For Relationship Success and Satisfaction, Try This Approach

The sustaining connections we have with others are fundamentally emotional ones we create as we intertwine our own emotional life with that of another person.

Yet, finding how to form these deep, subjective bonds with others in healthy and mutually satisfying ways can be a huge challenge - a process that can be overwhelming, especially if we undertake it without a guide for how to do it.

Luckily one guide we can use is the fundamental makeup of our own emotional selves. We can take into account each of the six primary areas of emotional life we have in common with every other human being.

Then as we weave our emotional life with that of another, we create emotional relationship connections that support all parts of ourselves and that do so in healthy ways.

We can start creating a healthy and mutually satisfying relationship in that way, and we can also use the same method to work in that direction with one that already exists.
The relationship evolves in healthier and more mutually supportive ways when each person agrees that:

1. We both have a right to exist; to have our own needs, feelings & wants, to be connected and to belong. We address these in our relationship in a process of loving negotiation and mutual cooperation.

2. We each have a right to explore and move in the world to gather our own sensory knowledge of the world and to maintain the connection to each other while we do so.

3. We support our own and each others' right to think for ourselves & be separate from each other, acting as individuals living our own lives and making our own boundaries while taking into account how our individual actions affect our relationship.

4. We have the right to find out who we are and develop our own place in the social world as individuals, as well as to develop a place for our relationship in the social world.

5. We each have a right to develop our own unique skills, priorities and values, to have our own opinions and grant that right to each other.

6. We each have a right to take responsibility for becoming increasingly in charge of our own lives, our life choices and their consequences.

When this agreement is at the foundation of the relationship, then each person can address these two fundamental questions separately and also with the other person:

How is each of us supporting these six inner parts of our individual selves in this relationship?

How are we supporting each other in all six areas?

The above is an excerpt from Emotional Development 101, where you'll learn all about inner subjective life and how it applies to you and all your relationships, including your parenting, grandparenting, work life, learning process, creative life and more. You will learn how to create a healthy emotional life and emotionally healthy relationships. I invite you to check out the class outline and free audio introduction at http://www.emotionaldevelopment101.com/.

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