How often do you ask yourself that question? I’m guessing not often. So what would your answer be? Or are you afraid to say it outloud? I am sometimes- no lie! Sometimes conversations that women have about intimacy can become very disrespectful and negative. Those words can not only discourage a woman, but hurt the very marriage she vowed one day to honor. But what if the conversation was different? What if we took a look at God’s opinion about sex? Did you know He has one? Now is a great time to join in on the discussion. Whether you are married or single, I am guessing that the issues surrounding sexuallity in your mind are full of confusion. You are not alone. Starting Wednesday, July 9th
at 9:00pm 10 Week Group for women PASSION PURSUIT: What Kind of Love are you making? includes DVD training from the authors, workbook & group coaching We will be meeting at my home and it will be part study, part group coaching as we partner together to design the intimacy in our marriages that we all long for. For more information, click here. If you have questions- and I’m sure you do, just email me at kathy@greenhopecoaching.com To sign up, click here! This is one conversation I’m looking forward to. How about you?
Category Archives: Communication
Just when you need it most!
The month of January I have ‘set aside’, so to speak, to regain some strength from all of last year! I know, I’ve mentioned that a lot already. But I have used much of this month to ponder what the rest of my year will be devoted to. It has not only been extremely refreshing for me- but very insightful.
Well, last night, as we were getting ready for bed, I asked Ren to look at a draft of what I call my “Ideal Week”. I was challenged to do the exercise by Michael Hyatt (want to know more- go to http://michaelhyatt.com/081-how-to-create-more-margin-in-your-crazy-busy-life-podcast.html ) (Good exercise by the way!!!)
The article talks about the need for margin in the middle of our crazy, busy lives. While I am not experiencing that this month, I have and will again soon. His suggestion was to fill out a schedule of what that ideal week would look like. Now he’s very aware of the things that interrupt our lives and keep ideal weeks from happening. But he makes a great point, “Life is a long-distance run not a sprint. If you and I are going to be effective over the long-term, we have to create margin and pace ourselves.”
We must be intentional.
So I copied off Michael’s example that is available at his blog, and fashioned it for my own. You can too! Just click on the picture. It will take you to Michael’s post. Scroll down and you will find some links to an Excel spreadsheet or a .pdf file so you can view what he did,
What was interesting was that I thought Ren would look at my schedule, and see that I was being quite intentional about pacing myself in the ‘getting work done’ aspect. I had a regular wake up time each day and a work day planned. Not to mention my extra events in the evenings and weekends included. I intend to make my business work and therefore, must plan my work.
But he pondered it for just few minutes and said, “No, no, no- you don’t have enough margin planned in your week. If you try to do all this, you will be exhausted by Wednesday. For one thing, you need to not push to be up with an alarm every week day. You don’t work well if you don’t have some days where your body can just wake up when it needs too.
Now that’s a very true statement. But I felt like he thought that was just my lazy way of doing life for the last few years, and I needed to kick it in gear now that I’m working on my own. But suddenly my husband, who is up hours before me and often at work for a while on one of my good days, gave me permission to do life and business like I need to do life and business.
There was a time in my life, when giving myself ‘margin’ still allowed me to get up earlier and work longer and weekends. But now, with the limitations I deal with at this point in my health- that does not work for me.
Just when I needed it most, he reminded me to BE ME! Even though his need for margin and pace is so very different from mine, he was seeing me! Knowing me! Giving me permission to do it my way! As I allow for the ‘margins’ that my health needs, I’m actually stronger in every other way.
How about you? What are the margins you need to be allowing in your life, so that you are stronger elsewhere?
What permissions do you need to be giving those you love? How can you encourage them to BE themselves? Where can you help them create margin so they can be stronger?
Who knows, you might offer a tremendous gift, just when they need it most!
Thanks Rennie!
Place of Beginning Again!
Marriage is full of seasons; of times in our life that are adjustments ‘places of beginning again’
Ren & I are at such a place. Both of our girls have recently married. We are officially empty nesters- though our girls haven’t lived at our house for a while now.
We felt that more than we expected, With greater intensity- as Brie & Jason left for their honeymoon and Cait & Jack returned to their new home as 2 month old newlyweds, we were very aware of that empty nest. There was great sadness that came with that.
But the sadness was soon replaced with the awareness that we are ‘two again’. While we love our girls and their new husbands dearly, they are beginning their own lives, their own chapters. They are making their own choices. While we talk often with them, it’s time for Ren and I to think TWO NEW.
It’s been an interesting process. We’ve had many conversations, spiritual conversations.
We’ve pondered our 8 lane highway
Spiritual Growth
Family
Professionally
Personally
Physically
Financially
Socially
Globally
As I’ve looked at my vision- I then talked with Ren about what he wants to be true in each area.
It is interesting to hear us process. We are not “two again” like we were when we first got married.
We are “TWO NEW” for the first time in our 50’s.
We are “TWO NEW” for the first time in the sandwich generation – love and care for our parents, love and care for adult children.
It’s a new place- a different place. What do we want to be true of us in this place? We’re not dead yet, we have a lot of life ahead of us. What do we want to be true in the next place of life?
What do you want to be true for you?
Let’s talk! Add a comment below
You would think by now!!!
Last week, I had one of those AHA moments. Actually it was more like “DUH!” with a big smack on the forehead to go with it! Ren & I have been married 33 years now. We dated 5 years before that! You would think by now,we would have figured out our relationship to the point that nothing ‘new’ would jump out at us. But there it was, and I almost had to laugh!
I’m a life and relationship coach, right? I ask a lot of questions by trade, but that’s been a part of who I am for most of my life. If you know me, you know that. You can only imagine what it’s like to be married to me! Ren is most often gracious when it comes to the barrage of questions that come flying at him at the end of a day. He doesn’t always think to tell me things that I would be interested in knowing, so I’ve learned to ask. And he’s learned to stop and think about the day so he can share it, rather than just blasting through it and on to the next.
The problem comes when my questions seem to hit a nerve. I can’t help it if sometimes my questions are used by the Holy Spirit to prompt him to think about what God might be saying to him in the moment. (Yeah, I know, Ren didn’t fall for that either.)
Well, Ren’s really good at being a student of me. He works hard to know who I am, what my love languages are and trying to think of me during the day. He can tell when I answer the phone if I’m feeling strong or not. No, he’s not perfect at it- but he does work hard. He often asks me what I need from him! I don’t always know, so I have to think about it.
The past couple of weeks have been very busy! Ren’s been dealing with some changes at work and I’ve been focused on the LEISHA’S HOPE event. So this past weekend, we were both feeling the need to reconnect with each other. We both know that a good time of physical intimacy would take care of Rennie’s need, but…! I was really struggling!
‘So what do you need from me? ”
“I… I need… I need you to… I need you to ask me questions!” That’s it! That’s what you would think I would know by now!
I’m asking Rennie questions, because I love questions. I’m loving Rennie like I need to be loved, but not in the way he needs to be loved. I need Rennie to love me like I try to love him- by asking questions. I need him to care about me enough to want to know not just what happened in my day, (which he often asks about) but, more importantly, how it affected me. One of my love languages is quality time- but to be more specific, it’s quality conversations, which includes quality questions. Of course, all that is assuming that quality listening is connected to that.
I often hear people say, “I never know what to ask!” I understand. Some of us are just think that way. But I didn’t start out being good at them. I loved them, but I didn’t always know what to ask, and still don’t. Often we just need a couple of things to get the conversation going, whether it is with our spouse, family member or even a complete stranger. So I created a question prompter. Click here for your own copy. I practice my questions ahead of time, so when the opportunity presents itself, I have some ready. You can too! Pick out a couple that you know will get things rolling.
So what was your favorite…?
(book, part of the movie, genre to listen to) That’s a great place to start.
Or
How did you feel about … ?
Ren doesn’t like that one too much, but I love it! You know your spouse- you’ll figure it out soon enough.
My favorite is:
What are you hearing God saying to you today?
So it may not seem like a huge deal to you! But would your spouse love for you to ask them questions? It seems we get so caught up with ‘just the facts’, and we never take the time to seek to understand what those facts are doing to us or to them!
How often do we try to love someone, only to feel like that love is rejected or at least not appreciated. When in reality, we are loving as we long to be loved. If they did to us what we are doing to them, we would be thrilled. But they are not!
We’ll talk more about LOVE LANGUAGES in the future (cause I’m reading the book right now). But in the mean time, how about planning some time each day to sit with your spouse and ask a question. See what happens! You might be surprised!
Ren was!