Hello lovely,
I am so psyched about today’s first exercise. Picking what was not great about yesterday (which I had let go of already as I put it down to a minor annoyance) and then figuring out how to turn it around and telling a story about it helped me to realize that I wasn’t very kind to my boyfriend when his response to my telling him I would be walking daily for 20 min wasn’t what I thought it should be. Of course, I proceeded to tell him, “babe, a better response would have been to say ‘I’m so happy and proud of you that you are taking care of yourself. Good on you.'”
In turning it around I’m realizing it was a classic case of his love language–in that he likes to give acts of service and take care of me. So his telling me all about how I need to take it easy and make sure I don’t do too much at once and make sure I stay hydrated, etc was his way of showing his love/taking care of me from afar (long distance relationship of sorts). I totally realized that my response was not what I would want to it be when I reframe the event from this new perspective and see that it was all coming from a place of love, and that I wasn’t very loving back. And that if not for this exercise, having already put it on the mental annoyance column and let it go, I would have missed the opportunity to practice some love and caring back in response to that which was given to me.
So the first thing I did is send an email to him thanking him for his loving and caring response and acknowledging how much I love that he thrills in taking care of me.
Great start to the month. YES!!!!