Love and Relationships
“Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it.”
—Maya Angelou
How Do We Cultivate Loving and Harmonious Relationships?
We all want harmonious relationships. In every area of our lives, we would like to have healthy relationships—with our parents, siblings, friends, coworkers, employers, employees, and of course, with our romantic partners. I can almost guarantee everyone reading this book is in or has had a difficult relationship of some sort. So, how do we cultivate harmonious relationships? Relationships are perfect mirrors for what is going on inside our own hearts. Imagine you are being triggered by your mother, because she constantly criticizes you. She believes she does it out of love for you, but every time you are together, you notice your heart beats faster and your stomach churns—because you are waiting for her next judgement. When it comes, it sends you reeling. The reason you are having this experience and feeling this is because inside you believe you are not good enough, and your mother is reflecting that back to you.
This gives you a perfect opportunity to heal your limiting and harmful beliefs. Once you heal, your relationship with your mother will shift—without even having to confront her about how much it bothers you when she makes her comments. She will most likely stop criticizing you, because she is responding to your new energy, and if she continues to nag you, it won’t trigger you any longer, because her criticisms hold no more power over you.
If you reflect on your relationships, can you identify the ones that are or were triggering? (This is very different from being in an abusive relationship. If you are being abused in any relationship, the first thing you need to do is remove yourself, get to safety, and get the help and support you need.)
We are in relationships with everything and everyone around us. Desiring harmonious and loving relationships is a common desire that we all share. We want to enjoy being with the people we love, and we want them to enjoy being with us. If you are around someone who makes you anxious and nervous and irritates you, take a moment to examine that. How does that irritation affect you? What emotions does it bring up? Where in your body are you holding it? This is very important, because it presents an opportunity to locate the wounds in ourselves; the best way to build healthy relationships is to heal what is unhealthy inside of us. Once we begin the healing process, our relationships shift and change. Some people might even step back from their relationship with you, because you don’t match energetically any longer. With those, you’ll learn to keep a respectful distance, and you will wish each other well, but won’t be quite as close. Then there will be those who shift to a higher vibration along with you. Your growth will be the catalyst for their own consecutive growth. New people will enter your life who better match you energetically to replace those who step away. Remember, everything vibrates energetically, and we magnetically draw that which matches what we radiate.
On our journey through life, as we discover more about ourselves, we all have wounds that we carry. The best advice I can give anyone is do whatever you have to do to heal those wounds. The more you love yourself, the better your relationships, in general, will be. The more secure you are with who you are, the less you will be triggered by what others say and do. A very common self-limiting belief many of us have is, I am not good enough or I am not worthy. Everything stems from this self-negation. If you carry this story around with you, it will manifest in your life, especially in relationships. Your relationships will reinforce your belief that you are not good enough. You aren’t worthy of having a healthy, loving, romantic relationship. I have been there myself. Of course, I didn’t realize it when I was experiencing it. Later, much later, after doing the inner work and getting help from programs and coaching, I shifted the dynamic. Learning to be with yourself and loving your own company has tremendous rewards. You get to really know yourself—inside and out. You know what you will no longer tolerate in relationships. It is very empowering. Many people jump from one unhealthy relationship to another unhealthy relationship, because they cannot be alone or enjoy their own company. One of the greatest gifts you can give yourself is to love yourself and honor and enjoy who you are.
When you are ready, the next romantic relationship you manifest will be healthy and have qualities you have been desiring. The Universe wants to give you what you want. The problem is we send mixed messages, we say we want a respectful loving relationship, yet we allow others to disrespect us. Do you see the problem with that? We must be very clear with our thoughts, emotions, and actions, so the Universe knows how to give us the relationships we want.
You know you have blocks in manifesting healthy, empowering relationships. You recognize that, and now, you want to know what to do. Well, good news! The first step is to realize that you have these blocks and self-limiting beliefs. The second step is to start doing research into how to lift any blocks and limits you have imposed upon yourself. We have a wonderful tool at our fingertips that we can use—the internet. Another one of my favorite resources is the self-help section at the bookstore. Start there, and connect with people who have done the work themselves and can help you. Take classes that help you heal. Hire an expert, a therapist, or coach to guide you. Go to a healer for help. There are so many things you can do—join support groups or start a support group. You don’t have to figure it all out on your own. Let go of that belief that you cannot afford it or that it isn’t available to you. That is just another limiting belief. Declare you are getting yourself support, and I promise you, the Universe will bring you what you need to get that support.
What if you have decided you want to manifest healthier relationships, but you’re a total people pleaser? You completely put yourself last so you can take care of everyone else. People cross boundaries with you all the time. You feel stressed out, exhausted, and grow more resentful the longer you try to make other people happy. Part of you wants to say no when you’re asked for one more thing, but another part of you is screaming louder that you cannot say no. You want everyone to like you, so you must say yes. The more you say yes to others when you don’t really want to do something, the more aggravated you get. The angrier you become, the more anxious you grow. What starts to show up in your reality are even more needy people wanting more from you. You think, I cannot take this one more second! You are at your wits’ end; you are exhausted, and you start to break down. You may even get sick. Being a people pleaser is not a high vibrating energy. What it is, is a desperate needy feeling inside to be liked and valued. But you are not honoring yourself when you are a people pleaser. What you do is bring more needy people in your life that need to be pleased. These are not healthy relationships, and when neither of you have boundaries in place, resentment and toxicity occur. The message we are sending to the Universe is not, “send me healthier relationships,” but, “send me some more needy people I can try to get my validation from.” Do you see that? Good.
So, let us do an exercise to release yourself from this trap. It is a very simple exercise that can do without a lot of effort, but it does require giving yourself the permission to do it. Set aside some time for yourself to do this exercise, you will need a journal and a quiet place. Sit down, take a few deep breaths, and set your intention that you are going to release your attachments to relationships that no longer serve you and are causing you any kind of anxiety. On paper, you are going to write down everything you no longer want to show up in your reality in terms of relationships. List everything that comes to mind. It could be bickering with your partner, feeling disrespected at work, being taken advantage of by your friends or family. Be specific in what you write down—even little things that may seem insignificant. Write it down. When you are finished, take that sheet of paper and put a big X across it. You are crossing it out. Say to yourself out loud, “I am no longer a match for these kinds of relationship issues to show up in my life.”
On another sheet of paper, write down your answers to this list of questions you can use to help clarify what you want your relationships
