We have great news! And we ask for your support to make the news even better!

Without any advertising . . . due solely to word-of-mouth Our 4th book The Smart Couple’s Guide to the Wedding of Your Dreams is now on several Amazon Best Seller lists

At the time of this writing, it’s #10 on Amazon’s Best-Selling “Planning” List and #16 on Amazon’s Best Selling “Wedding” List

We are so pleased because this book - the only book dedicated to the wedding couple - deserves to be #1 on both those lists.

Sure we’re biased - but it truly is THE BEST book for the wedding couple there is! Period!

So that’s why we’re asking you to help - Please help everyone you know who’s engaged or getting engaged to have the best wedding ever . . . and help us move The Smart Couple’s Guide to the Wedding of Your Dreams up to the top of those lists!!

Direct Link to Amazon:

THANK YOU!!!

Because It’s in the Connection!
Judith & Jim

PS It’s only $10.17 at Amazon - so get a couple to have on hand for future gifts!

Thanks Again!

Winter is setting in here in the mountains. The trees have dropped their leaves, the grass isn’t growing, frost is a regular morning visitor and ice is not too far away.

It’’s almost past remembering that the hills and pastures here were bursting with wild flowers just a few short months ago.

But the lush, verdant summer is only one season, like lusty passion is only one expression in the life of a relationship. Things change, and sometimes the beauty is not immediately apparent.

As we walk along the road the winter colors are muted and unassuming. We cant rely on them to excite us. Instead, we have to give more of
ourselves, we have to open and extend ourselves.

We have to bring more to the exchange because one half of the partnership - the winter landscape - doesn’t have the energy it once did.

Love is like that. Sometimes our partner doesn’t have it to turn us on. Sometimes they don’t feel well. Sometimes they’re depressed. Sometimes
they just want to be quiet. They’re muted and withdrawn.

That’s when we have to extend ourselves, our sensitivity, and look for the beauty of the moment. It wont leap out and grab us, but it’s there. And it doesn’t mean there’s anything we have to do but be respectful of what’s happening and, like in the winter, open to what it has to offer.

It will return the rich gifts of its season and, after a time, will be wild flowers again.
*******
Be sure to get Judith & Jim’s gift, a one-hour
audio “The Power of Receiving.” Just go to:
http://www.judithandjim.com/receiving

You’re busy checking off the items on your to-do list. Most of the gifts
have been wrapped. And the holiday cards made it to the post office this
morning. Oh, but you forgot about your daughter’s teacher! And what to take to the Smith’s annual Christmas Eve get together? And then the cookies for the school carnival and you used the last of the sugar in yesterday’s brownies for the church fund raiser.

Then just at the same time that you are trying to figure out what to wear to the office party, what should occur? Your two tiny elves run into your bedroom loaded down with treasures they made at school, all meant just for you!

But you haven’t got the time to stop and pay attention. The party’s in
just an hour. “Put them under the tree,” you command, turning back to your closet, missing the dejection flattening those eager faces that want nothing more than to please you.

You and your spouse make it to the party on time, but when several people there tell you how attractive you look, you don’t care because you’re bothered by your kids sulkiness as the two of you left the house. You wonder what was troubling them.

Two days later your darling sweetheart arrives home from work with a bonus check, setting up a surprise by placing it on your pillow with a note that says, “To thank you for who you are, this will take us to Paris in the
springtime! MUCH LOVE from Your Biggest Fan!” That night you stay up late to get those dozens and dozens of cookies baked, so you can drop them off when you take the kids to school the next day. When you crawl into bed at 1 AM your honey is fast asleep so you can’t turn the light on. You assume that the crinkling paper you lay your head on is some of your darling partner’s last minute office work and throw it on the floor. The next day you have to be told about the surprise and the disappointment caused because you missed it.

Gifts galore!!! And no one to receive them.

The old adage admonishes “‘Tis better to give than to receive.” But when the giving lands on unreceptive hearts, what good is it? In fact, as our all too familiar tale above makes clear, the excited, observant, appreciative givers find that their gifts are ignored and their feelings are hurt.

The gift of receiving is largely overlooked and overshadowed by the need to give. While gifts require money and time to purchase, or money, time, and labor to make, the gift of receiving is free and priceless.

You can’t put a price tag on your children’s glee seeing your face light up
with pleasure when their candle-made-in-a-milk-carton turns into the finest glow the season can shine in your direction. There’s no material value that equates with friends and acquaintances complimenting your looks, your talent, your friendship. And your spouse’s romantic appreciation for who you really are, well, it’s all you really wished for,
isn’t it? And yet . . .

And yet it’s not too late to make a resolution that this year you will give
the gift of receiving, the precious gift of paying attention to every person
who wants to please you. You needn’t gush or say you like something
you don’t. But you do have to notice any feelings that arise telling you
that you don’t deserve all this generosity. You do have to stay on guard
against the distractions of your grocery list or that phone call you forgot
to make that want to steal you away precisely at the time that someone
is filling your plate with emotionally delicious goodies!

Why?

Because the gift of receiving, the heartfelt “Thank you” is often difficult
to give. We’ve all been taught not to be self-centered, to focus on the
other person while remaining modest and humble. However, most of us
obey those instructions to the point of self-denial.

But then, ZAP! in one split second you are center stage. And that early
teaching rings loud and clear: “Get rid of it! Pass it off! Don’t get caught
being admired, appreciated, or even loved! Who do you think you are?”

Take the gift of receiving seriously. When you embrace the beauty and
generosity of what others give you, you will be changed. And you will be
changed into a more self-respectful and self-loving person.

Mystery can be fun. By mystery we don’t mean that which is difficult, perhaps very difficult, but in due time is explainable. Rather, we mean the deep, rich and beguiling unknown that is a backdrop for this life we all share.

Late December into early January is that time when we in the northern hemisphere celebrate the miraculous. The miracle takes a variety of forms. Some celebrate nature’s receding into the dark underground to slumber near the root of its own regeneration. Others sing about the birth of a redeemer, the ManGod whose arrival is a marvel that draws even kings to his cradle. Still others feel the need to reflect on the year past to cleanse themselves of wrongdoing and to make amends to those they’ve wronged.

When this time of year is taken seriously, the awesome mystery of life cannot be avoided.

There is yet another mystery that is very near. It awaits us in the presence of the one we love.

Imagine it, this other person, almost a entire universe in his or her own right, a soul radiance that continues to unfold before our very eyes. How more wonder filled can that be?

And the magic in the mystery, which reveals itself when we open to it, when we relax into it, is that suddenly all living things become a miracle, especially those with whom we are most intimate.

Give the gift of your full attention and allow yourself to be moved by the miracle of the one you love.

You’ll find that the lush mystery of simply being alive is poised, waiting to resound through you, through both of you, like a chorus of angels.
***
For nearly 21 years we’ve shared the secret of life-long romance. So be sure to get our special romance article at
http://www.judithandjim.com/rp

And check out our “Keeping Romance Alive” program at http://www.judithandjim.com/rp/main.html

For most people the idea of “sales” comes with images of used car dealers pounding on a car hood during Saturday morning television, and even “getting robbed” and “taken to the cleaners.” Certainly not a pretty picture of one of life’s basic activities – selling.

We’ve talked with many of our colleagues and our Internet marketing students about the typical tone of online sales copy and they routinely say they feel put off, offended, and one woman even used the term “violated.”

They hate the ‘hype’ and the exaggerated claims, the sense of false urgency, and the in-your-face style. Some of them even feel they can’t really get out there and market their products and services without feeling like they’ve sold themselves to the devil.

But there is an alternative. We call it Soft Sell Internet marketing.

We characterize a soft sell marketer as anyone who cares about the integrity of the sales relationship equally with making the sale. It’s not ‘make the sale at any cost.’ It’s more about opening the relationship so that the commercial transaction, for both the seller ands the buyer, can be trusted, enjoyed, and continued.

Typically soft sell marketers are involved in self-improvement, health and healing, and lifestyle enhancement. While that’s a broad generalization, it’s true that the soft sell marketer is often motivated by their desire to help, heal, and even change the world. Hard sell marketers are inherently driven to make money, and too often that appears to be their only concern.

There’s nothing wrong with making money, but sales without soul are pretty empty transactions for both buyer and seller.

On a recent webcast interview we did with Janet Beckers in Australia, she noted the many times listeners wrote in to say “how refreshing” it was to hear about soft sell, heart-based marketing.

The voice of the hard sell Internet marketing is about to lose ground to the fast growing segment of Soft Sell Internet marketers who prefer building respectful and caring relationships with their prospects and customers.

Are you a soft sell marketer? Do you prefer a more inclusive, emotionally connected business relationship with your prospects and customers? Register for a Free series of 12 tele-calls with the top Internet marketers in the world. Just visit: http://www.bridgingheartandmarketing.com

If you feel held back, stuck in a rut, blocked from the love and success you want, and you don’t’ know why – you are under the spell of what we call The Love Grip.

When we’re too young to know the difference, we unwittingly give our innate love and loyalty to our parents and larger family, culture, eighborhood and church and thereby internalize their all too often
limited and negative judgments of who we are. Because we are largely unformed, we readily and without question believe what we are told about our lack of value, our incompetence, and our tiny place in the world.

Then, in order to keep that primary and primitive love in place, we call it The Love Grip, we have no choice but to stay true to that negation of our magnificence. And, what follows is an unconscious commitment to
The Fear of Being Fabulous(tm). Suffering under The Fear of Being Fabulous we cannot permit ourselves full and free expression of our talents, dreams, and imagination. We cannot pursue love relationships
or success in the world that would contradict where we came from. However, we are scarcely aware of what we are doing.

And the practical result is that what appears as a “failure” is actually a successful allegiance to the limitations that we took on as we accepted how we were treated. So now, what commonly passes as self-sabotage
is actually a success. The question is, at what? But when you Overcome the Fear of Being Fabulous, you’re then free to follow your intuition, your talent, your genius, to live the life of your dreams. It will require that you betray where you came from. And that’s not so easy. Yet you must if you are to forgive those who didn’t know better when they limited your idea of who you are. And you must if you are to forgive yourself for living in limitation all these years.

After all, true forgiveness can only occur when you’ve lived through the injury of The Love Grip into The Freedom To Be Fabulous waiting for you on the other side.
*******************
Ready to join us in Overcoming the Fear of Being Fabulous? Just go to:

http://www.judithandjim.com/fearofbeingfabulous

Much of what you learned about love and intimacy may no longer work.

Conventional ideas of relationship and marriage don‘t leave much room for who two people are as individuals. Centuries-old gender stereotypes have forced men and women to play out predetermined roles. They prejudice and limit what can happen. As a result, relationships often feel like exercises in futility, leaving people enraged or depressed wondering — “What’s the point?”

But the source of prejudice actually goes deeper. We all grew up learning, to some degree, that those who are different are somehow “wrong,” “bad,” “not to be trusted.” So we feel threatened by those who are not like us.

When your date or mate behaves in ways that are different from what you expect, don’t you feel the impulse to want things your way? Doesn’t that wipe out the other person? And it all happens so fast, it just seems like “the way things are.”

Well, it’s not! Any time we want things to go only our way we are immersed in prejudice, in a deep seated need to protect against anything different from ourselves. Then the world becomes a tiny place, only as large as we are. And we’re left to wonder why we feel so alone and lonely.

Yet, there’s so much more to life than just what we already know. And some of the best teachers are those people who are different from what we already know and expect. It’s because they are different that we can be awakened to new consciousness about all kinds of things, most importantly to new awareness about ourselves and those we love.

To be prejudiced means to pre-judge others (and often ourselves). When we drop the fear of differences then we give ourselves and others the benefit of our openness to discovery. Then we can be alive in the adventure of life each and every day.
*************
Avoid old patterns that threaten your love life. Get our no-cost, one-hour audio download to help you avoid “7 Common Relationship Mistakes”
Just go to:
http://www.judithandjim.com/your_gift.html

Whether you’ve followed our process in creating the first ever Internet marketing conference for the Soft Sell community, “Bridging Heart and Marketing” ( http:/www.bridgingheartandmarketing.com ) we want to share with a few FABULOUS fun events that support our dreaming bigger.

*** “Costco Connection” - the magazine for all Costco members
around the world - has contracted for a writer to do a feature article about soft sell marketing and “Bridging Heart and Marketing”

*** Gary Goldberg, host of syndicated radio show “Money Matters”
will be interviewing us about “Bridging Heart and Marketing” and
the value of soft sell marketing.

*** Judith’s recent interview about soft sell marketing for
WonderfulWebWomen.com was described as “a breath of fresh air”
and “the best interview ever” by members of this international group of
female webpreneurs.

There’s lots more going on as well - which we’ll share with you as it becomes “ink on paper” - and in the meantime, if you have any interest at all in Internet marketing be sure to sign up for our preview tele-calls at http://www.bridgingheartandmarketing.com

We want to share with you a recent “miracle” that resulted from bridging heart with marketing. We sent out an announcement about our upcoming conference, “Bridging Heart and Marketing” ( http://www.bridgingheartandmarketing.com/invitation ) and it turned out that one of our readers writes for “Costco Connection” - the magazine for all of Costco’s members. He submitted the idea of doing a feature on Soft Sell Marketing and our conference - and by the time we heard about it last week it had been been approved.

So we will have press coverage of our conference! Why? Because we’ve taken the leap of following our hearts and creating a conference specifically for the Soft Sell Internet Marketing Community.

If you market online - we invite you to take the leap with us! You can register for all the preview tele-interviews we’ll hold with our world class faculty by going to http://www.bridgingheartandmarketing.com

Long before we get to the table laden with turkey, cranberry sauce and
over-sweet yams, we are face-to-face with the challenge of gratitude all
month long. For most of the year we can duck and dodge the pressures of thankfulness, and most people do — openly admitting to having a terrible time accepting compliments, much less the larger implications of being truly loved.

So the questions must be asked: Why do we have such a difficult and
sometimes painful time receiving the blessings of other people’s affection,
admiration and sincere love? What is so powerful that it so often fiercely
defends against the uptake of that which would transform our insecurities, reduce our anxieties, and feed our comfort and creativity in the world? What makes us work so tenaciously to play ourselves down, fighting off the praise that knocks so loudly at our door? What is so powerful that often we don’t even hear the knocking as a joyous visitor — but rather as a rude intruder?

The fact is we live in prozac land, a world in which putting one another
down is considered funny, punishing children’s spirited relationship with
life is commonplace and the resulting wide spread depression is written off as biochemical. Or is it?

Maybe we are so blind to the forces that squash the life out of us –
the brilliant, the exuberant, the spiritually dazzling — that we can’t even
begin to question why we are so allergic to compliments, why our divorce
rate keeps exposing how difficult it is to be loved and loving. Maybe it’s
long overdue for each of us to embark on an individual campaign to be recognized and respected and valued for our unique gifts and talents. Not
as an exercise in narcissism, but as an exercise in receiving and then
experiencing and expressing sincere gratitude.

But then, notice, we will have to give up our “safe” invisibility, our false modesty and most of all our loggy depression that protects us from
being truly alive.

For when we allow someone’s praise and love to truly fertilize our soul,
we feel more and more of the life force awakening within. We become less and less able to stay remote, vaguely unhappy with life but unwilling to do anything about it. When we receive and feel gratitude, we want the whole world to feel the same way. We surrender our isolation. We come out of our shells. We reach back to embrace the one who graced us with their spiritual generosity. And in so doing, we are changed, transformed, made more (w)holy.

But all of this liveliness comes with a price. We must leave the outer
shell of false humility behind. When we do, we become exquisitely aware of anyone who speaks negatively about our value, placing ourselves in the situation of having to do something about it or not. And we must shed those who cannot accept the magnificence that each and every one of us is.

This Thanksgiving give yourself the gift of your own unique value and
vow to never again allow another to put you down, to mock you, to in any way block your light! And, at the same time, make a commitment to practice saying “Thank You!” from the bottom of your heart each and every time you are graced by another’s positive recognition of who you are.

We wish you a Happy Wish Bone and the very best Thanksgiving you’ve ever had.

Enjoy!