Preparation: The Key To Getting Off On The Right Foot

Description
Good preparation is any essential aspect of successfully undertaking any challenging intention and committed partnership certainly can be challenging! This chapter will identify some of the challenges that are commonly encountered when a relationship moves from casual to serious.

Video titles for the course:

The Best Preparation for Marriage
Things You Want to Know Before You Tie A Knot
Are You My Soulmate?
Characteristics of Happy Couples
Thinking about Marriage Counseling
Handout: Qualities that represent character virtues, and some of the qualities that strengthen them.
1. Courage

Risk-taking
Truth telling
Drawing boundaries
Stepping out past the edge of your comfort zone
Vulnerability
Authenticity
Discernment
2. Commitment (Wholeheartedness)

Holding an intention and vision
Closing all back doors
Raising your threshold for toleration of pain and discomfort
Persevering in the face of obstacles
Affirming and reaffirming your intention
3. Responsibility

Owning your own shadow
Withholding blame and fault from others
Being honest about what matters to you
Giving up the victim mentality
Seeing opportunities rather than problems
4. Attentiveness

Mindfulness
Conflict management
Practice committed listening
Practicing self-restraint
5. Impeccability

Holding a high standard of excellence
Getting compete with past experiences
6. Discernment

Mindfulness
7. Patience

Hold a vision and working over time towards its fulfillment.
Holding the tension of the opposites
Practicing presence
9. Integrity

Aligning your feelings, thoughts and actions
Walking your talk. Embodying your values in your behavior.
10. Honesty

Telling the truth of our experience, revealing feelings
Keeping agreements
Giving up rationalizations that justify dishonesty.
11. Generosity

Letting go
Expanding your capacity to give
Cultivating the attitude of gratitude.
12. Openness (Vulnerability)

Being willing to acknowledge and express feelings especially fears and needs.
Letting down defenses when appropriate.
Emotional disarmament.
13. Authenticity

Being real, genuine, and true to yourself.
14. Humor

Taking yourself less seriously
Spending time with humorous people, watching comedy films (good ones)
15. Humility

Restraint of your ego’s efforts to gain praise and attention.
Awareness of he consequences of arrogance and ego-inflation.
Recognition of the benefits of letting go of the need for significance and importance.
16. Compassion

Consciously choosing to experience feelings of sorrow and empathy towards self and others.
Expose vulnerable feelings to self and others.
Opening our heart to those around us knowing we will lose them
Practicing forgiveness
Identify what’s in it for you to be more openhearted.
Basic knowledge
This course isn't simply didactic, but is also experiential. It is necessary for you to understand what will be required is more than simply to listen, take notes, and receive the information that is given.
The course will hopefully provoke and evoke feelings, opinions, concerns, and experiences that are not simply generic to most people, but also those that are specific and personal to each individual in the relationship