SMARTer Romantics
I started writing about SMART Romantics about a year ago. SMART stood for Self-Aware, Mature, Authentic, Realistic, and Transparent.
I’ve since realized that there is more to healthier, happier relationships than can be explained by psychology alone. It still begins with our Self, and the interplay of how we connect with our partners, yes - but also how we align with consciousness as a greater whole.
After many conversations and deliberations, I’ve decided to put together a small group program to test this idea. If you’re like me and always want to work on a particular thing (e.g., writing, working out, or self-development), but you don’t actually do it unless there’s a time on your calendar where you do it together with other people - you might like to sign up as a beta tester here.
Thus was born the SMARTer Romantic. Here are their characteristics:
Self-Knowledge is an important piece of self-awareness. We acquire knowledge about ourselves from our own thoughts, feelings, and experiences, but also from how others react to us. The most effective lens I know and my favorite one is the Jungian framework for psychological type. The first module of the SMARTER Romantics program will therefore be a primer / refresher of the 8 Jungian functions, how they show up in your psyche, and how they influence your attitudes, biases, and behaviors in relationships with others and yourself.
Mindfulness is another way of saying conscious awareness. We’ll build on the cognitive knowledge from the previous step, and start exploring our layers of un-consciousness. It’s about slowing down, getting off auto-pilot, and paying attention to our lived experience in our minds, emotions, and bodies (TL:DR, they’re all one thing!). The focus will be uncovering past patterns of things that tend to activate us and bring out our adapted selves (aka our teenaged coping mechanisms that used to work but don’t anymore). As such, the second module will be a primer / refresher of psychodynamic work using shadow work exercises.
Now we know what makes us tick and what ticks us off, it’s time to get practical: Assertiveness is one of the most important skills that support effective communication, setting boundaries, and managing conflicts. This will be the module with the most exercises (yes, even some dreaded role plays). Beyond practicing what to say and how to say it, we’ll make time to get comfortable with feeling what it’s like to be assertive, and how to receive an assertive partner. This should be truly transformational, I can’t wait for you to experience it.
Resilience is built as we go through the tough times, so it’s usually a work-in-progress. It contains a cognitive aspect of limiting beliefs, which we’ll get into, but our focus here will be emotional resilience. I’ll share the hottest latest neuroscience findings into emotional awareness, and we’ll integrate with journaling prompts and reframing tools.
Thoughtfulness is about setting meaningful intentions, commitments, and goals. This means spending time getting clear on what your actual desires are, differentiating them from goals you may have taken on from others or cultural programming, and visualizing the future you want to move into. Since these modules are designed for all Types, we’ll explore tangible goal-setting as well as intuitive options, depending on who’s in the group.
Evolving & Resourceful are the reminders that for every new hurdle we surmount, another might appear. With this program, I promise you will learn and have access to tools you can re-use for many other future life situations. If all goes well, you’ll have established relationships with the individuals in your group as well who’ll be a tremendous source of mutual support. My intention is to not just leave you alone after we close, but offer follow-up get-togethers to see how we’re getting on.
So much for the basic introduction. Timing for the first group is still fluid, and I just want to add that I realize it takes a lot of courage to decide to work on your self-development, let alone diving into your shadow-unconscious, and applying any insights to romantic relationships. It’s something I started doing recently and it’s the scariest thing - so I’d love to do it together. If this feels right for you, I hope you let me know.
