Successful relationships are created by two people that have a clearly defined sense of self.
This strong sense of identity includes knowing what your values are, what you like, don’t like and how you want to express yourself through friendships, family relationships, your profession, a romantic partnership, hobbies and pastimes.
Do you feel as though you’re at a crossroads in your relationship?
Are you unsure whether you should stay and work it out or cut your losses and move on?
This is a challenging place to be in and unfortunately most people will have this choice to make at some time or another.
The decision to ‘end your relationship or not’ is important and often difficult. It’s something you want to make sure you do with clear intentions.
Are you intent on pleasing your partner and making sure that all his needs are met?
Do your own needs and desires ever take a backseat to his?
If so, you might not know how you’re unintentionally creating a lack of intimacy and desire in your relationship.
Certainly, your partner needs to be a priority. To do so, treat him with kindness, respect, warmth, trust and appreciation. Instead of doing things for him that he may like, but place little overall value on, such as:
Are you a good deal; too much of a good thing? Do you feel loved for what you do for your partner rather than for who you are?
If this describes you, you likely feel unloved and taken for granted in your relationship. This occurs due to some of the following circumstances:
Social norms are general standards that most people adhere to. The problem with social norms and their impact on your relationship is that they assume that what is good for your neighbours will be good for you too. Social norms are conditions and they therefore oppose unconditional love. If that wasn’t enough, how can it be true that what’s good for everyone can be good for you too?
There are some things that are good for all relationships, such as treating your partner with kindness and respect, honouring your differences and learning the art of communicating the truth infused with the importance of your relationship. Unfortunately, social norms are about conforming to a standard of behavior that ensures that you will be anything but true to yourself.
How you handle your finances with your partner is very revealing about the level of trust and intimacy you share. Interdependence in all matters of the heart allows you to remain close and connected.
Money, like everything else in your relationship reflects a balance or imbalance of power (as the case may be) in your relationship. For a happy and fulfilling partnership the balance of power needs to be equal.
As men and women are different, the balance of power should be complimentary, yet equal. In order to achieve this, both of you must become competent over time in all areas of your finances. Likely, between the two of you, all the financial tasks get taken care of, but one of you is likely overburdened with financial responsibility while the other feels somewhat inadequate.
If your relationship is out of balance, chances are other areas of your life are too.
Being able to sustain a lifetime of love goes hand in hand with successfully balancing your entire life. The people with the most fulfilling relationships give equal attention to their health, hobbies, spirituality, friendships, family and career. No wonder life gets stressful at times, there’s a lot to take care of! Fortunately, it’s all interwoven and balance in one area carries over to another.
Along with building your relationship communication skills, so much of what you communicate comes through in your energy. Essentially, I’m referring to your level of confidence, self-acceptance and happiness. These feelings actually stem from the relationship you have with yourself and how satisfied you are with your life outside of your partner.
The easiest way to achieve balance and increase your energy is to slow down and do less instead of more. A peaceful, calm lifestyle that’s relatively stress-free is the answer. But what about all of the things you have to do? Herein lies the challenge. If you truly want a happy relationship and a balanced life then the things in your life that do not contribute to this will need to be restructured to benefit you and in some cases replaced with activities that promote harmony.
Start small, change just one aspect of your life this week that will allow you slow down and rejuvenate. Some ideas are to: say no more – you don’t have to do everything, spend time in nature, laugh more, do something creative, meditate, do yoga, sing, play the guitar, go fishing, play golf, get a massage, put your feet up and have a cup of tea or watch a movie. In time, find a way to do something relaxing, creative and fun every day.
Giving equal attention to all of the important aspects of your life is easier to achieve when you’re no longer feeling overwhelmed. With clarity comes the ability to put what’s important to you in its rightful place. This includes your relationship of course! When you’re in the flow instead of swimming against the tide, your energy becomes much more attractive.
It’s so much easier to connect with your partner and be loving, affectionate and cooperative when you’ve taken the time to center yourself first.
Your body will believe anything that your mind tells it. If you tell yourself that you won the lottery and can say it without enough excitement and emotion, your body will respond as though it’s true! You will become more energized, stand taller, speak louder and faster and exhibit other positive body language. The reverse is also true.
When you engage negative self-talk your body doesn’t know whether it’s true or not. It will respond in kind and become sluggish, drained and show other signs of helplessness and sometimes, illness.
Seeing how much influence your thoughts have over your body and the world around you is important. It’s not only your body that you impact, but everything and everyone that you come into contact with. Your partner, for example is highly affected by your thoughts.
You can change your relationship, career, level of happiness and every aspect in your life by gaining control over your thoughts. This is a great incentive to insist on creating thoughts that will bring that which you desire into your relationship and your life.
An example of the power of thoughts and emotions at work is when you walk into your home or greet your partner at the end of the day. You often know immediately whether you feel at ease and comfortable. The energy in the room and around your partner is a result of their thoughts. Sometimes your home is radiating peacefulness and other times the energy is tense.
The next time you find your partner is in a negative mood, don’t be influenced by their thoughts and energy. Instead, challenge yourself to overpower their demeanor by focusing on something helpful and energizing for you. Allow your thoughts, emotions and behaviors to positively change your partner. Don’t be a victim by allowing their negative thoughts to take hold of you! Fight it off with positivity.
Studies have been done to prove that our thoughts and emotions influence physical matter such as our bodies and inanimate objects like water. Speaking lovingly is known to create crystalized water that forms beautiful shapes, while the exact same water when spoken to in a fearful or hateful manner produces mishapen, and otherwise ‘ugly’ forms.
Your body and that of your partner are mostly comprised of water. Never underestimate that impact that you have with each and every thought.
To help you take control of your thoughts, get in the habit of replacing any negative thoughts you have with positive ones. Some sentence stems to help you achieve this include the following: I’m confident that ___________. I trust that ___________. I’m determined to ____________. I believe that _________. I’m committed to ________. I know that ____________. I’m certain that __________.
Specific thoughts might look like this: I’m confident that this is going to be an excellent day. I trust that everthing is going to work out perfectly. I’m determined to focus on the positive. I believe that I have the power to create happiness and abundance in my life. I’m committed to creating the best life possible. I know that my partner loves me. I’m certain that I’m going to have a great time.
In addition to your thoughts, the emphasis and emotion you put into them when saying or thinking it makes a world of difference. Use positive emotion to heighten the positive impact of your energizing, inspiring and relief-providing statements.
Your current relationship and your life is a reflection of the thoughts you’ve had leading up to this moment. Since you have the ability to shape your thoughts and life, focus on being positive. Express yourself, even if it’s just in your own mind with excitement, determination and confidence every day (morning and night and throughout the day) for 30 days and watch your reality shift to reflect your thoughts.
We are constantly changing. You may have heard that the past is the best predictor of the future. The past only has power if you allow it to. It can only influence the present and future if you refuse to let it go. Ideally, you want to learn lessons from the past and leave the experience and the pain behind. When you become aware of what you need to do differently so that it cannot happen again, the past loses all of its power.
What you’ll need to do differently is either communicate or behave in a manner that leaves you feeling empowered regardless of what your partner does. As long as you do this with kindness and respect it will always strengthen your connection. When you change your responses in a way that ensures you are self-protective the past is no longer a threat to your happiness and you will naturally release it.
To sustain relationship happiness, it helps to know that change is not only possible, but is in fact inevitable. Believing this opens you up to have thoughts that help you to create what you desire instead of being held hostage to feelings such as hopelessness and despair. Looking to negative experiences from your past creates doubt and anxiety. It’s this confused state that creates the perception that nothing is changing and slows down your creative energy, so that change is more painstaking than it needs to be. Without clarity of mind you actually block changes from happening without frustration and delay.
Positive change and harmony occur when you allow yourself to stay present. The moment is where all of your power for change lies. By focusing on the present you are free to shift your perception, patterns of behavior and communication without being influenced by negative memories of the past or any predictions you may create for the future.
Becoming aware that you influence your relationship and your life by your state of mind is essential. This takes place by knowing how to stay in the present and choose thoughts that are in alignment with the life that you desire. Regardless of what is going on, insist on choosing thoughts that will benefit you.
Feminine Grace is the natural, core energy in the majority of women. Once you discover how to use it effectively, you’ll be able to magnetize your partner to you in a way that sustains his desire and devotion for a lifetime.
By following your intuition, becoming more relaxed, communicating assertively and making yourself a priority you are automatically following your heart. Following your heart is important because this is where feminine grace resides.
Tapping into your feminine grace allows you to transform the connection you have with your partner so that it’s close and intimate, even if he’s cold and distant right now. This graceful strength and state of mind empowers you to feel good about yourself and focus on the positive aspects of your life and relationship with gratitude and compassion.
At times, you might be too exhausted and resentful to feel gratitude and compassion and that’s okay. When this is the case the antidote is always self-care. When you’re frustrated the only way to fill yourself up is to engage in activities that will support you in feeling relaxed and creative.
Once you’re feeling balanced, you’ll be able to offer appreciation, trust and respect to your partner. This is the way a man desires to be shown love first and foremost. Essentially, this is unconditional love and it’s complimentary to the way you want to be loved. And how’s that? Being desired, cherished and his number one priority, of course!
If you’ve been feeling taken for granted, unloved and uncertain about the future of your relationship, you owe it to yourself to discover the power of your feminine grace within you. Along with empowering yourself, you’ll be able to adopt a lifestyle that reduces your stress, increases your energy and allows you to get your needs met.
By following your heart, you will begin to communicate and behave differently. You’ll start to see the positive influence this has on your partner, even if you haven’t been close and connected in ages. Changes will occur in your relationship as soon as you change your energy to become softer, more alive and inviting. You don’t have to work so hard! In fact, being a superwoman and having to take care of everything is the opposite of feminine grace, which is the balance of being strong, yet soft.
The catalyst to bringing him closer and having him look at you as though you’re the most beautiful woman in the world is you making yourself your highest priority. By sustaining this approach to your life, you become secure in his love for you because you’ll receive daily reinforcement that he is attentive and committed.
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