Do you think leaving your relationship is the only answer? Think again!

♥LOVE NOTE – Saturday April 23rd, 2012 

Hello LOVELIES♡

There’s a very popular belief:

If your relationship is not working leave it!

Yet, guess what? Leaving your partner is generally not going to change you or your relationships.

Why?

Wherever you go, there you are!!
~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

When you leave a relationship you take ♡YOU with you!

Relationships mirror back to you that which you most need to learn and determine 90% of your happiness or misery. They will inspire you to open and expand while also stirring up your conditioned patterns from the past that block you from being present.

Says Dr ♡Harville Hendrix in his book Keeping the Love You Find 

“This is a revolutionary view of relationships: rather than leaving relationships to find yourself, you find yourself through it – being the right partner is more important than picking the right partner.”   

So what does he mean by this?
How do I become“the right partner”? These are two good questions. 

You might also be thinking:
Why is me finding myself have anything to do with the other person?
Why do I have to be the right partner for them?

Deeper questions are:
How do I become “the right person”? or
How do I want to be living my life?

The Keeping the Love You Find book and Workshop based on the book offers you an opportunity to uncover more of your ‘Shadow side’ – the unconscious agenda/baggage YOU bring to all your adult relationships and to honestly and with clarity answer the question:

“What is it like living with me; being in relationship with me?……”

Absolutely compulsory pre-relationship reading /training for all. For a fuller description see here.

Among the qualities rated high in relationships are ones like: kindness, being loving, respectful, compassionate, nurturing, responsible, and protective……

What qualities are important for you? This is in regards to both how you act and how you value others behaving?

Do you act towards others according to your own Core Values?

Do others (mainly partners and/or children and people you are in close contact with) say to you – “You’re always noticing what I am doing wrong or what is wrong with me and you criticize and complain and nag!”

Our brains are continuously, unconsciously scanning for what is “wrong” with others. What it is that we don’t like. And this scanning isn’t just towards partners but with ALL our relationships. It’s as though we look at others with a magnifying glass, looking for every little fault and we are usually unaware we are doing it.  

Perception is basically an interpretation

We interpret what we see through our own filter/LENS.

Yet people believe what they perceive/see/hear/feel is actually
what is out there in the world!

Scientific research on the brain shows that the neural pathways (which are at the basis of our behaviour) are formed in relation to the people who are significant to us as we are growing up. Caretakers are crucial in shaping the child’s developing self-image and world-image.

From earliest childhood, our brains are formed and wired according to what is in the environment around us. Whatever is repeated and modelled to us becomes our perception of who we are and what we can expect from the world.

In some families the tactics are quite blatant: threats, punishment, rigid rules, ridicule, bullying, exploitation, screaming, harassment, yelling, manipulation, neglect,…and the like.

For the most part how we learn what is expected of us is far subtler. We mimic and copy. We learn by osmosis:
we see what the people around us do over and over, noticing
– what gets applauded,
– what elicits criticism,
– who is liked and who is disliked and why,
– what is noticed and what gets no attention.

We develop behaviours that help us to fit in and belong and get acceptance and approval.

Whatever is fired over and over gets wired!

AND
ALL we experience is our own point of view….
The world is what we expect it to be!!!

Here’s an example – imagine being in a social setting and no-one comes and talks to you. You could look around the room through the point of view/LENS of:

a) These people don’t like me and they are ignoring and rejecting me…… OR

b) There are many potential new friends here and these people are shy and uncomfortable to come forward.

Immediately notice the experience you create inside yourself following whichever perspective you use
– which is simply your own thinking…
– which comes from the LENS which you experience reality through.

Our conditioning (wiring) controls our daily stream of unconscious emotions
– which controls our thoughts
– which then directs and turns into our behaviours/actions. 

To bring it back to relationships, what were the models of ♡LOVE that you were exposed to and influenced by?

Quoting Drs. Patricia Love and Steven Stosny, citing neuroscience research in their book Why Women Talk and Men Walk:

“Once an association is made, it increases the probability that you will make that same association and decreases the probability you will see it any other way. When you are wired to see negative, you will see negative!” 

It is important to not underestimate how strong these associations are. And yes it is hard to do when our points of view that get us the behaviours we don’t want are largely unconscious.

Would you like to become aware of your own unconscious bias?

The ANSWER is in ‘The Other’.

Look to what you react to in them.

Says Dr Hendrix: 

“The degree of emotional reaction to a trait in someone else is the degree to which
that trait exists in you, whether the trait is viewed as negative or positive.’

EXERCISE:
With partners, ex-partners, friends, children, parents, siblings, at work, or anyone who bugs you. Get curious!
Pay attention to:
– what you criticize and judge.
– what do they do that irritates and frustrates you.
– notice who pushes your buttons and triggers you and also,
– who you put on a pedestal and what it is you idealize in them.

Whatever we “despise or idealize” we need to reclaim as parts of ourselves that we have cut off and projected onto the other.

We trade in our magnifying glass for a mirror! 

How we process to reclaim these parts of our self is another post….another time.

♥MIRRORING PRACTICE: Share about what this post brings up for you with someone and have them ♥MIRROR you for a minimum of 5 minutes and then swap. You could also write about it in your journal and/or here in the comments.

Our relationships are our most profound pathway to growth and healing and becoming fully ourselves.

Leaving our relationships in frustration, anger, resentment, hurt or pain usually is a formula for the same issues and problems to come up again elsewhere. Important information everyone needs to know!

Enjoy your uncovering and reclaiming…

Much ♥LOVE and Blessings, Susie♡

FURTHER RESOURCE: For more discussion on Why Women Talk and Men Walk by Drs. Patricia Love and Steven Stosny check out this post:
Ways for men and women to ♡connect with each other.