Weekly Relationship Tip
Whether you define your relationship as; perfect, miserable, getting better, getting worse or somewhere in between every relationship is a balance or what I’m referring here to – blending – of both the good elements – joy, peace, harmony, intimacy, happiness, fun, laughter, love, unconditional acceptance, joint activities, contentment, respect, support or the bad ones; guilt, resentment, anger, frustration, invalidation, disappointment, jealousy, stress, disrespect, independent roles that sabotage togetherness, fear, bitterness or apathy. Yes there are many more potentially both positive and negative attitudes, emotions or feelings but rather than give you two long lists I would like to explain what I mean by the blending process.
I have had relationship experiences during my life that included a combination of both the positive and negative elements as I’m sure you have as well. I’ve also had a few that were heavily weighted in one way or the other. So what’s the answer to enduring, happy and successful relationships when it comes to these various mindsets that invade or overpower people when they join together?
There are only two basic emotions – love and fear and all of the negative emotions are derivatives of fear while all of the positive ones are grounded in love. So the ultimate secret to relationship success in my opinion is to always come at a situation or circumstance from a posture of love rather than fear and to successfully blend all of the emotions, attitudes so that the negatives don’t overpower or out number the positive ones – yes, I know a lot easier said than done.
The blending process requires patience, letting go of emotional ego control, the ability to let go of your personal reality as the only reality that is possible, a willingness to surrender your need for control of being right and always staying in the present moment and not defaulting back to some previous experience, attitude or memory that only serves to justify your current belief that has out-lived its value in terms of your ability to maintain emotional freedom.
Negative emotions or attitudes will always be with us until we can learn to turn off this part of the fear driven mind. If you want more on this subject I have previously recommended 3 books (if you haven’t read them yet – do it) What Happy People Know, Baker – The Power of Patience, Ryan, The Voice of Knowledge, Ruiz.
Anyway, since it is impossible for most people to turn off these powerfully driven fear mental responses, all we can do, if we want to maintain relationship emotional balance is;
- See beyond the individual circumstances and focus on the bigger broader picture of life.
- Look past other’s emotions and ask a simple question – what could really be causing their response, reaction or attitude – given what’s really going on.
- Always come at everything life gives you from a position of appreciation – no matter what.
- Recognize that everyone is where they are, believes what they believe, feels the way they feel for a variety of complicated reasons and you will never be able to figure all of these out. But accept that they are for whatever reason based on their history and feelings that they are entitled to them.
- Don’t try to change anyone. When and if they choose to change anything it will be their decision not yours.
- Remember that right or wrong are judgments and not necessarily facts or truth.
- As humans we are all a work in progress – learning, growing, changing, developing and yes making mistakes and failing during this process.
- We are all perfect in the eyes of God.
- There isn’t now or ever has been a relationship no matter how perfect people might have thought it was that didn’t have its share of the negatives above at one time or another.
- Don’t keep score.
There’s a whole lot more you can do to understand and apply this blending process – but it won’t happen if you keep doing what you always been doing, thinking what you have always been thinking and believing what you have always believed. I’m not implying that any or all of these are right or wrong. So just ask yourself a simple question – Is our relationship working? If the answer is no, then follow up with a simple – why not?