March 2010

As human beings, we all desire to establish, develop and maintain loving relationship with those whom we care about. Most of us especially desire a love relationship, someone with whom to share our lives and grow old. It is arguable that on one really wants to die alone. But if this is so, then why are U.S divorce rates so high?

Many factors can account for why people split up such as early marriage, financial problems, infidelity, drug and alcohol addiction and abuse just to name a few. But, no one enters into a marriage with the intention of divorce so what goes wrong?

In order to maintain a love relationship over time, the bottom line is that each person in the marriage has a certain obligation and responsibility to practice emotional maturity and personal responsibility for their feelings, dreams and aspirations. Here are five key things to keep in mind if you want to keep that love relationship alive and well for decades.

Five ways to improve your love relationship

1. Be honest

Be honest with yourself about who you really are, not who you think you should be or your spouse wants you to be. We can all only keep up a charade for so long, and then the dark side of us exposes itself at the worst possible moment.

Most of the time we deny to our conscious self that we do have a dark side in which we don’t always act in way we’d like. We confuse who we think we are with who we really are, a living human being with a complete range of powerful emotions that we’ve learned are not safe to express, especially the vulnerable or dark ones.

If we can’t accept that we are humans and are imperfect, how can we expect our spouse to do so? As long as we wear the mask of happy at the expense of embracing our pain and fear, an underlying anger and resentment will grow and grow until it finally rears its ugly head or we stuff it inside and become a victim. We begin the death march of projection of our anger, disappointment and depression onto our spouse. Somehow it makes sense to blame them. The result of this is an emotional distancing that is unhealthy and painful for both partners.

Understanding our own responsibility to be honest with who we are, what our aspirations are, what our fears are and what our joys are gives us permission and courage to ask for what we need it the love relationship.

2. Make time for the love relationship

This has been said many times, many ways and it bears repeating here. As time goes by and real life begins to creep into your loving world, it is important to remember why you got married in the first place and it is equally important to remember why you were attracted to your lover in the first place. All of the qualities that put butterflies in you stomach and passion in your heart in the early days of the relationship, still exist. However, life doesn’t stand still just because we are in love. No, the sun still rises every morning, the darkness comes and the bills have to be paid.

The importance of scheduled time together cannot be overstated. As you and your spouse grow, so too, will your love relationship. It will grow and change as you do and if you do not establish a deep respect and friendship with each other, your love relationship will suffer. Be creative about together time. Take turns planning your special time together, surprise each other, have fun, create adventures and make a point to create memorable moments. This is as easy as consciously being present in the simplest of moments. When you are fully present to your love, the meaning will be memorable.

3. Be compassionate

Over time, it become very easy to take our love relationship and our partner for granted, in actuality, we begin to consider them as an extension or ourselves and this, too, is a deadly mistake. While the two of you may have joined together as “one” in marriage, there are still two distinct personalities that have dreams and goals. Eventually the day will come when we find ourselves being harsh and judgemental toward the one we love the most. Other times we find ourselves speaking to our love in a way in which we would never speak to another person. At times like these, remember that how we speak to our spouse or others who are close to us, is actually a reflection of how we speak to ourselves in our minds through a process of negative internal dialog. This is a reminder to us to stop and show compassion both to ourselves and to our love and our loving relationship.

4. Be committed

A love relationship is above all a commitment that we make not only to our lover, but to ourselves. We are best served by understanding that a commitment is not just a promise and a powerful intention, it is our integrity. Personal integrity is separate from moral or ethical integrity an responsibility. It is a promise we make to ourselves, an internal standard of the way we will live our lives. Many moments will come and go that will test the integrity of both partners, but an acknowledgment of our own code of conduct and what is in our own integrity can serve as a powerful anchor to steady us to our commitment when challenging times befall us.

5.Be Positive

It’s human nature, for some unknown reason, to look for what is wrong instead of looking for what is right. This is a habit that is a must in a loving relationship. We find what we look for, so if we look for what is going wrong, or what we think is wrong about our spouse, we are sure to find it. On the other hand, if we look for what is right, we will surely find that as well.

In moments of frustration, asking this question, am I looking for what is right or what is wrong, can bring some much needed positive energy to any situation. There is no flaw in another that we can recognize that does not, in fact, dwell within us. The old saying “You spot it, you got it” is trite but true. We cannot identify what is wrong with someone else if it didn’t exist is us. If not, how would we know it exists? How would be be able to spot it in another? And likewise with looking for what is right. We possess those qualities too, for again, if not, we would never be able to recognize them in our lover or the loving relationship.

There is nothing like being in love, but nothing endures like a truly loving relationship that is built on honesty, integrity, compassion, commitment and a true respect for the greater support structure being built. These qualities are the bedrock of any loving relationship that will be with you for the rest of your life, in good times and bad, in sickness and health until death parts you briefly.

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Mary is a life coach is a the author of numerous newspaper and magazine articles on personal growth and conscious and successful living. Mary is known for her “no excuses” approach to coaching for a sustainable transformation.

Take Wrong Out of the Equation

Have you ever considered what the world would look like if we were able to take wrong out of the equation? What would be possible if there were no right or wrong ways to live, do or be? What if there was no wrong, just different?

While it is arguable that some things are just plain wrong in the world of morality and ethics, on a more individual level, taking wrong out of any scenario can offer some unexpected possibilities. Our sense of judgement about people, places, things or opportunities is not a matter of chance as much as it is a matter of unconscious choice and unexamined beliefs. This is not “wrong,” but it is limiting. Bringing awareness to what or whom we make wrong is enlightening, expansive and energizing. Being willing to suspend judgement even for a moment allows us to create the space to consider something old in a new way.

What situation, relationship or activity are you involved with because you feel it’s the right thing to do, or what is expected of you? Where are your actions and commitments performed out of guilt or because you just can’t bring yourself to say no? This is often a clear example of some way that we are making ourselves or others wrong. But what if we substituted interesting where wrong once dwelled? Would that create a little opening to see things differently?

What if we replaced should with could? The difference is subtle, but powerful. Should implies a sense of righteousness and guilt and wrongness, as in “I should do this” or “They shouldn’t feel that way!” Could, on the other hand, is neutral. Saying or thinking, “I could do this,” is void of judgement and pregnant with possibility. It carves the path to choice, and the power of choice is limitless. Should is a dead end.

Consider this. Once, it was wrong to believe the earth was anything but flat. People have lost their lives because of a static belief of what is right or wrong, possible or impossible. It was once wrong, arrogant and blasphemous to even contemplate that the earth was not the center of our universe. Again, people died over this rigid righteousness.

Until we are willing to consider the possibilities outside of wrong and should, we perpetuate the smallness of our limited knowledge and embedded beliefs. Try it. Practice a willingness to take wrong out of some equation and see what remains. I think you’ll find that you have created choice.

What are you worth?

A wise man once said that something is only worth what a person is willing to pay for it. The dictionary says that worth is something of significant value to justify investment of time or interest. When referring to objects, I suppose this is true. A 1966 Ford Mustang 289 V8 with a 4 barrel carburetor holds a certain value based upon what buyers have been willing to pay for it in the past. According to a recent web search, that price is somewhere around $10,000 to $14,000. This is an interesting fact given the Mustang could be purchased new for approximately $2500 from 1964 to 1968.

When applying worth to people, the concept becomes a bit more complex. My dad used to say that he was worth more dead than alive. I didn’t know what that meant until I became an adult. He died when I was 27, and I can tell you that he was wrong. He was worth a whole lot more to me when he was alive. But what is any life worth?

My feelings of worthiness and unworthiness have fluctuated as my life has progressed. When I was a child, my sense of worth depended upon my outside world and the way others treated me. My second grade teacher, Mrs. Griffin, loved me and thought I was a brilliant and entertaining child. My second grade teacher, Mrs. Houck hated my guts. I couldn’t do anything right and spent an inordinate amount of time in the cloakroom or out in the hall. I didn’t feel very worthy in third grade to tell you the truth. By fourth grade, I had transformed into a wonderful student who was a leader in her class in academics and citizenship. I led by example and Mrs. Galvin adored me and truly valued me. She followed the dictionary definition of worth to the letter. I was definitely a child of significant value to justify the investment of her time and interest. That was the year that I developed my theory that odd numbered grades would be bad and even numbered grades would be great years.

Feelings of worthiness are what dictate the way I experience life, what joy, love, success, fun and pleasure I will allow myself to receive.

When my feelings of worthiness are attached to what I do, from my achievements, bank account, address or body, I become a human doing instead of a human being. I don’t value myself for who I am, but for what I can accomplish. What happens if I get older and can’t accomplish the things I once could? What if I am in a terrible accident and can no longer be a productive member of society in the traditional sense? Do I become less valuable? We say no, but we mean yes. I would become a to-be-pitied drain on social resources if I had no other support system. I would feel badly about that and I would feel worthless.

While every moment will be different, the moments that I spend cultivating my inherent worthiness is time well spent. I do this by trying to expose the behaviors I engage in that undermine my feelings of worthiness and then make a conscious effort to make a better choice that will leave me feeling worthy.

I’m worth that!

Living a cultivated life is a process and can never be done wrong. We are ever-evolving if we have set personal growth as an intention in our life, even when we can see no evidence of growth and transformaton. Like the growth of our physical body through childhood, or the opening of a subtle spring bloom, the shift in us is often imperceptable. It is gradual, but steady if we maintain our intention.

One practice that has helped me tremendously is to begin the day with a short meditation that supports my intentional path of cultivation. During this meditation, I calm my mind by breathing in deeply, all the way into my belly, three or four times and allow my mind to focus on the area around my heart and visualize a light there, first as a pinpoint of light, then growing larger and brighter until it fills my entire body. I concsiously relax each part of my body from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. Then I bring thought in the form of a simple question. I ask “How do I want to feel at the end of today?” Do I want to feel satisfied, happy, content, kind, loved and loving,competent….The answer becomes my intention for the day  and I go through the day with this intention in mind, asking myself, will this bring me “kindness,”  for example, today before a think, speak or act.

This process helps support us on our path to a new way of living. If we begin each day with an intention, this serves as a roadmap for our day and how we will live it. It supports us to be present in our lives today, now, rather than living in the past or the future. When we begin the day knowing how we want to feel at the end of the day, we have an anchor and we feel grounded in ourself, we become inner referring rather than seeking external validation which we cannot control and in the end is meaningless. How we approach and live the days of our lives are a choice we have the power to make and lean on throughout our day.