Saturday, April 25, 2009

Relationship Tips – A Review of 4 Tips and Applying Them to an Individual Not in a Relationship

This posting is a review of four relationship tips I’ve talked about this week: be kind to your partner, put your “Poor Me” stories in the closet and be positive, give compliments, and have fun and date regularly throughout life. To complete this series, at the suggestion of my friend Beverly Lane, I’ve shared how to apply all these tips to your life if you do not have a spouse or relationship partner.

This week we have talked about several important things to do to get your relationship on a successful and happy track. Be kind - a simple concept that can be difficult if you are feeling hurt or are fighting. Put your, “I’ve been wronged” stories in the closet. (Not permanently.) For now, try to think more positively and stop talking about the past hurts and errors. Focus on the positive in the relationship. Think about the wonderful things about your partner. While you are thinking about the positives, you can’t be thinking about the negative. Control your mind. Stop the critical parent that lives inside you. Focus on the good things about your partner and the relationship. Say these things aloud. Give your partner 3 compliments a day. Work up to 10. Become a master of 10 compliments a day. When it is common place and natural, you are living in bliss. Have fun together and go on a date weekly for the rest of your lives. Build up the positive experiences you have together and devote time to the relationship – just the two of you.

Have these mind sets, take these actions, and you’ll be headed in the right direction for a successful and happy relationship.

Now, let’s put a big twist on this series of relationship tips. My wise and delightful 83 year old friend Beverly Lane commented that single people not in a relationship can use these same ideas to make their lives better. So let’s look at how Bev and I thought you might do it.

Be Kind. A pretty easy translation: instead of applying it to your partner, just do it with everyone. Bev thought about her neighbors, the wonderful and caring hospice workers who make her life better, the people she connects with in the market, the bank teller, the people from the church who recently cleaned up her yard, her friends of many years, her siblings, her niece and nephew, and all the rest of the relationships throughout her lifetime. We even applied this to her thinking about her female friends in Manhattan during the 50’s when they were young professional women no one could beat for their fun and mischief!

Put your “Oh, Poor Me” stories in the closet and be positive. This is a great one! I think of all the stories I share with my girlfriends and how they’d like to hear fewer of them. I think I’ll limit them to 3 minutes or less. Then I will simply eliminate them from the conversation. I might need a few weeks to practice this one. Bev suggested I keep the humorous ones in my conversation. I think of all her stories about the Manhattan Gals and although there were many challenges, I never hear the negative in her reminiscing. In her well-lived 83 years, she just thinks positively. You never hear her complain. Even with death playing with her daily, she doesn’t see the glass half empty. In fact, Bev experiences life completely full. She won’t settle for half full. She talks about the birds and feeds them – for decades. She talks sweetly about the raccoons her neighbors bitterly complain about. She feeds them and gives them a home, accepting their damage as a normal consequence of life. She delights in her cats, never complaining about their problems or hair ball messes. Bev would never consider them messes! Instead, she reads about dna and occupies her mind with the wonder of the female heritage.

Be complimentary. Again, a simple translation for the single person. Give compliments to everyone throughout your day. Instead of focusing on your spouse or primary significant other, make the people in your sphere all your significant others and say complimentary things to them. I had lunch with my friend Delilah yesterday and her complimentary manner was extremely respectful to our waitress. I was most impressed with her ease and naturalness exhibiting gracious appreciation. She is like that. In addition, she teaches mangers and front line employees alike to respect the inner beauty of each individual’s character. Everyone who comes into Delilah’s purview feels full after an encounter, no matter how brief. Bev is quite similar in the ways she thanks people for their gifts to her, recognizing all with appreciation and love.  My stepson Paul is naturally that way too. He is a role model for all of us in expressing recognition of the other person. He also is a master at expressing gratitude. His parents taught him very early to make this a normal part of relationship with others. And he has always been one of the happiest people I know. So, I don’t suggest 3 compliments a day. Emulate these 3 beautiful people in my life and make it a central aspect of your relating with all others in your life.

Have Fun and Date weekly for the rest of your life. For the individual who does not have a primary relationship, simply have fun and date all the people in your life. The closer they are, the more opportunities you can create for doing enjoyable activities on a regular basis. Tonight I am meeting a group of girlfriends for dinner. One I have known for 28 years, two for 22, and some for 3 to 10. We “date” each other – go to dinner, celebrate birthdays, graduations, promotions, etc. We visit each other in the hospital, take food to each other, literally take care of each other, manage personal affairs for each other when needed, and attend funerals. We know each others’ family members and have supported and loved each other through life’s challenges. Births, deaths, divorces, children’s life paths, parents’ transitions…We pack and move each other. Have garage sales. Dress up and attend charity events, see super stars on the Las Vegas Strip, attend church, holiday together, and welcome in many new years. We dance, we travel, we shop in many cities, learn what each other is learning about, work out sometimes together, try different sports and games, but we have not jumped out of a plane – any of us. We generously give time, creativity, fun, furniture and anything that is needed. We certainly don’t feel married to each other, and several have spouses, and new people enter the “group”, and others move away and later return. We are growing older and wiser together and always enjoy the new and developing aspects of each other. Sometimes there are two of us – any two – and sometimes 10. We have “girlfriend love stories” to fill a bookstore. We are the Las Vegas Gals and a lot like Bev’s Manhattan Gals.

If you don’t have a community of people in your life, start developing one. In the meantime, have fun and date all the friends, co-workers, and acquaintances you are interested in or curious about. Get busy connecting your unique personality with the same and different qualities of those people in your life. And create beautiful friendships.

Posted by D'Arcy Vanderpool on 04/25 at 08:47 PM
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