Successful Relationships Reading Corner
This week, we wrote about the pleasures and importance of shared experience in your relationships. Here are some posts we’ve written in the past on various aspects of this topic.
Do You Give Enough Time and Attention to Your Close Relationships? “Setting aside special time helps to achieve this. We are all so involved in projects and life’s challenges, plus the pressures in today’s fractured world, that if you don’t make a decision to set aside time for the simple pleasure of relating, it will be relegated to those quick moments in passing. Those incidental moments are often filled with hurry, impatience, lack of presence. Placing an emphasis on the value that relationships have in your life helps you shift them from passing encounters to a central position of importance. When you acknowledge the value you place on a particular relationship by your actions and the sharing of your time and attention, it creates a deep ease between you and the other person. It is in this awareness of the meaning of each other in your life that peace becomes a partner in that relationship; defenses come down, openness abides and a sweet pleasure of seeing and being seen warms the heart.”
How to Keep Your Relationships Alive “This has led me to reflect on another aspect of peaceful relationships, and that is maintaining your awareness of the value of those connections. People often fall into habit patterns within their longer and precious relationships. There is an unconscious sense of “I know this person, and I know how we interact and what there is to give and get from this connection.” As being present and aware are vital components of any valued relationship, there is an understanding that, when practiced consciously, ensures success. As is often the case, this is simple to apply once realized. Remain aware that each such connection is a continuing exploration. Life holds nothing but change, and we can constantly grow and open, learning more of ourselves and our dear ones. As we do this, many small and larger miracles occur; conflicts and strife tend to dissolve. They get replaced by the kind of attention and interest in the other person that keeps things alive and in the present, rather than being filled with projections and preconceptions. Your busyness with self gets moderated with an experience of the relationship and the value of the interactions taking place. When you keep in mind that you are exploring together, you focus on very different things.”
Are You Open to the Sacred in Your Relationship? “A true relationship with another evokes feelings of kinship, even love and the exchange of heart energy. The very act of bridging the gap between ourselves and another is a transcendent act. We move past ourselves to the recognition that there is a self that is not us; in fact, a separate and unique individual. This understanding is the path to a relationship with the divine.
In an intimate partnership relationship, the interactions become imbued with love, respect, appreciation and above all, presence. When we are with each other, we are both fully present. As a result, each encounter is filled with the unique, with the possibility of something new; we are co-creating our experience. We approach each other with the honor accorded the sacred, not because we have made it a priority (something on a list made important by our minds), but because it is special, holy, not of the mundane. Each time we set aside time, or just encounter each other in the passing of our lives, it brings the experience of this breathtaking phenomenon – we are not the only one here, we are with another, different, and beloved.”