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“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.”
~Rabindranath Tagore

I can see now that I missed a crucial insight when it came to relationships. Thinking I was doing it right, I thought I had to communicate every feeling and concern, continually have “the talk” about what’s going on, and endlessly process what happened when an interaction became difficult.

I was trying to be a good communicator and keep everything out in the open.

Now, an honest, open relationship is a beautiful thing, and I wouldn’t accept anything less. But it doesn’t all hinge on good communication. Because here’s what I’ve learned.

When we don’t own our emotional reactions, we bring tension, conflict, and separation to our relationships.

Own Your Emotions

Instead of taking a breath and meeting our own experience when we feel frustrated or hurt, we blame, criticize, fight, manipulate, and spend our precious time rationalizing our opinions to ourselves and everyone around us.

We’ve moved away from the solo activity of being present with our experience. The effects? We’re driven to engage when we’re emotionally charged, not calm. (Not a good plan.) And our minds spin in judgment and confusion, trying to make sense of it all.

Is this what you really want? Do you want to foster friction and divisiveness—or do you want to meet the people in your life with an open, loving heart and mind?

Turning Toward Your Inner Experience

The beginning of a bold and courageous way of being is to turn your attention away from the other person and directly into yourself. You stop seeing others through the veil of your own pain.

What happens? Compassion naturally arises—for others and for yourself.

Your reactions to other people are a beautiful invitation for your awakening. They reflect back to you areas of unexplored emotion and show you how you hide from yourself.

Here’s what’s possible: Being triggered by others becomes a time of celebration. You get to see where you’re stuck so you can be free. Then you show up open and kind in your interactions. When you start reflecting on your own inner experience, you make some amazing discoveries.

• If you lash out at your partner in anger, you might realize you’re actually afraid.
• If you judge and constrict your children, maybe you feel helpless as a parent or scared about what might happen to them.
• If you’re waiting for affection, you may be missing the opportunity to know yourself as already whole and complete.

Take any relationship that causes you stress or discomfort, and like a trail of breadcrumbs, follow your reaction back into yourself to its source. I can guarantee you your discovery will be illuminating.

Meeting Your Reactions for Harmony in Your Relationships

Often, the strong feelings that arise in our interactions echo an unresolved relationship from our past. If you were criticized by an overly demanding parent, it won’t take much for a boss correcting your work to seem like a tyrant in your eyes. If you were abandoned in your youth, a friend calling to cancel plans at the last minute may cause you to feel like you’re five again.

Any reaction that seems too intense for the situation at hand has undoubtedly triggered some old, undigested feelings.

What to do when these emotions are revealed? Acknowledge them. Experience how they feel in your body. Own them so they don’t complicate your interactions.

Learn how to be with your experience. It’s absolutely the most loving thing you can do for yourself and everyone else. For more on feelings, check out these in-depth posts here and here.

When you meet your emotions within yourself, you bring harmony to your relationships. You’re no longer sensitive and reactive. And you’re available to the deepest intimacy with all that is.

What About You?

How do you deal with your emotional reactions in your relationships? What happens when you own them? I’d love to hear… If you’re reading this by email, please click here to comment and to visit the new and improved GailBrenner.com.

Always in love,
Gail

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“I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.”
~Simone de Beauvoir

I have come across a treasure trove of useful articles about relationship recently. If you are interested in deepening in your exploration of relationship, any of them, then be sure to take a look.

• From Sibyl Chavis at Possibility of Today: 30 Tips for a Great Relationship
• From Tess Marshall at The Bold Life: 25 Tips to Boost the Love Factor in Your Relationships
• From Jonathan Wells at Advanced Life Skills: 10 Timeless Guidelines for a Happy Relationship
• From Jayson Gaddis at Jungle of Life: The Most Effective Way to Deepen Your Relationships

You can glean just as much from these posts if you are single as if you have a partner. Because, as you will see, the ultimate relationship skill is to know your own triggers and learn to intelligently deal with them. And who can’t benefit from that?

The Necessity of Taking Responsibility

Pay close attention to what you bring to any interaction.

• Are you ready for a fight?
• Are you waiting for the other to satisfy your every need?
• Do you show up bored, half-present (which is not present at all), already thinking you know how the conversation will go?
• Do you try to help, save, and fix while sacrificing your own needs and desires?

None of this is about the other person. Holding up the mirror and seeing that the responsibility is yours paves the way for inner peace and outer harmony. You investigate how you get caught so you can be open, transparent, and available to intimacy.

A Common Story

I know whereof I speak when it comes to struggle in the area of relationships. Even friendship didn’t come naturally to me, let alone a healthy connection with a romantic partner.

Then I realized the futility of waiting for Prince Charming to show up at my door. That’s when I got down to business and began to meet my fears and emotional reactions with unflagging honesty.

I saw how I had not been the easiest person to get along with. I pulled out of need and pushed out of fear. No wonder there was so much drama.

Now my policy is this: I notice when I am triggered, then meet my expectations and emotions with curiosity and love. Ninety percent of the time, the trouble miraculously dissolves. No need for “the talk,” which is most often leaking our own unfinished business into the relationship. No more short-circuiting intimacy in the name of communication.

And, although I don’t think this has everything to do with it, I am engaged to the most wonderful man in the world (an unbiased view).

Relationship Is Opportunity

If you are single, use this time well. Read carefully: become the one who the one you are looking for will clamor to be with. Recognize the story of lack and realize there is nothing lacking when you tap into the fullness of you. This is a win-win situation. You get to be happy, no matter what.

And if you are with a partner, look first within. Clear yourself out. Make a lifestyle of not looking outside yourself, even to the one right next to you, for your emotional rescue.

Maybe you will be surprised, as I was, at how easy it is to love – in a healthy, sane, and sustainable way – when you come from a heart that is already overflowing. Take care of your own business, and you can love without attachment, honor and cherish while holding nothing back.

Where do you get stuck when it comes to relationships?  What is your hook that needs your kind attention? I’d love to hear…

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