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Relationships
Relationships and Being a Great Partner
Our friends and partner impact us, and we impact them.
Posted October 28, 2015
We all have relationships—we get married, raise children, have friendships, or interact with people at work. They’re part of being human. So it’s important for us to learn how to be happy in relationships.
How can we find happiness while we’re in good relationships? We can find the answer in being happy when we’re single. You might be wondering how being single has anything to do with being in a successful relationship with others, but it does.
When we were in high school, there were different groups of students, based on members’ interests. There were the jocks, the academics, the ones in the band, and so on. They were just different groups, and like most people, we tended to hang out with like- minded people. But there were also youths who often didn’t know about themselves, and it’s almost as if they fell through the cracks and ended up hanging with others feeling lost. They made poor choices and didn’t do well in life. We’re not here to judge those people who were struggling—we’re here to love them—but we are here to learn. In life, when we’re not doing well, we tend to attract people that also aren’t doing well.
When two people who aren’t doing well individually get together, they just don’t do well together, and things go downhill from there. It’s a sad situation, and we all know people like that. Again, we may be in relationships like that right now. We’re not feeling very good about ourselves, and we realize the person we are with isn’t doing well either. We end up creating a lot of negative energy. So being in a good relationship always begins with being good to ourselves when we’re in a healthy, happy, peaceful place. That’s what we’re going to attract and be attracted to—people who contribute positively to our lives, instead of people who are crazy or make poor decisions.
Our friends and partner impact us, and we impact them. When we are in a good place, we can be attracted to people who are also in good places. When we have a family member that we don’t get along with or we are forced to work with someone on a regular basis that we clash with, being in a good place can be helpful for them. At least, we can set good boundaries with them and not join them when they make poor choices. If they want to go out and get drunk every day after work, we will not. We can still love them; we just won’t join them.
So, it’s critical in life that we are in a good emotional state—happy, loving, caring, etc.—if we want to find a good partner, a good mate, a good friend. If we want to have healthy relationships, we have to be healthy, and we can determine how healthy we are by the types of relationships we have. Instead of asking ourselves how we are doing, we can simply look around and see whom we are spending our time with; how well they are indicates how well we’re doing.
If we are doing well—eating well, exercising, spending time in nature, doing things that are good for us—then we’re not going to want to join other people in dysfunctional activities. It’s actually very beautiful if we think about it because if we are doing good things for ourselves, taking excellent care of ourselves, we’re going to be in the situation where other people are doing the same.
Even though we’re well past high school, we still hang out with people that have similar interests and backgrounds. If we start making our self-care a priority, we’re going to want to be with people who do the same thing. The key factor in all of it is that we need to be in a good place if we’re going to attract good people. How can we be amazing and beautiful people, loving life, living well? What if we are ready to be in a relationship with someone else? In the beginning, we need to be focused not on them but on our self. How are we doing? What are we doing to take care of ourselves? We need to make sure our mindset is in the right place. It’s all about eating, exercising, and all the different things we do for self-care.
Everything matters, and when we make ourselves a priority, if we take care of ourselves and make good choices, then whether or not we have great relationships, we are going to be doing well because the main person we turn to throughout our life is ourselves. If we learn to take good care of ourselves, make good choices, and make sure we’re doing well, then when we experience a shortage of good friends, we’re going to be doing okay. But, we’re also going to be doing things to attract other friends because we’re going to be putting ourselves in a situation that’s good for us. Other people are going to be there, and with time, we’re going to meet some amazing people when we do things that are good for ourselves.
Most of my closest friends I met when I was focused on my passions. When we do things that are good for ourselves, other people are there, too, and we’re going to meet them, and life’s going to go well. But we always have to bring the focus back to ourselves. What’s happening in our mind? What are we thinking about all day long? Are they beautiful, peaceful, loving, thoughts? Or are they harsh and critical thoughts? We can fool the world, but we can’t fool ourselves. If we don’t like ourselves, we’re not going to be attracted to people who like us. We’re going to be attracted to people that don’t like us, and this can create a bad situation for ourselves. But, if we learn to love who we are, love our life and live it well, then we are going to experience that. Whether or not we find our soul mate, journey with people that may come and may go, go through a period of time of solitude in each situation because we have to learn to love ourselves, we’re going to be doing well. So, again in relationships the key factor is how am I doing? Where is my heart at? What’s happening inside me? A lot of it is being aware and looking within ourselves, watching ourselves and asking ourselves how we are doing. What is your internal dialogue like all day long? It’s like a conversation we’re having with ourselves. What is it? Is it good? Is it positive? It is harsh? Is it negative? It matters whatever it is.
We want to have periods throughout the day where we are still, where we can just be quiet, but we have to learn to watch what’s going on inside us. If we don’t, we may be attracted to people that are negative towards us if we are negative to ourselves. We are going to attract what we feel about ourselves. Someone else can’t make us happy. Happiness is an inside job! If we are happy and loving towards ourselves, then we’re going to attract like-minded people that are happy, love us, and love themselves.
In order to be in a healthy loving relationship, we start with ourselves and ask, “How am I doing? Am I in a good place?”
If we want to be in a great relationship, we’re going to work on being a great partner. And the way we attract a great partner is by learning to love ourselves, being peaceful, and being happy inside. We can all do it no matter what background we have. The focus has to be on ourselves instead of searching for someone to fix us.
