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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

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Speaker 1: Today's tip is that life is cyclical. If you are

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Speaker 1: in what you recognize is a low patch, the odds

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Speaker 1: are good that you will experience happier times in the future.

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Speaker 1: This is really just a matter of probability it will

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Speaker 1: get better, which can be comforting to know in the present.

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Speaker 1: I read a fascinating study recently about marital happiness. Many

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Speaker 1: thousands of people were interviewed about twenty years ago, and

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Speaker 1: we're asked to rate their marriages on a seven point

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Speaker 1: scale from hellish to heavenly. In these subjects were reinterviewed

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Speaker 1: five years later. As you might imagine, some portion of

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Speaker 1: those who rated their marriages as hellish had divorced, but

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Speaker 1: interestingly most hadn't, and of those who stayed with their spouses,

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Speaker 1: the majority now said that they were very happy with

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Speaker 1: their lives. In other words, things got better now. This

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Speaker 1: wisdom obviously doesn't apply to relationships that are abusive, but

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Speaker 1: it seems that most normal long term partnerships go through

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Speaker 1: some serious ups and downs. The researchers had caught some

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Speaker 1: chunk of couples at an obvious dip in their life satisfaction,

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Speaker 1: but five years later the dip was over. They had

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Speaker 1: climbed out of it. Life got better. I think this

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Speaker 1: is true for lots of aspects of life. Maybe you've

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Speaker 1: recently lost a job or feel like you're going to

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Speaker 1: need to leave one that had been great in the past.

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Speaker 1: Maybe a much anticipated project hasn't panned out. These career

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Speaker 1: low points can feel terrible when we are in them,

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Speaker 1: but when we recognize them as low points, we can

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Speaker 1: see that most likely, in a few years the situation

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Speaker 1: will be different. Most likely you will be earning good

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Speaker 1: money doing something that you like. Or maybe a family

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Speaker 1: relationship is strained, but with some patience, the current stressor

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Speaker 1: might become less painful. Over time, we put one foot

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Speaker 1: in front of the other and just keep going. I

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Speaker 1: have been trying to remember this lately as I deal

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Speaker 1: with my toddler's sleep woes. Several of my kids have

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Speaker 1: had a rocky relationship with sleep. But since I have

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Speaker 1: chronicled my life on my time logs, and since I

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Speaker 1: can observe my older children, I know that it does

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Speaker 1: get better. I mean, they sometimes still do have sleep woes,

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Speaker 1: but they're sleep woes no longer ruin my nights. Children

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Speaker 1: do grow up. This too shall pass. The key is

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Speaker 1: to recognize when something is a true low moment and

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Speaker 1: to acknowledge it as such. The nature of low moments

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Speaker 1: is that they are well low, definitely lower than other moments.

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Speaker 1: That means that the odds are good, that good stuff

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Speaker 1: is coming up. So if you recognize that you are

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Speaker 1: dealing with very negative circumstances, knowing that this is most

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Speaker 1: likely a low moment, can offer hope. If people who

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Speaker 1: rated their marriages as hellish can wind up very happy

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Speaker 1: five years later, then it is quite possible that almost

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Speaker 1: anything can get better. It just takes a little time.

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Speaker 1: In the meantime. This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and

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Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,

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Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me

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Speaker 1: your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with

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Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod

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Speaker 1: that's b E the number four then breakfast p O D.

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Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast

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Speaker 1: Podcast at iHeart media dot com That Before Breakfast is

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Speaker 1: spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much, I

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Speaker 1: look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a

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Speaker 1: production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I

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Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H