From the original post:

“Greg worked very hard to put this little book together and wants to share it with anyone that will listen. As such, we’re releasing the book, one “page” at a time (it’s actually one idea at a time because some ideas are two pages). Every Saturday morning, a new page of the book will be available to download and read, totally free. We want you to take this idea and really think about it over the week. Send it to a family member or a close friend and see what they think. If you like what you read, we’d love it if you bought a copy at Lulu.com. The text of the page will also be posted but I would suggest downloading the PDF version of the page… it just looks really nice!”

Download page 13

13.

In this moment, someone else’s trust of you is the
measurement of their current relationship with fear.

To your own integrity you must always be trustworthy and
accountable.

What others decide to do with their fear is theirs to decide,
not ours to defend against.

Be compassionate instead of defensive.

Tags: Uncategorized // Add Comment »

We’ve made it to the last part of our series, Are You Ready for Marriage. The last piece of the puzzle, the fourth leg in a sturdy table, is gratitude.

Something as simple as “thank you” can share the integrity spotlight on the marital stage along with the stars of the show, love, honesty, and forgiveness. Let’s see how gratitude can bring strength to the ultimate relationship, marriage.

Let’s look at a hypothetical situation. Let me introduce Sara:

“Why is it, Bob, that there’s nothing I do that you appreciate, and yet all of a sudden, when we’re in the bedroom, you can’t have enough of me? Why’s that? Huh, Bob?”

Of all responses to Bob’s complaint that there’s not enough sex in their marriage, this was Sara’s. The tears and the anger of accumulated resentment gathered in response to Bob’s arrogant sense of entitlement. At one time in their marriage, Sara had cared. This care she’d held for the first five years of their marriage has partially a hope that her efforts would be acknowledged by him, that Bob would feel grateful for her support of him. The sacrifices she would make on his behalf, the moves his career demanded, the dinners, the golf, the late nights . . . the support from her that Bob could come to rely on had become no more than a litany of expectations he had come to assume. The clean home, the clean, folded laundry, the endless errands, all of the attempts she make to avoid being the target of his anger and frustrations.

And why does he think this marriage isn’t working?

“Well, I don’t know what it is. I don’t know if it’s hormones or what. I can’t tell you the last time we had sex, let alone when Sara initiated anything.”

Today’s counseling won’t be about sex. It won’t be about providing Sara with some tips on “setting the mood” or about testing her hormone levels. Nope, not today, anyway. Instead, we’ll be talking about gratitude, appreciating all that we are given and all the many ways we are lovingly supported by the one who wants the most to be influential in positive ways.

Bitterness, cynicism, superficiality, anger, resentment, and depression are typical symptoms of diminished levels of gratitude. Their focus is hyper-vigilant on what they should have, should be entitled to, or should be given that they is not already theirs. After all that they give or do or sacrifice, after all the efforts they have made, the care and support and hardships endured, and nothing in return. They’re bitter, damned bitter. He’s resentful that she’s withholding sex and she’s hurt and angry that he’s denying her the support and understanding she needs to feel attracted to him in the first place.

Gone is the expression of any appreciation of the one another. Resentment occupies the space that gratitude would otherwise fill.

We have one of two places we can choose to love our lives from. Gratitude is the place we have chosen to feel for all that we have now, all that others give, all that we are blessed to be, blessed to call ours. This is a place of wholeness and fulfillment. Then, there is this other place that we can live our marriage from. This is the place of what we could have, should have, of what we are entitled to but haven’t been given, of what we’ll be when we’re loved, when we’re valued and appreciated and vindicated. Then we’ll be loving. Then we’ll be free to be what we cannot be until…

“Of course I’d love to love you…forgive you, appreciate you, value and affirm you. Of course. But how can I when you haven’t loved me, valued me, respected me?”

There is a space that will never be filled unless we consciously, deliberately fill that space with gratitude. Grateful, openly and sincere for all that we are blessed to have. None of which we are entitled to. All to be held as gifts. Our spouse’s care and love and all that they do, not because they have to, not because they should, we are grateful for the loving, caring, protective, selfless choices they make in their regard of us, their love of us.

Look around you. The couples that are happiest and the couples who are closest share one common factor- gratitude. Gratitude provides the sincerity of joy to love.

So, there it is. If you are, even remotely, considering the life-fulfilling covenant of marriage, and perhaps, one day, family, these are the five traits required for the very best marriage each of you can proudly call yours.

Tags: Uncategorized // Add Comment »

From the original post:

“Greg wrote a book and, as you might already know. it’s pretty amazing. I read the darn thing probably 6 different times while I was editing and designing the pages and, each time, I picked up something new. I’ve known Greg for almost 15 years and this book still caught me off-guard with the honesty and wisdom contained within it. I think the world would be a better place if everyone read it, no joke.

“But enough about what I think, we want to know what you think. Greg worked very hard to put this little book together and wants to share it with anyone that will listen. As such, we’re releasing the book, one “page” at a time (it’s actually one idea at a time because some ideas are two pages). Every Saturday morning, a new page of the book will be available to download and read, totally free. We want you to take this idea and really think about it over the week. Send it to a family member or a close friend and see what they think. If you like what you read, we’d love it if you bought a copy at Lulu.com (the downloadable version is cheaper for you and we get more of the royalties, FYI). The text of the page will also be posted but I would suggest downloading the PDF version of the page… it just looks really nice!”

Here is the 12th idea from Finding Your Integrity by Greg McBride:

Download page 12

12.

There’s no better way to know your own value system than to recognize what you admire and respect in another.

Why do you admire someone else’s ability
to share,
care about others,
love,
be honest,
show compassion,
be thoughtful,
forgive,
show integrity,
or be supportive?

Honoring someone else honors you.

Tags: Uncategorized // Add Comment »

Last week we approached a word that everyone knows but not everyone completely understand. This week, we’re going to talk about the fourth trait you’ll need for a successful marriage and one that seems to be pretty scarce these days: forgiveness.

First, a question: do you want to be right or do you instead want the gifts that come from trusting your partner and their explicit trust of you?

If you’re at all considering marriage, then there’s no better time than now to polish up on your forgiveness skills.  This means seeking forgiveness and readily giving it too. You’re going to make mistakes, you’re going to say and do things that will be hurtful, disrespectful, dismissive, uncaring, and unsupportive. You’re going to do and say things in frustration, anger, self-centeredness, laziness and forgetfulness. You’re going to make mistakes.  Tons and tons of them,  I promise you that.  Your mistakes will have a cost but what you do with them may have an even greater cost. I have seen hundreds of couples in my office and thousands of individual mistakes. It’s consistently what is done with those mistakes rather than the mistakes themselves that injure and endanger the sacred nature of marital trust.

It is our nature to make mistakes. Mistakes are an opportunity to learn and to grow and to become stronger, better people from all the mistakes we make.  There is, however, the same opportunity to destroy the intimate bond of trust from our response to the very same mistakes.  Blame and shame of ourselves or our partner add a punitive tone to the simplicity of a mistake.  Anger or denial, complete avoidance or emotional and sexual withdrawal, complaining – all of this better serves a relationship’s demise than any mistake ever could. Our partner’s pain doesn’t make us their victimizer.  The pain we feel doesn’t make us a victim either. The pain is as understandable as the mistakes that are made.

“I am so sorry.  What I did and what I said wasn’t okay.  Please forgive me.”

Those words open a doorway to the process of reconciliation. Reconciliation is more protective of the marital trust than caring about protecting ourselves. These are the words that declare the accountability to ownership.  Your words and actions are your own and not at all because of what someone else said or did.  Don’t defend or justify what someone else is seeking forgiveness for.  What you did or said is not who you are.  It’s not representative of who you are to your partner or of how they feel for you.

As we ask our other’s forgiveness we must be prepared to trust in their forgiveness in us, in our “forgiveability.”  If we cannot understand - and in that understanding forgive ourselves – how, then, can our partner ever trust in any forgiveness we claim to give them?

We forgive our most endeared because our forgiveness counts most.  Our spouse relies on us to best understand and, in that understanding, best know them.  Our forgiveness affirms that knowing.

“I forgive what you did and said. I know you well enough to know that what you did isn’t who you are.  That what you said, in the way you said it, doesn’t reflect how much I trust you.  Of course I forgive you.”

A good marriage is a safe place to make mistakes.  If you’re ready for marriage then you must feel prepared to create and maintain an environment of safety.  Your children will one day be watching you and their mother or father make mistakes - mistakes at home, mistakes in the car, mistakes, too, with them.  Will it be okay in their little minds that they make mistakes?  Will you be one that will know them beyond their mistakes?  Will it be safe for them?

If you’re ready to make mistakes (at least 18,472 of them) and ready to seek, give, and receive forgiveness, then you’re one step closer to being ready for a great marriage!

So far we have a pretty strong table. We have one that has enough integrity as a tri-pod to hold its own.  A tabletop of ownership with three independently strong legs of love, honesty, and forgiveness working in collective harmony to define and support its function.  However, add just one more leg and any pressure placed on it would be equally distributed.  Just one more leg, and the balance created by all will sustain its integrity of strength. I’ll tell you that fourth leg next week!

Tags: children, family, marriage, relationships // Add Comment »

From the original post:

“Greg wrote a book and, as you might already know. it’s pretty amazing. I read the darn thing probably 6 different times while I was editing and designing the pages and, each time, I picked up something new. I’ve known Greg for almost 15 years and this book still caught me off-guard with the honesty and wisdom contained within it. I think the world would be a better place if everyone read it, no joke.

“But enough about what I think, we want to know what you think. Greg worked very hard to put this little book together and wants to share it with anyone that will listen. As such, we’re releasing the book, one “page” at a time (it’s actually one idea at a time because some ideas are two pages). Every Saturday morning, a new page of the book will be available to download and read, totally free. We want you to take this idea and really think about it over the week. Send it to a family member or a close friend and see what they think. If you like what you read, we’d love it if you bought a copy at Lulu.com (the downloadable version is cheaper for you and we get more of the royalties, FYI). The text of the page will also be posted but I would suggest downloading the PDF version of the page… it just looks really nice!”

Here is the 11th idea from Finding Your Integrity by Greg McBride:

Download page 11

11.

What if, at any given moment, there exist four truths:

1. Your truth

2. My truth

3. Our truth (2 + 2 = 4, the world is round, water is wet)

4. The truth

Stop competing for The truth.

If he believes there is a monster under the bed, no wonder he’s scared.

Grab a flashlight, please.

Tags: Finding Your Integrity, positive change // Add Comment »

From the original post:

“Greg wrote a book and, as you might already know. it’s pretty amazing. I read the darn thing probably 6 different times while I was editing and designing the pages and, each time, I picked up something new. I’ve known Greg for almost 15 years and this book still caught me off-guard with the honesty and wisdom contained within it. I think the world would be a better place if everyone read it, no joke.

“But enough about what I think, we want to know what you think. Greg worked very hard to put this little book together and wants to share it with anyone that will listen. As such, we’re releasing the book, one “page” at a time (it’s actually one idea at a time because some ideas are two pages). Every Saturday morning, a new page of the book will be available to download and read, totally free. We want you to take this idea and really think about it over the week. Send it to a family member or a close friend and see what they think. If you like what you read, we’d love it if you bought a copy at Lulu.com (the downloadable version is cheaper for you and we get more of the royalties, FYI). The text of the page will also be posted but I would suggest downloading the PDF version of the page… it just looks really nice!”

Here is the 10th idea from Finding Your Integrity by Greg McBride:

Download page 10

10.

If you own who you are,
you can change who you are.

You cannot change
what you do not own.

Tags: Finding Your Integrity, positive change // Add Comment »