Dreaming is a vulnerable thing to do. And dreaming with your sweetheart? Doubly vulnerable. So how can you feel good dreaming about great vacations to take together?
Today we’re talking about vacations and my 3-part framework: Partner, Lover, Friend.
- Today we’ll focus on The Friend in your relationship and how to increase connection by sharing your dreams
- We’ll talk about the skills of The Friend: Listening and Revealing
- And I’ll give you 3 questions to open up a conversation that supports dreaming and connecting with your sweetheart
Vacations are high stakes and we all go into them with secret expectations. I’m not even talking about the expectations we don’t communicate to our sweetheart. I’m talking about how many people go on a trip and expect the vacation to be life changing.
When the trip ends and you return to your same humdrum life, you feel deflated. You have the post-vacation blues, and you don’t even know why.
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I’m going to attempt to give you a better vacation.
Better because you’ll know how to create a dream for your vacation, that may not change your life, but will add to your life. Better because I’ll show you how to have a definitive line between dreaming about your vacation and sitting down to have an actual plan. And better because I’ll remind you how to play more on your vacation and I’ll point out the stumbling blocks that tend to block people from having fun.
In order to talk about your dream, your plan, and your playtime on vacation, I’m going to return to our conversation about the three distinct roles I see in every relationship I encounter. Those roles are Partner, Friend, and Lover.
As a reminder:
- The Friend in your relationship wants to share stories and gives you a homebase of belonging.
- The Partner in your relationship bonds when you share a project and you feel like teammates.
- The Lover in your relationship wants to share a new experience and that excitement and novelty fire up your chemistry.
Let’s identify the 3 Roles when it comes to making your vacation better:
- The Friend is good at dreaming
- The Partner is good at planning
- The Lover is good at doing
Dreaming about your vacation with The Friend
One of the core things that will make a great vacation is to dream with your sweetheart. When you dream together, your vacation is taking shape. Together. Your dreams = your imagination of what you want your relationship to become.
When you reveal your dreams with an open heart and you listen attentively to your sweetheart’s dreams, you have the best chance at building a cohesive dream that overlaps.
Have you ever dreamed with your sweetheart about a vacation?
Here’s how to fail at shared vacation dreaming: Instead of listening attentively, you just go on and on about your own dreams for your own vacation. You stand a good chance of drowning your sweetheart’s dreams. Maybe you’ve felt your dreams take a dive when your sweetheart doesn’t listen to your dreams.
This is why dreaming is a skill at which you can improve.
Here’s 3 questions to explore as Friends who vacation together
- How can I encourage your dream?
- How can you encourage my dream?
- When is it time for us to follow our own dreams so we can come back to each other fresh and lit up inside?
Want more?
Here are the links to the series:
Dream Together → Friends imagine a shared future.
Plan Together → Partners build a life together.
Play Together → Lovers create delight, spontaneity, and desire.
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