Relationships are tricky things. There are the things we think we want and then there are the things that others have to offer. And the reality is that no one person can fit all of our criteria. So, how do we go about Building Better Relationships To Have Better Lives?
As with everything in life, there are always many choices available to us. And in respect to relationships, our options include compromising on the things that we believe we need in a relationship to be happy, or changing partners until we get someone who meets our expectations.
However, if you have been reading my other blogs, you will know that I’m never in favor of trying to change stuff in the ‘outer world’ to make our ‘inner world’ better. This is because THERE ARE ALWAYS GOING TO BE events, circumstances, and people around us that piss us off and don’t meet our expectations. And the reality is that we don’t have any control over most of it!
So the secret to making all aspects of our lives better, including our relationships, is to be found in our inner world of thoughts and feelings. With this in mind, let’s explore the wisdom to be found in some famous quotes and learn how we can apply it to our lives to make our relationships better.
Building Better Relationships Will Make Your Life Better
The quality of our lives is made up of how we are FEELING in all of the moments. If we are feeling good more than we are feeling bad or negative, then our lives are considered good. A big determiner of how we are feeling is the quality of our primary relationships. Therefore if we can build better relationships, we will consistently have better moments in our lives, all of which add up to a better life experience.
“It is of practical value to learn to like yourself. Since you must spend so much time with yourself you might as well get some satisfaction out of the relationship.”
Norman Vincent Peale
I’ve written about this before, and it is so important that it is worth repeating, again and again. Our primary relationship is always going to be with ourselves. The reality is that we cannot escape from our thoughts, emotions, and bodies. And if we don’t like any aspects of ourselves, then we have a problem!
Every cell in our body is intelligent and responds to our feelings. When we are in love, we feel light, powerful, at ease, and vibrant. Our cellular structure heals and builds health and well-being when we are feeling good. And the opposite is also true.
When we look in the mirror and don’t like what we see, our cells respond to the negativity we are feeling. They will become less active and unable to perform optimally, and so our bodies will become ‘ill-at-ease,’ or dis-eased. Our physical and emotional states will accurately mirror the way we think about ourselves.
The relationships we attract to us (through The Law of Attraction) will ensure that other people will treat us with the same respect/love that we give to ourselves. Because other people subconsciously pick up on how we feel about ourselves. In other words, WE GET THE RELATIONSHIPS THAT WE DESERVE, and unfortunately, this is often not what we want.
Therefore, it is important to work on our relationship with ourselves so that we can attract better relationships into our lives. For more on this, check out my other posts:
How Can I Improve My Relationships? (And Why It’s More Important To Work On Ourselves First!)
Our relationship with ourselves is the most important relationship we will ever have.
Tom Robbins, (an American author) expresses the importance of having a healthy relationship with ourselves in the following quote:
“When we’re incomplete, we’re always searching for somebody to complete us. When, after a few years or a few months of a relationship, we find that we’re still unfulfilled, we blame our partners and take up with somebody more promising. This can go on and on–series polygamy–until we admit that while a partner can add sweet dimensions to our lives, we, each of us, are responsible for our own fulfillment.
Nobody else can provide it for us, and to believe otherwise is to delude ourselves dangerously and to program for eventual failure every relationship we enter.”
Ok, So I could go on all day about why we should always work on ourselves before entering into any relationship, but I know many of you are already in relationships and want to know how you can make them better. So, the rest of this blog is dedicated to you 🙂
“They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”
Carl W. Buechner
So again, the importance of ‘feelings’ is brought to our attention. The quote doesn’t talk about what we said or what we did, but about HOW WE MADE THEM FEEL! And seriously, if you can understand the importance of feelings over words and actions, you will change the way you manage your relationships.
Why?…. Isn’t the real reason we enter into relationships or do anything in life because we think we will feel better by doing so? Yes, WE ALL WANT TO FEEL BETTER, AND THIS IS ALSO THE REASON YOU ARE READING THIS BLOG, TO HOPEFULLY LEARN HOW YOU CAN FEEL BETTER!
So when you are talking with your partner, do you use words that are uplifting, supportive, encouraging, loving, etc? Or, are you telling them off, putting them down, angry because of what they did or said, etc? If the latter is the case, I suggest you go back to step one above and do some more work on learning how you can become more accepting of yourself before you continue to mentally and emotionally abuse another person.
Because the reality is, if we genuinely love someone, we will want the best for them. Therefore, we will encourage them and lift them up, not bring them down. And if we are not lifting them up, maybe we don’t really love them, or maybe we don’t understand what love is…. So why are we still in this relationship?
“What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.”
We have all heard of Confucius, right? He was so wise that we are still learning from him 2500 years after he died! He is basically saying that how we treat others should be a reflection of how we want to be treated.
So if we love, appreciate, and respect ourselves, then this is how we will treat others. If we are abusive, nasty, vindictive, jealous, of our partners, etc. then this is a reflection of our inner world…. and we have attracted this relationship into our lives as a mirror of who we are. Therefore, if we don’t want to be treated like this or to treat others like this, then it is we who must ‘fix’ our inner world before our outer world (including our relationships) will improve.
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
Rumi: Another wise man we can learn a lot from. He infers in the above quote that it is pointless for us to seek love until we have cleansed ourselves of all that prevents us from receiving and feeling love.
If we feel we are unworthy of love or are not good enough in any way whatsoever, it is these thoughts that are originating within us that will prevent us from accepting the very love that we seek.
I didn’t mean to keep circling back to the fact that we need to sort out our internal world before our lives will dramatically improve, however, it seems that we are here again!
If you would rather hear advice like: pay more attention to them, get to know them by asking questions, cook a nice meal together, be honest, open up about yourself, spend quality time together each day…… for these things, you will need to go and read some other blogs.
There is some sensible advice out there…. But at the very heart of the matter, why we are not satisfied with any one or more of our relationships, is that we are not feeling satisfied within ourselves. This means it is always going to be our relationship with our own lives that needs to be healed. And it is only after we heal ourselves that we can expect all other aspects of our lives to improve.
“Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something: they’re trying to find someone who’s going to make them feel good. In reality, the only way a relationship will last is if you see your relationship as a place that you go to give, and not a place that you go to take.”
“….see your relationship as a place to give…..” I’m pretty sure he is not just talking about money, a house, a new car, some kids, etc. Although these things, and a lot more, are important aspects of any relationship. But Tony Robbins, being the personal development Guru that he is, is more than likely talking about giving genuinely of ourselves in the best possible way. 
This means that when we enter into a relationship we don’t bring any baggage from our past. This includes any personal insecurities, fears, and phobias we may have, and any expectations of what we can ‘get’ out of the relationship, Instead, the best relationships are the ones we form when we are already happy, secure, and content with our own lives. Then we can share the best of ourselves with our partners.
This means that we should not have expectations, and not place an unfair burden upon our partners by expecting them to ‘complete us’ or heal our issues…. This is something that we should do before entering into any serious relationship. Then we will be free to enjoy the relationship ‘as it is’ instead of trying to turn it into something that it is not.
If you wish to learn more about how we can heal ourselves, you may like to check out a couple of my other blogs including:
How Can I Change My Life? (The No1 Most Important Way To Get Guaranteed Results Every Time)
Positive Visualizations Create Better Futures!
So, I trust I have given you something to think about.
Please feel free to share your experiences and thoughts with us in the comments section below, because as always, we would love to hear what has been working and not working in your lives. We All benefit when we realize that we are all in this together. And we all win when we share how we can build better lives for ourselves and those that we love.
Remember, in relationships, as in all aspects of our journey through life, some pain is inevitable. And it is the pain, the contrast, the good and the bad, that helps us define what it is that we do want to create for ourselves. Therefore, sometimes pain is a necessary aspect of life as it helps us to learn and to grow into better people.
Suffering, however, is optional! What about you? Do you choose to dwell on your pain and suffer, or do you use pain as a stepping stone to bigger and brighter things, like creating a better relationship?
I love this post!
I am someone who is forever trying to change the stuff on the outside in order to feel better on the inside. “If only they would stop____, then I would be happy” or “If only I had _________, then I’d be happy”. This never works because someone is always doing “something” I don’t like. So the key to my happiness is to find inner peace first, then the outside will reflect that peace. I find that praying for others’ happiness – especially the people I can’t stand – rids me of my self-pity and resentments.
Do you remember the book the Secret? It’s true. The law of attraction says that what I think and feel most, is what I attract. When I start thinking positively about my relationships and accept that people are imperfect, including myself, I start to attract more positivity in my life.
Thanks for this article.
Hi Shalisha. Thanks for taking the time to read and comment on my post.
When we understand that our external lives are a reflection of our internal thoughts and feelings, we really do have the secret we need to begin creating better lives for ourselves. And it makes life so much easier for us because we give up the idea that we need to control all the stuff out there so that we can be happier ‘in here.’ Instead, we can decide to just be happier, here and now, on the inside and our lives will immediately be improved!
It sounds like you have the answers you need…. “Do unto others are you would want them to do unto you!” Thinking positively about everyone is always the best option.
Yes, The Secret was a book that helped me change the way I thought about my life. I am forever grateful that i read it all those years ago, as are so many other people 🙂
Thanks for sharing. I wish you all the best,
With respect,
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
This is a really thought-provoking article about relationships and I absolutely love the quotes!
Sadly, too few people live by Confucious’s words to not do to others what they do not want to be done to them. Many also are in relationships for WHAT they can get without ever thinking of what they can give according to the quote by Tony Robbins. Unfortunately, we all enter relationships with some amount of personal baggage, but if we also enter that relationship with the intent of giving, it becomes a lot easier to work through the periods of pain and suffering and thereby improve the quality of the relationship.
This is not easy, but it is doable!!
Thanks
Hi Cici,
Yes, you are right… we all tend to carry our personal baggage with us, and this is always going to negatively impact our relationships. By doing this, we are our own worst enemies.
The intent of being there to get something that we need is always going to put pressure on others, and this will never work out well for us in the long term.
If however, we can enter into relationships with our own stuff sorted out, or at least be aware of our issues, we can work around them to make the best of any relationships.
I wish you all the best,
Andrew