Hey there, Jen here, and this is a happy bit. Today I'm going to share five tips that will help you

strengthen your marriage or your partnership. And why do we need to do this? Well, as we all know,

if we're not investing in improving our relationships, if we're not moving forward, we tend to move

backward. And I don't know about you, but I like to move forward in the emotional intimacy and in the

communication. So I have five quick and easy tips you can try this week. First, the big one,

I want to encourage you to stop shaming your partner and to have a conversation with your

partner about shame so they will hopefully stop shaming you. My husband and I recently started

adding the word shame to our communication pattern. You know, we all probably have criticized a spouse

or been criticized by a spouse or pointed out the flaws or just been otherwise negative.

And we realized all of these emotions where you cause another person to feel less than

or not good enough are elements of shame, which is actually the lowest vibration emotion

you can have.

The top being unconditional love, the bottom being shame.

Why do we want to avoid shame? Well, think back to when you were a kid and a teenager. And I remember once thinking, gosh, I just wish my parents would

see that I'm amazing. That's all I really want is to have someone adore and appreciate me.

And I think it's true for all of us. We want to be adored and appreciated.

So a good first step for that is cutting out shame. And to say to your partner, when it's happening,

oh, you're shaming me. Could you try saying that a different way and add that to your conversation?

Step two is to have a weekly marriage meeting there is actually a book called the marriage meeting

where you meet for half an hour or an hour each week and just discuss your marriage you can set up

some ground rules so you're not getting too critical or defensive but healthfully pointing out

what's good in your marriage and maybe sandwiching that one thing you want to work on

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