There are a lot of great ways to keep a marriage alive. Alive, we'll use that word
as an acronym to help you remember some of those ways. Alive or dead. It's like
well which one do you want right? How do we keep this marriage alive. So let's use
that word to come up with a few points that might be easier to remember that
way. Alive. So let's start with "A" which stands for attitude. Attitude. Quick word
about attitude. Attitude is not how you feel. This is a common myth. We have
learned that attitude affects how you feel. But your feelings aren't your
attitude. Your feelings are the result. Your attitude is your position. I got
this from my friend Mike Schlappi who was shot and he's in a wheelchair. He's
paraplegic and Mike teaches that attitude has a little different meaning
than we're used to. It comes from aviation. In an airplane, your attitude or
the attitude of the plane of the aircraft, is the position that it has
relative to the ground or the horizon. You can see that a nose down attitude is
heading us into the hard stuff and nose up attitude gives us altitude which is a
term that most people are familiar with when it comes to flying. Attitude is
position. You want to keep your marriage alive. Assume a positive position about
the marriage the way it is right now. This is a paradox because most people
when they come to talk to me about their marriage, they're like, "oh this is
terrible." We really remember the model that I taught in the very first video. If
you go to the homepage of this channel you'll see an automatic video play about
how to stay positive no matter what. That particular
model is what I'm talking about. It is what it is.
Your marriage is what it is. It could always be worse. It could always be
better. Now your position depends on which way you look to make your
comparison. If you compare your marriage to a marriage that is far worse than the
one that you have, how do you feel about the one you got? Yeah pretty good right?
If you compare your marriage to one that is far better or even moderately better
than the one that you've got, how do you feel about yours? Mmm! See that's
frustrating. Your position has to do with how you take your marriage the way it is
right now. What you're going to compare it to to make your judgment or to assume
your position or attitude about the marriage? If you want to keep your
marriage alive, assume an attitude that it's good now. That's almost magical.
That's the "A" part. "L" obviously L has to stand for "love" and I'm not talking sappy
you know kind of romantic, although that has its place okay? I'm talking about a
choice every interaction we have with our spouse is going to fall on one side
or the other. It's either going to be a love choice or a hate choice. I know
people hate that word that's why I picked it but if it's not a love choice
what do you think it is? I don't think there's a neutral option. I think every
communication, every interaction that we have has to be on one side or the other.
So, the "L" part of keeping your marriage alive is "love". Choose love. Let's move on
to "I". I stands for inspiration. What I mean is there's an energy that we bring
to our relationship and if we compare it to the love choice and the
hate choice, what if our other choice might be to destroy or
to build? Destroy or build? So the building part is what I'm talking about
with inspiration. Use your creative energy and your thoughts and your
language and your touch. Everything that you do to interact with your spouse to
inspire and build and lift them and your relationship. As opposed to the opposite
side over here where we tear down and criticize and destroy and kill - a little.
You know, I was in a church meeting not too long ago and the person giving the
sermon got up there and said, "my sermon today is about a great commandment. Thou
shalt not kill." And honestly, I'm looking around thinking, "man, who and my
congregation is having a problem with that? Right? Feel a little nervous about
being there but he made a brilliant point. He said, "every interaction that we
have is either going to kill a little or a lot or what's the opposite of that?
It's going to give life and build up. Do you see it's exactly the same dichotomy.
So "I" is inspiration. Let's get on that side of the equation. Let's go to "V" the V
in the word alive stands for "virtue". What can I do to describe the word virtue? I
mean either your interactions are going to be virtuous or they're not. Remember
when you're a little kid and your mom just taught you, "hey, you need to do the
right thing." I'm also remembering a line from Harry Potter. Where Harry is having
an interaction with Dumbledore and Dumbledore tells Harry, "hey there's going to
come a time in your life when you have to choose between doing what is easy and
doing what is right." Yeah and it's not always the
easy thing to do. You know what I had a speaking engagement just last week. In
this speaking engagement, I had agreed to a certain fee when the fee was paid, it
turned out that they were paying me more than I had agreed to. It would have been
easy to just keep the extra money right? That would have been easy but there
comes a time when you have to choose between doing what is easy and doing
what is right and I knew in that moment that if I went home without rectifying
that discrepancy, I would have to live with that whether anybody else knew it
or not. I would have to live with that when I say "V" is for virtue, do what's
right even when and especially when it's hard. There's a lot of times in a
marriage when you'll get sucked into doing the easy thing and it's easy to
criticize someone isn't it? It's easy to see what they could be doing better to
make this a better relationship. Sure that's easy. Do the right thing and start
looking into your own heart and your own mind and your own soul to make sure that
you're on track. That your virtue, your integrity is unquestioned. "V" is for
virtue. Well let's finish up with "E", "energy". Alright, some of what we've
already talked about contributes to this. I saw a fascinating demonstration once
with a tuning fork. You might know what a tuning fork is. If you've got some
musical experience, the tuning fork is basically a metal instrument that's used
to tune other instruments. So it's got two metal prongs that come up and it
vibrates at a certain frequency. Well, if you get that thing vibrating, oh.... and it's
ringing at a certain frequency and you run that thing without touching them. You
run that thing along the strings of a harp. When it comes to the string that is
the same frequency, that string will start to sing with it. You can do the
same thing with a piano. Why does that string start to sing? You haven't even
touched it. It's because there are vibrations. There are waves of energy
that are going at a certain frequency from the tuning fork over to the strings
of that harp and the one that is attuned to that frequency will start to vibrate
with it. It's called sympathetic resonance. We do the same thing in our
relationships, in our thoughts, in our psychology. We vibrate at a certain level
and it's a higher level of energy to be positive and to be constructive. What
if you're at that lower, more destructive frequency? Well that's not going to be
compatible with a higher level. Now something that I have noticed is that we
have a tendency to seek out things that are at the same frequency we are. So if
you're feeling down at this low vibration, if you're depressed, if you're
self-critical, if you're feeling hateful or any level of animosity, that's this
lower level of frequency. So you're going to feel inclined to attach yourself to
things of the same frequency. The kind of music you listen to for example. The kind
of literature that you read, the kind of movies that you want to watch. They're
going to be that kind of that same frequency or at least that's what you're inclined
to do. Why? because there's no discrepancy. It measures right in.
What's more effective is taking yourself to a higher frequency by filling your
life with those things that are at a higher resonance music. For example, if
you're feeling depressed and you want to go listen to depressed music or if
you're feeling angry and you want to go listen to angry music, what if you put in
some music that is filled with love and beauty instead? Well, that's going to
conflict with where you are. So it feels unnatural. It feels uncomfortable at
first but that's one of the best ways to bring your energy up. So that it matches
the frequency of the new kind of music for example. We can do the same thing in
a relationship. So intentionally, taking it to a more positive,
grateful, affirming kind of an energy might cause some conflict at
first especially if your spouse is down here at this level. But that's the best
way that I know to bring it up to where we're all operating at a higher level. So
as a quick review, keep your marriage alive. "A" - attitude, "L" -love, "I" - inspiration, "V" -
virtue and "E" energy. I'm so glad that you're here and that you've taken the
time to watch this video. If you're new to the channel, would you take a moment
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