Reading Corner

Links related to the weekly posts.

 

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This week, we suggested that for peaceful relationships, you share your opinions but don’t be opinionated. Here are some articles we’ve written about finding solutions that work for both people.

How You Make Decisions and Find Mutual Solutions is a Pattern for Your Relationships “As you continue to apply this process to decision-making and finding solutions, the experience of how this feels and the knowledge you acquire accumulates. You recognize that place where you both feel heard, each of your wants and needs are being fulfilled, and you know the path to get there. This in turn engenders a feeling of profound peace and well-being, and a closeness of shared honesty and trust.”

Why Creating Mutual Solutions in Your Relationships Brings Peace and Joy “There is an incomparable pleasure to be found in seeking and creating mutual solutions. The very act of embarking down a path together where the adventure of mutuality awaits you, brings an experience of your connection to the forefront. This has a positive effect in and of itself. When making decisions and looking for answers to perceived problems, it is possible to find resolutions that work for both of you. It is possible to let go of having to be right, of having things your way, or of having to give something up to keep peace. In fact, these methods of separateness and denial bring anything but peace. Instead, they bring stress and a slow-building sense of distance between people.”

How to Find Peace and Harmony in Your Relationships Through Mutual Solutions “When we started looking at how we get along so well, we saw that we used a method, and we named it Our Process. It’s a way of exchanging positions and feelings that allow us to find a mutual solution – one that works for both of us.”

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This week, we asked if you give enough time and attention to your close relationships. Here are some of the articles we’ve written before on the importance of relationships and their quality.

How Hanging Out Enhances and Strengthens Your Relationships “Phil and I have, since the very early days of our relationship, set aside a time every evening to be alone with each other. We do many different activities during this time: crossword puzzles, talking, reading aloud to each other, watching movies and series and all manner of other things we come up with. It’s a retreat from the world that we have come to call our sacred space. However stressful life, work and politics have been, we are able to put those aside. But the activities are not the main thing going on. That is not the purpose. It is about giving our full attention to each other and the connection between us. It doesn’t really matter what we are involved in, as what we are really doing is reveling in being with each other, in sharing who we are and taking pleasure in the deep sense of connection we have. The feelings that arise from this experience are calming, nurturing and give us sustenance for our daily living.”

Why Making Time for Sacred Space in Your Relationship is so Important “This sweet nougat of grace is there always between us. And on this journey we have undertaken to swim within it with consciousness. As we were talking about this very center of our relationship, of all deep relationships, we looked up the meaning of sacred. Some of my favorite definitions are: blessed, something treated with great respect, consecrated, revered, spiritual, numinous. The sense of being present with each other is as strong as ever. The palpable awareness of our connection is emphasized through stepping out of our daily routines and surroundings, opening up to an unknown adventure and the quiet peace of just being together.”

Are You Open to the Sacred in Your Relationship? “Our relationship has been filled with revelations for both of us. The largest of those has been its sacred nature. We use this phrase consciously, as we came to this truth through actual experience. We call it our sacred space, a time when we set aside our involvement with the world and come together to revel in each other’s presence. You’ll find advice like this in plenty of relationship articles, usually described as spending quality time with each other.”

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This week, we wrote about how to cut out snippiness in your relationships. We’ve written a number of posts on the issue of irritations between people and how to deal with them.

Too Snippy in Your Relationship? Cut it Out! “Being snippy. Does it serve a purpose? Is it what we really want to communicate? Is it how we want to treat our loved ones, or be treated? Most likely, we would all answer no to the questions posed. And yet, not only does this behavior continue, but we tend to do it most often in our most intimate relationships.”

How Tone of Voice Creates Peace in Your Relationships “There are so many seemingly little things that go into creating peaceful relationships. One of those is tone of voice. Be aware of yours when you are communicating. Is it snippy or even snarky? Is it communicating what you want it to? What effect does it have on the person with whom you are interacting? Peaceful relationships can come down to whether or not you speak with respect, love, and kindness in your tone of voice and basic attitude. This kind of communication creates an environment of calm, openness, and comfort. Neither of us is attracted to dissonance in our relationship. As a result, we try not to speak with a tone of denigration or disregard. Often when people do this, they are just reacting from old patterns or responding hastily without noticing the feeling that this kind of tone conveys. This kind of behavior leads to many of the problems people have.”

How to Stop Irritation Poisoning Your Relationship “Feeling irritated with your partner or friend? Such a little thing, but is it? It can often be the pea that prevents the princess from sleeping. We had an exchange yesterday over several things that caused Phil to be irritated and respond in a snippy, rejecting manner. He didn’t seem himself, and so I asked what was up, and that created an opening for him to share what he was experiencing. I was taken by surprise at his view of what had transpired, as I had a totally different version of events. This was a perfect opportunity to sort things out using a version of Our Process to discuss this experience. Neither of us is interested in being or remaining at odds, so an occurrence of this nature often offers us an opportunity to grow closer, rather than further apart. This is because we don’t carry these experiences around. We address them and figure out what is going on. I never feel attacked by what Phil shares. He is open enough and trusting enough to let me know what he is feeling and thinking.”

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This week, we wrote about how appreciation and acknowledgment open a path to peaceful relationships. Here are a few of the posts we have written on this topic.

How to Strengthen Your Relationships with Appreciation and Acknowledgment “When it comes to friends and family, beware of familiarity. We are wired to pay attention to novelty and overlook the unchanging, so do not let your appreciation fade. Look for the positive, be grateful for the goodness in your life, and say so. Giving thanks reinforces the connection between us all.”

Why Relationships Last: Acceptance, Acknowledgment, Appreciation “It is an amazing feeling when someone truly sees you, hears you, and celebrates who you are; when the feedback you receive is acknowledging, accepting, and appreciative. There is a sense of warmth and relief that comes over you and a calm relaxation that engulfs you when you are offered this gift. This is the actual experience of peace that descends upon you when interactions are devoid of criticism, rejection, or attempts to change you. There is a similar experience of peacefulness within you when you can accept, acknowledge and appreciate the uniqueness, the otherness of someone you are relating to. When you approach them with this attitude, it changes you. When you experience actions or statements that are different from the way you usually act and can still recognize the commonality, it is transformative.”

3 Things That Every Person Wants in Their Relationships “In any relationship, it is important to be accepted for who we are, to be appreciated for who we are, and to be acknowledged for who we are. Most relationships will blossom when they have this group of responses as an underpinning. Let’s take a look at each one and what it means. Acceptance is the recognition of the uniqueness of the other person, that each of us is a totally different individual. Approach this difference as something good, not threatening, with the understanding that it is in fact enriching. Appreciation comes when you flip any negative association with difference and instead celebrate it. It contains the feeling that you treasure who the other person is, and that it widens your world to get to know them deeply. Acknowledgment is when you communicate to the other person that you see them, like the famous words in the film Avatar. You let them know that you truly see them and that who they are brings you joy and adds to who you are.”

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This week, we wrote about how mutuality leads to peaceful relationships. Here are some of our many writings to this topic.

Why is Mutuality Important in Your Relationships? “The cornerstone of peaceful conflict-free relating is the practice of mutuality: the certainty that it is possible to find mutual solutions and the act of creating them. This requires the ability to search beyond differences to find the matching values. It requires the desire to understand and honor the needs of the other. This can be applied in all intimate relationships, and the same principles carry over into larger and larger groups of relationships, your family, friends, community, country, the planet.”

Mutuality is the Core of a Peaceful Relationship “At the heart of our relationship is a process we use to ascertain and co-create mutuality when finding solutions and making decisions together. It is a method that employs many different components of communication. These include a shared respect and honoring for our separate individualities, combined with a commitment to each other, to knowing we are on the same side, and most importantly a commitment to be relational, to find the answer that comes from the ‘we’. We have never approached each other with hostility or a need to be defended. We are not trying to be right or to win. When you are committed to a place of reciprocity, to solutions which are mutual, then winning is not defined as standing alone, of getting your own way, as though your way were juxtaposed to your partner’s.”

Why Mutuality is Important in a Successful Relationship “The direct experience of mutuality is a critical aspect of a peaceful and conflict-free relationship. It is the sense of being in the relationship, rather than just being our individual selves. In fact, “rather than” is the wrong connector here; it’s really “at the same time as.” Yet, many people do not recognize or acknowledge this aspect of their relationship. This is not surprising, as the mutuality we speak of is a transcendent experience; one of those areas which require a suspension of normal boundaries, and a stepping into, an allowing of another dimension. This doesn’t make any sense if you think of identity as residing in your body, bounded by your skin and probably created by brain activity. Concussion or anesthesia will switch it off for a while. Any number of documentaries and neurologists espouse this model. But that is a very isolated view of identity. We are not an isolated universe, disconnected from everything else; we are part of the entire world. A little reflection will show that we identify with our gender, our culture, our family … the list is long.”

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