The Miracle of Relationships--Part Two

Part Two--The Significant Others

Who are the significant others? To my way of looking at it, they are all the people who play an important role in your life: Co-workers, bosses, spouse or lover, kids, parents, siblings and friends; these are the second most important relationships in your life. We will deal with the most important relationship in part three of this series, but for now let's take a look at how these other relationships impact our lives.

If you take a moment and look at all your key relationships you may find some of them are problematic. If not, and I hope that is so, you will find that, for the most part, you are a very happy and optimistic person. That is the point of today's post; if all of our important relationships are a source of joy and inspiration; we will be enormously the better for it. Relationships define us. You may wish that they didn't, and your little voice may be telling you that many of those people I have listed aren't important to your life. You may have quit talking to your sister or written off your Dad or resigned yourself to hearing nothing from your adult child; BUT don't be fooled, each of these are important relationships. If you think that the distress of your job or the argument with a co-worker is not important you would be mistaken. Each relationship we have with people close to us affects us more than we may realize.

So, take a moment and assess where you are in your significant others relationships. If you have a chronic problem with any of them it's time to find out what is going on with-in you.

Relationships are where we play out our dramas. Relationships are where we externalize our unhappiness and dissatisfaction. We seek to fill the holes in our lives and cover the pain by having our relationships be what we missed or lost as children. We needed comfort and we got pain. We needed encouragement and we got judged. We needed love and we got disapproval and we needed a mirror of who we are at our best and we got a view of how disappointing we were. We fought the pain and when we went out into the world we sought to correct these things by finding others who would treat us better. We had needs and they would fill them; and when inevitably they don't we are once again in our drama of life.

It is time for you to face that your problematic relationships are a mirror of your losses. If you have problematic relationships, you are struggling with your own daemons. You are seeking results from others that they cannot fulfill..it is time to take stock...breathe deeply and allow yourself to feel your own pain without making it the fault of others. Notice what the problem SEEMS to be, then notice what it is that you want and are not getting from them. Stop...feel the pain of loss...then notice that no one, beyond your parents, is put on this earth for the purpose of filling your needs, (and even their task ends with your maturity). Acknowledge the pain, release them from blame and allow yourself to grieve your loss.

We will learn more about how to release others and truly allow our relationships to soar in the next installment on this series; but for now, allow yourself to withdraw from the blaming, complaining and gossiping of others and be with yourself. Do the impossible...love the ones your with and let them be...until next time, I remain...Respectfully Yours, Larry

Thought for the Day...YOU are not wrong and perhaps you have done something wrong, YOU are loved and cherished even though you have endured the judgements, slings and arrows of others...YOU is not you...learn the difference.

An Action to Take: Find a situation with a significant other that YOU can apologize for making worse by being triggered. Study as hard as you can to understand and appreciate where the other person is coming from and notice that, while that might not meet your expectations or desires, it is not personal and you are not injured by their needs. Do this once in a while until you begin to feel the power that comes from being in charge of things getting better.