How should I maintain healthy relationships?
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Yogi Cameron Alborzian answered:We've all had relationships that challenge us. Whether we're irritated with a friend, struggling to keep a marriage or romantic partnership together, or must address an issue with a parent or family member, it can often be difficult to find our way through the many conflicts that arise out of caring for others. Sometimes, we feel it would just be easier and a lot less painful to dissolve the relationship completely: end the friendship, break up the marriage, and stop answering calls from the parent.
Of course, if we ended every relationship in which we experienced a conflict, we'd find ourselves on our own pretty fast.
The traditions of Yoga teach us that no one whom we've met has entered our life by accident. Each person, be it romantic partner or business partner, has become a part of our life experience to teach us something. We might need to learn greater compassion by being around aggressive people, more patience from being around ungrounded people, or tap into greater courage from being around intimidating people. This idea is especially relevant when we keep attracting a certain type of person into our life and seem to perpetuate an ongoing, destructive cycle.
To maintain healthy relationships, you must look to each person whom you encounter as an opportunity to grow in who you are yourself. The more you're able to embrace this mindset and put these types of behaviors into practice, the more you'll be able to relate to all people as being made from the same stuff you are. When you find this openness, you will be ready to serve all.
We've all had relationships that challenge us. Whether we're irritated with a friend, struggling to keep a marriage or romantic partnership together, or must address an issue with a parent or family member, it can often be difficult to find our way... More -
Ariel & Shya Kane answered:We have 3 tips for creating healthy and magical relationships:
- Truly Listen: When "true listening" is present, satisfying communication is sure to follow. True listening requires being in the moment and letting go of your point of view, thoughts, and agendas. True listening is an art. No two things can occupy the same space at the same time. In order to really listen to your partner, you have to let go of what you think, know and want to say, in order to really let the communication come in. Get interested in truly listening to your partner rather than listening to your thoughts about what he or she is saying and you will naturally create a magical relationship.
- Be Kind to Yourself: In our most private thoughts the majority of us are hard on ourselves. We are our own harshest critics, finding fault with ourselves and thinking we should do our lives differently or better. This poses two distinct challenges in your love life: First anyone who find you attractive has a major strike against him or her for finding you attractive with all of your "faults" - He or she must be deficient or at very least have bad taste and judgment! This misconception sets you up to start unwittingly looking for what is "wrong" with anyone who is interested. The 2nd challenge happens once someone is in relationship with you. By extension you will treat him or her as you treat yourself in your thoughts. So if you are out to fix your shortcomings, your partner is destined to be your next "fixer-upper" project. If you are kind to yourself you are far more likely to be kind to your partner, which will have your relationship grow long after love's first blush.
- Working on Your Relationship Really Doesn't Work: Have you noticed that if there is something about your partner you don't like or have tried to change, the more you have worked to change him or her, the more he or she has persisted in staying the same? Eventually, your disagreements with your partner dominate your life and your relationship until they are your only focus. But simple awareness, a non-judgmental seeing, is enough to dissolve the greatest of challenges between a couple. How? Well, neutrally observing something doesn't add energy to it – for or against – and everything in this universe needs energy to survive. If you don't energize your habits or your partner's, they will naturally dwindle and die away all on their own.
We have 3 tips for creating healthy and magical relationships: Truly Listen: When "true listening" is present, satisfying communication is sure to follow. True listening requires being in the moment and letting go of your... More -
Sheri Van Dijk answered:You need to maintain a relationship just as much as you need to maintain a car: you need to do regular maintenance, which would involve regularly calling your friend, asking about his day, buying him a birthday card, inquiring about the health of his ailing mother, and so on. These are the things you must do to take care of the relationship and prevent it from deteriorating. But you also have to take care of major problems as they arise. This means letting your friend know that you don't like it when he shows up for dinner twenty minutes late without calling; it also means apologizing when your judgmental comments about his girlfriend start an argument.
Of course, this may be easier said than done. Many people avoid speaking up when they're unhappy in a relationship because they're afraid of the consequences. You might fear the other person will get angry with you for expressing your displeasure or that he might even end the relationship altogether. But again, think about the worst-case scenario: the relationship ends. On the other hand, chances are that if you don't discuss the problems and your feelings, the relationship will end anyway, as your resentment toward the other person will grow and you will eventually get fed up and end the relationship yourself! But best-case scenario, you discuss the problems with your friend, and you both resolve to work to make the relationship healthier.
Find out more about this book: Calming the Emotional Storm: Using Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills to M...
You need to maintain a relationship just as much as you need to maintain a car: you need to do regular maintenance, which would involve regularly calling your friend, asking about his day, buying him a birthday card, inquiring about the... More
