Appreciation Leapfrog

Appreciation Leapfrog

I’m off in a couple of days to facilitate our Couples Course in Boulder and am brimming with ideas about what will make the time most useful for us all.  Back in the old days I was still pinging around inside the pinball machine of the Old Relationship Story, which goes something like this.

First you look carefully at the problem through marriage counseling or relationship coaching, find out where it came from, what percentage of the problem belongs to each partner, dig the way out of the pit with sincere attempts to resolve it that involve lots of talking and feeling bad. THEN you get to play, have fun together, create new interactions and projects, if there’s time. The vegetables first approach. During one relationship weekend in the late 90’s we started that way, and by the end of the weekend one couple had split up and most of the other couples were swooning from rooting around in their issues for hours.

  I decided after that weekend to do things totally differently, employing the well-established but little practiced principle that what you focus on grows, or the law of attraction. Since I had committed to assisting people in creating a totally new field and playground for all their relating, I looked at what the single most effective tool might be. Right away I heard a voice saying, “It’s appreciation--duh!” Genuine appreciation creates quantum shifts in the fabric of your relationships. When you practice being sensitively aware of you and your partner, speaking the positive things you notice, and changing the ratio of appreciations to criticisms (5:1 is the tipping point), you create magic. You leave the world of “working on it” and enter a world where you build on a flow of positive attention. Your relationship grows daily in value as you lead with feelings and statements of gratitude. Problems magically dissolve without effort and are replaced with spontaneous expressions of regard and deep presence. And here’s the really great thing—you don’t have to wait for your partner to do something worthy to appreciate him or her. Appreciating grows worthiness and value. No kidding. Don’t take my word for it. Jump in and practice, see what grows in the garden of your relationships.

Here are some sentences printed on the wallet-size cards we give to partners to get you started:

One unique quality you have I admire is _____________.

I appreciate that, without being asked, you ____________.

What appreciation sentences create magic for you?