Love Your Love Space | LQ037

Welcome to our love space today. So I am so excited to have you join me once again. I know last episode, we were chatting about how resolutions don't work for the new year, and you know ways of leaning maybe more towards or away from the things that we want in our relationships and in our love space. And the next little piece that we're going to be talking about for a while is really for this year, for 2025 or for whatever year you're listening to this in how are we going to make a vision? How are we going to create what we want for our relationship, for our love space, for that universe that we are making with the love of our life? What do we want for that? So we're going to work on the next couple episodes of walking ourselves through this process of how to get really clear about the relationship that we want, how we're going to get our spark back, where we're going to move towards in our life with the love of our life. So the reason why it is important, and actually sorry, I'll just take a step back. So what I really want you to get out of this is an idea of how we're going to start to create our vision. Because for some people, some people, this comes so naturally, and for other people, as soon as we have to do like, you know, feel free to have to do this for work, or if you're an entrepreneur, or whatever you're out there doing in life, you know, sometimes they want you to make a mission statement, or, you know, all of these sort of things like that, and they can seem really overwhelming to some people. Some people, it's really difficult to envision what the future could look like and to have a concise or clear vision of what that future is going to look like. And then when you start to try to do that, and that's not really a natural skill too. It can start to seem overwhelming, and it can start to seem even more confusing and less clear. You start to think of like, oh my gosh, I thought I knew what I wanted, and now that I have to be clear and concise, I actually have no idea of what I want or what if I say this, and then that's not really what I want, and you can really start to dive into the overthinking of it. So I'm hoping these next episodes are going to really walk us through what we're wanting, what we want to move forward to. Because, as you know, I always say, like, if you don't have a destination, how are you going to get there? And then at the same time, I say, like, let's not get over focused on the destination, because sometimes it can again, get too overwhelming and stop us at from leaning in and making those actions that are going to move us towards that destination. Okay, so it's kind of that fine balance. And I know that might sound a little complicated right now, but it's really going, you know, all of the things we do here in my love space with you guys, is always about trying to keep things simple. Okay, so it's going to sound maybe a little complicated at first, but I'm going to give all of you a variety of ways that you can attack this vision creation so that it works for everyone, right? Because, as we know, with people and populations, it's always a scale, right? No one's all the same, and whenever we put populations on a graph, right? So that's what I mean by that, is whenever we put a group of people on a graph, it always turns into a mountain, right? It's always that bell curve. And that's why people used to like they don't do that anymore, thank goodness, but they used to grade people on the curve, right? Maybe they do at some of the more prestigious schools, still, but you know, you get that curve right. And we all know whatever we label as normal or average or whatever is just that big hump of chunk of people that's in the middle of that curve, right? And then if you're outside of kind of that high mountain part, you're either on the low end or the high end, or, you know, if we're talking about neuro spicy diagnoses, you know that the hump in the middle is what we consider normal or neurotypical, which, you know, is not so fantastic, but you know that it doesn't really actually matter what normal is. It's whoever makes up most of the population. That's the title you get. So it actually doesn't really matter what those behaviors are that make you normal. It's just that most people have them. That's it. It's that simple. So if you're outside of that big hump on the curve, then you are outside of the norm. Okay, and it doesn't really if it starts to be that most of our population has autism, or most of our population starts to have ADHD, then guess what? ADHD and autism will be in that hump in the middle of the curve. And everyone who doesn't have that as a diagnosis, or doesn't, you know, have the that the brain doesn't think that way, they'll be outside the curve. And that's all that means. So we're going to look at what's going to work for everyone on this curve, right from the from one end of it, all through that big hump, through, through what we consider, you know. Most people and all the way to the other end. Okay, so having a clear vision about what we want our love space to be is super important. And when I say love space, you know, if you listen to last episode, then you probably got a good description. But if not, let me catch you up and fill you in. So our love space is the is kind of the universe that we are creating with the love of our life, with our partner, that, you know, includes kind of our work life balance, whatever that means. You know, people throw that term around, and I don't know that that is, you know, really something that is achievable again, that might be like happiness, right? Work life balance might be kind of like happiness, but we're always working towards it. But you never just in there and go, ah, that's it, right. Okay, so, but that's going to include that the work life balance, what our daily routines and functioning are, what, you know, moments that we want to have more of in life, what do we want to have less of? What actions are we trying, you know, to use to move towards, to get to a place where we are feeling connected, we are feeling loved, we are sharing love. Those are the things that we are looking for. Okay, that's what's going to create our love space. Our love space is our little universe that we are making on to ourselves. So it's helpful to have a clear vision for our love space, because it allows us, you know, like we were talking about last episode, it allows us to know what we're going what actions and what behaviors and what mindsets and what trains of thought are beneficial and help us lean towards or move towards the love space and the relationship and the things we want in life, and they help us to know what behaviors and actions and mindsets are going to help us lean away and move away from the love space and the relationship and connection that we want. Okay, so that helps us get clear on you know, you would be able to ask yourself in a moment, is this going to get me closer or farther away? And you would know the answer, okay? And so it helps us guide our little everyday action. So sometimes when we are trying to, and I don't like to use problem here, but sometimes when we're trying to fix a relationship problem, or we're trying to reconnect and mend our relationship, that we can get focused on big parts, right? Which is why I don't like date nights, per se, and I prefer mega moments of love, because we can get like, Oh, we're going to do these big things that are going to change. And it's actually really our little, small everyday actions that bring us the most change. So again, having a clear vision helps us realize what our small, everyday actions might be, and whether they're in alignment with where we want to go. It also helps us to hone in on the areas of where we want to grow, right? Is it our communication is that our affection is our kindfulness is our energy? For some people, it's going to be all four. For some people, it's going to be one and for for and then there's everything in between that, right? And it also helps us know where our strengths are, right? It helps us know what parts of our relationship and our connection are already strong, are still strong, are still there, right? And that's going to give us something to lean back on, right? That's going to give us something where we can you know, if your affection is still really good, like, you know you're still holding hands and you're still snuggling, and you're still cuddling and you're still having sex and all of those things. But you know, if there are any hiccups, they turn into a big fight, right? We would know that we can lean into that affection to help boost up, right? To help boost up our connection while we're working on our communication, right, or while we're working on our kindfulness. Are we, you know, know it,

are we receiving our messages kindfully, right? Are we knowing that that person has kind intentions? Are we able to be vulnerable with each other? Those are all things that we can, you know, either know that we need to stretch in, or that we can lean back on, okay? It's also going to guide us through what we want more of and less of in our relationship, right? So that's kind of when you know, sometimes you know, again, like, when I talk about values, it's like all values are inherently, you know, I guess good or like, are inherently whatever, right? It all depends how they play out and whether they're in alignment and things like that. You know it again, when we're doing our values work, it can seem overwhelming and confusing, because they all seem good, right? They can all seem good. We all want to have all of the we all want to be doing all of those, like 50 things, or how many ever are in a values deck. But we can't do all of them, and so we really have to find out. What are the things that resonate with us? What do we really want more of sometimes when, you know, we look at our couple friends and things like that, or, you know, people out in the world, or we might think back to our parents relationships or other relationships that we've seen that our. Successful or or not successful, that we might be like, Oh, that's what I want. And then sometimes you get that and you're like, oh, actually, it's not really for me. This didn't really bring me very like, more joy or more delight, or things like that. And so in that case, we really need to hone in on what we want more and less of that really resonates with us, and not just what we think a relationship should have more or less of, or not just what our parents had more or less of and that we should imitate, that it's really what is going to work for you in your dynamic with the love of your life and in an in your life routine, right? Our life routines are probably different than our parents and different than my friends, and not everything works for everyone, right? So having this clear vision is going to give us all those things, plus it is going to increase the power of our positive anticipation. And I'm going to touch on that a bit later. I'm going to let that little tidbit hang there for you. So in making your vision for your love space, you are going to get to tap into the ways that you like to dream big. So for some people, this may mean that after you listen to this podcast, you're going to take a day or two, maybe more, maybe less, and just like, kind of ruminate on this, and let's sit in the back of your brain and, you know, take some things and maybe have some chats before you get onto this step. Some people are going to be able to jump in right away. But how do you normally dream big? How do you dream big? Do you like to do a vision board? Some people are doing, like the bingo cards. And I never even thought of this, because that's like, a little bit too maybe goal oriented, but you could think of something like that if you wanted, you know, a brainstorm. I love a good brainstorm that really works well for me, because I get to write whatever ideas are popping into my brain, and I don't have to give them any organization or prioritization or anything like that. Makes me feel very free. But brainstorming is not for everyone. Sometimes that's too loose and it's, it's not, maybe not enough guidance, right? Some people like to do lists. Maybe you want to do a vision for your love space in Pinterest. I don't know whatever is going to work for you. You really want to think about how you want to tap into your creativity, to tap in to your skills of dreaming big and then taking time, and, like I said, dream big, because you know, this could be your vision for your love space that you want six months from now, a year from now, and then maybe you'll revisit it. Or this could be a vision that you want for your love space for the next five years, 10 years, 20 years. I don't know. It depends how big you want to dream, right? But I always love when I work with couples and we create a vision, a place of where we want to go, a destination that we want to just, you know, pretend like if we could wave a, what a magic wand. Don't even think about what's possible and not possible in this, you know, brainstorming kind of idea stage, just like, think of like, what would be so amazing. Do that big dream? Don't get caught up into whether it's possible or that person, you know, my love of sometimes wouldn't be things are, you know, really not. Okay, you know, sometimes the couple dynamic ends up being some person, they want to dream big, but they are already jumping to conclusions about how the other person will turn it down, or that's not for them, or whatnot. Okay, let's pause on that because that we want to dream big for this one about where our relationship is going and is going to take you. And we're taking and by taking this opportunity to do this, this moment, this time to pause, you're taking the opportunity to really connect back with yourself, and to connect back with each other as a couple, and to connect to your values and your couple's values, to connect back to your feelings of joy, your feelings of fun, your feelings of excitement, your feelings of peace, your feelings of calm, of relaxation, of all of those positive feelings that we would probably owe like more of in our life and in our daily routines, right? That is what we are giving the opportunity for ourselves to touch base with, to connect with, to try to come into alignment with. And so I really want you to put feelings or words into your brainstorms, into your list, in to this idea piece, this envisioning piece that have to deal with your feelings, with your inner place. For some people have more like body feelings, like they'll be like, oh, I want to feel relaxed, or I want to feel like a weight is lifted off me, or I want to feel like we're moving freely together, right? Or I want to feel like I use the word feeling, but I want my body to have that feeling, that I want to move towards that person and connect with them, like I want to hold hands, all of those kind of things. Some people use more feelings words, like, I want to feel joy or delight. I want to laugh, right? So put those words in there, because that is part of what makes up your love space, right? It's not just the actions. It's not just like, I want to go on weekly, have weekly mega moments of love plan, which is fantastic, but it's like, what's that everyday feeling you have? Because what we're trying to come up with here for our love space is what our baseline is going to be so known. Last episode, we talked about baseline and how it's easy for us to slip back into baseline, and what we want to be trying to move forward to is this love space, this baseline in our love space that feels good, that feels positive, that feels nurturing and supportive, right? And then we can, we can always add to that, right? But we want, we want our love space. I want your love space to be a place that you look forward to being in. I want you to be in a universe with the love of your life, that you that your baseline is great, right? It's great to be there with them. Okay, so you know this brainstorm again now that you have completed it, okay, so you can walk away you haven't completed at this moment. So once you can kind of complete this list, whether it's, like I said, whether you're a visual pictures person, and you want to on Pinterest, and you're going to have pictures and words cool font that are kind of envisioning what you want your love space to be, whether it's a list, whether it's a full on, you know, brainstorm, like you do in elementary school, you know, whatever it is for you, whether it's a vision board and you're printing pictures and you're really tactile and you're gluing things on and taping things up and or making a, you Know, a collage, whatever it is that's going to tap into your creativity and your joy for this exercise, that's what you're going to do. And once we have done this, we are, I want your brain to sit with it for a little bit before we start to move on to this next piece. Now, again, for some of you, that means maybe like doing that brainstorm, that vision board, that whatever, walking away, you know, making dinner and then coming back to it. But to do the writing piece, some people you know, you might need a day or two to really let those ideas, let that vision, let those thoughts sit and ruminate. Okay, now for some people who are in a place with the love of their life, where you are in a place where you are able to be free and to be vulnerable and to connect with each other, then that means that you are in a place where you can probably do that brainstorming piece, that vision board, that Pinteresting together, unless you have two totally Different styles, then, you know, do it side by side, but do it in your own style. Or maybe we'll be flexible on styles, whatever works for you guys if you are not in a place to be honest and open and vulnerable, because I don't want people again if we're not quite in that place, I don't want people to make the mistake of, oh, well, we tried to brainstorm together, but I was too, too scared or worried to say the feelings and the things I actually want for our love space. And it ended up becoming a bit one sided, or, you know, it ended up maybe not being as open and honest as conversation as it could be, okay.

And if you're there, maybe there's a few steps we need to do together before maybe we're making our vision for our love space. But you know, you can always DM me on Instagram at sparked forever, or through Tiktok at sparked underscore forever, and we can touch base, and I can let you know the best place to start. I'm always happy to help that way. So once we have, and if you are, have done it apart, and it's gone well, this is your time to come back together and to collaborate. Share your list, share your Pinterest boards, share all of those things, and then come and then you're gonna come together for this part. Now this part, get out your pen and paper, get out your little phone to write a note in wherever you want to do this also, you know, just note the time and come back and listen to this part. But I'm going to give you some writing prompts, because we are going to write this out in black and white. So our writing prompts are our love space feels are our love. Space is okay. So this is where you're going to write down those feelings, but those this is also where you can write down those more bodily experiences for those of you who are more tactile, and this is, I give you guys this range, just so that it can tap into everyone's brains and how everyone's brains experience the world, right? Some of us experience things more through those emotion words, and some of us experience things more through how our body feels right and and what it feels like it wants to do in the actions it wants to do. So whatever works for you and your statements, because maybe you're two but you are two different people, but maybe you're not, you know, super aligned in how you experience the world in those ways. And so then. Your statement can have a few feelings words, and it can have a few of more of those body, tactile, action space words, whatever works for you guys. Okay? And the next one is going to be our love space values. And then you're going to fill in two to five things that your love space values. Again, some of you this is going you're going to hear this prompt, and you're going to want to put in things that are very maybe more black and white and concrete and specific, like our love space values mega moments of love are consistent, mega moments of love, our love space values physical affection. Our love space values us staying healthy and fit together so that we can, you know, be very functional in life. Okay? Some of you, your brain will go to that, and that is perfect. And if that's where your brain goes, fill in your your little sentence like that, and it's okay. If it's run on sentence, don't, don't worry about it. So this is not English homework, okay, well, and for some of you your when I say values, it will go right to kind of more of those more concrete, more black and white, like single word things like we have on values cards. And what I'm going to do is I will put in the show notes, but I will make a PDF of values cards that I just made available to all of you guys for free through my little teachable website, or through my little teachable link. So if you have not done values cards work and you're interested in it, then those are there. You can print them out. There's little instructions with it. If you want some more in depth instruction on how to do the values cards, then I believe one of my episodes from September, we went through how to, you know, go through the values cards and really how to align your values with each other. And if that's something, if that's a little fun exercise that you need to do before you kind of jump into this, then 100% go for it. I'll put it in the show notes. What episode that is, because I can't remember off the top of my head, okay? And the next statement that, or the next little sentence prompt I have for you is our love space has lots of and this is where I gonna let you go crazy again, maybe three, three to six things here. I mean, if you want to add more, go for it for some of you, three will be a stretch. For some of you, six is just not enough. And again, I want this to suit your you know, your dynamic together, your brains, the way that you really want your love space to look. So don't let me, you know, stifle your creativity. But the reason why I say maybe we'll cap out at six is because, again, if you have 100 things you want your love space to be that can sometimes be overwhelming and difficult to get to. So a little bit more clear and concise, we can get a little bit more honed in. We can get the easier we be to get there, and we can always add more later. We can grow our universe infinitely, right? It's non finito, as we talked about in the last episode, our love space is non finito. Our love for each other is non finito. So, you know, there's, there's no end to it, and these three statements are really just the beginning. We will get more clear and concise through the next few episodes, because in the next few episodes, we're actually going to dive into more specific details about our love space and about our about the cake we want for it, right? What piece of cake do we want for our love space? So again, you know, that's our communication. How what do we want more or less of with our communication? What do we want more or less of with our affection? What do we want more of with our kindfulness? I actually for our affection and kindfulness, I don't think we can. We should. There should be things we want lots of, but you never know. And our energy, what do we want more of for our energy to be like in our love space? And that's going to when we dive into those pieces. That's going to really help us make our vision for our love space fuller. It's going to really help us pull out the details and hone in about then where we need the skills, right? What skills and support and other pieces that we need in order to be able to grow this love space and to be able to reconnect and rekindle? So let's hop back for a moment to something I mentioned earlier, which was the power of positive anticipation. So the power of positive anticipation, it that came out. There's a few studies about it, but there's a particular study in the Journal of positive psychology, and what they talked about in there is the idea of people who have something to look forward to, if there's something that you can that is going to be positive, that you are anticipating to happen or to come to you, that that actually gives you more positive feelings and less stress in your life as you're anticipating or looking forward to. Thing to come. So, you know, in their examples, they're thinking like people who have planned a vacation, when you're looking forward to that vacation, you're actually experiencing less stress in your life and more instances of general positive emotions, right? And if, as we know, if you are experiencing more instances of general positive emotions in your life and less stress, you are more able, right? You are more able and more equipped to deal with the hiccups, to deal with the tough conversations, right, to deal with the things that come up in everyday life, rather than it being the straw that broke the camel's back, right? And that can happen so often in our relationships, and we have de prioritized them when things are rough and bumpy and we're maybe not really each other's support system, then any small hiccups that are coming up are really much more detrimental than they need to be to our dynamic into the way we connect. Okay, so the power of positive anticipation. So if we have something to look forward to that we're going to have less stress and more positive emotions, more instances of positive emotions. Now imagine what that could mean if you look forward to being in your love space, if you look forward to being at home at the end of the day, or whatever your schedules are, being home with your love of life and that that's something to look forward to, that's something that's comforting, calming, relaxing, right? Maybe our work life we maybe we can't always choose those those pieces, or maybe we're not at the place we exactly want to be. But imagine if our love space is something where we're looking forward to. We're looking forward to having dinner with the love of our life. We're looking forward to going to the gym with them. We're looking forward to having a snuggle with them on the couch. We're looking forward, even if you're looking forward to bedtime with them, like you know, in my in my love space, snuggling and cuddling is very important to us, and sometimes I'm even looking forward to bedtime, because that means we need to get we get to get into a snuggle and, like, stay stuck into it for a little while. And that is just fills me with so much joy, so much delight, really, that that is something that I can look forward to. Now imagine if we have these small moments, these things that maybe we take for granted as actual moments of anticipation in our day that will be amazing, that is going to lower our stress and increase our instances of positive emotion, just those small moments in life that happen to happen every day that probably are already part of our routine. These are the little things that we are like we were talking in about last episode. These are the little things that we can lean into like, Wow. I can actually think I am looking forward to have, you know, to watching that show tonight and and snuggling it, that it is a quality time and a physical affection moment, and I am looking forward to that. I almost can't wait to be finished eating dinner, because that's the part I want to get to

that is going to be so beneficial, not just for our reconnection, but for just our general love space, our general personal happiness, our general, you know, positive emotions and being energized, to be able to put energy into the places that maybe need it when the hiccups come up, it's those small, simple moments that can really change us the most, and it's those small, simple things that are really going to be able to keep us sparked.