1000 Questions Married Couples Should Ask before “I do”
What if you had asked your husband or wife 1000 questions before you got married? What kinds of premarital counseling or classes for couples did you take if any?
Although I have a lot of issues with the Catholic Church stances on many issues, one modern practice that is to be commended is their practice of classes for couples before getting married. How much do couples really dive in deep and ask uncomfortable questions about how they will live their lives together. Do couples ask each other things like what temperature would you ideally want the house to be set at in winter and summer? Another resource I love is 1000 questions before Marriage, which is a book that lists all kinds of questions like the ones below. It also gives guidelines on when to ask the questions.
Other men and women have been shocked to learn what their mate thought about sex, religion, careers, household work, money and the future. In fact, many of these differences have led couples to divorce court. Married couples could cut down on a lot of their clashes if they knew more about their mate’s thoughts, beliefs and emotions. The best way to get to really know someone is with questions.
You need to use a certain amount of wisdom with these 1,000 questions. Someone who has just begun dating shouldn’t accelerate the relationship by starting off with questions on marriage and sex.
Obviously, you wouldn’t ask this to someone unless you are in a committed relationship or close to having one but at what point is it appropriate to start to bring these issues up? How can you really know someone’s life values, beliefs without really having deep conversations about them or having to experience them directly when you are thrust in the situation?
1000 Questions for Couples Before You Say “I Do”
How often do you think we should take a vacation? Would we take it just the two of us or would we leave the kids with grandparents or baby-sitters so we can just focus on the two of us? Once we have kids, how often will we plan on having a date night with no kids?
What about the sensitive subject of in-laws? How close or far away or close will we live from our families? How involved do we want them to be in events like weddings, christianings, how we raise our kids, baby-sitting our kids? Do we need them to call before they come over ( if they live close by) or is it ok if they just knock on the door? What kind of boundaries do we want with our extended families? If we live far away, how often will we travel out to see them? How often do we want them to come over and visit us? Will they stay with us or at a hotel?
What about religion? Will one of us convert? Who will that be and how will that be decided? If the other does not convert, how do celebrate religious holidays? If the holidays falls around the same time such as Easter and passover or hanukkah and Christmas, how do we celebrate them? For our kids, how do we teach them about both of our faiths? Are we going to send our children to religious school? What priority do religious holidays have in our lives?
What about money? Will we share bank accounts or maintain separate ones? Do we also have a joint account? If there is a primary breadwinner does that person have more power and control over the household finances or do we share that equally? Do we set a monthly budget? How much savings will we have every month? If one of us has a lot of debt do we pay that off jointly or individually? How do we decide how to spend our money each month? Should we run major purchases by each other first? How do we decide what a major purchase is?
What about where to live? Do we want to live in a house, condo or apartment? Do we want to live in a more urban area, more suburban area or out in the countrywide? Do we want to live part of the time in one city and have a vacation home in another city or country? Will we do our own yard-work or hire someone to do gardening? How important is it to us that our house is in top condition? Do we want to spend money on major repairs so that our house is always in top condition or is that less of a priority? Will we do some repairs ourselves like painting and refinishing or will we hire someone to help us with that?
What about your social life? Do we like to go out a lot to to restaurants, bars, dancing, movies and other cultural events or are we going to focus on savings and business matters and sacrifice going out as much? How late do we like to stay out? Do we like to go out just the two of us or do we prefer to go out with friends and family? How often do we want to socialize with close friends and family?
What about health and wellness matters? Are we going to spend more time and money on eating healthy and staying fit or are we going to relax in our off time and get prepared food and take-out? Who is going to do the cooking and how will we decide that? What kinds of foods do we want to eat on a regular basis? Does one of us have any dietary restrictions and how accommodating will our mate be to them?
1000 Questions Before You Get Married
What about pets? Do we have any allergies to pet? If yes, then are you prepared to give up an animal or not have a certain kind of animal for your partner? If we adopt a pet, what kind of pet will we adopt? How do we figure out how to share in taking care of it? How much of a priority will out pet be? Do we plan our day, vacations around our pet or take them with us? If our pet starts to get sick will we invest a lot of money in taking care of it? Will out pet sleep in our bed with us? Are they allowed up on the furniture?
I believe a lot less couples would get divorced (or even not marry each other in the first place) if they actually knew each other well enough before they got married.
Neck Pain & Tight Shoulders – Yoga Poses that Help Relieve Pain
Unfortunately, neck pain & tight shoulders seem to always come together. Often in my yoga classes, I will ask students what body parts are not feeling good and what they want to work on. The number one answer is always low back pain and the next body parts are usually tight shoulder, neck pain and also hip tightness.
I think every single yoga class I have ever done helps with low back pain, as long as the student does not get too aggressive and try to go farther in the pose than is appropriate, which is very common for very new students. For new yoga students I am alw Pays reminding them to let go of striving and competition and if they are wincing or grimacing or worst, grunting in a pose (yes, that happens) then they needs to stop, modify so it is more comfortable or get my attention in a big class so I can give them an alternate pose.
Neck Pain & Tight Shoulders Poses
Here is my youtube video on using tennis balls and laying on top of them to give yourself a neck and shoulder massage.
Often it is so relaxing and since I am releasing such deep tightness with the tennis balls from neck pain and tight shoulders that I fall asleep in when I am doing this. I drop down into a deep place of relaxation that I tell my husband not to talk to me when I am doing this. The dog also knows to give me some space when I am working with my tennis balls.
I won’t travel anywhere without my tennis balls. I put the balls in a sock so that they can work on each side of my vertebrae evenly. I probably have at least 4 pairs of tennis balls wrapped in a sock in my house, maybe even one in my car and I never travel anywhere without my tennis balls.
Another technique that works well is a very hot bath. Sort of cliche but it is quite therapeutic. Best to add a few drops of essential oil such as lavender and also Epsom salts which lets you relax further. If you don’t have any essential oils, then you can also throw a few bags of herbal tea such as chamomile into your bath water to make it smell all spa-like.
Since I have been having some inflammation in my knees lately, I can’t soak in a hot tub or else my knees will start screaming at me at the top of their knee-lungs so another way to heat up this part of the body without inflaming another is I have a herbal collar that I heat up in the microwave. I actually have my lavender, rosemary and some other yummy smelling herbs collar on right now as I am writing this. Awesome to wear on a chilly night as well. You have to be careful heating up an herbal collar since I actually burnt the last one in the microwave by trying to heat it up too fast.
Jill Miller Yoga TuneUp DVDs – Knee Hab
I was reading a review about Jill Miller’s Kneehab video in a recent YogaJournal magazine and decided to go ahead and order it but didn’t give much hope to this.
A month later, after doing the Kneehab video for almost every day and feeling a LOT of relief, I figured I should also buy her DVD for upper body pain . When you are in pain, you often are open to trying lots of different things without having much expectation to them actually helping. Her DVD for upper body pain is divided into parts that give exercises, poses and moves for people that are just recovering from surgery to seasoned athletes.
Not all of the poses will be accessible if you have a lot of neck pain & tight shoulders . This DVD is divided into 5 segments specifically for pain in different parts of your body such as your neck, shoulders, The segments range from 5-10 minutes …. easy to fit into your day. I actually do some of the moves when I am watching tv or on the toilet (am I sharing too much again?)
Jill Miller Yoga TuneUp DVDs for Neck Pain and Tight Shoulders
Even though it is called Yoga Tune Up it actually feels more like a yoga-flavored physical therapy session. If your primary purpose is to find a very-low cost way to find your own relief from neck, shoulder, hand, wrist or knee pain, you are going to have to carve out time to do these moves on a regular basis.
It’s not a tape to do once and then have you neck pain and tight shoulders be magically healed. It is an on-going routine that will have to become part of your life. It’s less time to do this tape then to have to see a acupuncturist, chiropractor or physical therapist though a few times a week.
I was reading a review about Jill Miller’s Kneehab video in a recent YogaJournal magazine and decided to go ahead and order it but didn’t give much hope to this.
A month later, after doing the Kneehab video for almost every day and feeling a LOT of relief, I figured I should also buy her DVD for upper body pain . When you are in pain, you often are open to trying lots of different things without having much expectation to them actually helping. Her DVD for upper body pain is divided into parts that give exercises, poses and moves for people that are just recovering from surgery to seasoned athletes.
Even though it is called Yoga Tune Up it actually feels more like a yoga-flavored physical therapy session. If your primary purpose is to find a very-low cost way to find your own relief from neck, shoulder, hand, wrist or knee pain, you are going to have to carve out time to do these moves on a regular basis.
What yogi doesn’t love reading elephant journal for Yoga articles they have in there. I think I discovered EJ a few years ago when I was starting to do more blogging. I love how there is always a wide assortment of writers, bloggers about all kinds of topics about yoga, spirituality, love, sustainability. Sometimes there is some social activism viewpoint from the writer but more often than not, it is just a refreshing voice on a popular topic. It seems like there list of topics is always growing from having business-centric topics such as 10 Things to Consider before Opening a Yoga Studio, Part II to racier topics such as Sexus Plexus: 20 Ways to Light a Fire which have all kind of intimate partner stretches, moves and scenarios and also topics in Spanish such as Latin Yoga Para Ti.
The city guides are awesome as well since they cover some of the main progressive metro areas in the US such as LA, NY, SF, Portland and Boulder. I think my favorite name for any of their categories is NON NEW-AGEY SPIRITUALITY. I have written a few posts for Elephant Journal – Yoga blogs but they are pretty picky and do have some guidelines you have to adhere to in order to have your submission accepted. Here is another cool article I came across in EJ lately. How to Have a Killer Relationship. ~ Dr. Katy Poolewhich poses many love questions for you and your partners to consider.
Fun partner stretches
If you write for elephant journal on Yoga then you want to keep it very personal, casual and grass-roots sounding but don’t mistake any of that for meaning that it should not be well-researched, well-written and well-thought out. There are also certain stylistic guidelines that they post that you will want to adhere to as well. Bob Weisenberg is one of their main Editors and he contributes meaningfully to online conversations that are not just on elephant journal.
Their mission, which is stated on the site ” is dedicated to bringing together those working (and playing) to create enlightened society.” Most of their articles are not “How To” articles but rather are about someone’s opinion, viewpoint or personal journey that often elicits the response, hmmmmmmm and you can pause and reflect for a bit.
Most of the article make me smile or chuckle… occasionally laugh out loud…. for example in this post 10 Things I Will Never Do In Yoga. I love how the writer talk about “yoga porn”, where is where some yogia is doing some ridiculous balanacing pose while teetering on the edge of a cliff. He also mention how he will never get in a ” yoga competition” since yoga is about letting go of striving and if he did enter a yoga competition he would probably just “kick your ass” anyway. I’m sure he could kick my yoga ass, metaphorically speaking…. I’m not one of those yogis that can be super gumby like and do things like hyper extend into a backbend where my head almost touches my butt in a backbend. I almost want to laugh when I am in an “intermediate” yoga class and the teacher casually says, ” Ok. let’s do the splits now”. (When I look around the room only 6% of the students are in a full split and most of them are about the same level of unflexibility as me (despite doing yoga for almost 18 years) Just so you know, yoga is not about who can bend their joints the most and show that off to a group of people.
This kind of writing style is indicative of the other insightful, witty, personal, grass-roots, hmmmm-invoking writers that elephant journal draws on. Thank you Waylon Lewis (Editor-in-Chief and self-titled Errand Boy)
If you are sick of sitting on your couch and deciding whether to watch Dancing with the Starts or Jersey Shore together then connect soulfully and playfully with your sweetie with couples yoga poses. No need to be a contortionist or wear a loin cloth, these are poses that all body types, from the unathletic and inactive to the stiff and inflexible can do. Remember that it is yoga practice and not yoga perfect so let go of the need to do the pose perfectly. You’re not going to be photographed for the cover of YogaJournal so let go of expectations and judgements that you might have for yourself and for your partner.
Start by sitting back to back in a comfortable cross-legged position and just start to notice your breathing. Then start to notice the rise and fall of your partner’s breath. See if you can can synchronize your breathing pattern with your partner’s breathing pattern.
Let your head tilt back and lean back on the crook between their neck and their shoulder. This is a small but powerful stretch for your neck so don’t be aggressive or move quickly here. Repeat on the other side.
Here are some of my favorite couples yoga poses.
Standing up grab onto your partner right forearm and start to walk your feet towards then and then start to lean away. Reach your left arm up into the arm behind you and lean back. Men should let the women lean back first and then modulate your weight around her so she can be balanced. Come back to center and change arms and repeat on the other side. Do this sequence a few times and you will start to be able to lean back farther. This pose almost feels like you are flying if you can lean back far enough. You’ll start to trust and find your partner trusting you more with their body in this pose. It’s a very liberating pose.
Be seated on the floor facing your partner. Have your legs bent with your feet on the floor. Grab onto their hands or forearms with a firm grip. Have your legs inside of your arms at first. Press the soles of your feet together and press them straight up into the sky for boat pose. You might have your legs bent here and if there is a big leg length discrepancy then you might have your feet on their calves.
For the next variation of this pose, have your legs outside of your arms but close to your arms. If you legs are farther away then this probably will not end up feeling too good for your hips. Press the soles of your feet together so and extend your legs straight up into the ceiling. Keep your legs near your arms. If you want a more advanced variation then grab your right hand to their right hand and reach back with your left arm. Bring your left arms to their left arm, get a nice firm grip and reach back with your right arm. This is a challenging pose but most people can do this pose if they don’t overthink it.
Some people may look at the rows of people jogging on treadmills at the gym and wonder how they can do it. There are many reasons why spending an hour or so on a treadmill may not appeal to someone. It can be very boring, for one thing. Others simply find the whole atmosphere of a large commercial gym objectionable. So what is this person to do when they decide they want yoga poses & weight loss?
If the gym just isn’t your thing, consider some alternative weight loss methods. Yoga in particular can be a great way for a person to tone their body without requiring them to spend hours on the treadmill.
Furthermore, its focus on developing the mind at the same time as the body may make it more interesting for some people. If you’re tired of running place, consider joining a yoga class.
Yoga offers a great alternative to traditional workout routines. It is much more laid back and relaxing than the fast-paced nature of the average gym exercise regimen. Furthermore, it has a stronger focus on developing the whole of the individual, rather than simply toning the exterior. This may make the yoga studio a supportive atmosphere for those who are trying to lose weight.
Some individuals may be skeptical about yoga’s ability to help them slim down. It may seem hard to believe that simply sitting in specialized stretching positions can get the heart rate up enough to burn any calories. However, the Mayo Clinic reports that a 150-pound person will burn around 240 calories per
hour doing yoga. This is less than jogging or other types of physical activity. But it is significantly more than simply doing nothing.
Furthermore, yoga helps a person tone their muscles. This may not necessarily help when it comes to watching the pounds tick off on the scale, but it does help individuals look leaner and healthier.
No matter how heavy or svelte a person is, loose muscles can make them look unattractive. Yoga solves this problem. The exercises involve holding poses for extended periods of time. These positions tighten up the muscle groups and help make a person look less flabby.
Yoga’s greatest benefits may come when it is practiced as a complementary exercise. Other types of aerobic exercises are better for burning calories and shedding pounds, but they are less effective at keeping the mind fresh and the body energized. The most important effects of yoga may be that it encourages a greater sense of spirituality and mental clarity. This can help a person stick to their broader weight loss goals.
So if running on the treadmill isn’t for you, give yoga a try. You may be surprised at the effect it has on your life and the degree to which it enables you to slim down.
Guest Post By Dahn Yoga– Dahn Yoga is one of the largest yoga and tai chi companies in the world with its own unique style and brand of yoga. Dahn
Yoga is rooted in the rich history of an ancient Asian mind-body practice, Sun Do, and in the wisdom of the Chun Bu Kyung.
out their mate’s thoughts, beliefs and emotions. The best way to get to really know someone is with questions.
