When it comes to relationships, there are many in our lives. There are many people in different relationships to us. Some people are in relationship with us and we call them family. Others we have a different type of relationship with and call them friends.

Another kind of relationship we might have with someone in a position of authority. Perhaps a doctor, coach, landlady, or teacher. Whatever the reason we are interacting with another person on a regular basis, we tend to enter into some form of a relationship with them.

The best thing about relationships is, as many of you might have realized, that they are usually involving two and more people. Yet, we also have some kind of a relationship with ourselves.

What I want to discuss with you today, is how we are handling these interactions with other people. Whether with family, friends, or others in our life.

I will give you an example here.

Here we have Betty and her partner of many years, Don. Betty loves Don and Don loves Betty. Let’s start with Betty.

Betty has been feeling a  bit frustrated lately. When we examine it closer, the reason Betty is not happy is because Don doesn’t pay much attention to Betty. At least not as much as he used to.  Don, who is at work the whole day, is fairly happy just to crash on the couch, watch some TV, have a beer and go to sleep.

Betty tries to talk to Don, but as she is not getting the kind of interaction that she would be pleased with, she soon stops her attempts to start the talk. As a result, she starts to look for another way to feel better and to fill the void. Betty finds herself a solution. She goes to shops and buys designers clothing.

When Betty shows Don her newly bought treasures, at least there she generates some form of interaction between her and Don. It might also mean, that Don will have to look at her in her bright new outfit, and might even compliment her.

From the above scenario, we can see that Betty is finding another way of getting to feel better. However, avoiding the real issue.

Now, here is Don.

Don doesn’t usually tend to express much, in terms of feelings and emotions. He doesn’t tend to talk much with Betty, as he doesn’t think she can understand him. Don is sometimes upset that Betty does things without his consent, but he doesn’t talk about it much.

Don thinks life is a struggle and one has to build up resilience and overcome the struggle by being virtuous. So he tries his best to live a virtuous existence. At times, Don’s internal pressure valve bursts open and the steam comes out with others around him.

Look at Betty and Don. Are you able to perhaps see anyone you know in this example?

Now let me tell you how I see this scenario from the external viewpoint. And what would serve best both Betty and Don.

Betty and Don had become a bit intertwined with each other over the years. And truly, that happens to many of us, when we live with someone long enough.

At the beginning, we spoke about the different reasons we all enter into relationships. The partnership relationship is one that many of us, or at least some of us, will go through in this life.

We learn very young how relationships are, by observing people around us. Then when we are growing up, we learn from other sources like media. The mixture of these is indeed a big influence on how we form and handle our own relationships.

Have you ever heard yourself say something to another, and then realized that you just sounded like one of your parents or carer?

So how to best deal with conflicts and issues underlying the often overlooked problems, before they snowball into a bigger problem in our relationship?

The best way about building lasting and fulfilling relationship is to start with oneself. When we are still single and at the stage when we dream about the other half. That is the time we need to start building a strong relationship with oneself.

What does that look like?

When we learn to understand, that the reason we would like to be in a relationship is for the beautiful shared moments of peace and harmony, of joy and content with life, of excitement from living and sharing this existence with another being. Then the person of such a confidence with life, is ready to attract their match.

On the other hand, when we come to partnership relationship from needs and expectations on the other person, we don’t come from a place of wholeness and love. Then the other person we attract to ourselves is also in the same boat. They are responding to the energetic vibration we are sending (we could call it a certain degree of low self-confidence, lack of self-love and desire for any kind of personal attachment).

The true solution to Betty and Don is to go back to their own basic needs and fulfill them with self-love. They, and we all, can be sure to do ourselves a big favor, when we come back and start the journey within.

And if that all sounds too airy fairy, then perhaps just have a power session at the gym and couple of green smoothies, before delving into the unknown field of self exploration and self-help.

I wish you the best new self discoveries. As we all can benefit from some more meditation, internal observing, reflection and self-awareness.

Live well aware.