Successful Relationships Reading Corner
This week, we asked what’s in the cards for your relationship? Here are some posts about how you can relate without conflict and have a peaceful relationship.
Do You Have Thumbtacks in Your Relationship? “The importance of 100% cannot be underestimated; it is nothing like 99% because anything less involves measurement, division, in and out, good and bad. It enables total freedom from the need to withdraw and to defend, and consequently to separate. The extraordinary freedom to be yourself that comes from this kind of acceptance can only be achieved by 100%. The freedom is liberating. Just as with the dancing, there is no comparison; 99% acceptance and 100% acceptance are not different by 1%. They differ in quality in the way that two parallel lines differ from two non-parallel lines. If there is some small corner within your partner that is still holding back acceptance, you never know when it might rear its head and bite you, so you must still always be guarded to some degree or another. The more thumbtacks you encounter, the less open and sharing you will become. But when each partner is assured of complete acceptance, it is transforming and wonderfully liberating; by being completely ourselves, we are that much more real, authentic and trustworthy to the other.”
How To Nurture Intimacy In Your Relationship“I was in a relationship that was almost the opposite. My partner had issues which caused him to retreat completely into himself. He would literally disappear without any explanation, becoming impossible to contact for varying periods of time, sometimes quite lengthy. I felt extreme distress and a strong sense of abandonment. Since I didn’t know when or why this would happen, I never felt safe, and as a consequence, that feeling of sublime peace that Phil and I experience could never be fully present in this other relationship. If, in order to have personal space, you need to withdraw or block off the connection, this will almost invariably cause a rift, a tear in the fabric of your relationship. No matter how small, these rips remain and they set up a potential thumbtack on the dance floor of your relationship. Even one can keep you from prancing about freely. Phil and I always feel like we are connected, no matter where we are physically in relation to each other, and we always know we are on the same side. When functioning in our day separately, or when one of us is traveling (in days gone by), we do not have an experience of withdrawal. Neither one of us disconnects, but then we don’t have any reason to do so. If your separateness is not a threat to your partner, if your individuality is honored, acknowledged, respected, then there is no need to pull back from your connection.”
Choose Total Acceptance: It’s a Radical Way to Peace and Harmony “When your relationships are not based on getting what you want in the way you want it; when you do not have to control what another thinks or how they say or do things, it is remarkably freeing. When you are not busy with reshaping the other person, you can relax and appreciate who they are and how they are. You can be enriched and enlarged by another’s approach. Most of all, you can be peaceful within, and bring that peace to others.So offer total acceptance in your close relationships. Your loved ones’ rights and desires are just as valid as yours. You will see yourself grow out of habits and patterns that do not serve you in your interactions. You will find a change in your interest in others and in your ability to listen, hear and see them. You will naturally find yourself less wrapped up in your own ideas of how things should be and more able to be open to the unique perspective of those you intimately relate to. This radical form of acceptance is very powerful and will transform the nature of all your deep relationships. Strive to offer total acceptance, the best gift you can give.”