 Hey there everybody, thanks for watching. We hope you all are having a great summer day. Many of you are in the middle of our 10 step win your spouse back challenge. If you haven't heard about it, it's a amazing 10 step challenge to win your husband or wife back. Simple steps, very easy to implement. If you haven't taken the challenge yet or signed up for it, go to our Facebook page and just scroll back some in the updates and you can see the sign up link there. And today we are waging a war against bad relationship advice, not only bad relationship advice, but selfish relationship advice. What is selfish relationship advice? How about things like let go of whatever's causing you unhappiness? If that's your 200 pound spouse, then so be it. Or, you know, let go of anything in life that's causing you unhappiness. You're courageous to leave your spouse behind. Oh, right. It takes courage to leave your spouse behind. Things like that. And it's understandable that you would be hearing those things because if this is you, if this sounds like you basically you've been living with your spouse for however many years, he or she has been uninterested in getting help, uninterested in making things better. You know, therapy is just completely out of the question. You know, self-help is also out of the question. So, you know, you're someone that's self-aware, you're somebody that's conscious, somebody that wants to get better at what, you know, being a spouse and a parent and a person. And you want to become better, but your spouse doesn't want to. So you start, you know, deciding, okay, I'm gonna start taking care of myself. I'll do some self-care, I'll go out with friends, I'll get help for myself. And it makes total sense that you'd want to do that and be in that place. Because after all, you've been living with this person who's been completely unwilling for so long. But then what happens is that's when people start advising you. Maybe it's time to just get rid of that, you know, elephant in the room, your spouse, and just become happy and become liberated and just kind of become free. And even if you're not getting rid of, just don't forget about them. Like, don't even bother trying to get them to engage, you're trying to improve the relationship. There's no point. And then, you know, if they're gonna treat you like that, why even bother? But the truth is that there is a better way and those of you who are taking the challenge, you'll see there are different ways to get your spouse back and to be able to work with your spouse. And ultimately, if you really want to achieve true self-growth, it has to be in the context of relationship because we are relational beings. This is what Harbaugh Hendricks, founder of Imago Relationship Therapy, has studied. And he says that we're born in connection, you know, we're in our mother's womb. And we are born in connection. And we feel in connection. And we're wounded in connection. We're wounded in relationship, meaning you don't grow up. We're born, you know, a child doesn't grow up, you know, wounded or, you know, damaged goods. It's due to the, I mean, of course, we believe there's nature involved, but there's also nurture. And if you're in an environment that's not supporting your needs, you're gonna wind up with unmet needs. So as we, you know, as you grow old, as you grow older, you're gonna walk around with those. And those unmet needs are happening in the context of relationship. Because you're relating with other people, whether it's your parents, whether it's society. Their relationships are gonna cause those, you know, say, so to speak, wounds that you have. And the only way to repair that is through relationship, through having a healing relationship so that you can repair and get those things right that you didn't get. It would be so nice to, like, almost live on a desert island and do the self-growth and become, like, the most enlightened, you know, being on this desert island all by yourself, but it can't happen that way. And what? And even if you become enlightened, you're not truly enlightened. Because once you get back, it's like the idea of, you know, thinking, I'm working on myself. I'm so, you know, I've really worked on myself. I'm so, you know, connected to God or whatever it is. And then you go home, like, dealing with your kids and they're getting on your nerves. And it's like, well, I'm supposed to be in this, like, nirvana state right now. It's like, I can't be involved. Like, I can't deal with these, like, you know, changing a diaper or, like, kids are screaming. Like, I want to be, you know, serene and pristine. And you can, it's not reality. You have to be able to interact in the world. We are in a physical world. We are dealing with, you know, we're a body and a soul. We're not just the soul. So our challenge in this world is to deal in the physical world and to deal with the challenges, not just to go off some mountain somewhere, to actually deal with the challenges, deal with other people. And that's the hardest thing, but that's precisely what gets us self-growth. So the idea that you can be enlightened outside of your relationship and that you look down on your spouse, and that's what often happens. We know people that they've gone to these great, you know, weekends or, you know, personal growth seminars, and they've gotten the courage to leave their marriage now. And I think, like, what is that? What does that mean? How can you really work on yourself if you can't be in a relationship with another person and deal with their differences and have compassion for them and not judge them because a truly enlightened person doesn't judge another person. And it's such a hard thing to do. You know, even in our relationship we work or not work on it, but there's times when we get upset, the times when we judge each other. And, you know, that means that we have not achieved whatever personal growth that we want to achieve. We have not gotten there because if we're still feeling that negativity towards our spouse and that judgmental nature towards our spouse, we have not truly achieved what we need to achieve. So I find that the marriage is really the, the fire, what do they call it, the kiln or the fiery furnace that really forges us to be able to become the crucible, sorry. The crucible that helps us forge us to be able to become a whole and complete person. But is this doing it on our own? Is this not enough? But how should people that are kind of doing it on their own because their spouse is unwilling, how can they achieve that true ultra-spirituality, you know, if their partner is not willing to learn the stuff? And part of what we talk about is one of the steps is having compassion, you know, being able to realize that even if your spouse isn't engaged, what's their story? Are they just, were they just born this nasty, you know, this nasty cold person or is there a good reason why? Now, it's not the excuse or bad behavior, but is there a reason why they're acting the way they are? Probably, probably they're hurt. It might look like they're fine, but they could be very pained, very hurt inside. No, of course this is not for physical abuse situations. We're not talking about abusive situations, we're talking about your run-of-the-mill relationship issues. And we believe that we've seen that most relationship issues can be saved. If both people are willing to work on it, most relationship issues can be dealt with. We're not talking about abuse. No, but in this case, we're saying if both people don't want to work on it. Okay, fine. Well, let's say you want to work on it but your spouse doesn't want to work on it. But the point is that we're saying that there is a hope to engage your spouse in a way that actually might make them be willing to work on it because up until now, you're doing all this work, you're doing whatever your yoga and your meditation, whatever you're doing to make yourself or your psychotherapy to make yourself do the best person possible. But if you can't tolerate another person, then what type of self-growth is that? So again, what are you doing to contribute? And this is what we talk about in the challenge. What are you doing to contribute to your relationship nightmare? As much as you feel like your spouse is the one who's disengaged, why is that? What are you doing to encourage that? What can you do to bring them back as we share? You know, having compassion for them, being able to, if they don't want to talk about it, but to realize like there's a reason why they're behaving that way. And it may not be in ways that you think. It could be you're not yelling and you're not nagging and you're not shaming, but there's something that you're doing unconsciously that makes your partner feel the need to act out. And it would be great, true spirituality and self-growth would be to get curious about, oh, what is happening that is triggering that in my partner. What are you doing? I mean, take ownership for whatever you can on your end. It's not, relationship is not just about one person, it's about two people. But just as they're pulling away because of whatever they're feeling, you're also contributing to whatever's going on. So again, it's not justifying their bad behavior. It's just helping you understand and do what you can do. Because if you're the only one doing anything, you have to do the best that you can. And that's what we attempt to give you these steps to do it, but to realize that this is what's going to make you be able to achieve that growth. And even if your spouse never comes around, but if you're able to come to a place where you don't have any bitterness and you don't have any resentment and that you can have compassion, you can realize, okay, I understand why they're doing this. It's sad that they don't want to get help. It's sad that they don't want to work on it with me. But I'm going to be patient and I'm going to have compassion for them and I'm not going to judge them and I'm not going to hate them. That itself is a very powerful thing and more powerful than just saying that looking down on them is this immature or child almost who is just incapable and unwilling to do anything. You don't want to walk around with that feeling about your spouse. That doesn't seem very enlightened. Right, and even if you leave, you know, there's still that part of you that needs to get worked on in the relationship because as we talk about all the time, that your ultimate growth and healing happens within the relationship. The things that your spouse needs from you, their complaints about you, those are the things that you need to grow and become more complete. So if you just say like, I'm going to cut that part off, I'm not going to deal with it, and I've resigned to that, you're missing out on a growth opportunity as well. Amazing, there's so many ways to take advantage of growth opportunities, but really the ultimate one is in your marriage. So thank you, thank you for watching and if you haven't already taken this 10 step challenge, go ahead and sign up for it and it's free and it'll walk you through the process of hopefully winning your spouse back. So enjoy your day and we'll talk to you soon.