Hey, everyone, welcome back to another episode of The Marriage Life Coach Podcast, we are going to talk about loving bigger today, and what exactly that means and how to really cultivate a loving culture in your marriage. I used to work in HR, which if you’ve listened to the podcast for a while, you’re already aware. And I used to think a lot about corporate culture. And when I think about a marriage, I think about a marriage culture. What do we do regularly here that tells the world that tells each other that tells our family, who we are and what we’re about. And I think about a five star marriage culture, right? That includes creating that welcome home feeling that includes creating that knowledge that you’re just so well taken care of right, that anyone who’s part of this family or part of this relationship is just so well loved, right? And that loving marriage culture, where you’re such a strong team that you know, you can get through anything together. So today, we’re gonna dive into the actions and the mindsets of a marriage culture, we’re loving bigger is the norm. It’s the standard. It’s how you live day to day. And we’re going to do that. And I’m going to share a story of something that happened early on in my own marriage, where my husband really poured love into some pain that I was feeling. And I want to just share that with you today to give you an example of what we’re talking about.
Now, before we dive in, you know that I love to share fun things and adventures and different things before we start the show and today I want to share a really beautiful review that the Questions For Couples Journal, which is my book that I’m so proud of that we launched this year, got on Amazon. And if you don’t have the Questions For Couples Journal yet, definitely go and get it. Listen to what Brittany Sales had to say. And I don’t know if Brittany Sales listens to the podcast. But her name was on the review on Amazon. So if she does listen, hey Brittany, thank you for this review. Here’s what she said, My partner and I just had a baby. I bought this book for us beforehand and was really excited to start it. I wanted to wait until we had the baby. So we had something special to look forward to. together after our long tiring days. We pick one random page, mostly two, sometimes three questions each night when we first get in bed. Some are simple, some are deep.
But one thing for sure is the questions always lead to meaningful conversations. Such an easy way to keep learning about your partner regardless of how long you’ve been together. This book has made such a difference in our communication and our intimate time together. I swear upon this. And then beautiful Brittany in her Amazon review, put three exclamation points at the end, which is awesome. So I just have to say reviews like that just speak to my heart saying it is absolutely my highest intention for the book, come to life. I can’t be there with you, you know when you’re having breakfast, or when you’re having lunch or when you’re hanging out in the evening, right after putting the baby down. But my questions can be there with you and they can help you get closer. And that is just the coolest thing ever. So if you’re thinking right now about buying presents for the holidays, anniversaries birthdays, I definitely encourage you to get the Questions For Couples Journal for any couple in your life, it will definitely be a gift that keeps on giving for absolutely sure.
Okay, let’s talk about loving bigger. And we’re going to start that talk by taking a walk down memory lane. So one of the most healing experiences I have ever had during my marriage was a day that I was actually very hurt and very upset with my husband. I was both angry and hurt, which is probably the worst combination to get of any kind of clarity or calm resolution when you have both the anger and the hurt mixed up. But my husband is a steadfast, persistent, loving, kind person. And he did not enter my little circle of drama. I was totally high-drama situation. And he acted as if he knew he loved me. He knew we would find a solution and all my emotion would eventually subside. Like he just stayed strong with that vision, even though it wasn’t very obvious. I was feeling in the moment. And it’s really possible at the time that I didn’t fully appreciate how much his peacefulness contributed to my healing but as I think about it now. And you know, several years after that moment passed, and several life coach trainings later, I can really see how important that was. And one of the things that I talk about regularly both on the podcast and with my clients and students in Marriage MBA is this idea that one person can change a marriage, one person can have such a profound effect, one person can make a difference. And in this case, it was really him making a difference with me, where he just seemed so calm and so centered while I was freaking the freak out, that I still remember, it is such a powerful turning point to this day.
So I don’t actually remember the details about what I was upset about, I remember some kind of family situation was going on. And at the time, when this happened, we had recently read a book by Eckhart Tolle called A New Earth. And in this book, he explains a concept that I have just used ever since I read it in the book, and it’s called the pain body. And his theory, which explains in detail, but I’m gonna summarize it for you here is that we walk through life, and we experience different emotional wounds, and they become part of a larger pain body, so to speak, so that if someone cuts you off in traffic, your level of annoyance isn’t just determined by that one moment. But by every other times someone has cut you off in traffic, it’s like that wound plus another wound plus another wound, it creates this pain body around that situation. So this is why the responses that we have are often not proportional to the miniscule experience when compared to the totality of one’s life, right.
So it’s like maybe there’s a dirty dish in the dishwasher, and we freak the freak out about this dish, right? But it’s not about that dish. It’s about every dish that’s ever been left in the history of your life. And there’s this wound that when you touch it, it’s like you’re touching that deeper place, where every dish just gets activated, so to speak. So on this day, many years ago, I was having a huge activation of my pain body as really, whatever was happening was really nowhere near as serious as the reaction that I was having to it. Okay. Now, I remember him trying to soothe and comfort me. And I was crying and sobbing was like the ugly cry. It was really not elegant or anything like that. Right? It was sloppy, messy, like all the Kleenex, crying. And I remember this, I do remember very clearly, feeling afraid, right? At first I was angry and hurt. And then I was calming down and he was comforting me. And then I felt really, really afraid. And I said to him, okay, so that’s all fine. Now we’re resolving whatever it is, and that’s okay. But what happens when this wound reopens? And I get angry like this, again, like to this level. And I said that to him. And it was really in this moment of fear. I think it was maybe one or two years into our marriage, it was kind of early, I was definitely not a life coach then and didn’t have all the tools that I talked about and share now, and I was really afraid that this would become a problem. And, I just asked him, what do we do you know, when this happens again?
I didn’t have the answer, right. And he said something to me, that I believe is one of the most pivotal things he’s ever said to me. And it’s just something that moves me even whenever I remember it or talk about it now. And he said this, he said, Well, if that happens, we’ll just have to pour some love into it. The wound may not go away, but we will keep pouring love into it until it gets smaller and smaller. And for some reason, him saying that, okay, if it happens, we’ll just pour some love into it like pouring a cup of tea, right? It made it sounds so simple and so doable. And so possible to me that it’s sort of like broke me wide open. And it really was one of those moments where if I wasn’t already married to him, I would have like, said, Let’s go to Vegas and get married right now. kind of thing. It was just one of those moments. And I’m sure we’ve all had those who just fall in love with our person all over again. So that helped me calm down. It helped me slow down my breathing. It helped me just return to center. And I really started really thinking about and turning this over in my head, like, we accept that pain will happen. And when it does, we just pour love into it. And I think I thought about that for at least a couple weeks, I was just like, Oh, we can just accept that pain will happen. And when it does, we’ll just pour some love into it. It’ll be okay. And it gave me this sense of freedom. Like, really, it felt like I was in this prison of pain and fear around. What if I had this exacerbated reaction around other things. And it just felt like that fear, no longer had a hold on me. Like, I didn’t have to be scared of that intense reaction or avoid it or pretend it wasn’t happening. If and when it did. All I had to do was to be ready to pour love into it when it came. And that felt so possible for me like I was like, I think I can do that. And I had this really, I call it like a strange peace, came over me I couldn’t I can’t explain why that made me so peaceful, but it did. And it’s like the act of declaring that that was our plan.
Almost made the plan unnecessary, right. And what’s really fascinating now with the benefit of hindsight, and having several years of passing after that event occurred, was I don’t remember, having gotten that deeply upset, in that way, really, ever again. I’ve definitely gotten upset about things. And I’ve definitely, you know, made my very loud Cuban, Leo, sun-sign voice be heard, but never to that degree. And I as I think about it, I keep thinking that wound was getting smaller, and smaller with every kind word, with every nice gesture with every act of love. With every word of encouragement, with every hug with every kiss, right. Then as the wound got smaller and smaller, that pain body that was surrounding it would get smaller and smaller and smaller too so I could have a reaction, but it just wasn’t as extreme. And that day really, is just attached forever in my heart as a turning point in my life. And I hope that listening to this episode today, for someone listening right now, I hope this is a turning point for you, too. So as I said earlier, I won’t be in your living room for your turning point. But I can be with you in the podcast, and I can offer you my map, I can offer you what I think loving bigger looks like and how we can make that wound smaller and smaller. So these are a few points that I put together that when I analyze what does it actually look like when we’re pouring love into the pain? Right?
So first, assume the person has your best interest at heart, assume positive intent. Sometimes our partners say things to us that make no sense to us that maybe we think sounds ridiculous at times, we’ve all had those moments, right? But when we assume positive intent, it sort of relieves us of the layer of being offended or getting angry. And we can say, Wait, what are they trying to do right now? Maybe I can ask for clarification. Why does it make sense to them, whatever it is that they’re suggesting. So assume positive intent. Next, breathe. And I talked about this on the podcast all the time. Pausing and breathing is one of the best things you can do for any relationship anytime, ever, always. And it gives you just enough time, especially if you’re in a situation with your partner where you can pause, breathe and think of one reason you married this person. One virtue you admire above all others that can thaw the ice in a painful moment. So pause and breathe, and then remember why you’re here. Remember why it matters. Remember why it’s worth it. In that moment of pausing and breathing. If you’re able to do that it brings you back to love and it brings you back to okay, how do we approach this from a place of love.
Which brings me to the next way of loving bigger, which is whenever you’re in doubt about what course to take which direction to go in. You know, you have to make a choice between one thing and another. Imagine always choosing love over fear, right? This means to trust your partner when they have to go on a trip for work, this means to give your partner space when they’re having a bad day. And maybe they need to take a walk or have some alone time. Big don’t assume it means your partner loves you any less, that would be fear, right? Remember that person is a whole person living a whole life that you’re an integral part of. And sometimes, they need to do things that maybe you don’t understand. And it doesn’t mean they love you any less. So anytime you have an opportunity to make a choice, choosing love over fear will just always be helpful. Now, when there’s a breakdown, when something goes wrong, when there’s genuinely like a situation occurring, one of the things that you can do, even as you address the situation and do something about it, is also stand in your love for your partner. So almost imagine, like, you know, when you’re in a game show, and you stand on the circle, and it lights up, when you get the points, that kind of thing. Imagine standing firm, in your love for your partner, and from that place of love, speak, or be silent, listen, or offer to take a break. Take yourself out of the situation for a moment and listen for their pain, listen for where they’re coming from. And then when you hear it, answer with compassion, like think about answering with compassion. And we’ll link in the show notes to the episode on soul centered communication, because there’s really a step by step there on how to do that. But the general gist is to just imagine yourself standing in love for your partner. And then whatever you do from there is coming from that stance, right?
Another way to love bigger is to stay present and connected in the present moment, like all of us are a little bit distracted, I think we are the distraction generation perhaps. And the more we can come to the present moment, and just be with that person is sometimes the most loving thing we can do is just our presence, just our presence is healing. And I remember back in the day when I didn’t work from home, and my husband didn’t work from home, and we actually, you know, commuting back and forth from our jobs to our house, we used to call each other on the way home and chat for a little bit because our commutes were pretty long. And we ended up getting home like really late. So it was like one of our ways of connecting, we would chat on my home. And I remember sometimes, my husband would tell me some story of something that happened at work. And he’d say, I feel better just listening to your voice and just telling you about it.
And it’s not that we did anything to solve the problem. It’s not that the problem changed whatsoever, it was just our presence. So staying present, coming back to the present moment may be looking at them in the eyes, noticing the way that they speak, the sound of their voice, the way that they laugh, all of those things that bring you to the present moment. It can be immensely healing to you and to the other person. Okay, another key to living bigger is asking intentional questions. So one of the podcast episodes is called power questions. We will link to that in the show notes as well. And I always think of power questions as questions that return you to your own power. So what would love do now? What would generosity in this moment look like? What is the highest most loving thing I can do right now?
Any question like that, and you can make up any kind of question that resonates for you. I always just like to give you examples. But anything like that returns you to your own power, and can be something that I like to think of as keeping in my back pocket. I can pull it out when I’m having an emotional moment. Like I don’t need to know exactly what I’m going to do but I can ask myself, Oh, what is the highest and most loving thing I can do right now? And with ever my answer is I can do that. And then the last thing I want to talk about in terms of loving bigger and creating a marriage culture where it’s imagine that you can cut the love with a knife or that you just feel it when you walk through the door. You feel it whenever you are together whatever it is that you’re doing is to regularly speak love into your marriage and make that your baseline not an exception.
So a couple years ago, I had a long commute from a conference that I had to go to and I listened to several hours of Joel Osteen, one of my favorite encouragers you I don’t know if he still has it, but I had XM radio at the time. I don’t commute now so I have lost touch with everything that’s popular now. But back then, I listened to several hours of Joel Osteen. And on one of his talks, he was talking about speaking victory into your life. And that was what the talk was about. And it was very compelling. And I remember it’s had me start thinking about how we speak to each other at home. And I love how my husband speaks to me, he calls me his rock star. And it gives me a goofy smile every time and I’m just very amused, and you know, to the world, I’m just, you know, kind of sassy life coach, and, you know, kind of goofy sometimes. But to him, it’s like, I am his rock star. And I tell him very lovingly, that he is my favorite person. And occasionally, I mentioned that he should really remember that this includes a world with Oprah in it, and he is still my favorite, right. And we always chuckle about this, and he smiles and we just have a good time. As I tell him, he’s my favorite person, even amongst a world that includes Oprah.
And so we speak love into each other. And think about if it’s true, which I think it is that what we focus on expands, and that we attract more of what we think about, then speaking of on a regular basis, really seems like a very brilliant idea to me. So thank you to Joel Osteen for inspiring this idea. And when you’re speaking love into that person that you love, it brings the emotion to the present moment. It creates the feeling of closeness right now. And if I think back to different coaching clients that I’ve worked with, and helped and different questions that I get asked all the time, since people know that I’m a marriage life coach, people will often tell me women will tell me things about how I don’t feel close to my husband right now, I don’t feel connected to him right now.
And here is a hack where you can get connected and feel that connection, is by speaking love into the relationship in the present moment. Right? Try it, see what happens. One of the side effects is you will feel good. And very often our partners will start responding to how we’re feeling, and they will feel good. And when you’re cultivating right, that marriage culture of feeling good and feeling loved and feeling loving, it’s easier to forgive a mistake. It’s easier to let go of an annoyance, it becomes easier to feel compassion when it’s needed. Or when something happens and you have a breakdown. It’s easier, right? When there’s a lot of love and that garden just flowing everywhere, right, like butterflies and flowers. So think about think about today, think about yesterday. Did you speak love into your marriage yesterday? Did you speak love into your marriage today, already? If you did keep going keep doing that. Always do more of what’s working. If you haven’t yet, right? It’s probably why in all of the universe, among the limitless amount of things you could be doing right now you’re listening to this, this invitation to speak love into your relationship. And notice how this is not complicated.
It doesn’t require a strategy or a plan or a mountain of deliberation. You just start now. Like after you finish listening to this episode, you think about a compliment or a happy memory, or the tiniest of good things. The coffee this morning was delicious. Or I love the way you fold the sheet. Right? In my case with my husband, he has a dimple and I see that timbral reminds me of a movie star right? I’m so lucky to be married to you, right? Even just thinking those thoughts about our partner helps that loving feeling vibrate through our body, right? And maybe your honey will smile and maybe not and maybe the person is ready to receive it and maybe they won’t. It doesn’t matter. Because even though the love that we’re pouring into the relationship by speaking love into it, even though it’s for them. It’s not about them. It’s about you, the life you want to lead and the marriage you want to have. It’s really about you deciding that you will be the person who speaks loving to people and especially the people that you love the most. It’s about taking emotional leadership over your relationship and saying, this is the way it’s gonna be, and it’s gonna be awesome. And whether your honey lights up or just nods or keeps mowing the lawn with those sexy thighs, it doesn’t matter. Love was spoken here today. Can you think of anything more important to do right now? Like seriously, I can’t. But world is in dire need of more love and it’s up to us to start speaking it into existence.
Which by the way, you, my friend are an inspiration. Thank you for listening to a podcast about love today. I can imagine your eyes smiling right now. I can imagine you nodding and being amused with my stories. And that makes my heart dance with joy. Okay, I just spoke some love into you right now that was for you. Speaking love into each other is one of the most powerful things we can do and the more often we do it, the better. So here’s a thought to take with you this week. I create my own marriage culture and I fill it with love. Okay, that is a wrap for today. Go speak some love into people. And remember, one person can change the world and one person can change a marriage and that person is you