Would You Marry You?

Would you marry you? Are you a you that you want to be? These are questions that we must constantly ask ourselves to keep us in check when we are in relationships with one another.

But why do we need to keep ourselves in check? Because we are in “the keeping”. When you’re in “the hunting”, you can make yourself out to be whoever you want to be, but when you’re working on keeping someone… are you really putting in that work?

When you decide to be in a relationship or a marriage, God has entrusted you with one of his most precious creatures – another human being. There’s a certain way we have to respond to this responsibility and it’s to accept this trust and respond with gratefulness. Why wouldn’t we be thankful for a lifelong companion?

But we have certain responsibilities when it comes to this acceptance. For starters, we have to show up in the relationship. We have to be present, be aware, be conscious of what’s going on, where and when. When we’re working on “keeping” another person, our biggest task is putting in effort. When you’re in the gym, do you not give it your all? Are you not pushing yourself to the limit, expanding your lungs, stretching your muscle to become a stronger person? It’s not different when you are in love with someone. You must constantly be in practice of pushing yourself and encouraging yourself to be better.

How do you make yourself better? Trace the behaviors of your relationship. What are you triggers? What are your feelings? What are you intentions? What are your expectations? Remember to keep all of these realistic and fair. Realistic for yourself and your partner. Fair to yourself and fair to your partner. Another important point to remember is the importance of dialogue. Is something bothering you? Say it. The Bible says, “Through assumption comes nothing but strife,” without dialogue comes nothing but trouble. Be simple, be clear, be succinct, be kind. Be a you that you would want to be with.

Listen to the Advice4Life podcast: http://advice4life.podbean.com/e/the-awareness-wheel-why-do-i-have-to-understand-how-my-feelings/

 

Don’t Ignore Your Feelings

One of the most helpful and effective things you can do in a relationship is to address how you feel. We live in a world where we are almost forced to mask how we really feel. Whether it is in the workplace or at school, we are expected to hold ourselves together in a way that is acceptable to everyone else. But how does that affect you? How does that affect the people you’re close to?

We need to start getting in the practice of knowing what we feel and expressing it, without shame or fear of judgement. We are so conditioned to hold things in that we put ourselves in a compromising situation (we’re like a sponge, we can only hold so much in at a given time) as well as present our partners with a riddle we are forcing them to solve on their own.

When we are happy, don’t we want people to know we’re happy? So why wouldn’t we want people to understand when we are hurt? Lonely? Disappointed. When we are in a relationship, these emotions must be brought to light to be able to move forward or take the next step. We all know it’s impossible to stay 100% ecstatic about life all day every day, so we might as well be honest about what takes us away from that level.

When you address how you feel and communicate just that, you are opening a window to your partner. All of a sudden, they know why you lashed out or why you shut down. In turn, when feelings are being share with you, don’t discount them. Even if you don’t think that you were being defensive or degrading or whatever it may be, this is the feeling that your partner has. They owned that they were feeling hurt or betrayed, so you need to own what you did to get them there.

Feelings are powerful and they are an even more powerful tool. Don’t neglect the effect that they can have on the health of your relationship.

Listen to the Advice4Life podcast here: http://advice4life.podbean.com/e/the-awareness-wheel-understanding-your-process/

Permission to Feel

“God has given us the permission to feel.” How powerful is that statement?? It means that everything that we feel, every emotion, every ounce of happiness, every ounce of sadness, every ounce if anger… is OKAY! We’ve been following one of our Advice4Life listeners’ journey through a strained relationship and a very powerful thing occurred when she was able to share what she was feeling.

We’ve all heard it before, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth will speak.” It is so important for us to be aware of what we feel and really, it can be summed up in just one word. Whether we feel hurt, disappointed, excited, scared – using one word is an important stepping stone in mending a broken or hurting relationship. Why is it so imperative to know what you are feeling? Well once you have connected that you feel a certain type of way, that energy will manifest itself positively or negatively in one way or another. And if we’re coming from a place of hurt, that manifestation will be hurtful.

We must be able to hear, speak and act from God’s perspective. Once you are able to identify with yourself, you will be able to identify with your partner.

Listen to Marie’s journey through her relationships here!

What Do You Feel??

Last week, Al Laws and Gregg Harris continued the conversation about the Awareness Wheel. The Awareness Wheel enables us to see our process to track and realize what we really meant to do when we find ourselves in a tense situation with a loved one. There is a certain comfort and certainty in being able to track where you are in your thoughts, feelings and actions. The Awareness Wheel takes on the biblical principle that God divides our spirit into pieces so that we may be more open to him. The Awareness Wheel divides aspects of who we are so that we may better understand ourselves.

We must get in the habit of being in touch with our own feelings; be aware of what you feel and TELL the other person what and how you’re feeling. So many times, we charge someone else with “You don’t know how I feel!” We must be the ones to take that into our own account and let them know exactly what is going on. It takes practice, but soon enough we will be able to zero in on our emotions and communicate it with the other person.

Listen to the podcast “Awareness Wheel Pt. 2” here!