attitude Archives - Leonard McElveen

What Relationships Teach You

What has your relationship taught you? Has your marriage taught you anything new? Are you still studying your spouse or do you try to cram at the last minute when it’s their birthday or your anniversary?

There are times where I find myself always learning a lesson. I’m not saying it in a bad way either. I think that we should be life long learners. More times than not this is just something we say and not something we apply to our lives.

Our relationships are living and breathing. Click To Tweet

Our relationships are living and breathing and we should be learning from them. Here are five lessons that we should be learning.

Facts don’t matter as much as feelings. In a relationship, there are two roads of communicating. The road of facts, and the road of feelings. The stereotype is that men are more factual and that may be, but men are also more emotional than we like to think. Either way, when it comes to communication with our spouse, we have to know which road it appropriate. We can’t be so concerned with the facts that we lose the feeling.

Withdrawal leads to death. No, I’m not talking about physically dying, but the death of the relationship. There are moments in a relationship where our emotions and feelings can run so high that we make decisions that are not good. When we’re not happy or something doesn’t go our way, one of those decisions that we can make is that we can withdraw from the relationship.

Withdrawal from a relationship will lead to being emotional unavailability. It will cripple the relationship. The affection you have, the shared humor, and joy will also leave. It will kill the intimacy and sexual passion.

The lesson here is that we need personal growth. Our growth helps us to deal with our anger or hurt feelings in a way where we do not withdrawal from the relationship. We have to learn to communicate our feelings rather than just act out.

Physical Touch is key. Affection brings us closer together and causes us to stay close. Both you and your partner feel connected to each other when you touch. Not just sexual touch, while that is important. Touching in a non-sexual nature helps improve romance and deepens the romance that you already have. Love thrives the micro-moments of connection and sometimes the best way to create a connection is to reach out and touch your loved one.

Complaining to family and friends doesn’t help. It is easy when you are frustrated with your spouse to turn to family and friends. They will automatically take your side and help you feel validated in your frustration. This actually doesn’t help your relationship. It gives power to these people that should be just reserved just for you and your spouse.

Love is a verb, not just a feeling. If you want your relationship to work, then you have to be intentional in making it work. If you want the love to stay in and through your relationship you have to be willing to say express to your spouse “I’m going to make you a priority in my life. I will pursue and find new ways to make you as happy as I can.” All of this has to do with the attitude in which you approach your relationship.

Discussion Question: What lessons have you learned from your current or previous relationships?

Can Habits Change?

Have you ever wondered why you keep doing the same thing over and over. It feels like you’re in this place where it seems as if life has you in this continuous loop. Something good will happen and then something from your past keeps coming back into the picture. Or the time that you decide that you’re going to start a new diet is when a co-worker decides to bring in sweets into work. Then it seems like we have to restart our diet all over again.

So can we change our habits? Are we stuck they way we are? The simple answer is that yes we can change our habits! No, we’re not stuck being the same person forever. We can grow and change, but it’s up to us on how to do it.

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Here are a couple of ways that we can develop the habits we desire and move in a different direction.
Habits are like paved roads in our minds and actions. We do things a certain way because at some point we paved a way in our mind of how it should be accomplished. That paved road became easier and easier the more we traveled it. Developing a new habit isn’t tearing up the old road, but it is laying a road that we need to travel instead of the old road. This is why sometimes we can fall back into old habits and ways of thinking.

1. Identify the Cues

There is usually something that triggers a habit. When it comes to bad habits it can be stress, or an environment that will bring certain feelings and then the habit. Your alarm going off in the morning may be triggering you to hit the snooze button.

2. Disrupt the Cue

Once we are able to identify the Cue, then we can change the triggers. With our example of the snooze button. If we’re hitting the snooze when the alarm goes off, then to disrupt the cue, we would move the alarm clack to the other side of the room. Actually having to get up out of the bed and walk across the floor disrupts the cue.

3. Replace the Cue

Ripping up the old road is a lot harder than paving a new one. Basically it is easier to replace a bad habit than it is to completely stop a bad a habit. The new habit will interfere with the old habit and stop us from going into autopilot.

4. Forgive Yourself

The whole process of starting a new habit takes time. We can be our hardest critics, so forgive yourself when there is a slip up. The entire process of changing a bad habit is not an easy one. Know that there will be hiccups along the way. Just don’t allow the hiccups to stop you.

Discussion Question:

What habits do you want to change?

Talk Like a King

The Measure of a King

What is the measure of a king? Does that king rule by fear? In today’s world there aren’t many kings or kingdoms, instead there are countries with presidents. Don’t worry this isn’t a political post, not that at some point we won’t get into politics, just not today.

So what is a king? As a man of God, I believe that we are the kings of our households. Not to rule with an iron fist. There is more to being a king than ordering others, more than scaring your family into submission.

Deck of Cards

Think of yourself as the king in a deck of cards, your spouse, the queen, the children are the jack and ace. Maybe you even have a joker in your clan too. The point that I’m trying to get across is that while you are the king, your family is there beside you. Not under you.

There is a saying that money won’t make you happy. Money only amplifies what is already on the inside of you. I think that the same can be said of a title. Being the president of a business won’t turn you into a different or a better person, it will just bring out more of what is already in you. The same is true of your family.

A True King

Having a wife or kids won’t make you a better person, it will just bring out more of who you are on the inside. Being a king, being a good king is more. What makes a good king? I think that it’s the same as what makes a good man.

Puts others first. A good king, as well as a good man, as well as a good leader of his home puts others first. It’s all about the well being of others. Those that God has put under our protection.
Speak life and not death. A lot of times we don’t realize the impact of our words. Or how they can affect those around us. The world is just coming to understand and realize something that Christians have known for years. That life and death are in the power of the tongue.

As a king, we should be speaking life into those that we are over. Speaking life means that we want to speak words that encourage our children. Sometimes it is hard to do that, I won’t say that it’s easy, but it can be done. Also speaking life doesn’t mean that we don’t ever correct our children. There is a balance that we have to strive for. Correct and encourage.

Discussion questions: What prayers/confessions do speak over your spouse or children?