Spring Fling Challenge | LQ047

Crystal Clark: 00:00:00

Welcome to our love space today. Spring is here. If you're listening to this episode as it drops, Spring is finally here, and I am so excited. I've been prepping for it, thinking about decluttering relationships and spring cleaning them out, planting seeds. And now it's time, now that we have kind of decluttered, we've planted some seeds. Now it's time to have a spring fling with the love of your life, of course, because that's what we're into here. So I, as you know, I always love to share some research and some background with you. So a study out of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology looked at couples doing different activities together, and this is why I want you guys to have a spring fling with your lol. So they looked at doing different activities together and found that couples who participated in novel activities, so those are things, those are things that are new or that they haven't done together before, or just not like at average everyday, mundane activities like grocery shopping together, or things like that, that They reported the couples who did more activities that were novel reported higher levels of relationship quality and higher levels of relationship satisfaction. And so I'm sure there's no surprise there, but really, variety, in some ways, is the spice of life, right? You know, we often talk about the fact that, like, it's okay, or it's expected for relationships to become dull and boring and mundane and every day, and that we just need to go along with that ride. And you know, we need to change our mindset for that, because that's very old school, old style thinking. And of course, you know, there's a lot of people who are not as many people are getting married nowadays, and there's a whole sorts of socio economic reasons for that. But you know also, if you've grown up and being told the Smith that like, oh, marriage is drudgery, and you'll probably get divorced anyways, because the divorce rate is blah, blah, blah, and right, and it's just going to get boring and still, and you'll end up just like having a roommate, you know, after so many years, who is going to buy into that dream, right? So maybe, if you really, really would like kids, and you believe it's important to be married to have kids, that's going to be one of the driving factors. But, but then, are you still expecting that? You know, I'm just here for the kids, just here to make the babies, and life with you will just get boring. That's horrible. Okay? So we need to change our mindset to that, right? And so we need to change our mindset to the fact that things don't have to become boring and mundane and dull, and that we can change that we can do, right? We can change our behaviors. We can do actions that either move us toward, lean us into the relationship and the love space that we want, or that move us away from the relationship and the love space that we want. And so this would be one of the things that's going to move us towards the relationship that we want, is having variety, doing novel things together, have continuing to have new experiences. And this is one thing that we probably don't talk about much on here, about, although I have in very early episodes about the idea of new relationship energy. This tends to come from more of the polyamory community, where new relationship energy is something that people can get caught in, and is sometimes maybe sought after as well. And so that's the idea that when you're in a new relationship, it is, it's exciting, right? And the newness helps create some of that excitement. And so we have this newness. We have this spark for excitement between us and that we you know that that's the part that kind of connects us and gets us together. And that is true, but it's often the newness of it that excites it, right? And if you have a good connection, and then there's some newness, it excites it. So I know you and your love of life have a wonderful connection. So we just need to add some newness. And that's not necessarily newness of a new LOL, no, that's newness of new life experiences and situations together, right? So it's important for us to shift that mindset away from mailing it in. We're no longer mailing in our relationships. Don't mail it in. Okay? Maybe there's some other parts of our life that we can mail things in on from time to time, but we want to move away from that idea that we can just mail in things about our relationship, right? And that things are going to get mundane. So we're going to shift it. We're going to change it, okay, to LA. Let's keep this love going. Let's keep living life. Let's be intentional with each other to try new things together, right? Let's be intentional to go outside of our comfort zones together, and to not just let this life flip by us, right? Because I feel like it is a general mindset thing. If you are in the mindset that relationships just get mundane, you're probably also in the mindset that just as we get older, or when you have kids, life gets boring and just filled with responsibilities. We get boring. We should just stay at home every night watch TV. And I think the people that are reporting very high qualities of life and very high qualities of life satisfaction are the people who keep going out and trying new things, who remember some of the things that they used to like right before, maybe before kids, before the big jump, before the whatever, and are able to tap back into some of those things and still go out and participate in them and do them every once in a while, right? Or to be like, Hey, I can't really do this thing anymore, but this new thing has some of the aspects of some of the things I used to like to do in my 20s and my whatevers, and I gotta try that thing, right? Let's not let life slip by us, right by just mailing it in for life, right? If we're mailing it in for our relationships, we might also be mailing it in for life, or we might not be sharing energy, you know, between all the things. But I want so that's why I want to challenge you this spring, okay, to have a spring fling with your significant other, with your love of life, you're going to take this opportunity with all of the flowers coming out and the blossoms coming out, and the freshness of spring when it's just starting to get warm, but you know, the nights are still sometimes a little chilly, right? So you can go out any little, you know, cute outfit during the day for a picnic or whatever, but we would need to remember to bring a sweater. Or our love of life needs to remember to bring a sweater to loan to us for when we get chilly. You know, I want I'm challenging you to have a Spring Fling, to use this energy of newness and vitality and growth, channel that into relationship. And you're going to date each other this spring. If you have forgotten how to date each other, we are going to relearn that's what this challenge is about. So our first step is, I want you to brainstorm a whole bunch of ideas for mega moments of love that you can do this spring. Now, if some of them are not necessarily spring so that's from now, from when you're listening to this till June 21 okay, I really want, I'm giving you a time limit on this challenge. If you are listening in the future, then you know for sure, do the Spring Fling challenge. I mean, I just love it with the energy spring. But try it. Try it for whatever, three months, you know, stint you want to that's what I really want you to do, is you're committing to this for three months to date each other. It's this is going to refresh you. It's going to change so much. You are going to be like, just so surprised. Okay, so I want you to brainstorm all the possible date things that you can do. So your Mega moments of love, as we like to call them here. What mega moments of love can would be cool to do? And I want you to try to really think about things that are new, that you've never done before, things that you're going to go outside your comfort zone with, right? And not just the same old thing. And now, if you're not a couple who just does the like dinner and movie or dinner and dance or like whatever people think a date night's supposed to be, tap into one of those. Do an old fashioned, old school date night, right? Try something that's new and that's outside your comfort zone. That's what we're tapping into, right? Because when you first sometimes when we meet someone, maybe when you met the love of your life, I don't know what the dynamic was. But a lot of times I feel like when we meet the love of our life, there are some when we get a really great connection. There are some challenges there. There are some things that are outside of our comfort zone. And so in doing these challenges and things outside our comfort zone,

Crystal Clark: 00:09:19

we build connection. We're vulnerable with each other, and we're also having, besides having a new, exciting person with us, we're experiencing a some new and exciting pieces of life. Even if, when you were dating that person, if, if you didn't love that new thing, they took you to you were still experiencing something new, and that's still going to energize you, whether you loved it or not. It's going to be something that's going to go into your reminiscences, your shared memories, all of those things. Okay, so get get crazy with the brainstorm. If you start coming up with some things where you're like that's more for summer or more for fall, leave them in there, because don't forget you. You can keep this going. You can keep dating, right? And that's what I'd love you to do. You know that when people are like, oh, never stop dating, this is sort of what they're talking about, is they're talking about, never stop, you know, not making time for each other. Never stop going out and giving yourself fully to the other person and being present without distractions. Because that's often what we do in the beginning stages of dating, right? Never stop making that person a priority. That's what people mean when they mean never stop dating, right. Never stop making that person a priority. Never stop making that person your favorite person. And never stop or and never start treating them. Never start treating them like they're just something that will always be there, because that's not the case, right? We know that that person could leave at any time if they're being treated like that. I could leave at any time if I'm being treated like that, whether you know married or not married, right? If we're just being taken for granted all the time, that's one of the major things that breaks apart relationships, is just taking people for granted. Okay? So don't do that. That's why we're going to have a spring fling. We have decluttered, right? So we've recognized the hiccups that we're having, and the things are are keeping us stuck and holding us back. We've started to plant the seeds, to tweak and to boost some of the skills and some of the things we need to do to help with the decluttering. And now, now we're going to start getting some of these positive moments in by enjoying each other and putting in some newness and some variety into our lives. So I also want now that you have this list again, you can always go back to it, because you need to keep dating. Now that you're going to have the list, the next thing you need to do is from now to summer, right from now to June 21 ish, you know, I'll even give you the end of June, June 30. I want you to also decide the actual days that you have time to do these things. Now, for some people, this planning will look like, hey, we need these are the days we have available, and then we will pick activities to match for some people will be like, these are the activities what we want to do, and then these are the times and days that are available. And so we will pick our days based on activity availability, right? It depends what stage of life you're in, if you have kids, if you need babysitting, if you need whatever, but it is manageable, and there are ways to do it okay? So this so you're going to do you're going to put it in the calendar in concrete terms. Because again, when we write things down, when we make them tangible, right? When we do this brainstorm, then our ideas for being part of the Spring Fling challenge have been put into action. So when we put the brainstorm into writing, we are kind of committing. We're starting to commit, right? We're kind of at the beginning of the commitment part that we are deciding that it would be cool to participate, it'd be interesting, fun, whatever, to participate in the Spring Fling challenge then, and that gives us things to go back to and look at. It's made it concrete and tangible is making it one step more real. Then when we put these dates in the calendar, that makes it the next step more real. And then when we actually buy the tickets, make the reservations do the whatever, say no to other people asking for plans on those days, because that's another important piece. If we're like, hey, yeah, we're going to go to this concert on this day, or we're going to go out to this restaurant, sure, maybe a concert is not easily changeable, but a restaurant reservation easily changeable. You could change it from a Saturday night to Friday night, and then you have friends ask you, I would still try to stick to that plan. And be like, hey, actually, you know, we have plans on the side, and maybe we could hang out Friday or Sunday, because just by saying no to another plan, you're shifting your mindset into the idea that your relationship is a priority, and that this challenge, that reinvigorating your connection is a Priority, right? If we keep pushing that priority, if we could be like, oh, yeah, it's not important. Whatever, we can totally go out for dinner on Friday. It changes your mindset about the importance of it, even though it might be the exact same dinner cost the same be the same experience on Friday or Saturday, if you put that Saturday aside, it was for a reason, whatever that reason may be, maybe it was like, Hey, we have nothing going on that weekend, and it's nice to do a big thing on a Saturday rather than on Friday night. And then maybe not have any plans for the Saturday. Maybe that was your mindset when you made it, or your thought process. And then, if that's your thought process when you made that plan, and then you go back and go, Oh, do you know what? It's fine. We can change it. No problem. We'll switch it, then it, then that's no longer the big experience, right? Because you picked it on a Saturday to be your big experience, and now you're giving it the back seat to Friday or to a next weekend. And it's no longer the big experience that you put all this or that you put some importance on right again. Life can come up. We may need to rejig some of these days. But it is a it's a big mindset shift when you start telling people No, we've planned this special date together, when you've already been together for three years, five years, seven years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, when you start to say no, this is the special time we've made that changes your whole dynamic. That is shifting your love space to be centered around you, and that you are the main characters in your love space. So we need to put that into the calendar, make it concrete, make it real, right? And then your final step will be actually going right. Actually going taking pictures. You know, I love pictures because I do actually like to print them. I We and me and my LOL, we both like to go back on our phones and look through pictures sometimes together. You know, when your phone makes you those special videos where, you know, collages a bunch of pictures together. So we love that, and we use that to reminisce about our relationship, and, you know, look back and find joy in it. And, you know, I like, like I said, I will post up pictures. I take pictures to the fridge. I'm that kind of girl, like, it's like a my grade 12 locker. But that brings me joy, because I love to look at those pictures every day when I open the fridge. I love to see them around my house. And I am not a perfect person where everything has to be in a picture frame and organized and things like that. So for me, you know, taping some pictures up to the fridge or up to wherever brings me, brings me joy so. But it's great to have things to reminisce about, right, and talk about, because that's what fills up our life, and again, that's what keeps adding to our joy and our connection. Is when we think back to those joyful times and moments, we experience a piece of that joy, in delight, in the moment of reminiscence. The other thing is that when we put them in the calendar, and then when we put these dates into the calendar, and we have committed to them, we can then also tap into the power of positive anticipation, right? So our brain experiences joy and positive emotions looking forward to things that are coming. So if we are able to look forward to these date times as wonderful, amazing things that we're going to do with the love of our life, that you are going to be experiencing more positive emotions with the love of your life, just from that anticipation, never mind from even doing the date right. So we're adding in all of these layers, all of these layers, to have opportunities for more positive emotions and positive interactions with us that are, you know, almost accidental, like I know the research behind them. I know why you want to do them, but you know, did you know that, right? And you might want to put, you're going to put that date night in your calendar anyways, so that you remember it, and you don't double book yourself, and that you commit to doing it. But whoa. What a two for one that it's also every time it pops up into your calendar, or every time you go, Oh, you want to do something that we can do. We have anything. Oh yeah, that's what we're going to that thing.

Crystal Clark: 00:18:10

Then you'll be like, Oh yeah, that thing is coming up. And that's another moment of positive emotion about that experience, before you even have that positive experience that you can then reminisce about, which gives you more positive emotions and positive interactions. Oh my gosh, it's like a cycle. It's like a cycle of positive growth in your relationship when you do this kind of challenge. So I would also like us. Here's my little call to action for all of you. I would also love us to help each other out, right? Because sometimes being creative, sometimes might put you guys on the spot. Being creative like this could be hard. So I will be doing some Instagram and Tiktok posts and whatever you know where to find me, on Instagram at sparked forever and on Tiktok at sparked underscore forever. And I want you to tell me. I want you to show me. Drop some pictures, drop some details on the post. You know, comment on what kind of great date ideas, great, mega moment of love ideas you came up with. Which ones are wins, which ones are fails, which ones created hilarious stories for you. I would love to hear all of these. Leave me some voice messages. I would also love to hear those. Maybe I'll play them on the podcast. That would be super fun. I would like us to all share these ideas with each other. I would like us to try all new things together. And again, we're going to use all of these things to renew our relationship and to have a spring frame with the love of our life and to create that energy and that forward momentum that's going to keep us sparked. You.