221 You already know that a good marriage takes work.

But what if constantly working on your marriage can sometimes get in the way of it being good?

For many highly sensitive women, taking their relationship seriously can easily turn into taking every problem, disappointment, unresolved issue, and imperfection seriously—more often than we need to.

We think about what needs to change. We revisit the hard conversations. We notice what still isn't fixed. We keep working on it, because of course we want our marriages to be good.

But what often happens is that working on your relationship starts to become the main way you experience your relationship.

And so you end up missing out on so much that could be enjoyable, loving, and simply good between you..

Making a generally good relationship…not so good…

In this episode, you’ll hear about the surprising problem that always working on your marriage leads to—and why another kind of work is just as essential to creating a deeply loving, connected relationship. (Hint: it is MUCH more fun work.)

I also share why doing this other kind of work – this all too often forgotten work – has made such a difference in my own marriage, and what many highly sensitive women need to learn in order to stop letting the hardest parts of their relationship take up so much space.

And be able to truly feel loved, loving, and deeply connected in marriage.

So listen in to this story and metaphor filled episode, and learn the starting point of the incredibly important and usually overlooked work.

Because your marriage is about so much more than solving its problems.

And sometimes, the work you aren't doing may be exactly what your marriage needs more of.

SHOW NOTES:

• Learn more about Sanctuary 1:1 (where Foundations of Emotional Well-Being is included as the first layer).

ENJOYING THE SHOW?

• Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. Leave a review in Apple Podcasts--we are SO grateful!
• Check out the Start Here Podcast Pathway for a suggested route through the most important episodes to start with or review — the ones that will help you feel calmer, more secure, and more hopeful in your relationship.
• FREE QUIZ: How Much is High Sensitivity Impacting Your Relationship (and are you even highly sensitive)? You want to know. Because, high sensitivity has a major impact on intimate relationships – for better or worse. Take this 3 minute quiz to discover if you're highly sensitive and how deeply it’s affecting you, and your happiness in your relationship. You will also get your next steps to making sure sensitivity works for your relationship, instead of against it.

220 One of the most powerful ways to change your marriage begins with understanding how emotions spread in intimate relationships – and learning to use this on purpose to create an upward healing cycle between you and your spouse.

Because just as fear, reactivity, and self-protection are contagious in relationships– bouncing back and forth between partners...

So is safety.

There is a way to tap into this, and doing so intentionally changes everything inside you, and then everything between you and your partner for the better.

As you build safety intentionally you become a different kind of presence inside your marriage: someone who communicates to your spouse naturally through your actions and words: “Who you are is safe with me”.

This naturally fosters deep safety – which breeds more love, joy, and lightness – between you and your partner.

It also (thank goodness!) creates the best conditions for your spouse to grow and do his own work on himself.

So in this episode, we'll explore what it really means to become this Safe Heart Partner, and how, when you learn how, you have far more influence over the atmosphere between you—and the kind of relationship you create together—than you've ever realized.

Listen in.

SHOW NOTES:

• Learn more about the full Safe Heart Pathway through Sanctuary 1:1 (where Foundations of Emotional Well-Being is included as the first layer)
• Or begin with Foundations of Emotional Well-Being for HSPs (FEW) on its own first.
• FREE QUIZ: How Much is High Sensitivity Impacting Your Relationship (and are you even highly sensitive)? You want to know. Because, high sensitivity has a major impact on intimate relationships – for better or worse. Take this 3 minute quiz to discover if you're highly sensitive and how deeply it’s affecting you, and your happiness in your relationship. You will also get your next steps to making sure sensitivity works for your relationship, instead of against it.

ENJOYING THE SHOW?

• Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. Leave a review in Apple Podcasts--we are SO grateful!
• Check out the Start Here Podcast Pathway for a suggested route through the most important episodes to start with or review — the ones that will help you feel calmer, more secure, and more hopeful in your relationship.

219 What if one of the most powerful forces shaping your marriage is something you've never even thought about?

Every relationship has an atmosphere. You can't see it, but you can feel it.

It's the difference between walking into a home that feels light, warm, and easy to breathe in... and one where everyone seems to be quietly protecting themselves.

The surprising part? The atmosphere is not just the way a relationship is.

It's actually something that's being created…

And it isn't created by one big conversation, one conflict, or one breakthrough.

It's created by one ordinary interactions at a time repeated over and over—most of which you barely notice.

In this episode, I'll help you recognize the invisible emotional climate inside your own marriage, why it matters far more than you may realize, and why understanding this one idea could completely change the way you think about creating the relationship your heart has been longing for…...and your ability to influence the relationship.

Because once you can see the atmosphere...

you can begin changing it. Dive in.

SHOW NOTES:

• Learn more about the full Safe Heart Pathway through Sanctuary 1:1 (where Foundations of Emotional Well-Being is included as the first layer)
• Or begin with Foundations of Emotional Well-Being for HSPs (FEW) on its own first.
• FREE QUIZ: How Much is High Sensitivity Impacting Your Relationship (and are you even highly sensitive)? You want to know. Because, high sensitivity has a major impact on intimate relationships – for better or worse. Take this 3 minute quiz to discover if you're highly sensitive and how deeply it’s affecting you, and your happiness in your relationship. You will also get your next steps to making sure sensitivity works for your relationship, instead of against it.

ENJOYING THE SHOW?

• Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. Leave a review in Apple Podcasts--we are SO grateful!
• Check out the Start Here Podcast Pathway for a suggested route through the most important episodes to start with or review — the ones that will help you feel calmer, more secure, and more hopeful in your relationship.