When you want to sting back in your love relationship.... don't

Week Two, Day One: LOVE

Be happy when you feel like arguing

Don’t say it when you feel like arguing

Be present when you feel like arguing

Say your complaint in gibberish when you feel like arguing

Go take a walk in nature when you feel like arguing

This is a day to begin to shift one of life’s most painful occurrences.

We have a mate, who loves us and whom we love. And they say something that stings. Or, we say something that stings.

Either way, our scorpion mind or their scorpion mind wants to bite back, sting back, fight fire with fire.

And…

Can you please remember any times in your life when this has worked?

So. That’s the game today. Notice when you are stung. Or when you are stinging and do one of three things.

Love Game #5 Feel your sting, or their sting.

Stop.

Say nothing.

Take three deep breaths.

Ask for something non-verbal:

A hug.

A walk that is holding hands.

A kiss.

(Not sex, that’s too radical for the way out of the venom, and creates a messy pathway to inner shifting.)

A dance.

That’s pretty self-explanatory, and it’s so hard.

We love to drive ourselves deeper and deeper into the mess by “just saying one more thing.” (The urge to get in the last word has ruined more marriages than almost anything else.)

Words don’t heal, usually, the wounds started by words.

“I’m sorry” might help.

“Something’s going on with you I don’t understand” might help.

And let’s start with going to something kind and friendly and non-verbal.

This is a good habit.

And,

Love Game #6: Ask for all of the above during the day even when there is no sting going on:

A hug.

A holding hands walk.

A kiss.

A dance.

This is life.

We need to cultivate touching the person we got together with for touch.

We found this person for two reasons, and many more.

The main two: someone to talk to.

Someone to have sex with/ enjoy physically.

The hug, the walk, the kiss, the dance don’t need to have any hints of sex in them.

Better they don’t.

And they do have the CONNECTION that is so crucial to human life on Earth.

And…

If you are in the work environment.

And you want to calm someone’s mean remark… a dance and kiss and a holding hands walk probably won’t work.

A hug is even a little iffy.

You might invent a silly/profound reason to shake hands, saying something like: “Let’s agree to disagree and mull this over for a win-win approach.”

“Let’s agree to chill on this for a bit, and come back to it when we are feeling more friendly.”

“Let’s agree to explore ways to make this good for both of us.”

All of these could work in the romantic/ love/ marriage relationship.

And back to our partner. One other game to play when the sting starts happening is a two part game.

Love Game #7: When you feel like complaining

One: Say at least seven gratitudes to them, three or four being appreciations about them

Two: speak the complaint in gibberish.

After that’s over, they may not know what you are doing. If they ask, say you are practicing turning negativity into gibberish. To spare them, and to spare yourself.

If they don’t ask, enjoy it.

Perhaps even say some more gratitudes.

If they want to sting back, anyway.

Ask them to channel their sting into gratitudes plus gibberish.

If they say yes, great.

If they say no, ask to be excused while you go take a walk.

And then: go take a walk.

And be present to your feet and your breath and nature and the world of you, alive right now.

If you feel like arguing or are rehearsing your counter-attack in your head, see if you can switch it to gratitudes and gibberish.

Enjoy.

Summary of Week Two, Day One: LOVE

Go three ways with the “sting” temptation.

One: Non verbal.

Two: Practice hugs and hand hold walks, and dancing and kissing even when the situation is “normal,” to make this a normal and everyday part of life.

Three: Again, if the sting is happening, react with gratitude and gibberish .

Be honest: stinging back has never work.

Good.