SPRING CLEANING FOR YOUR MARRIAGE

by Allison Anderson, MD

Ah, spring. That auspicious time of year when the flowers start to emerge, the birds start to sing, and the world seems to wake from its dormant winter state.

We often use spring as a time for a refresh. We do spring cleaning. We let go of things we no longer want or need. We tidy up. We make space. Space for what we desire, space to breathe, space to expand. We get excited about the possibilities that await.

We refresh our closets, kitchens, and garages. We might refresh our wardrobes, makeup, or haircuts.

And spring is a perfect time also to refresh our relationships. We can carry the bright, optimistic energy of the season into evaluating our marriage and making it feel new again.

Before you plan to tell your husband everything you need him to do differently or decide you need a major overhaul of certain patterns or actions, let me tell you the secret to creating anything you want in your life: it all comes down to your thinking.

Your thoughts create all of your emotions. Your emotions drive all of your actions. And the actions you take create all of your results. That means that your entire experience of your marriage can be traced back to how you are thinking about it. Now I’m not saying that your partner doesn’t have a role in things. But his words and actions don’t affect you until you have a thought about them. Everything is subject to interpretation.

As with any spring cleaning, spring cleaning for your marriage starts with analyzing what you’ve got right now. Just like you would clear everything from your junk drawer and then decide what to put back in, you will want to clear all of your current thoughts about your relationship from your mind and then decide which ones to keep. The way to do this is via a thought download. This is essentially a steam-ofconsciousness writing exercise where you get it all out. Take a piece of paper (yes, actual paper and pen are best) and write your thoughts about your marriage and partner. Let it flow without editing or judgment. If you need some prompts to consider, try these:

What is my overall feeling about my marriage, and why?

What do I wish was different in my marriage?

What’s amazing about my marriage?

What do I think about my husband/ partner?

What do I think about myself in the context of my marriage?

Once you’ve put it all on paper, you can look and see everything there.

Our brains are thought-generating machines, and we have 60,000 thoughts per day. It turns out that a small percentage are super important and useful, and the vast majority are you’ve written down are subject to investigation. Using our example above, let’s go through three questions to ask yourself about those beliefs (inspired by the work of Byron Katie). 1 junk drawer, done away with all the broken items, and are now ready to curate a drawer filled only with the most intentional, useful objects. random, unimportant, or complete nonsense. Many are “thought errors” - thoughts that seem true but aren’t. Because we are biologically hardwired to be on the lookout for any danger, our brains have a negativity bias and predominately focus on what’s going wrong. Sometimes, we inadvertently hold onto thought errors, which become our life’s unconscious soundtrack. For example, a common thought error that I often hear is something like, “marriages lose their spark after a certain number of years.” This might seem very true. You might have lots of evidence in your own marriage to support that thought. Your friends might agree with you and provide proof of how it seems true in their marriages. The media certainly does a great job of promoting this thought error, with rhetoric around romance and passion being fleeting. So it makes sense that a thought error like “marriages lose their spark after a certain number of years” becomes a well-ingrained belief for many of us.

Is it true? 100% true, factual, and provable in a court of law?

In this case, no. No one would take the stand and testify that 100% of marriages lose their spark after a certain number of years.

2Even if it’s true, is it helpful?

Look at your thought download and circle any thoughts that make you feel amazing about your husband and marriage. Things like, “I love him so much,” “He’s such a great partner,” and “He’s just so handsome and getting better with age!” Then come up with other thoughts to practice thinking on purpose that make you feel excited, loving, connected, grounded, joyful, etc.

Look at your thought download and start to question all of it. Any negative thoughts and beliefs

Again, in this case, no. When you view your relationship through the lens of “marriages lose their spark after a certain number of years,” you will subconsciously be looking for more evidence supporting that belief. Your brain can always find a way to prove itself right. Holding onto that belief will make it very likely that you focus on all the ways your marriage lacks a spark. And because what we focus on grows, that thought won’t prompt you to actually do anything to increase the spark.

3What would I do if I didn’t believe this thought?

Without the thought about marriages losing their spark, you would likely focus more on what’s going well in your relationship, and you would be inspired to find fun and romantic things to do with your partner that would feel exciting and fresh. Once you’ve gained awareness of your thinking by doing your thought download, and after you question any thoughts or beliefs that aren’t serving you, the next step is to intentionally decide which thoughts you want to keep going forward. This is the stage where you’ve emptied the

Make a list of 5-10 intentional thoughts about your marriage that make you feel great, and keep them handy. Practice thinking about them daily and watch your experience of your marriage shift in the most positive ways.

Clearing out old clothes that don’t fit your body or style makes space for new, gorgeous pieces to be added to your wardrobe. And clearing out the old, stale thoughts you have about your marriage opens room for new levels of connection, love, and intimacy to flourish. And we all can use more of that.

Allison Anderson, MD, is a board-certified cardiothoracic anesthesiologist and certified life coach. She’s on a mission to help other high-achieving women create personal lives as extraordinary as their careers by upleveling their relationships, confidence, and self-image.

Find her and the meditation mentioned in this article at www.allisonandersoncoaching.com/ meditation