Our guest speaker Heather Klaus shares her journey from failing at love and experiencing heartbreak and emotional abuse to finally finding ecstatic joy in love. We discuss the significance of setting firm boundaries and respecting each other's individuality to ensure long-term relationship happiness. She says, "love is a skill and it can be learned and you can grow your love and your passion Consistently."
The turning point with the discovery of the 'Sweet Spot' theory. It is a concept where a couple encompasses shared and individual interests, blending them into a harmonious co-existence.
The conversation wraps up with Heather encouraging listeners to acknowledge the small hiccups in their relationships before they become significant issues.
Heather's stirring narrative pushes the boundary of traditional relationship understanding, focusing on both joint and individual growth. Encouraging authenticity and transparency in relationships, Heather Claus's story is truly a Love Vitamin of breathing new life into relationships.
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LoVita – Love Vitamins for Life is a community that believes love is a daily act and Love Vitamins are how we strengthen the love. Each individual brings a story, perspective and practice on how to learn, play, and grow in love.
We share stories on how love shows up in your life in a digestible format. To learn more check out the links below 🔗
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Connect with Heather Claus
Website: my.curiouser.life
Book: Take No Sh*t!
Facebook: heatherclaus
Heather is a big fan of amazing people enjoying love, sex, and romance in happy and functional lives (whatever that might look like from human to human), which is why she’s thrilled to share her experience and knowledge of boundaries with you! ❤️
Heather wrote “Take No Sh*t! Build better relationships through discovering, creating and maintaining healthy boundaries in three (sometimes five) simple steps.” Because she hopes to create a world where more people know and understand good boundaries for all of us.
Embracing her journey through love and life, Heather Claus was the featured guest in an enlightening episode. Our conversation revolved around a potent ingredient of any relationship – setting boundaries.
Heather commenced her love journey by shading lights on her previous relationships, which were deterrents before becoming significant learning lessons. She poignantly talked about how failing multiple times led to her acquiring understanding about what she wanted from her relationships and herself. Some of the quotes she heard from her partners she shared with us
“you want too much, I’m only human.” “your relationship expectations are unrealistic” “no one will ever be perfect enough from you”
After that she decided to put it all on the table and be in a relationship which was 100 percent open, 100 percent honest, and no holding back. Heather says, “there is no reason for us to be in a relationship if we cannot love each other.”
The turning point with the discovery of the ‘Sweet Spot‘ theory. It is a concept where a couple encompasses shared and individual interests, blending them into a harmonious co-existence.
She believes it’s essential to honor and encourage personal space in a relationship. Heather’s theory plays out excitingly in real-life, where she and her partner share about 85% of common interests, making room for individual pastimes as well.
Another integral part of their conversation was about ‘sweating the small stuff.’ Heather argued that addressing small issues before they snowball into more significant problems is a critical love vitamin for a healthy relationship. These small issues sometimes go unnoticed until they grow bigger and become relationship roadblocks.
Ultimately, love is a skill that can be acquired and nurtured. Heather assured that deep and passionate love can be perpetual, given both individuals respect their authentic selves. She says, “love is a skill and it can be learned and you can grow your love and your passion Consistently.”
Heather and her partner, ten years into their relationship, are now enjoying the fruits of their joint effort — a bond filled with love, respect, and individuality.
Heather’s stirring narrative pushes the boundary of traditional relationship understanding, focusing on both joint and individual growth. Encouraging authenticity and transparency in relationships, Heather Claus’s story is truly a Love Vitamin of breathing new life into relationships.
Keep tuning in for more life-changing love vitamins!
Creating a Shared Relationship Vision with your Partner using Deal Breaker Questions –
Love Vitamins for Life
In this episode, we bring to you a quick and easy free at home date night idea called creating a Shared Relationship Vision.
It doesn't matter if you're just starting your relationship or you've been together for several years, it's never too early or too late to sit down with your partner and talk about what you aspire from your relationship. This is why we came up with a list of deal breaker questions. By taking the time to go through these questions, you can create a Relationship Vision that you and your partner are willing to invest in.
List of deal breaker questions: https://tinyurl.com/lovita1
Takeaways
1️⃣ We believe that a discussion around a Shared Relationship Vision should be a recurring exercise, perhaps even a Tradition. People and their priorities change over time. This exercise can keep partners in alignment.
2️⃣ Just because you and your partner share different perspectives doesn't mean that you are not on the same page. This activity is all about helping you understand your similarities and differences, and if and whether you want to invest your time in addressing those gaps and remember. Remember – It's okay to disagree.
Our inspiration for the activity was from our previous conversations with Brendan Kumarasamy, a communication expert and Victoria Raider, a possibility coach on their take on the value of working towards a Relationship Visions. Links below 🔗
https://lovita.blog/2022/11/11/unleash-prosperity-in-your-relationship-with-victoria-rader-a-possibility-coach/https://lovita.blog/2022/08/29/communicating-relationship-boundaries-with-brenden-kumarasamy/
LoVita – Love Vitamins for a healthier is a community by Partners for Partners. We share stories about how Partners are working intentionally toward building a healthier relationship. To learn more check out the links below 🔗
All below links in a single page – https://linktr.ee/lovitalovevitamins
Website – https://lovita.blog
Newsletter – https://mailchi.mp/81f58463e76b/subscribe
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lovitalovevitamins
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/lovitalovevitamins
Shared Relationship Vision
Today, we are sharing a quick and easy free at home date night idea called creating a Shared Relationship Vision.
It doesn’t matter if you’re just starting your relationship or you’ve been together for several years, it’s never too early or too late to sit down with your partner and talk about what you aspire from your relationship. This is why we came up with a list of deal breaker questions. By taking the time to go through these questions, you can create a Relationship Vision that you and your partner are willing to invest in.
Intention
This concept of a shared relationship vision has come up again and again as we interviewed relationship coaches and experts for our podcast. In our conversation with Brendan Kumarasamy, a communication expert, he brought up the concept of a shared Relationship Vision as a way to get on the same page. When we talked with Victoria Raider, a possibility coach, she brought up the concept of establishing a Shared Relationship Vision as a way to either find your soulmate or save yourself years of misery. We thought let’s be explicit about this and practice it for ourselves.
Things you need
📝 A list of Deal Breaker Questions. (Some sample questions available on Framework Relationship Vision. You can a complete list for free that we used) 🤫 A private and quiet space to have a conversation with your partner
Rules
Take a few moments to look over the list of questions you gathered and collect your thoughts. Then go ahead and set the space and environment for the conversation. Remove any distractions like cell phones. If you have pets or kids make sure that they are entertained so you don’t get interrupted.
Feel free to break up the questions into parts or segments . So you can take breaks in between as well.
Our Discussion
Listen to the episode for our conversation around the below topics
What do you consider cheating? In the context of a relationship
Do you have my back no matter what?
Takeaways
1️⃣ We believe that a discussion around a Shared Relationship Vision should be a recurring exercise, perhaps even a Tradition. People and their priorities change over time. This exercise can keep partners in alignment.
2️⃣ Just because you and your partner share different perspectives doesn’t mean that you are not on the same page. This activity is all about helping you understand your similarities and differences, and if and whether you want to invest your time in addressing those gaps and remember. Remember – It’s okay to disagree.
Experiment with a few different Deal Breaker Questions that suite your relationship. Let us know what you think about the date night activity in the comments below and share your story.
Victoria Rader, Ph.D. is a Possibility Coach™, transformational speaker, founder of YU2SHINE, and an internationally best-selling author of Prosper mE: the 35 Universal Laws to Make Money Work for You (and three other books). She is also the creator of Empower-mE and Master-mE apps, and the founder of Free mE EFT and Quantum Freedom.
Victoria has been married to her husband for 27 years and puts her relationship with her husband first.
Self Identity and Conflicts
We chat about self-identity and how it conflicts with your partners or anyone else’s identity when in a relationship
Victoria says “When you don’t know who you are and you are learning these boundaries by bumping into somebody else’s.” As an individual in a relationship, you are responsible for your own happiness. You can be happy without any changes in your partner or making anyone else responsible for the happiness.
Finding time for your relationships
The takeaway for us was on the value of having deeper conversations. It is much more impactful and fulfilling in a relationship to find opportunities to have a more meaningful conversations rather than spending more time with each other and having only shallow conversations (like talking about the weather). As Victoria and her husband were often travelling, they would get less time to talk to each other being in opposite ends of the globe, but it would be a much deeper conversation which they found to be a benefit to them. They always get time together on the calendar first. With their own mechanisms to spend time together, like travelling quarterly, watching silly shows, walking the dogs and more, they have set their non-negotiables and get plenty of opportunities to catch up and sync in with each other.
Now how does one get to having a meaningful conversation? At, LoVita we discuss many Frameworks to help this conversation started. The key is finding what works for you and your partner, and building on top of it. Then of course, sharing it with others not only reinforces your learning but also provides you opportunities to validate your thinking and learn from others. If that still seems too daunting, here’s a simple suggestion. Start with asking a question that you would like them to ask you. Start with asking questions, not just about the weather but things questions that will provide you an deeper insight of your partner.
Understanding your own language and then your partner’s language, and then being able to speak in that is so much easier on your relationship than trying to teach each other a brand new language.
Being aware of the love language of the partner takes communication, observation and time. Rather than defining a relationship, self centered as any human would through your own love languages, it can be a lot more beneficial to identify your partner’s love language. While being aware of each others love language is the first step, the next is to set markers for the minimum fulfillment and then to deliver a little bit more.
Ass Principle
Victoria talks about the Ass Principle. In times that your partner knows very well, something that they’re doing is very upsetting to you and they’re still doing it. When there’s a behavior or a pattern that is frustrating to you, do the below
Validation – in your mind. Look at the person that you love and say, “what an ass.”
Ownership – Say to yourself, “But he/she is my ass”. Own up to your relationship with them.
Forgiveness – Say to yourself, “I choose to forgive them”. You neither excuse the behavior, not punish it.
Love – Time to say, “I choose to love them.”
This 4 step process explained by Victoria, is a “two minute if that, it could be a 30 second mental reset that gets you validated, that gets you resituated in your relationship. That reminds you how the power of forgiveness and you actually look at them [with love]”
She explains how the 4 step process above can be applied to not only relationships but also to strangers. With some variations, she explains with an example of what to the next time someone cuts of off on the road while driving and you can “become a part of the greater healing versus, tearing yourself from inside.”
The power of this Principle is how the whole story, starts from you and ends with you. You’re not at all trying to change what the other person is doing which is powerful. Instead you are inviting them into the process simply by the choice of language that you’re using. Then by adding humor on top of it when you get comfortable with this principle is so beautiful. This can be very empowering, so the next time you bother your partner, you can try saying “Honey, I’m your ass” and see how that goes.
Relationship Vision
Victoria says, “we all go into the relationship with partial agenda, if we’re being honest, we have a vision. And that vision, our ability to communicate that vision to the person we’re considering commitment is going to either save you 10, 15, 20 years prior to divorce of strife or help you find the soulmate.”
Issues or your vision in your relationship should be addressed before anyone deepends their relationship into a romantic level. To those who have jumped into a relationship without this conversation prior, she says “you can say, Look, let’s start from ground zero. Let’s should start from ground zero. We just met today. This is what we haven’t done that we should have done three years ago, 10 years. Where do you see us going and what are the ways you want us to get there? And what are your non-negotiables? And if you see that the person can never meet your non-negotiables, please have enough love for you and for them to end the relationship. It’s not easy to end a relationship, but it is simple”
Learning to listen
Learning to listen without need of giving an answer. There is a simple exercise that she recommends. Set a timer for 15 minutes, and give undivided attention without asking one question, but just listening. Ask your partner, what’s on their mind and just listen to everything they’re saying. Listen, not only for the content, see when does their emotion go up and down cuz you will know more about them than they might be aware of. Then listen for repitition. The more they talk, the more they’ll start saying something and it’ll be a word or a phrase that they repeat. Understand that that is where they need the support the most.
How does this exercise help? Victoria says “We’re trained to listen with the purpose of understanding and even we try to understand so that we can act. Versus understand so we can love. There’s a huge shift to, I can completely disagree with you and still understand you and love you. And when listening is shifted to that, it’s a gift.” To validate your listening, something that you can do is, she adds, “empowering person back and saying, thank you for vulnerably sharing with me. I know you can figure all of this out. You don’t need a savior. I know you can figure this out.” She emphasises at the end on the point that as human being we all want to have somebody else say, you got this. As a partner, you not only have to say it but mean it.
Prosper mE
Victoria Rader has her latest book come out, Prosper mE and it’s about money. Check it out from the link below and also if you haven’t take a quick quiz to begin your journey of empowerment.
In this episode, of "Skip the Beat", we talk about
Self Identity in a relationship
The balance between Sharing vs Controlling
Setting healthy boundaries in your relationship
Takeaways
How others see us is crucial for our self-identity; start by understanding your beliefs and then share what you learn and know.
Remain adaptable; acknowledge that your identity is malleable and that conflicts aren’t bad – just opportunities for curiosity and growth.
Regardless of how you are received when you share your truth, stand by your boundaries
Before you can share with your partner what you want, there is a lot of self-identity work that is needed to be done to answer how you are and who you want to be.
Doing identity work, we start to realize that identity as a concept is quite malleable, it’s quite fluid. Looking at it in terms of “this or that” is very reductionist. Identity is more of an amalgamation or a culmination of different moving parts.
To discover the fine balance of how much and when to share in a new relationships
Digest and discern what are the important things to share
Start to build a foundation of mutual respect and understanding by sharing in small doses and using curiosity to ask questions
Start with – Sit with yourself, and identity, what are those non-negotiable boundaries within you? What are the things that you don’t know you can’t function without?
Navigating the fine line between controlling and letting go can be tricky. We often feel like we have to give something to get something. By transforming our ORs into ANDs, we can change this negotiation in our favor. Start having these conversations with yourself, to understand where our boundaries start and when it gets to sacrifice.
To build a healthy partnership, work on laying down the foundation for your relationship so difficult conversations don’t have to be hard ones and can be everyday, honest and real conversation. Building a healthy relationship requires hard work and being intentional about normalizing such difficult conversations.
LoVita – Love Vitamins for a healthier is a community by Partners for Partners. We share stories about how Partners are working intentionally toward building a healthier relationship. To learn more check out the links below 🔗
All below links in a single page – https://linktr.ee/lovitalovevitamins
Website – https://lovita.blog
Newsletter – https://mailchi.mp/81f58463e76b/subscribe
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lovitalovevitamins
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/lovitalovevitamins
Inspiration A word from the Shona language in Zimbabwe, Ndini, that translates to “this is me” in English.
Themes
Self Identity in a relationship
Balance between Sharing vs Controlling
Setting boundaries
Takeaways
How others see us is crucial for our self-identity; start by understanding your beliefs and then share what you learn and know.
Remain adaptable; acknowledge that your identity is malleable and that conflicts aren’t bad – just opportunities for curiosity and growth.
Regardless of how you are received when you share your truth, stand by your boundaries
Discussion
Before you can share with your partner what you want, there is a lot of self-identity work that is needed to be done to answer how you are and who you want to be.
Doing identity work, we start to realize that identity as a concept is quite malleable, it’s quite fluid. Looking at it in terms of “this or that” is very reductionist. Identity is more of an amalgamation or a culmination of different moving parts.
To discover the fine balance of how much and when to share in a new relationships
Digest and discern what are the important things to share
Start to build a foundation of mutual respect and understanding by sharing in small doses and using curiosity to ask questions
Start with – Sit with yourself, and identity, what are those non-negotiable boundaries within you? What are the things that you don’t know you can’t function without?
Navigating the fine line between controlling and letting go can be tricky. We often feel like we have to give something to get something. By transforming our ORs into ANDs, we can change this negotiation in our favor. Start having these conversations with yourself, to understand where our boundaries start and when it gets to sacrifice.
To build a healthy partnership, work on laying down the foundation for your relationship so difficult conversations don’t have to be hard ones and can be everyday, honest and real conversation. Building a healthy relationship requires hard work and being intentional about normalizing such difficult conversations.
LoVita 