CONSCIOUS LIFE SKILLS NEWSLETTER - August 2007
Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.
Robert Frost
English poet
Conscious Life Skills newsletter
No.4, August 2007
Frequency: 6 times per year
Website: http://www.consciouslifeskills.com
Mail to: frances@consciouslifeskills.com
No.4, August 2007
Frequency: 6 times per year
Website: http://www.consciouslifeskills.com
Mail to: frances@consciouslifeskills.com
c2007 Conscious Life Skills
My house of love: Creating successful relationships
Part 1. Laying foundations
Know yourself and what you want
by Frances Todd
Printer friendly version Contact the author
Part 1. Laying foundations
Know yourself and what you want
by Frances Todd
Printer friendly version Contact the author
My house of love: creating successful relationships is a series of four articles about what creates a successful relationship. The series uses the analogy of building a house to create, keep and sustain the love you want. The topics to be covered, include
· 1. Laying foundations: know yourself and what you want,
· 2. Building the framework: understand what relationship is, and why you are there
· 3. Fitting windows: communicating responsively and clearly
· 4. Interior design: committing with head heart and hands to living in relationship
My house of love, Part 1. Know yourself and what you want asks you to look at your relationship in terms of it's current status, your vision for it, your requirements, and your readiness to change aspects of the way you choose to relate.
What kind of relationship are you in? Are you single or committed or in a relationship with potential for commitment? What relationships have you been attracting? How deep does your relationship go? What patterns do you see in your relationships? What are you not getting from your relationship in order to feel fulfilled? These questions and more will help you find out more about your self, how you relate to others and what you want in relationship.
The success factor in relationships starts to become a reality when you find the answers to the questions about who you are and what you want. A short and informal survey of the Conscious Life Skills community on what creates a successful relationship identified factors such as respect, tolerance, listening, trust, laughter, communication, affection, and taking turns. If you value these qualities in a relationship, then it's worth cultivating them towards your self, for you are a significant player in what goes on in your relationships and what goes on in your relationships says a lot about who you are. You are the gift you give to the other special person and people in your life.
When you think about yourself and another in a relationship, it helps to think of two people as different countries. Each country has a different topography, different highs and lows, in terms of life experiences which can be separated out into regions like career, education, family, spiritual, economic, leisure, talents, etc. When crossing into another country, you need to check out and get to know the culture of the country you wish to visit - how do they resolve conflict, what do they like to eat, what do they really feel about matters. At the same time, you need to be clear and consistent about the why and what of feeling good about your beliefs, feelings and actions. Inevitably, there are clashes on the boundaries between these two countries. You need to be both secure in your self and open to the border checks and culture of the other‘s country you’ve chosen to visit and reside in for some of your time.
A visual image or metaphor which describes how you like to be and do in a relationship is also a powerful symbol of self recognition and purpose in knowing yourself and what you want.
.
I like the phrase, being your own rock, as a statement for how I like to be and do in relationship.
The phrase comes from a song I remember singing at church. The lyrics went, ” Build on the rock, the rock that ever stands. Build on the rock, and not upon the sand.” The rock and sand represented the foundation upon which you built love and faith. The rock represented stability and responsibility; the sand represented changeability or lack of direction and purpose
Different metaphors appeal to different people - for example, sailing my own ship, being my own boss. Try visualizing an image or capture it in a statement on what you’re all about. This acts like a guiding light when you're out and about and need to orientate yourself to your needs and wants. You can orientate yourself by consciously plugging into the energy of your personal symbol for relationship. Call it to mind as the situation requires.
In the world of love and romance, knowing yourself - self knowledge and self-awareness - means recognizing what your beliefs about love and romance are, learning from past relationship experiences what didn’t work for you, firming up on what you do want in a relationship, and researching and writing a design plan to build a relationship that works and evolves for you. A word of caution, here…all the knowledge in the world won’t help you unless you are prepared to lay foundations for a loving relationship through acting purposefully and in harmony with your thoughts and feelings to create your successful relationship.
This article and others in the series, My house of love, will help you focus on building your uniquely strong and stylish house of faith and love. The house is YOU--your beliefs and attitudes, your emotions and your feelings, your needs, your wants, your requirements, your goals, your actions…all these are the very core of you being and doing. You take your house wherever you go. You are responsible for designing cleaning and maintaining this precious house. Every now and then, it’s fun to spring-clean and renovate your house, so you keep in touch with yourself.
Conisder the following four exercises as domestic help you are hiring to spring-clean your house of love.
The success factor in relationships starts to become a reality when you find the answers to the questions about who you are and what you want. A short and informal survey of the Conscious Life Skills community on what creates a successful relationship identified factors such as respect, tolerance, listening, trust, laughter, communication, affection, and taking turns. If you value these qualities in a relationship, then it's worth cultivating them towards your self, for you are a significant player in what goes on in your relationships and what goes on in your relationships says a lot about who you are. You are the gift you give to the other special person and people in your life.
When you think about yourself and another in a relationship, it helps to think of two people as different countries. Each country has a different topography, different highs and lows, in terms of life experiences which can be separated out into regions like career, education, family, spiritual, economic, leisure, talents, etc. When crossing into another country, you need to check out and get to know the culture of the country you wish to visit - how do they resolve conflict, what do they like to eat, what do they really feel about matters. At the same time, you need to be clear and consistent about the why and what of feeling good about your beliefs, feelings and actions. Inevitably, there are clashes on the boundaries between these two countries. You need to be both secure in your self and open to the border checks and culture of the other‘s country you’ve chosen to visit and reside in for some of your time.
A visual image or metaphor which describes how you like to be and do in a relationship is also a powerful symbol of self recognition and purpose in knowing yourself and what you want.
.
I like the phrase, being your own rock, as a statement for how I like to be and do in relationship.
The phrase comes from a song I remember singing at church. The lyrics went, ” Build on the rock, the rock that ever stands. Build on the rock, and not upon the sand.” The rock and sand represented the foundation upon which you built love and faith. The rock represented stability and responsibility; the sand represented changeability or lack of direction and purpose
Different metaphors appeal to different people - for example, sailing my own ship, being my own boss. Try visualizing an image or capture it in a statement on what you’re all about. This acts like a guiding light when you're out and about and need to orientate yourself to your needs and wants. You can orientate yourself by consciously plugging into the energy of your personal symbol for relationship. Call it to mind as the situation requires.
In the world of love and romance, knowing yourself - self knowledge and self-awareness - means recognizing what your beliefs about love and romance are, learning from past relationship experiences what didn’t work for you, firming up on what you do want in a relationship, and researching and writing a design plan to build a relationship that works and evolves for you. A word of caution, here…all the knowledge in the world won’t help you unless you are prepared to lay foundations for a loving relationship through acting purposefully and in harmony with your thoughts and feelings to create your successful relationship.
This article and others in the series, My house of love, will help you focus on building your uniquely strong and stylish house of faith and love. The house is YOU--your beliefs and attitudes, your emotions and your feelings, your needs, your wants, your requirements, your goals, your actions…all these are the very core of you being and doing. You take your house wherever you go. You are responsible for designing cleaning and maintaining this precious house. Every now and then, it’s fun to spring-clean and renovate your house, so you keep in touch with yourself.
Conisder the following four exercises as domestic help you are hiring to spring-clean your house of love.
What are your beliefs about love and romance?
What is not working in your relationships?
What do I want now in a relationship?
How do I design a Love and Romance plan?
What is not working in your relationships?
What do I want now in a relationship?
How do I design a Love and Romance plan?
Exercise 1. Your beliefs about love and romance
As you do this task, you are building a portfolio of insights into what drives your beliefs about how a relationship should or could be. These insights help you identify gaps between where you are now and where you would like to be.
Here are some commonly held beliefs about love and romance.
You don’t have to work at love and romance.
Sexual pleasure is for the young.
Marriage benefits men more than women.
Living together before marriage means you find out how well suited you are and this is most likely to lead to a happier marriage.
I will be happy once I find my soul mate.
We can change the other person when we make a commitment.
Strong sexual chemistry must be love.
People fall out of love after a long time together.
People who are too different should get divorced.
A happy and long term partnership is the result of luck and sex.
True love conquers all.
Rate each of these beliefs about love and romance with a True or False statement. Then write out with specific detail, and using examples from the relationship, how you have experienced or are not experiencing each belief in your relationships. Look at your last three relationships, including your current one.
Now ask yourself
How effective was/is this belief in making you feel good about being in your relationship?
How does this belief work out in my real experience?
How does my real experience challenge that belief?
What do I now believe as a result of my experience?
As you do this task, you are building a portfolio of insights into what drives your beliefs about how a relationship should or could be. These insights help you identify gaps between where you are now and where you would like to be.
Here are some commonly held beliefs about love and romance.
You don’t have to work at love and romance.
Sexual pleasure is for the young.
Marriage benefits men more than women.
Living together before marriage means you find out how well suited you are and this is most likely to lead to a happier marriage.
I will be happy once I find my soul mate.
We can change the other person when we make a commitment.
Strong sexual chemistry must be love.
People fall out of love after a long time together.
People who are too different should get divorced.
A happy and long term partnership is the result of luck and sex.
True love conquers all.
Rate each of these beliefs about love and romance with a True or False statement. Then write out with specific detail, and using examples from the relationship, how you have experienced or are not experiencing each belief in your relationships. Look at your last three relationships, including your current one.
Now ask yourself
How effective was/is this belief in making you feel good about being in your relationship?
How does this belief work out in my real experience?
How does my real experience challenge that belief?
What do I now believe as a result of my experience?
Exercise 2. What isn't working in my relationship?
In this exercise, relationships need to be ones in which you felt emotionally attached.
Take three relationships, including your current partner, and make three columns, with a heading for each person. Write down the most negative aspects you feel about each partner. Keep the quality preferably to one word. For example, if he or she wanted to know where you were and what you were doing a lot of the time, write down the word, possessive or controlling as a quality you experienced about that person. When you have listing all the most negative qualities, circle which ones are common to all relationships and put them in a list. This list of describes what kind of partners or love choices you’ve been attracting which do not make you happy.
These patterns have their origin in childhood experiences of love and attachment that formed attitudes and beliefs which went on to shape inform and influence our love choices as an adult. These patterns are our emotional programming which often prompts us to compensate for the parts of ourselves we don’t like or have been wounded in some way. We may not be conscious, aware, of these. Through life coaching and counselling, you can discover more what is behind your emotional programming and learn how to recognize and reshape beliefs about love and romance choices for a healthier and happier relationship outcome.
In this exercise, relationships need to be ones in which you felt emotionally attached.
Take three relationships, including your current partner, and make three columns, with a heading for each person. Write down the most negative aspects you feel about each partner. Keep the quality preferably to one word. For example, if he or she wanted to know where you were and what you were doing a lot of the time, write down the word, possessive or controlling as a quality you experienced about that person. When you have listing all the most negative qualities, circle which ones are common to all relationships and put them in a list. This list of describes what kind of partners or love choices you’ve been attracting which do not make you happy.
These patterns have their origin in childhood experiences of love and attachment that formed attitudes and beliefs which went on to shape inform and influence our love choices as an adult. These patterns are our emotional programming which often prompts us to compensate for the parts of ourselves we don’t like or have been wounded in some way. We may not be conscious, aware, of these. Through life coaching and counselling, you can discover more what is behind your emotional programming and learn how to recognize and reshape beliefs about love and romance choices for a healthier and happier relationship outcome.
Exercise 3. What do I want now in my relationship?
If you feel your long-term relationship needs spicing up and new directions, or you are emerging from a relationship breakup to venture out again on the dating scene, you need to clarify what you want now in a relationship. Clarifying what you want gives you a better sense of who you are and makes you more confident in getting what you want.
What you want in a relationship represents the personal qualities you value as well as expectations of your self and the other in a relationship. Ask yourself
What are the bottom line qualities I must have from a partner?
What are the qualities I would like from an ideal partner?
In the next four questions, use a significant past relationship to explore your responses if you are currently single.
What expectations do you feel you have of your partner?
What expectations does he or she have of you?
What expectations on either side make you feel uncomfortable with or are not fully met?
Are your expectations of each other fair, realistic and equal? Is there a sense of balance in your relationship?
List about 5-6 responses for each question, then get specific about how you would like to experience each quality and each expectation in relationship. For example, spirituality was a bottom line quality in Jenny’s list of wants. She made it more specific by describing how she wanted to experience it in a relationship: “I want to share with him a belief in a higher power and a journey to find purpose and meaning in life.” In Adam’s list, independent was a bottom line quality. When he described it more specifically in how he wanted his partner to be independent, he said: “I want to share together time with my partner and I want her to understand accept and appreciate that I also need and like some time alone.” Bottom line qualities and expectations you feel about your partner often become non-negotiable or basic requirements in relationships, so it is important to be clear and detailed on what you would like to experience and what you have experienced or are experiencing.
If you feel your long-term relationship needs spicing up and new directions, or you are emerging from a relationship breakup to venture out again on the dating scene, you need to clarify what you want now in a relationship. Clarifying what you want gives you a better sense of who you are and makes you more confident in getting what you want.
What you want in a relationship represents the personal qualities you value as well as expectations of your self and the other in a relationship. Ask yourself
What are the bottom line qualities I must have from a partner?
What are the qualities I would like from an ideal partner?
In the next four questions, use a significant past relationship to explore your responses if you are currently single.
What expectations do you feel you have of your partner?
What expectations does he or she have of you?
What expectations on either side make you feel uncomfortable with or are not fully met?
Are your expectations of each other fair, realistic and equal? Is there a sense of balance in your relationship?
List about 5-6 responses for each question, then get specific about how you would like to experience each quality and each expectation in relationship. For example, spirituality was a bottom line quality in Jenny’s list of wants. She made it more specific by describing how she wanted to experience it in a relationship: “I want to share with him a belief in a higher power and a journey to find purpose and meaning in life.” In Adam’s list, independent was a bottom line quality. When he described it more specifically in how he wanted his partner to be independent, he said: “I want to share together time with my partner and I want her to understand accept and appreciate that I also need and like some time alone.” Bottom line qualities and expectations you feel about your partner often become non-negotiable or basic requirements in relationships, so it is important to be clear and detailed on what you would like to experience and what you have experienced or are experiencing.
Exercise no. 4. How do I design a Love and Romance plan?
Investing in personal growth and fulfillment is essential to a successful relationship. Life is change, people change, and thus relationships change. You change. How up to date are you on your needs, wants, and goals for personal growth and happiness? How can you travel with wisdom and insight through your country if you don’t know yourself as well as you thought? How are you crossing the country borders of the other? Do you feel comfortable being yourself? You can check out where you are in your country by contacting Conscious Life Skills Coaching for a free Life Goals questionnaire.
For those who are single, you need to look at the kind of relationship you want right now. Do you want to have fun, or are you ready to make yourself available for a committed relationship? Your choice here will influence the choice of venues you visit to look for partners. If you want fun and to experience a range of dating opportunities, you’ll frequent singles events more often than venues such as yoga classes or community volunteering to meet a potential partner. Either way, you can create a romantic resume or profile of the person you would like to meet. Not sure how to write a love and romance resume? Look at the profiles used in Internet dating services - for e.g., RSVP. In these profiles, you can state what you’re looking for right down to hair colour, age range and eyes, describe your self in terms of interests, requirements, preferred qualities and the kind of relationship you want, and initiate first contact safely.
For those in relationships, and seeking more enjoyment in that relationship, reenergizing and re-romancing the relationship is a top goal. Some of the ways you can make this happen include: praising your partner more, getting physical like slipping your hand in theirs and taking stolen kisses, pouring on the compliments and becoming their champion, initiating little acts or rituals that take you back to loving as if it is your first time again.
For those who are considering committing to their relationship, clarifying and sharing your requirements, needs and wants honestly and openly with each other in the relationship is a must.
So
if you're looking to date again with conscious intent and success
if you want to be the chooser in loving and being loved the way you really want to
if you're willing to dig deeper into your relationship and re-energize your love connection
if you're considering serious commitment and need to talk about it
then I invite you to contact me for a complimentary first coaching session. What we’ve covered in this article is the tip of the iceberg in getting to know yourself and how you can create successful relationships.
Investing in personal growth and fulfillment is essential to a successful relationship. Life is change, people change, and thus relationships change. You change. How up to date are you on your needs, wants, and goals for personal growth and happiness? How can you travel with wisdom and insight through your country if you don’t know yourself as well as you thought? How are you crossing the country borders of the other? Do you feel comfortable being yourself? You can check out where you are in your country by contacting Conscious Life Skills Coaching for a free Life Goals questionnaire.
For those who are single, you need to look at the kind of relationship you want right now. Do you want to have fun, or are you ready to make yourself available for a committed relationship? Your choice here will influence the choice of venues you visit to look for partners. If you want fun and to experience a range of dating opportunities, you’ll frequent singles events more often than venues such as yoga classes or community volunteering to meet a potential partner. Either way, you can create a romantic resume or profile of the person you would like to meet. Not sure how to write a love and romance resume? Look at the profiles used in Internet dating services - for e.g., RSVP. In these profiles, you can state what you’re looking for right down to hair colour, age range and eyes, describe your self in terms of interests, requirements, preferred qualities and the kind of relationship you want, and initiate first contact safely.
For those in relationships, and seeking more enjoyment in that relationship, reenergizing and re-romancing the relationship is a top goal. Some of the ways you can make this happen include: praising your partner more, getting physical like slipping your hand in theirs and taking stolen kisses, pouring on the compliments and becoming their champion, initiating little acts or rituals that take you back to loving as if it is your first time again.
For those who are considering committing to their relationship, clarifying and sharing your requirements, needs and wants honestly and openly with each other in the relationship is a must.
So
if you're looking to date again with conscious intent and success
if you want to be the chooser in loving and being loved the way you really want to
if you're willing to dig deeper into your relationship and re-energize your love connection
if you're considering serious commitment and need to talk about it
then I invite you to contact me for a complimentary first coaching session. What we’ve covered in this article is the tip of the iceberg in getting to know yourself and how you can create successful relationships.