I would like you to finish the following sentence: Happiness is___________. If you read this blog on a somewhat regular basis you might be tired of my focus on happiness. Sorry but I’m not going to change. I think that there are enough people reporting on the troubles and challenges of life…so I’ll keep filling this space with what makes us happy. Check out this photo and see how this can be a way to finish the sentence of what happiness is.

Happiness is seeing these two 8 years olds getting the big picture…even at 8! They get the fact that most bullies are really scared and that kids say mean things because they are trying to pull others down. They get that smart kids are the ones who will end up being better off in the end, and they get that it is better to focus on the positive rather than the negative. They are together all the time and yet can’t wait to have “alone time” which means the two of them together without any siblings.
I know my writings are mainly about adult relationships, but learning from Beaudry and Braunson and the special bond they have developed sheds great light on the type of bond that can (and should) exist with couples. Do they fight? Look at Braunson’s lack of teeth and that should tell you the answer. Are they different? Beaudry likes to create monsters and Braunson like to bake cookies. Do they disagree? They talk over each other like the best married couples. Do they love each other? Sometimes better than the best married couples.
Watch your kids and see how much you can learn. They will teach you what living in the present means. They will show you what it means to be happy and how to enjoy it. They can shed great light on the power of secure relationships. Build secure relationships with them. Help them know that they matter in your mind and that you appreciate them.

Many people have been quoted as saying, “the key to being mentally healthy is flexibility.” Now if you ask me to bend over and touch my toes you’ll see that I’m not all that flexible. Sure, your ability to be physically flexible does add to your health, but here we are focused on your mental health. Being flexible is the ability in our mind to sort through a wide variety of mental processes, such as impulses, ideas, and feelings, and come up with a thoughtful, nonautomatic response. Rather than just reacting automatically to a situation, a flexible person can reflect and intentionally choose an appropriate direction of action. This form of flexibility is the opposite of a knee-jerk reaction. In our relationships we want to develop a pattern of flexible interactions rather than reactive interactions.
I remember a time when I was 15 and I was sitting in the living room while one of my brothers and my dad argued in the joining room. They were arguing about curfew and their two different ideas of what time was the appropriate time to be home and what “being home” meant. They did their normal rounds while I sat reading or day dreaming in the other room. I could hear their discussion and knew what was taking place. A few mintues later my dad came up to me and I responded with a knee-jerk reaction, “it’s not fair….I deserve a different curfew if he gets one.” I’m sure I went on and on about how I deserved to stay out later. My dad interupted me and said, “I was trying to tell you that since we changed the curfew for your brother we are changing your curfew as well.”
I wasn’t flexible in my ability to reflect and intentionally choose an appropriate direction of action….instead I argued for no reason. So often in our key relationships we get caught in knee-jerk reactions…both engaging in a need-less dance of justification and defensiveness.
When we work to live in the present and better understand who we are, what we are thinking and how we are feeling, we will find ourselves creating flexibility in our relationships. This flexibility is key to finding happiness and developing the connections that offer us comfort, support, and guidance.

One thing that I stress over and over again is the importance of living in the present. This doesn’t mean that we are not concerned about the future, or that we don’t learn from and cherish the past. We do, AND we work to maximize our ability to focus our attention to what is happening in the moment. When we are not aware of our thoughts and feelings we can get stuck in repetitive patterns which may limit our ability to make choices in the present. The goal is to increase our awarness of who we are and what is happening inside of us in the present so we have choices/power in the present. We all want more control in our lives and this is a key to gaining a healthy amount of control.
Relationships are built by the small, simple moments rather than the huge, long awaited moments. A couple gave me the image of a flame and said, “in order for the fires of passion to burn when you are on vacation, we need to make sure we keep the pilot light lit each day.” Learning to find simple ways to live in the present helps us enjoy the small moments that can easily slip by.
This morning I was rushing into my office before I headed to teach a class. My head was down, full of thoughts as I headed towards the building. Something caught me eye, so I looked up. What did I see? Popcorn popping on the apricot tree! I really don’t think they were apricot trees, but they were beautiful and full of flowers. I was in a hurry so I didn’t even stop to smell the roses, instead I slowed my pace. As I slowed my pace I took in the moment and enjoyed a nice smile that changed my approach to my day. Enjoy the present!

All week we have focused on emotions…what they are and why they are important. Today I want to make sure you understand the power of emotions. Rather than focus on anger, fear, or shame…lets focus on one of the most powerful emotions….LOVE! How do you feel loved and when you feel loved how does it impact you? When we feel loved, this connection provides a dependable web of intimacy that allows us to cope with life and to live life well. Love gives life a new meaning. When we feel loved it expands our sense of who we are and our confidence in ourselves. When love comes into our heart and mind, it transforms us.
Just as I’m writing this Preslie, our youngest, came up to me and said, “Dad I wove you (love you).” It can be that simple statement and the look in her eyes that catches our heart, turns on a spot light, and sends a powerful message.
To feel this empowering emotion of love, we need to tune into our deepest needs and translaste them into clear signals/messages that help others respond to us. We have to be able to love and to reciprocate it. We need to create a climate of love in our relationships and in our home. We need to be open and responsive, emotionally as well as physically. When you feel the love in your home and in your life, find a way to capture the message…what is this feeling trying to tell you? Just as the feeling of love is powerful, the messages this feeling sends are equally powerful. Feel loved today!

How is your week? Are you enjoying our discussion on emotions? Does it make sense or are you left trying to get a picture of it? I really hope you are gaining insight into what emotions you find safe and which emotions you avoid. Emotions carry with them messages and when we discount or avoid the emotions, we miss out on the message. I worked with a person who said, “I put my emotions on the back burner so I don’t have to deal with them.” Later as we were discussing how she felt in her relationship she shared, “my husband has no idea of how hurt and alone I feel.” She was correct. When we hide our emotions (put them on the back burner) people around us won’t know how we feel…if we hide our emotions too well then we won’t know how we feel. Rather than focusing on how to help her husband know how she felt, we focused on helping her reconnect with her own emotions (bringing them from the back burner to the front).
Not only was she missing out on her emotions, she was missing out on the messages of the emotions. She said that often she felt angry, but avoided it because she didn’t want to become upset. What message was attached to her anger? For her, this emotion was trying to say, “you deserve to be treated better.” She was upset because she believed she deserved better. We might think that this anger was a reaction to her husband, when in fact a lot of her anger was directed at herself. She was angry with herself for the way she treated herself, but because she avoided anger she also avoided a message that said, “you deserve better…treat yourself better.”
A final thought on emotions: if you feel bad, then this is not the ending point. Emotions should be empowering and lead us to reach out to others and to look for support. If you find your emotions leading to depression and despair, then you need to find another message in the emotion. I can feel sad and want to avoid others and shut my blinds….this is not the end. I need to look beyond my reaction (shut my blinds) to the message in my emotion. I might be saying “I don’t feel like facing the dragon today.” Rather than shuting my blinds and trying to avoid the dragon, is there someone I could reach out to who might help me face the dragon? Remember, emotions are an opportunity to connect…use them to encourage us to reach to our safe haven to find the needed comfort and support. Good luck, you can do it!

What are safe and unsafe emotions for you? What emotions do you feel comfortable expressing and what emotions are safe for others to share around you? Often I have people say that anger is an unsafe emotion and then they will tell me about all these times when they are “upset, frustrated, or annoyed.” Those are not necessarily the same as anger, yet often they are very close. When you work to understand your emotions you need to figure out which ones are safe and which ones you avoid or discount. When you avoid or discount the emotion, you also avoid or discount the message that the spotlight is trying to send. A great way to understand emotions is to think of them as two different types.

Primary emotions are direct responses to a present situation. Common primary emotions include: fear in response to a threat, anger in response to a violation, or hurt in response to loss.

Secondary emotions are reactive responses to the primary emotion that enable a person to cope with the primary response. These responses typically obscure the initial emotional response that a person has to a given situation. Anger may be masked by depression or fear, and hostility may cover a sense of shame.
An example of a primary emotion is when we feel hurt in response to critical statements made by others. A secondary emotion would be something we feel to cover up the vulnerability of being hurt. Many people cover hurt and fear with anger or frustration. Anger seems powerful; it can be an attempt to regain control, and it is often used as a defense. The challenge with anger is that it not only defends but it offends…it not only protects but it can push people away or engage them to respond with defensiveness. The goal in understanding and working with our emotions is to understand if we are operating on a primary or secondary level. If you operate on a secondary level (show anger when you are hurt) then people will respond to the secondary emotion…others pull away from the anger, which will seem like they are pulling away when you are hurt but they don’t see the hurt they only see how angry you are. Work to understand your emotion and work to show your primary emotions and people will better understand how you feel. Soft emotions lead to connections, harsh/reactive emotions lead to isolation.

I had a great time this weekend presenting two workshops on Nurturing Children. I had quite a few people come up afterwards to discuss the role of emotions and what we can do when we feel a certain way, so I thought I would write a little more about emotions. I like to think of emotions as spotlights, which turn on to show me where I need to focus. Each emotion motivates us differently and to do different behaviors. I always have an emotion (reaction) to what is happening, whether I like it or not. I can choose how I attend to this emotion or spot light. Where people find such differences between husband and wife, or between any two people is how they attend to the emotional spotlight. How we make sense of the emotion and what is going on inside of us, determines who we are and how we experience the moment.  How we explain or describe what is happening (what we are feeling) influences what will happen next and what we need. For example, right now I am feeling a little tired or even somewhat depressed. How I make sense of this spotlight is the key. Is this spotlight trying to tell me, “Mark you don’t like your life….you don’t like who you are and you are tired of doing everything you are doing.” Or is this spotlight telling me, “Mark you are ready for spring. The fact that you have had snow storms for the last three days is making you feel tired and you are starting to shut down.” How I make sense of very similar feelings makes all the difference.
We all have emotions and the first step is to realize that our spotlights are trying to tell us something. Start to recognize the spotlight and work to identify the emotion…many have disconnected themselves from their emotions and need to learn to reconnect. As you work to better understand what you are feeling, next work to identify the message the spotlight is trying to tell you. I really have a lot of fun here with my kids because they can come up with the craziest spotlight messages. The goal isn’t to start out finding the exact “right” message, instead allow yourself to find very different messages from the same emotion to help you broaden your meaning making skills and challenge your existing perceptions. Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

n

What makes a happy family?….happy parents! And what makes happy parents?….(you feel in your answer here)__________________. I would say that knowing I matter to Cami is one thing that makes me happy. What makes our relationship happy is knowing that we matter in each other’s mind, knowing we can create a place of comfort for one another, and giving each other the strength to face the challenges of life. That’s what makes us happy!
In an answer that is just as true, yet not as deep, I would say happy parents are parents who know how to play together. United parents build united families! This is true. Parents need to be more than united partners; joined together to raise their children. Parents need to be lovers, play-mates, and cheerleaders. I always say, “your marriage and spouse should be a source of anxiety reduction and not just a source of anxiety production.”
What do you do when you play with your spouse? How do you create that emotional connection of fun, excitement, and joy….you know that look and feeling that you see in your kids when they are enjoying life? Throughout this week, I’ve written about being vulnerable in our relationships and for some playing with our spouse is a huge risk of vulnerability. What if he doesn’t like the way I play? What if we end up not having fun together? First off, what is fun for you? What is fun for your spouse? What is fun for both?
When you are happy in your relationship with your spouse, you will spread those happy feelings to your kids. They love to see you smile and they want you to be happy (even your teenagers)!
So be happy…be happy parents and you’ll create happy kids!

A big part of emotionally married is taking the risk to be vulnerable. Risking to reach for our loved one and opening ourselves up to connect. We work to develop emotional connections with key people and to build lasting relationships where we can find safety. When I ask people to risk sometimes they respond with, “I know it won’t work, so why try?” It hasn’t worked in the past, so we predict it won’t work in the present or future. In many ways these people are right, but we will never really know until we try. In the TRY is the risk. In the TRY is where we can do something new or different. Rather than reaching with a cold shoulder or opening up with a complaint, maybe we can open up with a compliment or ask rather than demand.
There are many things in life where we think we know what will happen because we have stacks of evidence from prior experiences. When we experience something new, we often try to make sense of it based on a past experience. This keeps us from inventing the wheel over and over again. The challenge is to find new opportunities and to take that risk rather than always relying on our past to predict the future. Take soccer for example:
Our family doesn’t really know much about soccer, niether Cami or I have ever played it, and our oldest boys only played it for one year. Maci and Cooper decided they wanted to play, so we took a risk and tried something new. Did we think we knew how it would turn out? In many ways, yes, because we have stacks of evidence for both of them and how they respond to challenges. During the second half of the game some of the kids were running down the field after the ball. Cooper and another player tripped each other and Cooper ended up rolling over the ball. He instantly got up and ran to his mom crying. We could have easily said, “see I told you it wouldn’t work.” Instead, Cami comforted him and then encouraged him to join the other players who were sitting on the side line. At first he was reluctant, but when he was ready he went and took his place with his team. When it was time to make substitutions, Cooper went in and played great. After the game, his fall and dash to his mother were not his focus…instead he wanted to make sure we all knew he scored a goal!

Do you ever feel that the secret to success is to do everything the opposite of what life/society tells us to do? I had a friend a few years ago say that the title of a book on life should be, “How to find your balance in an upside down world.” When it comes to self-care, marriage, and our families….sometimes we need to create our own book of what works, even if it seems upside down. When you tell people what you did over the weekend they don’t always ask, “How much time did you spend connecting with your spouse and kids?” Usually the discussion is about all that we accomplished.
When it comes to life, relationships, and connecting with family I feel it is fine to be different if that means you place your family, your marriage, and your own self-worth at the top of your list. Families take time. Relationships take time. Taking care of yourself takes time.
We had a bit of warm weather this weekend and we dusted off the bikes and went for a few bike rides. We are quite the site as we ride through the neighborhood. Most people stop and stare, but I feel like we are so connected when we are out there riding. We have so much fun taking turns leading, choosing the path, and stopping to be together.
What do you do to connect with your kids and your spouse? When you are in those moments (for us riding bikes), take a moment to share joys of the experience with your spouse. It can be a simple, “this is so much fun,” or “I’m so happy when we are together.” Share your emotions with your spouse and kids and let them see that you are happy. When we share our emotions with others it is what some call a “public celebration” because we allow others to celebrate (or connect) with us.

First Spring pictures!