Valentine's Day Challenge: Share Your Dreams

Happy Valentine's Day!

Just a quick note today to wish you love and light and happiness this day and always.

While Valentine's Day has been commercialized and marketed to the point where it makes some of us want to rebel, I still hold a special place in my heart for the notion of lasting love. And I hope you do as well. My sweetie and I have left behind some of the commercial trappings but we always make sure we carve out some precious couple time for each other to celebrate being together.

What have you and your sweetie done to make Valentine's Day special? Or even better, to bring the spirit of Valentine's Day into every day?

For instance, he's forbidden to buy me roses on Valentine's Day. To me, they're just crazy expensive. Instead, he brings home flowers during the rest of the year so that we always have some pretty in the house.

Here's my Valentine's Day challenge for you:

Sit down with your spouse and talk about your dreams for your relationship.

We all have secret dreams. What we really, really, really want. What we are secretly afraid of. What we are secretly afraid to ask for so we beat around the bush for 20 years, wondering why they can't figure it out.

Instead of keeping it secret, sit down with them and share honestly what you crave in your deepest heart of hearts for your relationship.

Then let them share their dream.

Rules for Engagement:

1. Avoid interrupting each other or talking over each other.

2. Make an agreement before you start that each person will have 5 or 10 uninterrupted minutes to share their heart.

3. Also agree that when you are finished sharing, the appropriate response from the other person is only this: "Thank you for sharing your heart with me." Full stop. No critique. No nothing. Just thank you.

And then you can both talk for 5-10 minutes about how your dreams can be combined into a dream that you both share for your relationship. Where do your dreams mesh, where do they seem to be far apart.

You can do this.

Let me be clear, this is an ongoing conversation. It won't be finished in one day. Or even one year. It's an ongoing evolution.

But why not start today when hearts are open?

Give it a try! You might be pleasantly surprised with the results.

Take it a step further:

In Ontario this is the Family Day weekend so why not expand the dream conversation to your children as well, after you've shared as a couple. (Good Rule: Spouse first, then kids.)

Sit down as a family and talk about what you long for with your family.

What would you all like to do, to see, to become. Who would you like your family to be? You might be surprised at the gems that emerge from a real honest discussion about Vision.

Remember, the same Rules apply when talking with your kids as above. No interrupting, no talking over, and say 'Thank You' when they are done.

I dare you to be authentic and vulnerable this weekend with those who love you most. Double dare ya!

Let me know how it goes!