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A Fresh Start in Your Year and Life

Many of you know how we write these blogs together. This week, the two didn’t really merge well as they were so close in content and so different in style. So here they are directly from our pens (and computers) to you!

PHIL: It is feeling like a time of the year when lots of changes have occurred, and together they give a sense of opportunities.

  • The holiday season and its round of parties is over. Whether fun or stressful, busy or lonely, it’s behind us.
  • There is a changed political situation. (Yes, that’s here in the U.S., but it affects people world-wide.)
  • Solstice has passed and the days are getting longer. (Quirky fact: for a few days, sunrise gets later, but sunset gets later even faster.) Even though the earth continues to chill, there is a promise of spring and renewal in this.

For us, there are many things we hope we can achieve this year.

  • We want to give local talks, discussions or workshops about how to have a successful relationship. We want to meet people and communicate, not just by the written word, as happens in blogs and books, but directly, so people can see and hear what we mean.
  • We’re working on an audio version of our latest book and need to plan for how to make it a huge success.
  • Now that we both have flexible schedules, we want to make time for short trips away. We’ve found that a simple overnight trip carries over for days.
  • We want to work on the house and garden. Recently, high winds nearly took down an old fence, and the weathered boards could make a beautiful tea house.

So that’s what’s happening with us. We hope you can find similar inspiration amid the churn of life.

MAUDE: It’s an odd paradox that we are feeling at this time of year. Although it is the very early days of winter, the end of the seasons, it feels at the same time like a fresh start. It is even noticeably getting a tiny bit lighter each day.

For us, January is a season of birthdays and beginnings (Phil’s was this weekend) and a sense of the new. We are consciously aware of the opportunity for change. Our feeling is of a reduction of tension, of being energized with a renewed sense of more possibilities; we feel suffused with hope.

The external world reflects this sense as well. The changing political situation, the winter solstice (and the return of the light), the end of the parade of holidays and the good and bad they bring; these all mirror the sense we have of opportunity, of an opening in the areas of action and experience.

Phil made a resolution many years ago not to make resolutions. And yet, we do have this sense of the possible, and we do take this time of year to renew our mutuality. We speak of our union and of the things we see for our time together. We are filled with ideas for furthering the spread of peace through relationships. We are finalizing the audio version of How Two: Have a Successful Relationship, preparing presentations and talks, visualizing trips and time away together, working on upgrades to the house and environs. Yes, we are moving into this time with intention.

We have intention and hope for more love, peace and joy to fill the world and our corner of it. We have hope for all of us to move closer to the light, to truth, beauty and goodness. We just passed the one year mark of the terrible mudslides in Montecito that altered the landscape forever and claimed 23 lives in our community. Friends and loved ones have passed last year and we have all faced many challenges.

Let us come out of these events with renewed hope and a commitment to each other to keep sharing our burdens and rejoicing in our victories together!

Click here to listen to Phil reading you this blog, and click here to leave your comments directly on the blog.

Writing Together Without Fighting Together
Many people say they're amazed that we can write together without arguing, yet we do this several times per week. Watch this video and find out how.

Successful Relationship Reading Corner

BookshelfIn this week's blog, we wrote about making a fresh start in your year and life. Here are a variety of articles on that topic.

September Is Your Second-Chance January "This notion of new beginnings, incidentally, was the subject of an insightful 2014 paper by a trio of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. In it, they found evidence of something they called the “fresh start effect” — that is, that people are much more likely to think of the bigger picture of their lives, and set goals accordingly, just after beginning some new era. These could be, and often were, big milestones: a new job, a new marriage, a new school year. But, just as often, they were much smaller than that: the start of a new month (or even of a new week or day), or the first day back at work after a vacation."

14 Ways To Create The Best Relationship Of Your Life "After 30 years of working with couples and researching how people repaired their relationships, I suddenly realized that we had really reached a pivotal moment; all our studies, stories, and the science had come together, and we were in the midst of a revolution—a new way of truly understanding romantic love. Finally we can grasp the laws of love—and they make sense!"

Give A Fresh Start To Your Personal Life "Life is 5% what happens to you and 95% what you do with that. Although life doesn’t come with a re-set button, you can give your personal life a fresh start anytime you choose. Why not declare that “This year is going to be a fresh start”? I believe that what we do every day is important because we are exchanging a day of our life for it. If you aren’t happy with the life you are living, then make a commitment today to get on track to a joyful, productive life. How do you kick-start your personal life?"

 

Spreading peace one relationship at a time
Phil and Maude
 
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