Relationships

“Love and work… Work and love, that is all there is.”
Sigmund Freud.

Work and love are the two most significant aspects of human experience.

We were engineered to have the need to love and to be loved. Our quest in life is impacted by how much we love and feel loved.

Relationships fall in 3 main categories:

1. Family
2. Partner
3. Friends.

Loving Yourself

This is where it all begins.

The journey of love takes off with loving oneself.

You can be in as many relationships as you wish, but if you don’t love yourself then the rest is only built on a shaky ground.

No-one could ever love you like you love yourself. If you don’t love you, then all you will ever attract are people who treat you like you treat yourself or even worse. How can you know any better, anyway.

The only constant that will keep reappearing in all of your relationships is YOU. So, all you can do is work on yourself to have healthy interactions with others.

The best way to attract people is to clean up the relationship you have with yourself.

Firstly, forgive yourself for your past choices and your past in general. Make amends with yourself.

“ If you haven’t forgiven yourself something, how can you forgive others?”

   -Dolores Huerta.

To err is human, to forgive divine.

End the carrying around things you haven’t forgive yourself for. Do stop beating yourself up. Cut yourself some slack.

Secondly, build a your self-esteem to sustain the turbulence of relationships.

 

Self-esteem expert Nathaniel Braden once said, “ Self-esteem is the experience that we are appropriate to life and to the requirements of life”

Here are some self-esteem pillars:

• Consciously living: Living consciously is being aware of the power of your thoughts. Learning to be aware of those thoughts and forgiving of yourself in advance. As thoughts tend to wander into the unfamiliar, beware that this is normal. The power word is awareness.
• Self-acceptance: Embracing the fact that you are human and will be bound to fail from time to time again. Having setbacks is part of the journey to success, love the failures too.
• Self-responsibility: Being accountable for your actions and choices you make.
• Self-assertiveness: Clearly knowing your needs and expressing your them confidently.
• Purpose living: Finding meaning in your life and feeling what you do is worthwhile, whatever it is you do.
• Integrity: Understanding your values and adhering to them. https://atomic-temporary-183607724.wpcomstaging.com/align-your-values/

1. Family Bonds

Nurturing family bonds can be very interesting as these are the people that bring the best out of us, and the worst.

Here is where you find madness and unconditional love in the same breath.

Coaching enhances inner calm and develop proper communication to maintain healthy bonds with family.

Attracting success without the support of friends and family is extremely difficult. We need the unconditional support in times of crisis and celebratory times too. What is success anyway without people to share it with? Quite lonely.

Rather the spending time complaining or blaming your parents for your problems how about accepting them for who they are. In extreme cases, for instance cases of repeated abuse, then find your own family.                                                                                         Get yourself “adopted” by people who are consistent, who have shown you that they are just more than friends. We have people out there who love giving and have so much love to give, find them.

Forgive, bearing a grudge, being angry and resentful will draw you. Take off that weight off your back.

https://andreas-denz.com/2020/11/12/establish-your-relationship-priorities/

Remember:

• If you are luck to be born in that loving and supportive family, enjoy it. Enjoy your parents whilst they are still alive. Tell them how you feel. They should never ever doubt what you feel about them. Check on them often.
• It is important to set boundaries even within the family setting.

Must use family manifesto:

• Stop blaming: There is always a positive twist in every narrative, find yours, learn, grow.
• Communicative effectively: Use Coaching principles available to express your feelings effectively, show emotional intelligence.
• Be prepared for tragedies: Find working strategies for when things go out of hand, like they normally do. Notice the patterns that keep showing up and work with that.

2. Friendship

The beauty of friendship is that we get to choose. But we ought to remember that, we are as good as the people we keep around us, so it is important to choose wisely.

Show me your friends and I will tell you who you are.

Friends do come and go as life happens. Treat those who stay right, they are worth keeping and maintaining.

Make new friends, not an easy task as we get older but doable.

• Open up your heart and make room for more friends.
• Join a club or even start one, whatever it takes.

Remember: Life is beautiful with friends to love, enjoy and celebrate with.

Build a productive network

The more people you network with the more support you get. Widen your circle, ensure you have as assorted friends as possible.

• Be interested in people: Quit trying to be interesting but instead get to know people for who they are, listen and listen some more.
• Help others: Find ways to help other people in your community and be a part of it.
• Host people: This doesn’t have to be in your home setting it can simply be refilling coffees at a communal gathering.

3. Relationship with Partner

The right person is a blessings. Finding one needs you to have worked on yourself first by building your self-image.

High self-esteem makes you attractive to the right person, your soulmate. This is a person who will treat you like you deserve to be treated and more.
Having that high self-esteem gets your soulmate loving you, for YOU. Respects your values and needs in turn creating a very healthy relationship.

Whereas, low self-worth only brings people who will make you insecure, ill-treat you, psychologically abuse, gaslight you, causing in most cases long term damage/trauma.

While finding someone you can share you life consider these tips below:

Reexamine your beliefs:

• Have you watched so many RomComs and are sat there waiting for your Prince Charming?
• Do you have a childhood trauma that left you with negative beliefs?
• Where are you looking for the right person?

Networking

Networking opens up choices. If you are always doing the same things, at the same places at the same time, then you will only meet the same people. Notice any patterns in your life and try to break them. Magic happens out of your comfort zone.

You must have heard some people say, “ I always meet people who hit me” They allowed it to happen by not loving themselves enough, hence not doing anything about it.

Know your most important hobbies, values, needs:

• Hobbies: This will help you meet someone you share passions with. You instance if you love cycling, join your local cycling club.
• Do not compare yourself with your peers:All your coupled up friends have their struggles that no-one else knows of. Concentrate on building your own life, knowing all life choices has consequences. For every actions there is a reaction.
• Values and Needs: Keep your values close to your chest, these are what make you tick. Anyone who loves you, will respect them. Remember to always be expressive of your needs.

Building a strong partnership

Reality of life is that after Prince Charming sweeps you off your feet and you disappear into the sunset, life begins.

Life after the horizon…

After that fairy tale kiss, there comes building-a-life-around-each-other.

 

Here is where we meet culture shock, confusion, worry, “Immaturity” and all other messes and nasty things.

Sustaining the relationship will be a daily choice, from both parties, it takes two to tango, right!

Date your spouse. Try spending some quality time with each other. find inexpensive ways to do so if it s something you both can’t afford.

Stay committed by asking yourself these questions:

• How do I play my part in building this union?

• What behaviours do we have in common? What behaviour don’t we like in each other?

• What are my beliefs? What are my partners?

• Do we have common goals, any common values? How do we bring the two together?

• What are is working, can we do better? What isn’t working?

• Are there other options to explore to make changes? Are they natural to both of us?

• What actions can we take? What is our first step?

• How do we know we are making progress? Are we celebrating our progress, and how?

Spouses become our cheerleaders hence making our life a success. They will strongly support you behind the curtains and all we will see is a happy and energetic individual.

A loving spouse will be there through hard times, when everything go wrong, as they sometimes will, hold the your shattered self tightly when the world is too busy for you.

Leaving a Relationship

This is one of the hardest things to do but need to done in some incidents. Becomes even harder where kids are in.

It will be painful to everyone entangled in it. Wherefore, no easy way to say it or go through it.
Unfortunately, the fact of life is that some relationships need to come to an end, some with compelling reasons e.g. abuse.

Find a support group or speak to a professional when they become overwhelming. It is okay to need help.

https://andreas-denz.com/2020/11/27/how-to-create-your-reality-using-your-personality-mental-health/

Remember: Not everyone needs to be in a relationship to function to their fullest, therefore, once you know your values, needs and purpose in life, you will know what to prioritise.

 

Goodluck!

 

©nicollehanselmann 2020

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