Are You Ready for More Healthy Relationships?

I was talking recently with a friend of mine about relationships. Their current relationship is not really honouring them well, and they were musing how – once the job of raising children was done – they might just go live alone and have a pet Labrador for company.

On one level I could relate, I will confess to saying something similar myself not so long ago. And while certainly some time alone to recoup and restore is healthy, I would hate to give up on relationships because of my prior poor choices, or for my friend to either. It seems by far the better choice to learn from the experiences, and change my perspective while also learning healthier boundaries and how to hold them.

A while back I listened to a meditation about finding your soul mate and I realised as I listened just how far I had convinced myself that maybe I wasn’t meant to have that kind of connection with someone. But these words really captured for me the essence of what that kind of relationship would mean and rekindled the desire to be open to it....

“Imagine what it will be like when you first recognise another person as the best, most committed and most compatible person for you, the person designed specifically for you. See or feel how it will be as you become aware that they have recognised you also and – in doing so – both of you have found home.

Even if you don’t feel worthy, the reality is this person was made for you and belongs with you and wants only you.

Feel yourself willingly and wantingly surrendering to that magnetic pull because of how badly you want each other. Imagine what it will be like to feel the heat of their body next to yours and how it will be to touch them and know that they’re there and there to stay.

Sense what it will be like to join your lives together and to feel the kind of love and commitment that can only be shared by someone who you belong with and who belongs with you.

What does it feel like and smell like and look like and taste like to be matched and partnered with this person who is the highest and best and most compatible person in the world for you?

What does it feel like to not have to put any effort into getting them to like you? They love you so much, there is nothing better to them than being with you. That is what they choose fully and with all of their being. Feel the unbreakable security of a connection like that.”

Now I will admit that I don’t think there is just one person for each of us on the planet, we are each dynamic beings with the ability to change at any time, and we do, and therefore who we are attracted to and who we attract can change.

But in the pursuit of recognising my own insecurities, unhealthy patterns, working through the lessons, learning new ways of relating and putting the best parts on me in the driving seat, it makes absolute sense to me that I would therefore attract healthier relationships.

It certainly helped me become more determined not to “settle for” again, because being in a relationship with the wrong person can be far more painful and lonely than not being in one at all. The one sentence in the meditation about not having to effort in order for people to like me, is very relevant to my people pleasing and codependency tendencies and habits I’d developed over the course of my life.

The more aware I am of unhealthy patterns that have played out in the past, the more I have learned from them, the more secure I am inside because I am no longer looking externally so much for validation.?

I’m also very aware these days of the difference between love and attraction. What I mistook for love in the past was actually just strong attraction, and those were not all healthy, loving relationships that is for sure.

Teal Swan says that what stands between us and great relationships – the reasons we attract unhealthy ones – are pain, trauma patterns and incompatibility.

Each of these are huge topics on their own, but I certainly came to realise that just having awareness that I am worthy of great relationships was a giant leap forward because I’d often be overly loyal and gotten into and stayed in relationships that weren’t working.

Luckily I always attracted pretty healthy friendships, but oftentimes have attracted a mix of good and bad (and awful) when it came to working or romantic relationships. Owning my part in those was worth its weight in gold.

Also learning from what I did different when it came to friendships was interesting, that is an area where I’ve always had better definitions around boundaries and been less “attached”. Yesterday I was with eighteen other women as we honoured a friend celebrating her milestone birthday.

These were all women who are aware of their stuff and on their healing journeys. The birthday girl went round us all and said how she met each one of us and what we mean to her. It was sweet and a really lovely example of how we get different things from different people. No one person can be everything but each should honour us in some way with mutual respect and flow of energy.

What relationships do you struggle with? Which relationships honour and enrich you versus those that seem to deplete? Is it time to honour yourself and let some loose? Recognising that on fifteenth of November this year we welcomed the eight billionth person alive at this time on the planet, there are a lot of people to be in relationship with, why not choose those most compatible with our best selves?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy It’s Time to Get Savvy With That Thing Called Love, Explore, Uncover and Show Your Real Needs and Desires to Be Happy, The Ways in Which You Think You Are Being Helpful but You Are Not, The Inevitable Pain of Returning to Love After Years of Abandoning Yourself, Relationships are Just a Series of Moments – True Love Lies Within, How to Receive More Love, Appreciation and Respect, What Is Holding You Back? Reclaim Your Worth, Your Love, Your Power?and How Does Who You Say I Love You to Heal the World? To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.