Notice that it doesn’t even have to be new or particularly creative. I literally do the same thing every time. And every time we laugh about it. So you do not need to overcomplicate this. Okay. I know over complicator my name is Maggie Reyes and I’m an over complicator. So when I say you don’t need to overcomplicate this, just know I’m saying it cause I know someone listening is just like me and we’ll think, Oh no, now I have to learn how to do this.
Very simple. Okay. When do you do it? Why do you do it? Why does it matter so much? Because it helps you communicate overall and it creates opportunities for communication and connection. So how do you flirt in the absolute simplest way possible? Everyone’s going to have a different flirting style. And as I mentioned, it can be verbal, but it doesn’t have to be verbal. It could be a touch kiss, a little note. You can put something on a post-it, anything like that, right? It could be a happy surprise. It could be a text in the middle of the day. So this is important for you to know that whatever way resonates for you could be super fun. When you do it as often as possible without feeling like you’re overdoing it. So as for when should you be flirting, right, as often as possible, but without feeling like you’re overdoing it. Now, when you should be flirting, I want to caution you.
Okay. That it might not feel natural. And as a society, if you haven’t flirted in a long time and you suddenly listen to this episode and say I’m doing it tonight. We have this error in thinking that imagine like a computer, right, a computer programming. It’s this glitch in our system that says we should only do things when they feel natural. Right? And if we do them on purpose, it’s not right. And that’s just a glitch in our programming. In the show notes I’m also going to put s link to Sex in Stressful Times with Danielle Savory. I love her so much. and she was such an amazing guest. And one of the things we talked on that episode about more in depth was about scheduling sex. And it’s kind of part of that computer glitch. Like if we schedule it, it must not be like organic or spontaneous as if being spontaneous was the goal, as opposed to having more sex as the goal or as opposed to flirting and connecting is the goal.
Right? So it’s okay if it doesn’t feel natural, if you haven’t done it in a while, okay. So, it’s just a glitch in our programming, it’s not true. So if you know you want to create connection with your honey, then you put it on purpose on your calendar. You put a reminder in your phone, you put the post-it where you’re going to see it. Right? And you can ask yourself, what have I done, done to connect in a light-hearted loving way today? What can I do today to connect in a light-hearted, loving way. What would be fun today? So simple. That’s how you build the habit of flirting. It’s literally that simple. And let yourself have assistance when you’re building the habit. It’s okay to plan for it until it becomes something that is so natural to you that it’s completely spontaneous. It becomes your new normal, but in the beginning, it’s almost like when you, say, someone that has a broken leg and they’re walking with crutches.
They need a little help in the beginning and it’s okay to use crutches while that leg is stronger and stronger. So it’s the same idea with flirting. It’s okay to use a little crutch here and there while you get stronger and stronger. Okay. I mentioned at the beginning that you don’t want all of your communication to be heavy or what I call maintenance related. So what do I mean by that? When we live with another person, there’s a lot of maintenance. There’s a lot of like, did you pay this bill? What happened with that? The roof, the mortgage, whatever it may be, right? Whatever we have going on. And that type of communication is really important. And it really does matter as we all know, but we don’t want it to be the only communication that we have to be either something super since related or something serious happened.
Right? So we want to juice, flirting as part of variety, as part of another way that we communicate that is fun and creates and cultivates connection. And that’s really important. And you hear me say this in a lot context, but one of the things that relationships really need a mix of is variety and safety. And you’ll hear me talk about creating safety and what that looks like in a variety of ways. And flirting is really one of those things that is about creating variety. It’s unexpected. You don’t know when it’s going to happen. How’s it going to be? It’s going to be a little moment that you add a smile to your day. And that variety is so important. Imagine, I don’t know. It’s like when you have a burger and you put ketchup or mayo or mustard or something like that. Without it, it has a no flavor, right?
So flirting adds flavor. So imagine relationships without variety, they become stale. Right? Think of a sandwich. No one wants to stale sandwich, right? We can all agree on this. Okay. So how do we prevent the relationship from getting stale? We take intentional action, everything that we’re talking about today. And one of the examples I liked use when I talk about communication is to really imagine one of those highways in Los Angeles that has five lanes and has all these lanes coming and going all the time. Right? And with those five lanes, you know you’re going to get on one and you’re in this lane now, but when you’re going to exit you’re going to get into this other lane. And so think of flirting, like one of your lanes, there’s a maintenance lane. There’s a heavy topic, serious things lane. There’s the flirting lane, right?
There’s what happened today, maintenance, important lane. It gives you an on-ramp to create connection and communication with your partner, by having one more lane that you can both travel on together. So that’s one of the reasons why flirting is not just sort of a fun afterthought. It’s actually really important. And it’s something that when you bring it to your relationship, the moment you start doing it, it starts feeling different and it starts feeling better. And very often, not always, but very often the moment that you add some playfulness and some fun, your partner responds in kind, and will also add some playfullness and fun. So do not underestimate the power of playful, fun in your relationship to help it improve. I really think that flirting is a critical part of the prism of pleasure, that you want to cultivate in order for your marriage to thrive.
Okay. Now, in the show notes, I will include a link to The Questions For Couples Journal, which will also help you with this. If you’re like, I don’t even know what to talk about for lighthearted communication, right? Having simple conversation starters can be a very easy way to engage in lighthearted communication. Sometimes your communication gets stale because we’re talking about the same things over and over and over again. Right? So how do you mix that up? Before I wrote it book, I used to buy question books and take them on road trips. And I just love using questions that open up topics that would never come up in regular conversation. So you can use it on your next date night, you can have an at home dinner night and just pull out some questions and ask for a fun or ask one or two questions and just to make it easy and simple.
Okay. So I had something else that I wanted to add, which is one of the best pieces of relationship advice that I ever got. When I first got married before I was a life coach, I’ve mentioned, we went to a lot of workshops together and sort of piecemealed everything we thought we would need to know to a great relationship. And at this particular workshop, the speaker said, remember to create your marriage every day. That’s it. Remember to create your marriage every day. It was one sentence. Remember how I said, you’re always one thought away from a better marriage? Or really anything else you want to create in your life. I didn’t make that up by the way. I have heard that before in a variety of trainings and books. And I just love thinking about things that way, anything I want, I am one thought away from it.
I love that. So as I was saying, that one thought, remember to create your marriage every day, it really impacted me. I really took it to heart. And the guy that was leading the workshop, he said, you know, relationships don’t get stale. People do. And then he gave this example, which I love. And I wish I would have written down his name back then. I didn’t realize I’d be quoting him like so many years later. But anyway, this awesome guy who led this work shop said, when you’re dating, you couldn’t wait to see each other. Right? You were planning where you were going to go, what you were going to wear, what you were going to do, what’s going to happen. You put all this energy into connecting with the other person. Then what happens? You get married and you turn around one day and you say, well, it doesn’t feel the same.
Why doesn’t it feel the same? Right. When was the last time you got excited about doing something together or doing something new together and that kind of feeling right? How do you recreate that feeling? You start with the smallest simplest most doable way possible with a little wink, a little kiss, a little hug at the end of the day, maybe holding hands while you’re watching a movie, right? The simplest thing. That’s how you start recreating that feeling right? Now, obviously there’s a lot more to this. And of course, I go into a lot of depth in my private coaching programs and in my group coaching program that I’m launching. So if you want personal help, you can apply to work with me either one-on-one or in the group. The links for that are always in the show notes, just visit my website. You can go to maggiereyes.com And click on work with me.
But in the meantime, flirting is a very simple, clear, intentional way. Just a wonderful place to start really cultivating partnership and connection and pleasure in your marriage. So I highly, highly, highly recommend it. Okay. That’s a wrap for today. Remember, we’re doing a podcast review giveaway on Instagram. So just to recap, you have two choices. You can share your favorite episode or write a review and take a screen cap of that. Tag me in your stories or posts on Instagram @themaggiereyes, and I will do a drawing and give away a half hour laser coaching session. And remember the giveaway expires October 31st of 2020, and applications for the Marriage MBA program are open. You can go to maggiereyes.com/group and get all the details for that.