June 17, 2015

Dressed up in our wedding clothes for our celebration

Landon and I just celebrated our third wedding anniversary and continued our tradition of going down to the river and repeating our vows. We sat on a rock as the river flowed by and the sunlight sparkled on the water as we said the precious words to each other.

I love our vows, and saying them again, they mean just as much to me or more, as they did on our wedding day. I especially love the one where Landon promises to be open to my point of view and to value it as he does his own. (I’ve had to remind him of that one a few times.)

I let Landon’s words sink into my soul as he told me that he promised to love and cherish me all of his days.

For one of my vows, I promised to love him, to look for his goodness, his strengths and his greatness. It felt so good as I said those words again to know that I do that, I’m committed to that and that is where I stand.

Over the past three years, we have continued to explore the depths of our relationship and have been thrilled to discover deeper intimacy and that we’re more in love than we were on our wedding day, and that is saying something.

We dressed up in our wedding clothes and went to the New Moon restaurant to celebrate, as we’ve done each year. Buzz, one of the owners, remembering our tradition asked, “which one is it, #3 or #4?” If you’ve read “Falling in Love Backwards,” you know that our first ever date was at the New Moon, though it wasn’t really a ‘date’ or very romantic. That has changed!

As someone whose parents didn’t get along and modeled disharmony, it is especially powerful for me to be living a ‘happily ever after’ scenario in a relationship. We are committed to sharing what we have discovered with others because if we can have this, then others can too.

The path requires knowing yourself, clearing up as much of your own personal baggage as you can and then being committed to using the intimacy and the wounds that surface in the relationship as a deep path to more freedom. No blame, but surrendering to authenticity, truth telling, powerful listening and compassion for the humanity that is guaranteed to appear once you get close and vulnerable.

Landon wrote his book, “The Awakened Relationship,” as a handbook to go with our book and to outline how to set your relationship up this way. Please let us know if you have any questions or comments or if we can be of any assistance.

Wishing you a summer full of love and blessings,

Diane