Improving Your Relationships
By Peter Shepherd
These factors would apply to an intimate relationship:
1. Does what you and the other are doing align?
Take a look at what is going on in a current relationship. Do it with the other person if possible. Make an honest assessment of the current situation and then work together to align these different elements:
* What is the Actual State of affairs?
* What is the Basic Intention of each of you regards each other?
* What is therefore the Ideal State of affairs?
* Therefore what Desired Objectives do you share?
* Work out an Overall Plan to achieve those objectives.
* What are the Daily Actions that will be needed?
2. Responsible for what?
Examine the responsibility each is taking. Work toward a full responsibility for the overall relationship and one's own reactions, but do not attempt to be responsible for everything about the other person. Their beliefs and feelings are their own responsibility. What are you willing to be responsible for regarding (other person)? What are you not willing to be responsible for regarding (other person)?"
3. Is there a competition?
Sort out any issue of competition for territory. What kind of game are you and the other playing? If it is a game, then consider it as such and enjoy it. Is there something there isn't enough of that has to be fought for? If so, reassure that there is enough to go round (love, affection, money, communication, whatever).
4. Is there something one of you needs to know?
Upsets between people usually result from a failure of communication, very often one not knowing what is in the other person's mind, and therefore not acting accordingly. Work out what you don't know and get an answer; ask the other what they need to know and provide it.
5. Is something being kept back?
With the other person, work over the following questions as long as there is still anything to find on them. With somebody who has been a long relationship, that might be a LOT. What has (other) done that was hard for you to experience? What has (other) failed to say about that? What have you done that was hard for the other to experience? What have you failed to say about that?"
6. Lost the original excitement?
Go back to when you first got together and examine what you saw in each other, what was fun and exciting. Get all the details and particularly the feelings. If the other person is available, do it at the same time with closed eyes and arrange it so you see each other first thing when you open your eyes. Transfer the feelings to the present.
7. What have you learned?
Reframe the relationship as a learning experience. Find out what specifically each of you might have to learn from each other. Perhaps one person can do some things better, one can tolerate some things more easily, one can appreciate some things more readily. What do you have to learn from each other? What have you learned from each other?
8. What do you agree about?
Find out what you both actually agree on, what you see the same way, interests you have in common, stuff you have the same feelings or same reactions to. Come to realize how much common ground you have to build on.
9. Communication withheld?
What do you want to say to the person, but for some reason can't say or aren't saying? Why not? Imagine actually saying them to the other person, then do so out loud and imagine the reply. Then go ahead and say it. Allow the other freedom to be themselves.
10. Likes and dislikes?
What do you like about the other and what don't you like? Does the other person have to be perfect for you to like them? Are you perfect? Do either of you need to be perfect or would you rather be yourselves? What is unique about you and the other?
11. What's needed and wanted?
Ask each other what is needed and wanted from the other person. Honestly inquire what the other person actually wants. Not having any argument or discussion about it, but simply find out what it is the other side would like.
12. Talking honestly?
Get together and tell each other what you really want to say about each other. Try to keep to what is personally felt, how things are perceived from either end. No "You ..." statements allowed. Continue until you each learn to respect what the other person says and begin to have more understanding of each other.
13. Secrets?
Examine what each of you keep secret from each other. Secrets tend to build and make you grow further from each other. Find out what isn't being faced up to, what isn't being taken responsibility for. Is there anything you would never say to the other? Do you have secrets from each other? Why?
14. Is there some co-dependence?
Each person needs to look at the responsibilities they have given up or areas they have withdrawn from by being in the relationship. For example, no longer maintaining friendships "because the other wouldn't like that." What does your relationship allow you not to deal with? Is this resented?
15. Are you making yourself right?
Look for fixed ideas about what is right. How do you think this relationship is supposed to be? What principle are you operating by? What piece of logic do you use? Is one of you making him or her self right by making the other wrong in some way?
16. Are you different?
What is similar between you and the other? What is different between you and the other? What qualities does one person have that the other is lacking? How can you make the most of these differences to complement each other rather than conflict?
17. Talking about yourself?
Turn the complaints you may have about the other person around as something you are really saying about yourself. Find the parts of yourself that match it. This is a very common phenomenon, that whatever one doesn't like or doesn't accept about somebody else is really what one does like or accept about oneself. One can't really change it in the other person, but one can change it in oneself, once one finds that part of oneself.
18. Are you allowing changes to occur?
Examine your willingness to let the other person change. Sometimes the different parties in a relationship try to keep the other person the same, or keep them in accord with their ideas and expectations. If the other person suddenly changes they don't like each other so much any more. That is not very useful, so increase the tolerance of change when you can. Find the underlying qualities you like about each other, but free up any fixedness about specific required behavior and circumstances. Consider: "What changes would you allow (other) to make?"
19. And in the future?
Visualize how you would like the relationship to be in the future. Check if that is really congruent, or if it is just an abstract dream. Backtrack it toward the present. How can you make that happen?
Reactive or Response-able
By Peter Shepherd
The opposite of being reactive is being response-able, i.e. responsible. When you are being responsible, you're thinking as well as feeling: you're experiencing your feelings but also conscious of what is rational and therefore not driven by emotion to act impulsively. This is an integration of left and right brain functions. As you become free from reactive (stimulus-response) behavior then to that degree you know that you are also free to be spontaneous, because you know that will incorporate responsibility.
Responsibility also allows you to maintain your self-worth, despite anything another person might say about you. The thoughts and feelings of others no longer drag you into a pit of self-doubt. You will see all sorts of new options and choices in your dealings with other people because your perspective and your sense of reason are not being buried by emotions. Taking responsibility for your mind, puts back into your hands a good deal of control over your life.
When another or others continue to attempt to manipulate and dominate, you can then stay calm and refuse to be stampeded: then you retain the power. For example by responding non-defensively, this breaks the cycle of attack-retreat-defense-escalation. The moment you argue, apologize, explain, or try to get them to change their minds, you give them the power to withhold the understanding that you are asking them for. One can instead say, "That's an interesting point of view," or "I shall consider that as one option." It is also necessary to assert one's position in a matter-of-fact manner, without worrying about upsetting them, but without any hostility or embarrassment: "I'm happy to let you stay for a specified, limited time."
One's response to this approach may be to say, "I just don't think I can stand up to (him or her)." But instead of saying "I can't," reframe your statement in the form: "I haven't yet stood up to my parents." "Haven't yet" implies choice, whereas "don't" and "can't" imply the opposite: finality. Similarly, "I mustn't" or "I shouldn't" can be reframed as: "I could choose not to." "I should" or "I must" can be reframed: "I could choose to." There is a big difference between choosing to capitulate to another because you've considered the alternatives and decided that you're not prepared to make a change at this moment, and automatically capitulating because you feel helpless. Making a choice means taking a step toward control; knee-jerk reacting means backsliding into being controlled.
We cannot accept responsibility for everything that occurs and sometimes our choices have no bearing on a particular outcome. There is always an interaction between what some may call their fate (or their genes, environment, etc.) and their decisions. Many people are affected by the behavior of others; complete self-control is a rarity. Certainly, events sometimes overwhelm us. If my girlfriend has an affair with another man, and I feel quite miserable at this loss, it would be difficult, at least initially, to me to choose to feel differently. It does me little good to tell myself that I have made a choice to be miserable and could just as easily be happy. To be upset is a normal and rational reaction to my girlfriend's behavior.
What I am responsible for, however, is if I choose to dwell on her behavior, to berate myself, maybe condemn her for her choice of partner, or to plague myself with thoughts of her actions for months to come - then I will have chosen to continue in a destructive pattern of behavior, to adopt the stance of victim, which will result in my continuing misery.
On the other hand, I may choose to see things differently, to apply a different meaning to what has happened, to value the experience for the positive lessons it brings me. I may not be able to change the past but I can certainly alter what it means to me. My interpretation of events is my choice and responsibility.
By understanding how easily reactive responses can take over one's behavior you will find yourself not taking personal offense when others behave in their own way; you can see that they are just dramatizing the problems and conflicts in their own heads. Enlightenment always leads to understanding, empathy and improved communication, in short, love.