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“You appreciate less and less and you feel that they owe you more and more. If they’re your partner, your husband, your wife then they should do this. You stop seeing them as their own person and you see them as somebody who needs to fulfill all your wants, desires, hopes, dreams, etc.

The big danger here is when you lose appreciation through a lot of expectation you feel like the love is lost. but it’s not lost, you just can’t access it anymore.”  – Monica Berg on Happiness in Progress

I am thrilled to introduce you to Monica Berg. She is an international spiritual thought leader. She has just authored another book, out this week – Rethink Love: 3 Steps to Being the One, Attracting the One and Becoming One.

Monica is the Chief Information Officer for the Kabbalah Centre. And she’s a self-proclaimed change junkie.

The Most Fundamental Step

Monica’s new book, Rethink Love: 3 Steps to Being the One, Attracting the One and Becoming One is split into three sections. The first section is the most fundamental step – the step involving the relationship we have with ourselves.

“You can’t give anything you don’t possess for yourself,” Monica said.

We talked about how sometimes people will know themselves at the beginning of a relationship, but at some point loss themselves.

“I find people lose themselves when they really never knew what they believed in in the first place.”

Monica says we may know what we like, what attracts us, but to challenge ourselves – do we know what we believe, do we allow ourselves to be authentic and vulnerable.

First Step to Embracing Our True Selves

This might be my favorite part of our conversation – specifically because there are a lot of actionable steps for you to bring into your own life.

Monica says the best way to start something new is to create a space for it. She shared a list of several ideas to start showing up for our soul’s purpose. She said you can take little steps every day.

• Remove the things influencing you negatively
• Remove the thing that makes you question who you are
• Write in your journal “I want to connect to who I really am”
• Start practicing mindfulness: be 100% present with the person you are talking to or the experience you are in right now
• Check in with yourself hourly asking yourself “How do i feel about how I’m doing?” “What am I doing?” “Where am I spending my time and energy?”
• Trade your To Do list for a To Be list and focus on who you want to be.
• Ask yourself daily, “How can I show up for my soul’s purpose?”

If you want to hear about how this will impact your relationship, check out the full podcast here.

How Being Afraid of Change Impacts a Relationship

Have you ever noticed your partner losing weight without you? Did it leave you feeling resentful? Angry? Left behind?

Monica talks about a scenario like this in her book, Rethink Love and on the Happiness in Progress podcast.

To put it simply, a man in a relationship wanted to lose weight. When he started dieting and exercising and successfully lost weight. His wife started acting out and being nasty toward him. Ultimately, he would sabotage himself and gain the weight back.

Monica says, “When you fear change – the change will divide you instead of bring you together.”

Monica told me it can feel like a change to the relationship is a threat. This is why it’s really important to understand change is happening every day and every moment. Then you can start paying attention to how you and your partner are changing. Open a dialogue about what you dream about, what you’re curious about and what you can bring out in each other.

“If you see your partner is moving forward, it’s not fair to ask them to slow down or to wait. But you can ask them to share their journey with you,” Monica shared on the podcast.

She said if you’re feeling left behind in your relationship – it’s not about your partner or your relationship – it’s about you and your relationship with yourself. Start by asking yourself “what am I afraid of?” What is making me uncomfortable?” What does it bring out in me?” “What are my opinions now?”

To learn more on how this does not include trying to change a partner, click here.

More on this episode of Happiness in Progress

I have to stress to you that there is so much more good content in this full episode.

When you listen, you’ll hear:

• Common illusions in relationships, how to deal with them and where they come from
• Why we sabotage ourselves and how we can stop
• The difference between the Michelangelo effect and Gollum effect
• How adding children to a relationship won’t “fix” anything
• How to start getting validation from yourself instead of external sources
• Monica’s journey through an eating disorder and what she learned about self- love and self-care from that experience

Remember, you can listen to the Happiness in Progress podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, online, the Mail Tribune’s website, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Youtube — and you can even ask Siri or Alexa to “Play the Happiness in Progress podcast.”

To stay in touch with Monica check out these links:

Buy Rethink Love: 3 Steps to Being the One, Attracting the One & Becoming One
Read Rethink Love on Your Kindle
Facebook
Monica’s Website