Dealing With Time Related Stress

In this webinar replay, from the 7th of Nov 18, we shared the following tools:

• Holiday Stress
• Main sources of stress
• How to overcome time related stress
• The Mapping Meeting
• Work Life Balance
• Family Time Guilt
• The Venting Conversation

Transcript of the webinar about Dealing with Time Related Stress by the Generous Marriage Podcast Team

Hello. Hello? Hello? I’m Zv. Oh, Zeev Raviv and I’m excited to be here together with you. Shachar. Hello, how are you? Shachar. I’m great. Really excited to be here. Thank you. And as always, we meet and we talk about stuff related to the generous marriage principles and the idea that you can actually build a good marriage. You know what I have to, before we start this webinar about time management and like how to reduce stress about time, you know what the other, like just today, someone told me on Facebook that marriage is fake and it’s never, it’s, it’s impossible to have a marriage that is successful. What would you say about that? That that’s sad. And that’s not true. It’s actually really possible within learn the tool so much. Most of us. So there is some learning curve, but it’s really possible. And you know, a couple of is super useful in helping in that.

So yeah. Yeah. I told him that like, Oh man, we’ve seen it happen, happening so many times that it works. Like it can work. It’s not, it doesn’t mean it’s easy. It doesn’t mean it has to work. Right, but it can. Right. And it’s not easy, but it can. And when it works, it’s one of the most nourishing experiences people can have. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Let’s share our presentation for today. Uh, we have a lot to cover. Let’s see. I think we are, so we have, uh, some and ourselves here to help you to discuss the topic of time-related stress. And this is a topic that, you know, it’s those feelings of, Oh man, it’s December, it’s the holiday season. There’s so much stuff that you want to achieve and to finalize and to buy and so many people as you’re about to meet. And it’s all very stressful. And so we started the, this idea of what, uh, what are the main hurdles that people have in their marriages and in their lives within this, this, this big month of December.

And just a few weeks ago we started with talking about the actual family gathering. We did a webinar about that two weeks ago. We did one about money, money, money, money. You know, people who spent so much money in December and there are ways to actually spend less money and still be generous with your family. We covered those in two weeks from now, two weeks ago. You can actually see that on the generousmarriage.com site. And today it’s the third corner in the triangle of stress. That is great. That is like very popular in, in these days, uh, specifically, you know, in December. Um, so holiday stress. Yes. And we want you to know that even if you’re watching this outside of the context of December, end of the holidays stress, obviously those tactics are going to be very practical for you in reducing time related stress. So, Shachar how do you feel like we should start? Is it good timing? Are you ready? I am. Let’s do this. Awesome.

So let’s first of all, make sure that people are on the right in the right place. And uh, first of all, if you are a married individual, um, then or, even if your co, you know, committed to someone in a relationship, definitely the work to be valuable for you. You’re in the right place. If you are one of those people like Shachar you have how many kids? Two kids, two kids. I have three of them. We just had a ball today. We’re going to, to, to a show together and like, but it is stressful to manage everything, you know. Walk in balance with your wife and your career. So if you are one of those people that has a lot of monkeys that you carry, which I am talking about like you know, responsibilities, you’re in the right place. Um, if you have these, you know, concern, let’s just say concern that maybe, um, you’re not, you’re not going to have enough time to get everything done this season. It’s not going to happen. You’re a bit concerned about it then. Oh man, that’s a good place to be here right now. Also, if you’re totally terrified about not having enough time to get everything done this season, then boy, oh boy, we are going to, uh, give you some ideas that, uh, that can help you with that. And we want to. So also, if you just know it’s going to be very stressful and it, it’s, it’s, it’s okay. We’re not going to fix the stress and make it all go away, but even just reducing it to a certain level of these easy, yeah, yeah, yeah. That is a thing that will be worth it. Um, and uh, yeah. Like if you are a one of those people that are listening to the generous marriage podcast, then thank you. And you’re in the right place because you know that we are trying to create a situation where many, many couples all over the world, uh, living a generous marriage. Amen. So we are stating as always by sharing a bit of value for you. Maybe you’re busy, you know, hey, maybe people are under some time, uh, stress and some time constraints. So we’re going to give you fleet tips that immediately are going to help you in, uh, fighting and reducing the stress. And those three tips. I’m going to be later on expanded in the Webinar, but maybe you want to be here.

Importance of Mapping or Scheduling Your Task 

So here they are. So first of all, it’s about mapping. That’s the first key to unlock a reduced stress state. And the idea is, is actually, you know, something, you can use in many, many situations where you’re stressed, which is doing the list. I had a conversation about this with Houghton, my wife just uh, before we started today and she actually said, you know, hey, I love this. I like, like I love writing a list of all the things that I have on my mind and it helps me to come down with just an amazing way to self soothe you. But if you are mapping your tasks for, for the holiday season, try to see, uh, in this map, you know, what are some of your scheduled tasks, like things that are just scheduled base and bounded for a specific date. And, uh, what are those tasks that are just normal tasks? It needs to be done but not on a specific date. And by mapping them, you already are starting to understand better who can do what. You can delegate some things to your spouse or even you can cancel one of those things. Yeah.

The second tip is about plan for failure. And what we mean by that is being prepared for challenges. Sitting together with your spouse, with your partner and visioning. where might it be challenging and what can you do together? What can you do to support each other? How will you handle it? And of course you can predict everything, but you can predict most of the challenges and you can feel more, more prepared. And then when they come in, usually when you feel prepared, they’re actually much less challenging. And even if there’s a couple of failures, a couple of challenges that you weren’t prepared for, something in the preparation, helps manage those challenges as well. And we will discuss this in more details on how to do this, uh, conversation. Uh, what did you want to say? Like, uh, to expand. Yeah, that’s actually what I wanted to say. To talk more about it, Eh, in later slides. Yeah. And it’s, it’s quite interesting how if you plan for the failure by yourself, that will not make you a more relaxed. But if you do it together with your spouse, uh, you know, you listen to one another, you care about the end results. So you become a team to get. And I think that’s what I love about this tip, which, which works for me, uh, personally as well. Right? The first two tips are about that cause challenges are easier together.

Remember the Purpose of Family

Yes. And then tip number three is all about remembering the purpose, uh, and reminding ourselves about the purpose and the purpose. I, you know, it can be something very simple like, hey, family, family time. This is like, why do we work so hard if not to also have those moments that were we, we eat good food together and that we sit down together and maybe drink a glass of wine or something. Um, or, or you know, even she has some gifts. There’s a reason for that. It’s a, it’s a purpose. There’s a purpose for that and this family time, this idea of, of, of just thinking, reminding yourself why, why all of this mess is worth it is something that is really help, helpful in self soothing. Like actually writing down on a piece of paper. I love my family. I love my mom’s food. I dunno, like whatever it is. Some of the things that that makes you happy that, that, that are a good reason to wake up in the morning and go through this huge, huge mess that we call life. Remember that? Yeah. It’s kind of funny that how stressed we get over holidays over time, that shouldn’t be full of love and gratitude and fun and connection and just remembering it. That’s what it’s all about. Uh, can help reduce the stress. I know it just helps me get through Hannukah and you know, could have been more stressful if it, well, you know, when I forgot about, it’s all about bringing light and the connecting to my wife and the kids. Wonderful.

Date Night and Quality Time with Your Partner Should Be Scheduled

All right though the, our fourth tip in the three days that we give, it’s about date nights. We are huge fans of date, nights of scheduled time to get together with your partner and just have quality time. Doesn’t really matter. What’s the date for you? It doesn’t have to be going to a restaurant or a movie. It can be a a date night at home. It can be a walk in the park. But it’s about quality time. And here we expanded to everyone. To having quality time, not just with your spouse, not just with your partner but also with other people that are important to you probably are kids. Maybe there’s some other relative that you’re worried that you won’t have enough time with. So schedule a couple of hours with them. That’s something about scheduling it in your calendar. Makes it happen. Yup. And this is something that you can do. You can schedule this to January, you can schedule it to, you know, prior to Christmas, um, or you know, on a day that originally you weren’t supposed to meet someone but now you have this date with them. It can be with your daughter, with your wife, you with your mom. And the fact that it’s only the they’re scheduled is going to relieve a lot of stress. But we do have a 54 you guys, and this is something that is mmm. It’s, it’s a, it’s an actual tool that is used in therapy but also in business a lot.

And it’s all about changing the story of, of what you’re telling yourself. Um, and this is, this is a tool that, uh, you know, it’s quite complicated to do it, uh, methodically, but the principle of it is just golden. Um, and it’s basically, you know, the idea of asking yourself, uh, asking yourself, what is the story that you’re telling yourself? So for example, you feel stressed. So ask yourself, well, why, why do you feel stressed? What is it that you are concerned that will maybe happen? And then, uh, you’ll, you want to tell the story in a different way that will make it a story form a hurdle into an opportunity. So for example, from telling yourself where, uh, like let’s say you’re very concerned about, I’m not spending enough time on talking with mom. And that means the story you’re telling yourself is that a mom will be upset. Okay. Uh, and his mom will not, uh, appreciate you as a good child that loves, that loves your mom. So the story that you’re telling yourself is basically it, it is an opportunity to understand, oh, I really do care about my mom and I want to to, to connect with her the connect that this relationship is important for me.

And then you can start to look for, for a solution like maybe the date night. Like have a date night with your mom or maybe you know, a solution of some other type of like the ICU gifts that we’ve discussed on the previous Webinar. And so by sitting down and asking yourself, what is the story and how can I change the story into something in my life that is real, but that is positive. Um, that is, uh, something that, uh, pretty much, uh, I do it every day. And in therapy we use it a lot. We call it to reframing. And it’s about finding the light spots. You know, the, what’s good about this thing that’s coming up at that I don’t feel so good about, and finding the angles that make it actually a fun, fulfilling, challenging in a good way. Yep. And sometimes it’s all about the point of view. So like you’re feeling stressed because maybe you’re worried that your boss is very demanding and stuff like that. But just telling yourself the same story from the point of view of your boss. Allows you to suddenly feel a little bit more relaxed about it because you understand where he’s coming form. So you might still not managed to get everything done on time, but at least you see them, atleast, you understand why they care about what they care. Um, so that’s, that’s uh, all about changing the story in your hand to do that. Well, we’ve spent a lot of times in the free tips.

So, and we have a lot to cover, so uh, but we are going to do everything within the hour and a, because we, if we’re doing a webinar about time stressed, I will, it is so stressed. Better not to take too much of your time as well. And so the agenda for today, what is time related stress. We will go a little bit deeper on understanding why, who suffers from this is this common. Um, and uh, trying to just understand a bit of the causal of the, of the fixed that caused, um, the time related to stresse. Uh, then we will share with you some information, some private information about us, the dude’s behind the generous marriage podcast. And then we will give you three ways to overcome the main hurdles related to time related stress. So there’s like 20 different reasons to be stressed about time in December, but we’ve grouped them into three main, very popular, uh, and common groups of hurdles. And we will have a, um, a small dessert at the end related to the principle of the generous partnership armor. Shachar? How are you ready? I am ready. Awesome. Let’s do this. Yes. Give it, give it, give it to us. What is holiday stress?

Lack of Time and Lack of Money-The Leading Holiday Stressor

So a few years ago, the American psychological association did a survey about a holiday stress. Really, uh, really, uh, cool. A comprehensive document they created. And they found that, uh, the leading holiday stressor is lack of time. People are most worried, 67% of people, two thirds of people are, are worried that they won’t have enough time in the holiday season.

The other main, um, the stressors are gift giving and lack of, of, of money in the holiday gathering itself. And we covered that. Those in other webinars, you can check them online. Yeah, in generousmarriage.com/webinars and today where we wrote about the time stress. I was shocked by how common this is. Really common. Um, it’s amazing. And so give us a few of the of the topics that creates stress. Yeah. Just reading this list is stressful. So people get worried about having to buy gifts and prepare holiday meals and enjoy your holiday festivities with family, and go to holiday celebrations at work and go to holiday celebrations at the kids’ schools or preschools and send holiday cards and work life balance. Meaning they’re worried that work will interfere with family time. Yeah. And work related pressure. You know, there’s the year and expectations and the holiday celebration. And how are we gonna, how am I gonna meet all these expectations or my goals this year?Hello? Yes. Uh, quite, quite, uh, quite a list. And uh, this is what Santa’s gives you all of the stress. That we, we, we all suffer from this all over the world and there is a way to, to reduce the stress.

Who is the team behind the Generous Marriage Podcast?

So before we go into understanding some of the ways we have three different, um, groups of ways that we will talk about, but first of all, please tell us a little bit about yourself.  So I’m, I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist, a in California and in Israel. I used to live in California and Berkeley for seven years. And now I live in Israel with my family and with my wife for 13 years, we have two beautiful kids, almost seven year old boy and a two and a half year old girl. Yeah. And my passion in life is about helping couples fall in love again. I really, yeah, there’s a lot of nourishment by the, by doing my job. I love it. He’s like a really, uh, for me, every time you say tell you, like I said, I feel the, the moment. I really think it’s cute and important that you have this, uh, this, this real desire to help. I think, you know, you can cook a burger without caring about each taste and you can, you can do it with every single piece of, of the details in the prep, um, and caring about it. And, and when you, uh, when you, when you meet people and, uh, help them and provide your therapist’s service, uh, that’s, you really do see them as human beings and you really do try to connect them, reconnect them that, that’s wonderful. How about you ZV?

I am businessmen and I ran free online schools and podcasts. Um, I married my sweetheart, uh, my high school sweetheart, uh, water them and you can see her pictures with my three kids. Uh, and I’ve learned in business that the balance between your life and your spouse, your and, your walk, you’re walking to your spouse and those, that the destroyer of you know, your connection with your spouse and your business and your kids. All of that affects each other in a surprisingly huge way. So if you, if you are interested in business and you see some block in front of you and you have this real feeling that you have a glass barrier or glass ceiling in on top of you, there is, there is a reason for that glass ceiling. And there’s a good chance that by creating a very strong foundation with your wife, the foundation of the generous marriage, uh, principles, uh, then suddenly you’ll get some breakthroughs in business. And this is my point of view. And together we share, we complete each other in creating generous marriage podcast, giving you practical ideas on how to create a generous marriage.How to build it, how to nurture it. And Andy for sure how to fall in love again. And today we’re going to use both of our skills, my skills as a therapist. And your skills as a businessman that do this.

 

How to Overcome Time Related Stress?

So we’ll start with explaining what is the overall three groups of problems. Uh, those are, you know, the, the stress which is created because you want to get everything good done. Getting everything done is probably the number one way of explaining what, what is the stress here. You know, we have just so much to do and we want to get everything done. And we’ll talk about that. There’s also a second group which is people that know that they’ll spouse or themselves is going to be affected by walk. And then the whole stress comes from actually the balance between work and life. And we will talk about a few of the ways to overcome that. And then the third coop that is extremely popular when you know, on the research that you’ve, you’ve done, um, Shachar was fine. Family time, family time guilt, um, and you know, you know that you’re not going to spend as much time with the people that you love and the people that you want to spend time with or that you know, you might be affected in certain ways. So you feel guilt in advance, when which creates stress in your life. And then we were going to suggest a few options on that as well. Okay. And you know, all of those three has a lot of, you know, you can actually just overcome these and feel better by using the venting conversation. We talk about it in the generous marriage podcast. We will mention it again today with a few tips.

The Mapping Meeting and Getting Everything Done Syndrome

So we’re going to start with the mapping meeting. The mapping meeting and the getting everything done, a syndrome. And uh, tell us a little bit about how, how can it a couple team up for this one, right? So I really want to talk about how important is team up. I said earlier that uh, as humans, it’s easier for us to face challenges when we feel that we’re not alone. It’s harder for us when we feel lonely. So this a meeting is not just about the mapping, it’s also about teaming up and remembering that we were a team. Me and my partner, man, my wife, man, that you know, you and you’re a spouse, you’re a team. You’re in it together and you’re going to support each other through this holiday season so you can have fun and enjoy and, and the feel, the love and the celebration that the holidays are all about. So there’s many ways to do it. Eh, we love starting with gratitude and the saying thank you to each other for how we support each other. And uh, you know, do whatever feels right to you, but make sure you feel like a team. Okay. When you start with this, it makes everything, yeah, easier when you’re connected. And I think that it’s really important to remember like 70% of the people are stressed because of time, right? So each might be, that your spouse is on the other side. It might be that your spouse, your spouse is on the 30% that are not stressed about this one. They are stressed about money. And just the fact that you’re stressed about time, they’re stressed about money.

This creates a lot of communication problems. You, you’re not talking the same language almost. So by teaming up and saying, Hey, I want to talk about time and stressed about this specific one and this might even flush the need to also talk about money. Which is fine because we have the other webinar that we did about that. And so just the fact that there’s a good chance that there’s a possibility that you’re not stressed about the same thing, but there’s also another option, which is that you are stressed about time, both of you. We’ll then being empathetic, you know, and, and sympathetic and like, and understanding that it’s not a competition. Right. It’s not like, oh, but I’m even more stress than you are because of, of, of, of all of my jokes or whatnot. And just add more stress. It’s more about connecting and supporting each other. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s like, it’s important to bring light into, into like the sun slides of being open and vulnerable and not criticize anyone. Just coming to this conversation saying, I want to share with you what I’m stressed about.

You know, and I want to heal what useless, stressed about. And if you’re going to tackle the time stress, then you need a map. And I think a bat or writing a plan for anything you do in life, anything you do in business is going to help you. Like planning. Like every week I asked myself, what’s the one thing I can do this week that will push me closest that I can to reaching my goals for the next two or three months? Every week I choose one big thing for my business, but I almost the first, almost almost every week, I didn’t, the first question I asked myself, well, how are you going to start working on this in this week? And the answer is almost always I’m going to write a map. I’m going to actually plan exactly the, all of the details of what am I going to achieve in this specific task. And so specifically for us with overcoming times stress you need a map view. You can, you can actually divide a piece of paper to, you know, family related events, and work related events. And a section for gifts for the gift that you need to buy intersection for Uh, all of the family gatherings with dates and everything. And that map by itself will help you understand that you won’t forget anything. Everything is here and you can start the work.

Now there are, uh, it’s a good idea to mark either with some pen or on a certain block, on the pain, on the, on your map, on your paper with what is time sensitive. And that is not what is not time sensitive. And the reason is that there’s a good chance that the start that is not time sensitive. You can delegate this. And we will talk about how to delegate stuff to your spouse in a minute. But already, I want you to start like breathing. It’s okay. You’re not going to do everything by yourself that, yeah. Can you say a little more? What’s not time sensitive. So you know, every, everything you do, eventually we’ll be done in December. Yeah. But some of the things are not, it’s okay if it’s on Monday or if it’s on Wednesday, as long as it’s before Friday. But there’s no, um, how commitment to do it on a date. So everything that is with another person usually has a specific date, a specific hour in Santa’s. Something that you do by yourself. You can pretty much like buy a gift for Jenny, uncle Jenny. You can do it today to Whoa. And you don’t have to do it by yourself. So just this initial eve approach is the first step. The first yes in the, uh, uh, chain of yeses that will eventually lead the situation to a situation where you’re not doing everything by yourself. Some of Jenny’s going to get a gift and you’re not going to buy it. Someone else is going to buy for you. Um, so that’s a part of the process.

And, and this is what I’m, you know, what we call letting go and it’s, uh, you know, I Salaam stone, she talks a lot about the, the, the sole notion of certifying your spouse. And this is something that, you know, let’s be honest, a lot of times, uh, men has to be certified by the spouse, by women on certain tasks. For example, once you know that your men can do certain task, like do the dishes correctly, then you let go. And you’re okay with them to do it. But if they were uncertified, by by  by You. By by by the women, then this creates stress for you. And this is actually quite, uh, quite common and it’s, it’s, it’s like biologically, uh, Eh, created by an instinct and it’s important. It’s good that it happens this way. It’s, uh, it’s all about, uh, many, many women behaving is gathering, feels like Barry gathers and they would actually need to pay attention to the process and the details of collecting exactly the right berry because some of the berries were poisonous and some of the berries were not tasty.

And if you’re bringing eh, Farwell poisonous or not tasty berry to your cave, to your spouse, you might die because you might be kicked off out of the cage of the cave. So all of these, you know, detailed attention to details that are a tendency that uh, many women have this tendency because of the, diffuse awareness that makes them want to certify people to make sure, especially men, to make sure they do it correctly. And we wants you to be aware of the situation, both of you guys and even consider letting girl just the season just on, on the gift for Jane, you know, find one, two, three tasks and taking them out of the list and give them to your spouse and death. Now you’re not going to worry about it any more. You know, it’s funny, it’s, it’s a deep wish of both men and women. Women wish that their men would be present enough for them to let go of all their responsibilities and men want that as well. We feel so a nourished when our wife trust us and we can provide for her and make her feel safe and happy and somehow that is still a, even though that’s what both Eh side a one, it’s still challenging. I think it’s challenging because, because of the way we see things, like as a hunter, we want to be protective to our, our spouse, but we’re also, we’re also quite busy in hunting and then we don’t want to be certified well in the middle of hunting something darling. Um, so, so yeah, there’s a lot of, uh, of conflict, potential conflict I think because of that.

Uh, and I want to tell you a story, quick story about a, it is a very popular, uh, uh, Jewish. Uh, so every kid in Israel knows it and uh, but it’s very cute. Um, so a family with five kids and they were living in a small house and they were very poor. Um, and they were very busy. It was the Hannuka holidays. And they had too too, too, like the families coming into the house. So even though they have a very small apartment with five kids, they were, uh, concerned about how they will manage to do everything. And they went to the rabbi and the, he told them, well, I understand your pool and you’re worried, but in the next three days you’re going to leave not just all of you together, but put into your home also your goats. And the, the, the, the father was, uh, not sure, how can this even be done? And this is crazy. We pool and we are crowded and it’s a small apartment and you’re telling us to put the God, but it’s the rabbi. So we went home, put the goat for three days, and then went back to the rabbi and it was a mess to have the coats inside, but he went back to the rabbi f after three days. And then he asked them, okay, what’s now? What’s next? How, how, how is this helping me? And then the rabbi said, well, now you can take the goat out of your apartment. And then he went home and took the goat out. And Lo and behold, three days later he would come back again and he will hug the rabbi and we’ll tell him, oh man, it was so good to get rid of the goat.

So the metaphor here in our context is that if you manage to get out of your list, that map that you did with it, we’ve discussed just a minute ago. Yeah, if you manage to get even one task and delete it, it’s not about delegation anymore. We’ve done that already. You already gave the Jane gift to your spouse, but now we’re actually daring to suggest that you’re going to cancel at least one of the events that’s you’re going to, or at least one of the many, many tasks that you want to achieve and to finalize in December and suddenly no, just that one go to, that you got out of your house is going to feel like, wow, that is so much easier now. Correct.

The Importance of Having Work Life Balance

So now we’re going to move into the second group. The second group is all about work life balance. And we’re going to start with explaining the plan for the failure conversation in more details. Shahar. Tell us all about that. Yeah. The challenge here is that you might be worried that your a work would be too so stressful that it will hurt your time, that you want, have enough time with your family or with your loved ones, or you’re worried that your partner will be too busy with his work, with his phone, with his computer, and want to be a available enough for you and your kids and your family. So what we invite you to do here with the planning for the failure conversation is try to figure out all the ways that you might get an get annoyed with yourself, with your boss, with your partner, and talk about them in advance. See how you can manage them in a smoother way. What might be the challenges and how can you be different than how can you support each, uh, each other. Always ask, how can I support you through this challenge?  I love this question. It’s so, so generous in just by talking about what will fail. You will, uh, be More ready and perhaps it won’t happen. Even, you know, you’re, you’re concerned about, uh, your spouse being too busy with emails. And then just by letting it out and sharing it with him, he will try to, you know, behave differently and it might happen differently.

Maybe we’ll choose just one thing that they can’t let go of, but everything else it will, there are, uh, where is that nobody feels like they have to give up too much and they just do what they have to and still be available for the family. Yeah. And you can always use this opportunity of the plan for failure to map, you know, what are the specific things you need, you know, uh, you need your spouse to not be with his phone in the morning when the kids need you. You know, you can be very specific on those things and, and that helps your spouse to support you better because they know how. Um, in this, uh, breaks, you know, another story which is shared in the book. The one thing, um, and it’s, uh, it’s a book of that is worth revisiting every, some people, some business plan, even really to every three months. For me, I just re read it this week. So it’s the story about the juggler that was the basis like every person has is, is also a juggler and you’re juggling five balls and that is hard. So you, you call, you’re considering to put one ball aside and that one ball that you’re considering putting aside these, your rubber ball, because all of the other balls are from glass. And the rubber ball is a metaphor for your business, for everything you do in work. And then when you put it aside, it bounces back at you and you just need to keep juggle or five balls. All the other balls are made of glass and your afraid they might break and they will if you let them. And that is, you know, the ball’s related to your health, your family, uh, and your integrity. Your values and your friends. And the whole idea here is that yes, you can take the rubber ball related to your work and put it aside. You, you can and you should try to create boundaries between your work and your life. Okay.

So, um, we, we, we have this, uh, idea that, um, we talk a lot about which is gratitude, expressing gratitude and specifically in a conversation where you’re going to ask your spouse to leave their phone away or you’re going to ask your spouse to, to behave in certain ways that your afraid they won’t. Good idea to start is to start with gratitude. That’s gratitude. Work, Shachar. Okay. Totally. It’s actually well researched. A special in Berkeley where I used to live there is the greater good eh, center. I forget the full name. And they did a lot of research about gratitude and so helpful. Like if you do, you’re grateful in the morning, you’ll still feel better in the evening. If you do a journal for three weeks, you’ll still feel better six months after. It’s quite amazing and it helps a bonding. It helps open the heart. It taps connecting. So, especially when you ask for things that might be hard for your partner if you start with gratitude actually just happened to me this week when I couldn’t come to a family thing and because I had to work and my wife really wanted me to come and we had a little bit of a conflict over that. And uh, she helped us come out of the conflict by appreciating how hard they work and how I provide for her and the family. And that was, that really changed with from a conflict. It actually created a connection and we found a solution that works for both of us. It was quite magical. Yeah. Yeah. And uh, this is something that if we need to remind you a million times, we will because it’s, he’s a cornerstone in the generous mariage, uh, principals.

Um, there is another thing that we want, another tool we want to share with you, which is the have it all my way on the session. That’s something inspired by, um, the methods, uh, that Allison Armstrong talk about in her books. Um, and have it, have it all my way is the basis of eight. You know, one side says, if I had it all my way, this is how we will be in, in, in this month. Like for example, in the context of worklife balance, if I have these all my way, you will not check your emails during Wednesday, uh, which is, I don’t know. The day where we visit your mom for the holidays. And then the other side, listens first and then he doesn’t say anything because the first side of said, what, what, what do they want actually is going to expand and say, why I willing to get out of having it all your way. So for example, if you will have it all my way and not check your emails entirely for the whole day on Wednesday, I will feel held. I will feel supported. I will feel like you care and cherish. I will, uh, uh, moments together as a family. I will feel like you respect my mom or your mom or family, the institute or whatnot. So hearing the second part of the, of, of the, of the request is so important. It can actually make that aside. Say, Oh wow, if that’s the case, let’s have it all your way. But there is also a chance that you won’t be able to say, okay, I will have it all your way. You might have some restrictions, some, some, some considerations that are real and meaningful for you.

And then your, your allowed to say, well if I had it all my way, okay I would only check emails between 12 and 2:00 PM because I have a Japanese customer waiting for a response in that hour. And then suddenly, you know, it shows that you do care. You do try to find a way to, to have something form what your spouse wants and give it to her and support her. Um, and then sometimes, sometimes even the solutions, they are totally okay. Like for example, well between 12 to 2:00 PM I’m going to take a nap anyway. So I don’t mind if you have you check your email while I’m sleeping but, but please, you know, when I wake up, put it away. So this type of conversation is if you come to your spouse and you start with gratitude and say, I want to have this conversation, which is the have it all my way on a session about our work life balance in December. That is something that might bring you a lot of connection fuel and a huge deposit into the connection, Ben.     Right? And this is a very important conversation to learn to know how to have and a, this is how Alison Armstrong, Eh, structures it and other teachers, you know, John Gottman for example, cause it the dream within the conflict and another teacher of mine Bilbo and talks about negotiating needs in, in Tennessee. So it’s actually about going deeper into your dream, into your need, into your fantasy of what would be good for you and really deepening into it with trust, with knowing that your partner wants the best for you and you wants the best for them. Yeah. And then it’s magic. You know, there comes a collaborative creative solution that wasn’t apparent at first one. It seems like the conflict, but it’s all about the connection. You have to be connected to make this conversation work. Yeah. It’s not something you do once and then forget about it for life. You, you probably would want to do this every even three months, maybe every one month. I don’t know. Whenever a conflict arises, whenever something that looks like there was a conflict of needs. Yup.

 

Family-Time Guilt

Yeah. Cool. So now does the third coop, um, and that is related to family time, guilt. And um, we’ll start with the tool that we’ve mentioned before. Shanna, what is the schedule check ins? Right. We talked about it in the stress in the family gathering stress a webinar and it’s about scheduling times to check in with your partner. And see how they’re doing and share how you’re doing and just make sure the connection is kept, is maintained. So for example, if you’re at the family gathering for a whole day, find two times that you can connect and the, there might be a clock time or there might be an event like before dinner or after dinner or whatever works for you. And you find a quiet room or even better, it might go outside or whatever is right for you, but you, you create some privacy, some bubble around you that you can check in with each other and ask that magic question of how can I support you. And that’s really important. Yeah. Yeah.

Another, Eh to that, we love his date nights. And uh, generally we talk about date nights with your partner at least once a week, you know, z Dave and does it twice a week is my hero in that. But at least once a week you have an evening, a quiet time without funds, without screens, without kids, without responsibilities, just you and your partner quality time. And it can be a date outside in a whatever you’d like to do. Or you can, uh, go for a work file and it should be all of those, you know, you, if you do it 50 times, 52 times a year, you’ll have a chance to, to vary the date nights. And hearing this holiday season. We recommend also scheduling time with your kids, with important loved ones that you are worried that you won’t have enough time together, scheduled an afternoon with your one kid and another after another with another kid and do something special, you know, do something, not just errands, you know, maybe you do it right, but you find a way to, I don’t know, go see the Christmas lights in market straight or whatever the, wherever the lights are really nice in your area. So we find a way to make it meaningful. This is something that actually helps both of you. So if you’re sending your spouse for equality date, night dates, you know, doesn’t, has to be in the night. So, uh, you’re sending your spouse to take your little five year old to some activity together, some quality time together and on the way they’re going to buy a gift fold for Jane.

And now what happens is that not only you’re relaxed about that task, you know, also relaxed about having less people demanding your attention right now within your home. You know, you can then suddenly go to and do something else in parlor or just rest or whatnot. So those date nights, uh, good. Not just for your own feelings of guilt, but also for actually creating space for yourself. And I, I think that it’s also important to mention, you know, the option, which is to schedule this to the future. You can schedule this to January and know that, hey, on the 5th of January we’re going to see this movie. Are we going to do theater? So we’re going to this park two to have a nice walk and play in the playground or whatnot. And, uh, we are, we are running a little bit out of time. So I’m going to take us through a few additional tips. Uh, one of them is the quality time voucher. We talked about it in the previous Webinar, um, uh, two weeks ago, which is, you know, the idea of giving the ICU gift. So a quality time together, even, you know, specifically on something that you love. It can be a way to show someone that you see them and care about them. And, uh, this can be the, you know, with your mom, with your daughter, with your spouse. Um, and uh, do you have a dog Shachar? Actually, this tactic will not work for me. We have a couple of them, like two, two dogs. One of them is quite senior. And, um, just the idea of if you’re in with your family and you’re telling your dad, hey, let’s go and walk the dog together, or you’re telling your mom that whole something of that salt, this tactic can create a moment of connection with more parts of your family in or even with your spouse. So just create some time, find some excuse, might be a cup of coffee. It might be some break to breathe, some breath, some fresh air, and these might be a good opportunity to walk with the dog.

Uh, and finally, mmm. We will just mention, you know, it’s, for me it’s a business where it’s really important, but I talk about it a lot in my lectures to my students that I coach. There are time horse in our lives, things that are stealing your time, that are sucking it, that your times. And one of those things are stuff like, you know, Netflix and your phone and TV and mobile apps and try to consider, you know, hey, yeah, like delete, delete some app from your phone for a month. That will be something that will maybe make you feel a little bit weird or the, again, because we get a dictator 2002 the, the, the hormones that are like the, the thing, yeah, exactly. The Permian. But even so if you cut away some of the clothes, some of the time holes and fill them while you suddenly have a little bit more time and always remembered purpose or remember the purpose, the holidays are about connection and family and love. And just remembering that can take some stress of like, why do we get so stressed to feel loved? That doesn’t work together. It’s harder to fill out when you’re stressed. So yeah, remembering the purpose can really help us take off some tasks. Find more ways to be with our family, with our loved ones. Yeah. And this is why I really feel like even if someone sees this Webinar only takes one team or two teams and just implement this, that in, in, you know, in viewing the purpose and because of viewing the purpose, just fixing this one thing, just taking that to a, to walk with the dog or whatnot. Then that will be already uh, useful. So I need you to give us like the two, the two minute version of what is the venting conversation.

The Venting Conversation

So the vending conversation is a great tool to reduce stress to, to put a boundary between the outside, outside, outside stress. We are relationship. And the way to do it is timing. 15 minutes each, it’s 15 minutes each person, eh, vents and you vent about everything. But your partner, this is, you don’t want to get your partner triggered. It’s an opportunity to vent about your boss and about everything that needs to be done and whatever is stressful for you, use it. 15 minutes is quite a lot to vent. Enjoy it, you know, take your time to vent if it’s too much, can also celebrate stuff and talk about successes. And the partner that listens. This is empathically not trying to give any advice, no criticism, no judgment, just about I hear you, I understand you. How can I support you? Yeah, I don’t know. I think, yeah, I think if it’s not clear, we have a document that is full of tips about that and people can go to generous marriage podcast. Basically we go to generousmarriage.com and on the podcast tab go to episode 12 and download it over there. It’s, it’s quite, you know, uh, a skill to be able to go through a venting conversation.

The Generous Partner Armor

 It’s a skill to have that you develop, that you try to, a couple of times you need to actually know how to listen and you need to know how to not criticize your, you’re not vent about the person that stands in front of you and uh, and not, uh, there’s a way to do it that is wronged and that is described in the document in the pdf that we’ve created for you, which is a free pdf by the way.  Go into generousmarriage.com and check it out. So we are wrapping up here. Uh, we really want to be generous with you and your respect, your time, especially today. This is just important for us. So we believe in this metaphor, this idea, this notion where you can have an hour more for your partnership and that armor is the generous partnership armor, which in shorts, you know, this is our vision, this is what we believe in. This is what we share as a vision. Um, Shachar and me together, we work on this. Um, they had night and we just want to start by saying, you know, there’s a lot to learn. You can go to the generous marriage podcast and learn for free about it, but you really need to be crazy if you don’t, if you’re not doing a weekly date night, it’s, it’s really a cornerstone of the process of healing and connecting.  And it hasn’t has to be expensive. You don’t even have to take the date night, the date night into a place where you spend money, uh, in buy staff and bring a babysitter like this. I know people that I coach and that they are in a situation where they are doing date night in different ways.

Ending

So if you’re not sure about how to do the night in a fish inefficient way, send us a private message and a send email, uh, you know, relisten to the generous marriage podcast and philosophy around enough. We’ll tackle a few more ideas of you have more uh, uh, of the, of those things in January. We are going on on a Christmas break ourselves. This is our last weapon out for the month and we will meet again in January, 2019. So it’s quite, quite an opportunity to say have an amazing year. Um, I’m not sure why you showed up today, but you did. And so I’m guessing it’s related to, you know, your connection with your spouse and that connection with your spouse. Maybe not easy, maybe it’s really shitty situation. Sometimes. Maybe you argue a lot. It all is real stuff that happened to each of us to happen, happens to many and it doesn’t make it easier to fix, but it is something that you can WORK on. And so we are here