July, 2008

One of the 10 Commandments of Marriage is,  Never Go To Bed Angry. It’s a good line to add to your vows when writing your own wedding or commitment vows: “I promise that I will not put my head on the pillow until we have cleared the air of any disagreements or problems.”

I thought this idea was so important I put it into the 10 Commandments of Marriage. It’s #7. I’m going to move it up to #5 and follow it with ‘Do little things for each other.” and 8, “Go out on dates.”

You can get a totally free copy of this by visiting the home page on the web site. Because I believe this can be such an important document I’m not even asking you to leave your Email address. I want it to be a gift. 

The reason I’m moving this vow up in importance is that I realize that if you don’t clear the air before you go to sleep then it’s harder to do little things for each other the next day because there is a tension that interferes with your thinking.

That tension is there because if you go to bed with all those unresolved emotions that is what you sleep on. That is what you wake up to. You’ll probably not even read your vows as I have suggested you do every night.

Reading your vows every night is powerful but not a magic elixor if you ignore the tension between the two of you.

Make no bones about it, if you have unresolved issues between the two of you then you will not put your focus where it needs to be the next day. You will be caught in distraction that really could be dangerous. Or you miss opportunities.

But the worst of it is that whatever distance the situation caused will continue to grow wider and wider until it seems cavernous, like the Grand Canyon.

At some point you will begin to add other things and annoyances to the situation and even forget what the real problem was.

One of the reasons why I want you and your partner to write your vows together is for more than giving voice to a dream of your life together. It is to set in motion a remembered intimate situation that was totally nonthreatening.

Before you even get into bed resolve your differences.

Talking out your frustration, anger, sadness, or disappointment at night will save you time, energy and mistakes the next day.

Love, light and laughter, Rev. Linda.

Helping couples ‘write down the dream’ and then live it!

Last week I went searching for the answer to this question:  What are the needs of men and women?  I found they were the same.

Both men and women are looking for intimacy.

That’s where the similarities end because women went emotional intimacy and men want physical intimacy.

It’s a catch 22. Men, without actually saying so, are actually saying, “Give me sex and you’ll get intimacy.”

Women are saying, “Give me intimacy and I’ll give you sex.”

What a situation. But I can help. Your wedding vows, in particular, can help.

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There is a commercial for hamburgers. I don’t remember whose. It doesn’t matter.

The man at the counter has called his girl friend or his wife to explain the menu and as he hangs up he looks at the sales girl and says, “I love you.” He meant it to go into the phone but he looks like he is telling the sales girl.

After a few seconds she says, “I love you, too.”

It seems like a silly ad, but what I like about it is how easily we are able to say those words as a society. We don’t seem to mind that other people hear us.

I grew up in a family that never said those words. In fact at the time I grew up people were not the least bit passionate in public. Men wore fedora hats, suits and white shirts and women went to town in white gloves and hats.

A lot has changed and I think for the best. Of course there are still families where love is not spoken or shown.

But a marriage or relationship stays strong and passionate when each couple remembers to say, “I love you,’ often and to show it. Pledging undying love as you recite your wedding vows is not enough.

Remembering to say “I love you,” at least once a day is as important as the actions you take to show your love.

Do little things for each other.

Write each other notes.

Say ‘I love you’ when you leave, return, go to sleep, wake up, etc.

Show love by touching each other, complimenting each other, listening to each other, and in a hundred other little ways.

Once a day, maybe when you are holding hands (see previous posting), deliberately say, “I love you.’

Remember to read your wedding vows every night to reinforce them. That’s an act of love but emboding those vows will keep the passion, the love, and the words alive. 

I love you,

Rev. Linda

Ah, yes. The little things.

One of the things that I sometimes see that cause me to smile and feel very, very glad, is when I see people holding hands.

That simple act seems to speak volumes without one single spoken word.

Holding hands means you are special to me. It means I forgive you. It means we are partners. It means that we are living in possibilities. It means that we are walking together in life, not in separate directions.

I’m almost considering rewriting the 10 Commandments of Marriage and adding, “Hold hands for one minute every day.”

Just imagine taking 1 minute to reach out and touch each other by making a purposeful connection? Maybe you just stand still somewhere and take each other’s hands and look at each other. I am right now feeling the power in that 1 minute.

That one minute could change everything. It lines both of you up on the same page, or the same promise, or the same dream or however you might want to express it.

That one minute says I love you, I forgive you, I want the best for you, I want the best for us, I want the best for everyone else.

This simple 1 minute connection, if done in the morning could set your entire day in a positive and light way.

What if, for one minute, the entire world held hands? A whistle blew and everyone reached out and took the hand of someone close. What if no one noticed each other’s differences? Just one hand holding another hand. No requirements. Nothing else to do. Just holding hands for 1 minute.

I challenge you. Reach out and hold your partner’s hand for 1 minute today. And one minute tomorrow. And one minute the next day, and the next and the next.

Without one spoken word your life and the world is changed.

Powerful stuff, yes? Find more at www.weddingvowsandceremonies. Check out the blog. It’s about keeping ‘the dream alive.’

Love, light and laughter,

Rev. Linda

In my wedding ceremonies, before we get to the wedding vows, I talk about the empty box (metaphor for the marriage or partnership) and relate it to a bank account.

This is from one of my wedding ceremonies.

Binding two people in a spiritual atmosphere of love and trust is what makes this union a marriage. It is indeed a meeting and melding of hearts and lives. That love and trust is sort of like the ribbon that holds the two parts of a gift box together.

And, indeed, marriage is like a box. In order to take anything out of it you must first put something into it.

Another way of putting it is that this box is a kind of spiritual bank account.

Put love, joy, appreciation, compassion and support into the box and it will multiply so that when you need it there is something there to sustain you.

You can’t go to the bank and ask for money if you don’t have anything in your account. You can try but you’re not going to get anything.

It’s the same way with a marriage. If you haven’t put any energy, attention into the marriage, even in little ways, it won’t hold together when there are difficulties or challenges.

Here’s a little more from that ceremony:

Try to fall more head over heels in love with each other every day. Look for even the smallest thing to be grateful and excited about.

Every night before you go to bed and every morning find one thing to be grateful for and tell each other.

One of the 10 Commandments of Marriage is, “Do little things for each other.” All those little things, actions, words, and even thoughts all add up and like money, compound.

Find a way to add a few words to your wedding vows. Here is a suggestion: “I will remember to appreciate you in thought, word and deed, every day and support our marriage by not taking you for granted.”

Leave notes, say ‘thank you,’ ask what you can do to help, touch each other easily and often, say ‘I love you,’ for no reason at all.

Big expressions of love and attention are wonderful but in the long run it’s the little things that build up trust the most.

Just be natural and have fun.

Love, light and laughter,

Rev. Linda

By Rev. Linda, The Wedding Vow Coach

I’m taking a line from Wilfred Peterson’s poem, The Art of Marriage: A good marriage has to be created.

This states my basic philosophy of why a couple must write their own personal wedding vows: You write your own wedding vows to create a vision or a dream for your life together. And for the ‘biggest bang for your buck’ write them in shared conversation!

When a couple writes their own wedding vows together it is a fantastic opportunity to use this highly charged time to begin to craft–consciously and specifically–a good marriage much as one would create a work of art, which is what you want your marriage to be–a work of art!

Only this one you don’t hang on the wall, you’re living it.

Click to continue »

Many years ago I had a little book by Wilfred Peterson that was very helpful and meaningful to me during a turbulent time in my life.

I found the following poem on the Internet purely by accident and wanted to share it with you because it has some excellent phrasing that you might considering using when writing your wedding vows.

The Art of Marriage, by Wilfred Peterson

A good marriage must be created.
In the art of marriage the little things are the big things…
It is never being too old to hold hands.
It is remembering to say, “I love you” at least once each day.
It is never going to sleep angry.
It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.
It is standing together facing the world.
It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole family.
It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways.
It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.
It is in giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.
It is finding room for the things of the spirit.
It is a common search for the good and the beautiful.
It is not only marrying the right partner, it is being the right partner.

There are a few that I think are key elements in your life together and definitely worthy of discussing when you sit down to write your wedding vows: ‘having the capacity to forgive and forget,’ ‘giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.’

If nothing else every phrase is food for ‘thought’ (one of the 7 tools of creation) and conversation (talking, speaking, another of the 7 tools of creation).

Love, light and laughter,

Rev. Linda

By  Rev. Linda, The Wedding Vow Coach

I was going to move on to the 2nd tool of creation, writing, but I’m going to change topics a bit here because it’s hot today and I’m sitting in a room without any air conditioning and I do not feel very creative or inspired.

I tried following a line of thought but found I had nothing much to say. Stick around, though, I can be brilliant. Just not today though.

The title I put on this blog in, was ‘goals, plans, hopes. So let’s go there for a moment.

Because I have been able to understand by working with all the wedding vows materials www.weddingvowsandceremonies.com that writing personal wedding vows is about talking about goals, plans and hopes that are then incorporated into wedding vows. 

If wedding vows reflect the dreams of each of you, then you must certainly do not want to go off into a dark corner and write individual vows that you try to surprise and impress your partner and guests with.

It doesn’t matter what your guests think. Your vows are for each other. So write them together. One set or two. Doesn’t matter as long as those vows come out of a shared conversation where you craft your dreams, goals, hopes and plans.

When you pledge and promise your vows (another tool of creation) they will have the emotions, the energy to keep going and going and going.

Because The SECRET life of Wedding Vows (the title of my eBook) is that by talking out your dream, playing with it, having fun with your life even before it has been lived, you give your vows life. You infuse every letter, every word, every sentence with a life of it’s own.

Here’s a favorite quote I found in a greeting card I gave for a wedding. “At the end of 40 years, when you are sitting on the bed talking about your life together, will you wonder just where the time went?!”

If your life is as good as it can get the time will fly. Remember what they, whoever ‘they’ are, says? ‘Time flys when you’re having fun!’

If you get into the spirit of that adventure in the writing of your vows your marriage will take off like a rocket and stay in orbit until the end.

Love, light and laughter,

Rev. Linda