Makena: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Way of the Muse. 

I’m Makena Sage, and Gigi and I have been switching back and forth a little bit lately on some solo episodes as we organized around some travel and other things. We will be back together next week with a fun episode that we will do together, so looking forward to that one.

In the meantime, I was thinking about what I wanted to share with you today. 

Valentine’s Day just passed, as most of you know, and it got me thinking—what do we do the rest of the year to really nurture our romantic relationships? Right?

We have these special days, like Valentine’s Day, if that’s something you choose to celebrate in your relationship, where maybe you do chocolates, write a sweet card, or do something special for your loved one. 

But what about the rest of the year? How do we really nurture our relationships? Foster a deeper connection? Is that something you’re doing intentionally, or is it something you’re just kind of leaving up to chance?

A lot of times, in the earlier weeks, months, or years of a relationship, we’re much more intentional about fostering that connection, putting the time in, and prioritizing the quality of our relationship. 

But as time goes on, people get familiar. They start to think, “Oh, well, we know each other really well. This is just how we do things. We’re both busy. And we just don’t put the same level of attention or intention into our relationships that we do in the early days.”

I have been with my husband, Sunny, now for nine years, and we’ve been married for over five. This is something we’ve really made a conscious effort to continue cultivating over time. 

Of course, it’s changed, right? It’s not the same as it was in those early days, but there are some practices that we’ve carried through and different things we’ve learned along the way that have helped us really keep a sense of… almost like that honeymoon phase.

People told us when we first got together, “Oh, it’s just the honeymoon phase.”

We heard that, but I remember thinking even back then, “What if it didn’t have to be? What if we could keep some level of delight and spark and joy and ever-newness in our relationship?”

So, we’ve really aimed to do that as much as we can. 

And of course, at times we do better than at other times, but what I want to talk to you about today are some of those things that have really worked for us.

So, this episode is really for you if you’re already in a relationship. 

However, we did do an episode a while back on calling in love, so if you want to listen to that one, it was episode 29, and we’ll link that in the show notes.

So, if you’re single and you want to call in that relationship first, that’s a great episode. Or you can listen in now and just go ahead and learn some things so that when you do enter your next long-term relationship, you have some practices you can try.

Again, together nine years at this point, married over five, and we’re about to welcome—not about to, but in a few months—our first baby girl on July 31st of this year. So, we are super excited. We’ve been wanting to start a family, and yeah, we’re just very, very excited for this new chapter.

In nine years, as you can imagine, we’ve certainly had our bumps along the way, but we’ve also been blessed to have a lot of peace in our relationship. 

This is something I love to talk about because when I talk to people who aren’t in relationships currently—who are looking—or people who are in relationships, both really, something I see a lot is that there’s this sort of assumption or belief that drama and conflict are a normal part of a relationship.

That as a relationship goes on over the years, the quality is going to decrease—that it’s going to be less special somehow or less connected. And I really love to go in and question these kinds of beliefs.

What if that wasn’t true?

What if that’s just kind of the default that people have fallen into or what’s been modeled to us through the media? 

But the truth is, you can actually deepen your relationship profoundly more and more over time.

You can actually have a new kind of spark and depth and fun that you maybe couldn’t even have at the beginning of your relationship.

What if drama was optional? That you didn’t actually need to have any drama in your relationship? 

I get so frustrated when I see this on dating shows, and I’m just like, “Oh my gosh, this is what we’re showing people? So much drama.” 

And so I think people believe that’s normal.

But the truth is, it’s optional. Drama is optional.

Some level of conflict, I would say, is normal and even necessary to have both of you be able to share what’s true for you and speak about what you want. And sometimes that’s going to lead to a level of conflict that you get to work through as a couple.

But it doesn’t need to be drama. It doesn’t need to be big blowout fights. It doesn’t need to be any of that necessarily—unless you really want it to be and that’s what works for you.

So first, let’s open with this idea—what if we questioned some of these beliefs? What are the beliefs that you’ve picked up from your parents, from the couples in your life, from the media?

Maybe you can identify what some of those are. Do those beliefs serve you? And if they don’t, what would be something you would want to take on as a belief instead?

And I can almost guarantee you that you can go out and find evidence for that new belief.

So again, this is a topic I love to talk about because I’m so passionate about rewriting this paradigm.

It’s interesting because this is the work that Gigi has done for decades. In her 40 years as a coach, much of the work she’s done—of course, she’s coached in business and leadership in many areas—but her real genius is relationships and communication.

And so, in that, this is something that, from her very early days, she was fascinated by—the dynamics between men and women, the masculine and feminine, and communication.

These are skills, tools, and thought processes that I was raised around. And although it hasn’t been my calling to focus on that particular branch of coaching, we do work with our clients holistically. So, we do touch on relationships. We do touch on communication.

I just didn’t go out to necessarily become a relationship coach, but it’s a personal passion of mine. It’s been such a joy and privilege to have Gigi’s guidance and wisdom over the years. So, some of what I’m going to share comes from what I’ve learned from her—the skills and tools I’ve learned from Gigi.

Why have we been able to have a peaceful, joyful, and harmonious relationship for the most part? I would say the skills and tools I learned from Gigi are one reason. 

Another is that we have operated from a foundation of what we call “all in.”

From the very beginning of our relationship, we knew this was different. We thought, “This is it. We’re going to be together forever.” 

And so far, so good.

In that, we just said, “Okay, we are all in. We’re not going to be one foot out the door or even 10% out the door at any given time. Even when we go through bumps in the road, our commitment doesn’t change.” 

There’s no wavering in the underlying commitment to the relationship. And that’s not always easy.

In my previous relationship, I had doubts. I didn’t feel certain. And so, I had one foot out the door for a long time. 

But even in that relationship, I had an aha moment where I finally said, “You know what? Even if I’m not sure, I’m going to go all in and just see. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.”

But something about having one foot out the door made it feel like I couldn’t even get clear.

I learned my lesson there—that going all in is key. If you really think there’s a chance, give your whole heart. Go for it. Why not? 

Because, at the end of the day, it’s the only way you’re going to know for sure. If you’re in with one foot out, or even 10% out, you’re not really experiencing the full quality and potential of the relationship.

You’re just guarding a little piece of your heart so that if it doesn’t work out, you won’t be as hurt. But the truth is, you’re going to be hurt either way if it doesn’t work out.

So, we both came into the relationship and said, “We’re all in. No questions.”

If it truly wasn’t the right thing, it would become clear over time.

We’ve operated from this foundation of being all in. 

The other thing we’ve operated from since the beginning is that we’re on the same team.

This can be really challenging to remember when you’re in conflict. It can feel like you’re on opposite sides. 

This belief has been tested over the years, but even then, we try to remember that, at the core, we both want the same thing.

We both want the relationship to work. We want each other to be happy and fulfilled. And we believe there’s a way for all of those things to happen.

Even if it appears that we’re in conflict, we know that we’re on the same team.

So, those two things—going all in and being on the same team—have been huge for the quality of our relationship.

Finally, I’d say that we are committed to having a great relationship. This is something that matters to us. It’s a value for us, and we work on it daily.

I mean, it’s not that every single day we’re having communications about our relationship or something, but we’re doing different practices a lot of the time, or we’re just loving each other deeply, we’re acknowledging each other, we’re doing things to feed the bank of our relationship and not just taking withdrawals all the time.

A lot of times, what I see is past a certain point, people stop depositing into their relationship bank.

They’re just taking, right?

They’re just like, “Oh, this is something that should give me support, love, etc., and I’m going to minimally, if at all, make any deposits.”

But how does that work, right?

You’re going to run out of money in the bank there pretty quick—or love, or maybe not love, but, you know, just sort of that connection and that quality of the connection if you’re not making those deposits.

And so, that’s what I mean by working on our relationship daily. We’re making small deposits that add up over time. 

And sometimes, those are bigger conversations and things like that, but most of the time, it’s simpler than that.

So, that’s kind of what I want to talk about today—what are some of those practices or relationship rituals? 

Just give you a few different tools that are very simple. Some are more simple, some are a little more in-depth, and that way, you can start to make some more deposits into the bank of your relationship that will pay dividends over time.

I will say that Sunny and I are both strong communicators naturally, so we do have that going for us in the sense that we are both very verbal. Words of affirmation is both of our number one love language, and we just—we’re very good at talking things through. We both have that as a strength.

So, if you’re in a relationship where that’s not true for you or for your partner, then just know that you could still absolutely use these tools.

The rituals and everything are powerful, but they may not come as naturally at first. It may feel a little more like a stretch, but believe me, we’ve shared these with tons of people, and they’ve gotten value out of them.

So, give them a shot. Try them on. If they don’t work for you, then great. Like we always say, you can throw them away. But try them on for a little while, you know, for 30 days, we always say, and see if it changes anything for you.

So, let’s get into the relationship rituals.

Ritual number one is actually a skill. It’s a communication skill, but it can also be a ritual. I’m going to share it in a more ritual way—a practice. 

This is one that came from Gigi, and it’s called Acknowledgment. You may have heard us talk about this on the podcast before.

We grew up doing Acknowledgment within our family. Gigi and I do this in our business, we do it with our clients, and Sunny and I use it all the time in our relationship. There are a lot of ways to use Acknowledgment, but if you’re going to make it more of a ritual or a practice, one of the best ways to do it is to say, “Let’s do this daily, or Let’s do this once a week for a while.”

So, Acknowledgment is saying—there are a couple of different ways it can work.

You can either acknowledge someone else for something, which is different from a compliment. It’s different from, “Oh, you look great today.” 

It’s really saying what they’ve done that worked, and often, why that made an impact on you.

At the very least, it’s saying, “I really want to acknowledge you for taking out the trash last night. I noticed it was getting really full. I was thinking about it, and then when I woke up this morning, it was gone. So, thank you.”

And then you can clap. This is the key with Acknowledgment—you both clap.

Now, you can do an acknowledgment without the clapping, right? And you can do it without your partner even knowing what you’re doing.

So, you can practice the skill on its own. We’ve talked about this in previous episodes. It’s very powerful. 

You could just say, “I’m going to acknowledge my partner for one thing each day for 30 days and try it on.”

However, the way I want to talk about it right now is really as this practice that you do with each other.

In that, you could either acknowledge each other, but most of the time, the way we do it is by acknowledging ourselves. So, we say something we want to be acknowledged for.

I would say, “Sunny, what do you want to be acknowledged for today?” 

I do this all the time at the end of the day.

And he says, “I want to be acknowledged for…” Let’s use that same example – “taking the trash out last night.”

And then we both go, “Yeah!” We clap wildly.

Which seems really silly, right?

You’re like, Do we have to do that? That seems ridiculous.

But there’s something about it that touches something in our human nature. No matter how silly you feel, it feels good to be celebrated, and it feels good to celebrate yourself.

So, when you clap for each other and yourself, make sure you’re both clapping for all of them—not just one person clapping for the other. You’re both acknowledging what that person did.

Then Sunny would say, “Makena, what do you want to be acknowledged for?”

And I would say, “I want to be acknowledged for bringing you coffee in the middle of the day.”

He doesn’t actually drink coffee, but we’re using this as an example.

And then we say, “Yeah!”

So, what does this do?

It gives us both a chance to be seen and heard in what we’re doing because we’re busy. Even though we both work from home, often he’s in his office, I’m in my office. We might have little moments throughout the day, but we’re not necessarily seeing and noticing everything the other person does.

So, it gives us a chance to share something we’ve done and be acknowledged for it.

You can do just one acknowledgment each, or sometimes, we’ll go back and forth two or three times. 

So, I’ll ask Sunny again, then he’ll ask me again, and we’ll do this two or three times, clapping after every single one.

It’s a really simple, fun practice. It feels a little silly at first. You have to get your partner on board with just trying it. But pretty quickly, most people really start to like it.

We did this as kids too, where we would have family team meetings, and we would all get to say something we did that we wanted to be acknowledged for. That was a really awesome practice as a family as well.

The other way you could do this is by acknowledging each other. 

Instead of Sunny saying what he wants to be acknowledged for, I would say, “Baby, I really want to acknowledge you for this…”

Then we would both clap.

And then I would say, “Is there anything you’d like to acknowledge me for?”

And he would say, “I’d love to acknowledge you for this…”

And we would both clap.

That’s maybe slightly more advanced. Maybe you start with acknowledging yourselves and both of you clapping, but you can do it either way.

So, that’s Ritual Number One—having an Acknowledgment practice where you’re both celebrating, witnessing, and hearing what the other person has done that they want to be acknowledged for.

I highly recommend doing this. You could do it at the dinner table every day, first thing in the morning, or before you go to sleep at night—making it a regular thing you do.

All right. So ritual number two is something we call Three by Three.

This is a daily ritual that combines a gratitude practice and acknowledgment into one.

You could just try acknowledgment on its own, or if you like the Three by Three, you could try that instead, which actually incorporates acknowledgment into it.

Sunny and I came up with this practice at some point, and for a really long time, we did it every night before we went to bed. We would do a Three by Three, and it’s very simple, but you’ll probably want to write it down. 

It’s three great things that happened today, three things I want to be acknowledged for, and three things I’m really grateful for.

Now, that’s a lot—it’s nine things for each of you to say, so it takes a little bit of time.

You can do a shortened version that we call a One by Three, which is just saying one great thing that happened today, one thing I want to be acknowledged for, and one thing I’m really grateful for. 

So either a Three by Three, which is three of each, or a One by Three.

The reason we do the Three by Three a lot of the time is that if you’re not in a hurry, it’s nice to really dig deeper. 

A One by Three is easy—it’s easy to think of one great thing that happened most days. Even if it was a challenging day, it’s usually easy to think of one thing you’re grateful for.

But when you have to think of three things, you really dig deeper, right? You go deeper into what else happened that was great and what else you want to be acknowledged for. 

So I love the Three by Three practice, but it does take a little bit of time. You’ll get faster at it as you go, but you can also do the One by Three if that fits better for you or if you’re both really tired.

So one more time. 

If I’m going first, I would say, “Three great things that happened today are…” and then I would list them. The first thing that happened was, “It was a beautiful sunny day, and I got to sit outside in the sunshine.” The second great thing that happened was, “da, da, da, da, da,” so I just share three things.

Then, I would say, “Three things I want to be acknowledged for.” The first thing is, “yada, yada, yada.” And then we both clap. 

We stop and do the clapping in the middle. 

The next thing I want to be acknowledged for is, “yada, yada, yada.” And the third thing I want to be acknowledged for is, right?

And then finally, three things I’m really grateful for. I’m really grateful for X. I’m really grateful for Y. And I’m really grateful for Z.

So that’s approximately what it would sound like. Of course, you would be filling in actual things that you’re grateful for and want to be acknowledged for.

That’s really the practice. It’s a gratitude practice, it includes acknowledgment, and it’s a way to connect at the end of a busy day. 

It gives you that moment of connection with each other—to really know a little bit more about what the other person’s day was like, what worked about it, and what they want to be seen and acknowledged for that maybe didn’t get seen and acknowledged.

This has been one of our favorite practices. Some people do highs and lows and things like that, and that’s great too. But for us, we really love focusing on gratitude, focusing on what’s working, and putting more of our energy and attention there.

Relationship ritual number three is called What’s on Your Heart. 

This is another one that Sunny and I developed. I believe he says I came up with it at some point—I have no idea how or why. But this is one that I’m going to describe here, and I’ll also give you a link if you want to download the full PDF that has all the rules and guidelines because it’s a little more involved.

It’s quite a simple practice, actually, but when you’re first learning how to do it, there are a few ground rules, and it can be easier if you have them in front of you. 

So you could print out that guide, share it with your partner, and try it out. The guide is at www.wayofthemuse.com/connection. 

We’ll have that linked in the show notes as well.

So, here’s the practice. 

You’ll probably need a couple of hours to do this effectively. Sunny and I love to do this on date nights. We go to a nice restaurant or make a nice dinner at home, and then we do a What’s on Your Heart.

We really take our time with this. It would be easy to rush through it and only have it take 20 minutes each, but I encourage you, if you can, to slow down and really keep digging deeper until you have said anything and everything that’s there.

The more you do this, the easier it becomes.

Quite simply, you sit together, ideally facing each other, and one person asks the other. 

So, let’s say Sunny was going first. Then I would say, “Sunny, what’s on your heart?”

He would take a moment and feel into his heart. It’s whoever feels more comfortable going first.

When I say feel into his heart, this is different than just, What’s on your mind? It’s tapping into a different place. 

You might have a lot on your mind, but you want to drop down into your heart and ask, What’s present for me right now? Are there feelings? Thoughts?

So, I’d say, What’s on your heart? And he would pause and tune in. 

Whatever is at the top of his heart, that’s what he would share first. He might say, “This and this has been really amazing lately, or I’ve been really stressed about this, or whatever it is.”

It’s usually a mix of challenging and positive. A lot of times, there’s more challenging stuff that comes up first, but he’s just going to talk and talk and talk about whatever is there—fears, doubts, worries, stresses, excitements, gratitudes—whatever has been bubbling up that, now that he’s taking the time to be present with it, is on the surface.

The ground rules here—I’m going to try to remember them all off the top of my head, but again, many of them are in the PDF if you want to go deeper.

The biggest ground rule is no crosstalk.

In other words, when Sunny is talking, I do not engage. It’s not a conversation. It’s a one-way communication. 

So apart from saying, What’s on your heart? I don’t talk—I just listen.

Whoever is listening, whoever asked the question, is really just holding space.

So, all you do is actively listen. You stay engaged. You don’t let your mind wander. You keep bringing yourself back to what the person across from you is sharing. I really love to hold a space of loving compassion while listening.

Practice opening your heart and loving the person across from you.

Even if you have opinions about what they’re saying, or you think they should do something differently, you can notice that come up in you—but then you just let it go. 

You just ask yourself, “How can I hold an energy of love, compassion, and just listen to this person across from me?”

That’s it.

It’s almost like a meditation practice—to listen in that way.

But what’s amazing about this is that, by the time the other person is done, you’re going to feel so much more connected—even though you haven’t had a back-and-forth conversation at all.

So, you say, “What’s on your heart?” They talk and talk.

If they get quiet for a while or aren’t sure what else to say, you can ask, “What else is on your heart?”

The only prompts I would recommend using are things like, “Tell me more about that, or What else?” 

You just want to keep prompting them in that way until they really feel like they’ve gotten everything out.

At some point, they’ll say, “I’m complete,” and you say, “Okay.”

Then you both shake it off, or maybe not. 

Then the other partner would ask, “Makena, what’s on your heart?”

Again, I would take a deep breath, tune in, and then share. While I’m sharing, the same rules apply.

There’s no crosstalk, apart from saying things like, “What else? or Tell me more.”

Sunny is going to hold that space of loving compassion.

This is a practice. 

It takes practice to listen in such a way that you are not trying to fix anything or solve anything. You leave your opinions and what you think somebody should or should not do at the door.

When those thoughts come up—because they will—it’s just a conscious effort to say, “Okay, I’m going to set that aside. That’s not what this is for.”

There may be another time to talk through something, but this is not that time.

And very importantly, you’re also not going to talk about what came up in the What’s on Your Heart practice for at least 24 hours.

So, don’t finish the practice and immediately start dialoguing, trying to solve something. 

If a challenge comes up between the two of you, you can both share how you feel about it during the practice, but you’re not going to try to solve it right away.

Give it at least 24 hours to sit.

Sometimes, you may find you don’t even need to talk about it—it just resolves itself. If you do, you want to keep it separate from the What’s on Your Heart practice.

This is not a time to air grievances with each other.

It’s not a time to say a bunch of things about the other person.

This is really a practice to just share what is present for you.

Maybe some of that involves the other person, but we want to keep blame out of it.

It’s just about what’s there—how you feel.

Okay, so that’s the third practice. It is a longer practice.

We’ve developed a shorter version now that we call “What’s Here Now.” It’s a much shorter version, but I recommend starting with the full-length one and doing it once a month.

I personally recommend once a week.

We find it incredibly supportive when we do it weekly. If you can’t do weekly, try every other week or once a month for a while and just see.

Print out the PDF, make sure you have all the guidelines—maybe some that I forgot to mention—and notice how the quality of your connection feels at the end of it.

All right, so that is the What’s on Your Heart practice.

So, we’ve talked about Acknowledgment.

We’ve talked about the Three by Three or One by Three.

And we’ve talked about What’s on Your Heart.

Some of these are very simple. They’re all simple in theory, but some take longer than others. These relationship rituals are really great ways to foster a deeper connection over time.

And I will say one last thing before I close out this episode that is so important in a long-term relationship. I’m not going to go deeply into it today, but it is worth mentioning, and that is intimacy.

I think that’s really important, and I think that’s something Gigi has always emphasized to me in terms of relationships and also with the other couples she works with. 

Intimacy is a key foundation of your relationship. If you are not intimate any longer, or you haven’t been in a long time, then that is something you’ll want to address in terms of the quality of your relationship.

Because otherwise, it’s just going to impact things, and you can do a lot of other practices—which will be great—but they’re only going to go so deep. If you are in a romantic, intimate relationship, then intimacy is a part of that.

Now, I know there are going to be ebbs and flows—life stages, pregnancy, kids, whatever it might be—so, of course, there gets to be some understanding of that. But intimacy doesn’t just have to mean sexual intimacy either.

It can mean other ways of being physically affectionate—cuddling, massage, dancing.

Speaking for myself, there have definitely been times where it’s easy to let this fall to the bottom of the priority list. But something Sunny and I have noticed is that when we do that, when we let this fall off the list or it doesn’t happen for a while, we start picking fights with each other.

We start picking at each other and being annoyed with each other far more often. And it’s like, we’re always wondering, “What is going on? Why are we arguing? Why are we fighting?”

And then, if we’re intimate, we’re like, “Oh, okay, I see—we feel so much better.”

So there’s something about it. We always talk about our animals—like, the human animal that we are in a romantic relationship. Part of that is the intimate connection.

We need to communicate not just verbally—which, again, is very easy for Sunny and me—but also through the body, which is a very different but equally important way of communicating.

This is a whole other podcast episode topic. Like I mentioned, I’m not going to go deeply into it right now. Probably, this is one I would record with Gigi because she has a lot to say on this and a lot of wisdom.

But the main thing I want to impart here is that if you’re not regularly intimate with your partner, everything else is going to feel a lot harder. Trying to do any other kinds of practices, things like that, is going to feel much harder because there’s something missing in the foundation.

So just keep that in mind. Otherwise, you might go out and think, “Oh, well, I tried to do this, and it just didn’t work.” 

And I would ask, “Well, are you guys intimately connected? Is that happening? Or when was the last time that happened?”

And, you know, you can ease into that in whatever way works for you. But it is just something I wanted to mention before we close for today.

So that is the episode, basically, on relationship rituals for a deeper connection.

All of these are things that we do regularly. This is not me just preaching some skills I learned somewhere—although I did learn acknowledgment from Gigi—but these are really embodied, practiced rituals that we do daily, weekly, and regularly in our relationship. They have helped foster an incredible connection that is truly one of the biggest blessings in both of our lives.

And I always say it feels like a battery pack that fuels the rest of my life.

Wishing you lots of success, lots of connection with your partner, and happy belated Valentine’s Day.

We’ll see you next week.