Romance!

BY AMY AND MICHAEL SHERMAN

As a couple devoted to healing, we understand that relationships go through changes over time. We are hardly the same couple we were when we first started our relationship. Now we have a child, a business together, and we’ve worked our tails off to end reactivity and create an environment of positivity in our partnership together.

So, when you move through so many changes over the years with the same person, there’s a question that is often asked: “How do you keep the spark alive?”

There’s a lot of conversation out there attempting to answer that question. Anything from leaving love notes on her car to buying him a new set of golf balls to wearing a dog collar before making whoopee.

Did I just use the term ‘making whoopee’? Oh boy….

Anyway, those are all fine ideas, but here’s the concept that we want you to focus on: Nostalgia. What do we mean by nostalgia? It’s the shared experience of a memory in the present moment.

There’s nothing like the experience of aliveness when we are fully present, particularly when that aliveness is shared with a partner. But when we are able to be this way with a partner while simultaneously returning to the memory of a past experience, whether that time was twenty years ago or just last week, it adds a dimension of sweetness that wasn’t there when the moment first occurred.

It’s like a fermentation process. The moment is grape juice. The memory is wine. And the taste of the wine is like the sweet nectar of victory that no one can take away from you.

Whether the memory is a thrilling, sexy, yummy time like a vacation or a road trip, or the memory is more of a challenge that had to be moved through – like moving to a larger home or saying goodbye to pet who has met its maker – there is a sweetness to having been there together and witnessing each other in that time.

This sweetness is a salve. It is medicine. When remembered together with a sense of openness and positivity, it deepens a bond and sows the seed that heals conflict and discontent, and allows for a level of intimacy that is deeply satisfying.

Whoever your partner may be (love relationship, parent, friend, etc.), by taking some time to remember, celebrate and honor our victories opens the door to a level of conscious love that will reignite passion and stir the soul. When you allow for moments of nostalgia, you feel a sense of rooted connection with your partner that awakens energies of joy, contentment, and inner peace together.

And when you take the time to do this, and then put on the dog collar, you can’t beat that combination.

Amy and Michael Sherman run the Courageous Loving Counseling Center in Chestnut Ridge. Learn more about their work at www.CourageousLoving.com or join them at their montly public talk, “The Relationship Miracle,” every 2nd Monday of the month at Nyack Yoga @ 42 Main Street in Nyack.

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