“The quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives.” — Ester Perel.
How do you feel about the quality of your life right now?
How do you feel about the quality of your marriage?
Are they a mirror of each other?
Many people think that their external circumstances control their happiness in marriage.
“Once I get the job… we won’t worry about finances… and we’ll have a happy marriage!”
“Once our kids are out of the house, we’ll have more time together and feel more connected in our marriage…”
Once… once… once…
But the reality is, that this is backward thinking.
Your Thoughts Determine Your Experience.
Researchers often assume that circumstances shape your reality.
But in doing so, they strip away the human element.
Our ability to think, create, and imagine creates a much more holistic version of reality.
Regardless of external circumstances, we have our thoughts, and according to Viktor Frankle’s qualitative research in“Man’s Search for Meaning”, thoughts are everything.
From his experience as a prisoner in WWII concentration camps, he learned that “…everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Consequentially, you can’t change the quality of your life by changing external circumstances. You change your internal reality first.
By changing the way you think about your spouse, feel about your spouse, and see your spouse, your relationship will flourish for richer and poorer- in health and in sickness — regardless of your external circumstances.
And when you change your internal reality, you will start to see your external circumstances fall into place.
Not because you need them to…
But because they can’t help but catch up to the larger image of who you now are.
Remember This.
If your human experience is in any way similar to mine, the following pattern applies.
— Your thoughts and physiology determine your emotional state.
— Your state determines your behavior.
— Your behavior determines your results.
Following that logic, your thoughts always — in some way or another — end up in your results. Change your thoughts, change your results.
Are You Ready to Increase Marital Connection?
Click Here for your free download of “15 Date Night Ideas to Improve Connection.”
—
This post was previously published on medium.com.
***
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
 |
 |
 |
 |
—–
Photo credit: hiva sharifi on Unsplash
