- Long distance relationships
can be tough man, but they can work and even thrive if you have the right strategies. So if you're in a long
distance relationship with someone that you love, these five strategies can
not only help you save that long distance relationship,
but make it thrive. Check it out. (soft music) Hey this is Mat Boggs, and I'm the co-founder of the
Love and Relationship Division of the Brave Thinking Institute, where our mission is "Empowering people to create and live a life they love," and that includes your love life. And so today, we're talking about long
distance relationships. This question, almost every
video I post someone says, can you do a video on long
distance relationships? And so today we are doing that video because I used to call myself " king of long distance relationships." I had so many long distance relationships throughout my twenties,
even into my thirties. And in fact, my wife started out as a
long distance relationship. We dated for almost a year before I moved to Southern California and we eventually got married. And so I am living proof that long distance relationships can work, they can thrive, and the can work out for the long-term if you have the right strategies. And so today I'm going to share with you five strategies that will serve you in your long distance relationships. Strategy number one, create time together. Now I know this might sound obvious, but I can't overstate the
importance of this one, prioritize your time together. Because when you create time
together, in other words, you create a vacation together, you spend a week together, you create a weekend getaway together. You prioritize these benchmarks
throughout your calendar, where you say we're getting
together during this time. When you prioritize that, it just reminds you of why
you're going through the pain of being apart, why you're enduring the loneliness of spending all those nights by yourself and waiting and wanting and wishing and hoping to be together someday. When you get together, it just confirms yes, I'm in
this for the right reasons. Yes, I've been going through
this struggle for a reason because I love you so much. So I actually learned
this from my grandparents. When my grandfather went
off to World War II, anytime he came home, sometimes he would get shipped back and he'd be in another state, or he'd be across the country. My grandmother would tell me stories about how she would quit her job, sell something that she owned just to buy the train ticket to go and spend one night with my grandfather. They had an epic love story. They were married 63 years. And my grandmother would often say, if I didn't prioritize him, if I didn't prioritize
us and that relationship, I don't know if we would be married, I don't know if we would
have lasted this many years. But it's prioritizing love
that mattered to them. And so that's what they did and that's led them to creating
a phenomenal relationship. So in your relationship, how are you prioritizing each other? Specifically, how are you prioritizing
creating time together? Number two is to create
supportive phone calls. Now there's a really funny dynamic that can happen in a long
distance relationship, maybe you've experienced this where either you'll do unders or overs. And unders or where you both
get really sad together, and the majority of the conversation is about how much you miss each other and about how hard things
are when you're not together. And this takes the conversation
in a really sad tone. And while there's some satisfaction in indulging in that
sadness with one another, the challenge becomes before
you talk the next time you're anticipating, gosh do I really wanna have a really sad conversation right now? So if you let things get too
sad, that can be a deterrent for even wanting to get
on the phone with another. On the other hand, there's
a really funny dynamic that happens on the other
end of the spectrum. What happens is the
pendulum will swing to sad, and then people will
let it go the other way. They're like, let's not
be sad, let's be happy. And so then they'll start sharing about how awesome their day is and how amazing it was, how fun it was and all the adventures they had. And you can start to compete
to see who had the better day. It's a really funny dynamic. I can remember my girlfriend and I started to get in this competition
very slowly and gradually where it was get on the phone, and oh, my day was so awesome
and it was this and that. And then she'd say her day was amazing we had these amazing days,
but it kind of felt bad too, because we were just competing to see who would have a great day, and there's a part of you
that wants to be missed. And so keeping it as a
house healthy balance where it's okay to share how sad you are, but make sure that you don't let it drop into the depths of despair. At the same time, it's okay to share how
awesome your day is going, but then you can soften that and bring the other person into your day. If your day is really awesome, then say, and it's even more awesome because I get to share
it with you right now. Or it would have been even
more awesome if you were here, I'd have loved to share
this experience with you. Bring them into your day, because it can be really easy
to feel separate and alone if both people are creating awesome worlds without each other. So one of the things that
can support you with this, if you'd love some phrases
that can support your man in feeling great and feeling seen, heard,
acknowledged, desired and increasing his attraction, I've got a great free gift for you called 15 Phrases that
Ignite Desire in a Man. And so it's a free PDF, you're gonna love these phrases, infuse these into your conversation. He's gonna love it, and it will help you feel
more connected overall. You can click the link, grab
that as a gift from me to you. The third strategy that can help you in a
long distance relationship is to do what I call create
an inner world together. This is something special that only the two of you know about, only the two of you do it. It's unique just for the two of you. So let me give you a few examples of this. There's a couple that I know
that when they were together, let's say there were
at dinner with friends, she'd hold his hand on their table and squeeze his hand three times and that was code for, I love you. And then when they were apart, she would send him a text that
said, squeeze times three. Instead of saying, I love you, squeeze times three is her
way of saying, I love you. No, she would also say, I love you, but it was just unique inside
their own inner world way of saying, I love you. Another couple when
they would get together, they'd be at an event where
there's lots of things going on, whether it be a festival,
or a nightclub, or a party, and they would have this practice where they would hug and
just close their eyes and take in all of the sounds and everything going on around them, and imagine that they were
in their own unique world while life was buzzing around them. And they would open their hearts, and feel the love back and
forth between each other. Now that is super cool. Now I love that because it's their own
inner unique experience while the world is going on around them. So there are things that you can create just between the two of
you, whether it's pet names, whether it's fun stories that
you have with one another, whether it's callbacks from movies that you've enjoyed with one another, all of that stuff helps to
create your inner world. And that in a world
becomes special and unique just to the two of you. Strategy number four,
is to create rituals. Rituals are things that you do
on a regular repeated basis, but they're more than
just habits or routines. Rituals carry meaning, they
carry emotion inside of them. And so a ritual might be in the morning, you get on the phone with one another and you share your five
gratitudes for that day. Or maybe you do gratitudes
at night with one another, or maybe you pray together
at night with one another. A ritual helps build the
intimacy in the relationship. Another ritual might be that you cook together in the morning, you're gonna cook breakfast on FaceTime, and then you share your
intentions for today. Here's my intention and what I'm wanting
to create for the day, and he shows his intention. Or you even pump each
other up with affirmations before you leave, before
you hang up in the morning, you say, okay, I'm gonna
give you some affirmations. And he opens and he
receives these affirmations. And you say to him, you're amazing, you're strong, you're
smart, you're powerful, you're attracting massive success today. You're attracting money, joy, abundance, and prosperity into your life. Now, whatever affirmations
you would love for him to say, give him those affirmations, He can give you his affirmations and you pour into each other. This is a great way to not
only build the connection, but to deepen the intimacy that you're experiencing
in that relationship. And the fifth strategy for supporting your long
distance relationship is to create anchors. Now what's an anchor? An anchor is a goal
that the two of you have for the next time you're
gonna see each other, or the goal for when you're
actually going to be together. And this is super important because the difference
between meaning and suffering, is meaning is working towards a goal that you're holding in mind, suffering is pain without meaning. When you're missing each other, when you're sad, when you're sleeping in your own bed, and you don't know the next time you're
gonna see one another, or you don't know what
you're working towards, there's suffering in that moment. It's like you pulling up a rope and there's 50 pounds
at the end of this rope, and it's hard and your muscles are burning and you have no idea how long this rope is or how long you'll have to pull, that becomes suffering. But if someone tells you, no, there's a toddler
at the end of this rope, they'd fallen into a well and your job is to help
pull them up to safety. Now, you know what you're working towards and you know there's an end goal in mind when you save that toddler from that well. Same thing in a relationship, never part from one another, without a plan for when you're
gonna see each other next, that's an anchor. There's actually two kinds of anchors. One anchor is the next time
you're gonna see each other. And so when you know that before you part, what's amazing as the partying
becomes way less painful, because instead of oh
I'm gonna miss you so bad and this is gonna be so hard
and your heart is breaking because you don't know when you're gonna see each other next. Instead it becomes excitement like oh this was such
an amazing experience and I can't wait till we get
together in Thanksgiving, or I can't wait until we
get together at this spot or I can't wait until this, but you have something
that you're hooking to. That really helps the emotional process for when the two of you have to leave. So one anchor is the next time
you're gonna see each other, but the second anchor
is just as important, if not actually more important. And this is the plan for when long distance
will come to an end, when will the two of
you get to be together? What is the plan? Is he moving to where you live? Are you moving to where he lives? There's no right or wrong answer here, but having a plan makes it all worth it. Like if we can get through this, then I know we can be together. Once you're done with school,
we're gonna be together. Once you're done on deployment, then we're gonna be together. Whatever the case is, if you have a plan for when
you're gonna be together, that can make it all worth it. And if sometimes life isn't static where you actually don't know exactly when, where that's gonna be, but you do know when you can set a plan or when you might have more information. So if you know, hey, six months from now, we're gonna have more information and that's what we're gonna
be able to make the plan, then that can serve the energetic flow just as much as actually having the plan. So my question for you is what strategies have you found support a long distance relationship? Go ahead and post that in
the comment section below. And again, if you like this video, take a moment, get subscribed,
be part of this community because every week we bring you videos to empower you in your love life. Thanks so much for
watching. I'll see you soon. (soft music)
