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THE VALUE OF GREAT RELATIONSHIPS
The essence of a happy life is found in the quality of our
relationships!
I imagine that you are
familiar with the sentiment that at the end of your life you
won't be concerned with the amount of money you've made, the
number of toys you've acquired or how well you've performed
in the business world but that the only thing that will
matter to you at that time will be the people you've loved
and who've loved you.
PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
One of the most difficult things to understand about what
makes a relationship great and satisfying is the
significance of personal responsibility. The only way we can
ever achieve lasting intimacy and satisfaction in any
relationship is to recognise - not just on a cognitive but
also on a deep emotional level - that each human being
carries responsibility for their own feelings. This,
however, is not a well known nor particularly popular
concept as most of us tend to firmly believe that our
happiness is dependent on how others behave towards us. How
often have we complained to our friends, or they to us:
My husband makes me
so angry or
my wife is driving me
crazy or
my teenagers are
responsible for every grey hair on my head, or
my mother makes me
feel so guilty, or
my boss frustrates the
living daylights out of me...etc
Most of us carry a deeply
ingrained belief that it is someone else's job to make us
happy. This is never more apparent than in our love and
family relationships. Take the following example:
Sandy
desperately wants to spend some quality time with her
husband, Bob. He, however, is not in the right frame of mind
yet again to accede to
Sandy's wishes. Consequently
Sandy
feels unloved, uncared for, rejected and very angry with
Bob.
Bob's desire of
physically connecting with his wife has been thwarted
once again because she just 'isn't in the mood'. Bob
feels frustrated, rejected, uncared for, unloved and equally
angry with Sandy.
Each is expecting the other to supply what they consider
they need in order to be happy and since their needs and
wants aren't being met, they feel perfectly justified in
blaming the other for their feelings of resentment and
anger.
Please understand that I am
NOT saying you have no right to expect your legitimate needs
to be met in your love relationships. What I am saying,
however, is that YOU are in charge of YOUR response.
If your legitimate relationship needs really are being
neglected, there are far more appropriate and more effective
ways of dealing with this than temper tantrums, emotional
withdrawal and/or finger pointing.
COMMON RELATIONSHIP TRAPS AND 'THE REMEDY'
A lack of awareness of this important concept can (and
easily does) cause us to fall into the following
relationship traps:
Playing the blame game
- I am desperately unhappy and it's all your fault!
Engaging in power
struggles - I won't do this for you unless you do
that for me but you do it first...
Playing the victim -
I give and give and you don't give anything back to me!
Using manipulation or
control - If you don't do what I want, I don't
believe that you love me.
Sending the other on a
guilt trip - If you really loved me, you'd...
Can you see how destructive
it is when we don't take personal responsibility for our
feelings in our relationships? Taking responsibility for our
feelings (whatever they may be!) empowers us to
appropriately respond and take whatever action is necessary.
When we take personal
responsibility we can be honest (with our partners, others
and ourselves). We can also maintain healthy boundaries,
create win/win situations, maintain all-important
self-respect and conduct ourselves with integrity. Let me
demonstrate this by using Sally's circumstance as
illustrated in the above example:
Being honest
Sandy
might say to Bob: When we don't spend time together
weekin/weekout, I start feeling disconnected. When I feel
disconnected I wonder about the quality of our relationship
and I get scared that it might not be as important to you as
it is to me.
When
Sandy
lets Bob know her real feelings - being scared - he is far
more likely to respond to her need than he would be if he
felt attacked by her for being uncaring and unloving.
Maintaining healthy
personal boundaries
Sandy
might say to Bob: When I feel disconnected because of the
lack of time we spend together, the last thing I feel like
doing is being physically loving towards you.
This way
Sandy
takes responsibility for her diminished interest in their
physical connection rather than blaming him and also gives
him a vital clue as to why this is so.
In an attempt to create a
win/win situation
Sandy
might say to Bob: Perhaps we could plan to spend some
time together one evening each week (go out for dinner,
watch a movie, go for a walk at the beach...) and end those
days on a physically romantic note?!
Rather than fuming within and
feeling justified in ignoring Bob's need for physical
connection, Sandy
is making suggestions that not only demonstrate her
willingness to take responsibility for finding a solution
that meets her own needs but is also showing consideration
and respect for his.
Maintaining self-respect
Sandy
might say to Bob, if he hasn't as yet responded to her
efforts: I feel like I am starving emotionally when we
can't manage to make time together. If my suggestions don't
work for you, perhaps you could make suggestions that
do.
Integrity
If Bob is as interested in
getting their relationship back on track as
Sandy, he will either agree to her
suggestions or come up with his own. If he is not as
interested, this would indicate that their relationship
might be in sufficiently serious trouble to be in need for
professional help. In such a case -
Sandy
- conducting herself with integrity - might say: I
have certain legitimate needs in this relationship. Right
now these needs aren't being met and this is causing me a
great deal of pain. Let's get some help!
Now, this is just a simple
illustration of how communication can work when we take
responsibility for our feelings.
Sounds scary? Well yes, it
can be if emotional honesty hasn't thus far been part of
your relationship repartoir. Stretching towards this kind of
goal, however, will not only improve your really important
and intimate relationships but also pave the way for
improvement with all your other relationships. Yes, this
does take time and is a process that involves some trial and
error, but when you begin to feel the freedom of
communicating with emotional honesty, self-respect and
integrity, you'll be glad to have made whatever effort was
required. After all, the essence of a happy life is found
in the quality of our relationships! |
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EXEC U TIPS
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Understanding Your Employees
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WORDS OF WISDOM
The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not
in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in
a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was,
nor forward to what it might be, but living in the present
and accepting it as it is now. (Anne Morrow Lindbergh)
*****************
The secret of happiness is
not getting what you like, but liking what you get. (John
Barrie)
*************************
Happiness doesn't just happen
to you, like some "accident". It is something you choose.
You make the choice to be happy first. Happiness is a daily
decision. (The Daily Guru) ****************
Integrity is one of several
paths, it distinguishes itself from the others because is it
is the right path, and the only one upon which you will
never get lost. (M. H. McKee)
BOOK RECOMMENDATION
There are a number of great
books that assist our understanding of healthy relationship
dynamics. Today's recommendation is:
DO I HAVE TO GIVE UP ME TO BE LOVED BY YOU? by Drs Jordan &
Margaret Paul.
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Sonja Ridden
331 Mona Vale Road
Terrey Hills NSW 2084 |
