Everyone has an opinion on how a good relationship works. Yet, there is only one way for you, and that is your own unique plan, based on your unique relationship. You can read those save your relationship articles all day, all year long even, and they won’t speak to you and your situation. You have to put together your own plan of action. And it all starts with you.
When relationships are working, they are like a Venn diagram. Imagine two people each in their own bubbles of energy. When they get together the two bubbles intersect so that there is this lovely warm area of shared energy. Common ground, if you like. Then something happens, the dynamic shifts and your bubbles pull apart. They drift away from each other so that the individual partners are immersed in their own personal worlds and then, when conflict arises, the bubbles are bashed up against each other, unable to mesh, unable to give way. They may as well be made of concrete. A relationship impasse.
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From there it gets worse: accusations, non-cooperation, an unwillingness to compromise, pickiness, neediness, lack of intimacy, busy-ness, tiredness – all these things can and will erode a relationship. Individuals try to protect themselves by making those bubbles thicker and impermeable.
Why Conventional Marriage Therapy Fails
The problem with working to save your relationship is that it does feel like work. Real tough work. You go to see a relationship counselor. You go through the accusatory stage, following the suggestions of the therapist to reframe the problems. You make commitments and resolutions. You promise to change, to behave in a different way, to communicate better, to use different words. The trouble with all that is it feels like a script. That it’s false. It’s therapist talk, not the real you. You feel as though you are both acting your parts. When really all you want is to find that Venn diagram sweet spot again.
Start With Yourself
Before you even begin therapy, before you even have ‘that talk’ with your partner, there are things you can do all by yourself to save your relationship. In fact, the very moment you feel it might go wrong, you should think about making internal changes. You don’t have to express your feelings to anyone else, least of all your partner. This is private, between you and you.
Be Kind – To You
Learn how to treat yourself gently. This doesn’t mean that you ramp up your defense systems. Far from it. The last thing you want to do is to make that bubble more impenetrable. Instead examine your own thought processes when those feelings of irritation with your partner arise. Take a moment to back off, to follow your thoughts. Why are you feeling irritated? Angry? What part of you is offended? It’s very likely if you are blaming your partner, you are also blaming yourself. In this moment you are not feeling love. Not from your partner… and definitely not from you.
This lack of love is key. When you are feeling this lack of love, you are feeling fear. Not hate or dislike. It all comes down to fear. Fear is the opposite to love and you can’t feel both at the same time. Yet you cannot demand that he gives you love in order to dissipate your fear. You can’t control her back into loving you. You cannot nag him to love you. You can’t even do it with therapy. You have to do this by yourself. By being kind and loving to yourself.
Love Yourself Back Into a Happy Relationship
We all expect our partners to fulfill our emotional needs, and this is way too much of a responsibility to give to another person. There’s only one person who can take care of your emotional needs and that is you. When you feel good inside, you feel good outside, and by extension you feel good towards other people, including your life-partner.
So your job, your work here, is to fall in love with you. To know that you are the most important person in your world. Not to be confused with self-importance or superiority, or any of those unwanted and unhelpful traits. Your task is to fill your whole being with love, and it is hard, yet it is so very simple.
Some people can do this by turning to their faith. If you believe that you were given life by your Creator, then you must know that He would not create anything he did not love. Therefore, you can know that you are love, made of and by love.
Non-religious folk may have a more difficult time. You need a different approach.
Your Powerful Love Generator
Attributed to, but not verified, Albert Einstein is supposed to have written,
“If instead of E = mc2, we accept that the energy to heal the world can be obtained through love multiplied by the speed of light squared, we arrive at the conclusion that love is the most powerful force there is, because it has no limits.”
The quotation goes on to say,
“…each individual carries within them a small but powerful generator of love whose energy is waiting to be released.”
Whether Einstein wrote these words or not, does not detract from their message.
Could you allow your internal generator to propel the force of love through your being? Try it now. Close your eyes and imagine a tiny generator inside you, sitting just under your rib cage. It’s beginning to fire up, sending out powerful waves of love.
Could you let that love spread out to fill your personal bubble? Could you go as far as to let the love soften the perimeter of your bubble? Could you do that right now? Could you continue to do that often?
This simple visualization can help you to feel love within. And once you begin feeling love – and loving that feeling – you can keep doing it and then you will start seeing changes in your relationship.
Other Methods of Loving Yourself Back to a Happy Relationship
The internal love generator is just one way of making a change in yourself. There are many other methods. They include:
Self-appreciation
When you can appreciate the unique human being that you are, you can then appreciate the person your partner is. You have so many adorable qualities, so many positive traits, so many beautiful thoughts, how can you not appreciate them?
Compassion
When you are able to find compassion for yourself, you will find it for others. There’s no need to be angry, or cross with things you did or said. They are gone. Be kind. Soothe your soul.
Connection
When you learn that everyone and every thing is part of a web of love, you will stop seeing yourself as apart and separate. This is what Jesus meant when he said, “Love thy neighbor.” It did not mean go across the road and give your neighbor a big hug, though you can do that if you want. It meant to perceive yourself as being part of a whole, and loving yourself means that you love the whole.
Forgiveness
If you can make a leap to knowing that there is nothing to forgive yourself for, then you will also see that there is nothing to forgive in others. That whatever you are forgiving has gone. Because it is in the past, it is not a real thing anymore. The behavior requiring forgiveness no longer exists, so if you are feeling pain because of some past wrong-doing, you are still feeling fear. Remember, you cannot feel fear and love at the same time. So find a way to let it go.
This idea of there being nothing to forgive, is the basis of peace. The problem with forgiveness, as we perceive it, is that it is a favor bestowed on one individual by another. Thus forgiveness is a condition. A solicited gift. True forgiveness is understanding that anything that occurred in the past cannot be forgiven; does not need to be forgiven, because it is nothing. No thing. It is merely a memory, and memories are slippery things, colored by perception, perspective and emotions.
Save Your Relationship With Love
Can you see that by filling your being with love, it is not possible for you to feel irritation or anger? It isn’t possible to nag or control. It’s not possible to fear that your partner doesn’t love you. If you are love, your partner can’t help but love you. As you do them.
Blocks to Loving Yourself and Your Relationship
If you cannot find it within your being to love yourself and your partner back to a healthy relationship, it’s possible that you have some hardcore beliefs which need shifting. It’s beyond the scope of this article to explore those scenarios right now, but you may find that talking to one of our love and relationship expert psychics may help. They can pinpoint the issues and give you pointers on how to proceed to demolish those obstacles that prevent you from experiencing deep love.
“There is an extremely powerful force that, so far, science has not found a formal explanation to. It is a force that includes and governs all others, and is even behind any phenomenon operating in the universe and has not yet been identified by us. This universal force is LOVE.”