Relationships…we live in them, from them and for them. We fight for them, we hurt because of them and we hardly ever look any closer than that.
Whoa…I just slipped that in there didn’t I?
I know this Valentine’s Day many people will be celebrating with their partner the love they have cultivated with one another. Others will be lamenting over lost loves, bad relationships
and the lack of any ‘good’ people left. They might even beat themselves up and figure there is something ‘wrong’ with them (there ISN”T).
Listen, you have to know that when you are younger your relationship expectations were learned. The problem of course is our experiences were rather limited.
Imagine if the first person you ever crushed on was the one that you ended up basing all future expectations of what a relationship was like on. Ohh…right…you kind of do.
Wait..it gets better. It actually goes much MUCH further back. (How far back it’s up to you to admit *ahem)
You see, most of our belief systems were established while we were quite young. There are differing opinions on how young and I think that’s fair because not everyone matures at the same rate or has experiences the same. Still, most agree that certainly before we are 5 years old we have established a firm set of beliefs.
These are the what we filter our experiences through to gain understanding and purpose.
Holy crap…think about it! At best, a FIVE year old is telling you how to see and interpret things!
It’s time to take a really strong look at what we do in our relationships and the dynamics that are there. We don’t have to keep them the same or continue to repeat patterns that don’t help us.
One of our first and most influential influencers is of course our parents or primary caregivers. We are all aware of course that they teach us many things, but did you know they also teach us what will are willing to accept from a partner later on in life?
How they do that is not simply direct talking. I hear a lot of concern over how we talk to our children and rightly so. I”ve noticed a lot of parents who don’t seem to understand that children take everything to heart; they don’t have life experiences to understand sarcasm or jokes or to infer mommy is tired and when she snapped at me it wasn’t personal.
That said, the thing that really brings home how to treat others and most importantly BE treated is by watching the dynamics between the adults who are around us. Kids learn far more by watching what you do then they will by listening to what you say.
Watching parents who have no empathy for each other, who talk badly of each other will give us this idea that it’s what people do and how they act. We might find ourselves unable to apologise, needing to be right and controlling. We learn to be accepting of this for our selves and we learn to treat others this way. The good news is it doesn’t have to be this way.
So, here we are with a bunch of beliefs about how relationships work – both the give and take. Ever look at them? Ask questions like why do I think that? Or does it have to be that way?
I think it’s time we did.
Grown up relationships should be based on very different things in adult hood from when we were kids.
If you’re not getting what you want in your relationships perhaps it isn’t that there aren’t any ‘good’ people left out there. Perhaps you need to look inward and do some work. Maybe tell that 5 year voice it’s grounded or to go play outside. Whatever works. Just know you don’t have to keep those beliefs; not one bit.
Time to step into your right to have matured, learned and be loved in a way that is good for you.
**Valentines Day is about celebrating love. Might I suggest you take the time to celebrate the love you have for yourself?
My Rivendell 