Welcome to the month of love ! I hope you are feeling loved and are approaching 14th February with excited anticipation. How does your relationship look ?
Your relationship consists, you may think, of just you and your partner, but in therapy terms the "relationship" is often referred to as the "space" between you which is filled with all of your actions and situations, good or bad that either serve to help or hinder you both. It is here where your children and pets live and how much love is in this space, determines the health of your family and partnership.
To make it a little clearer, visualise for a moment a space between you like a garden or an oil painting that is the resulting picture and nature of how you have treated each other to date. One of my clients, when asked to look at this space he and his wife had created said "oh my god, it looks like a bomb site". They had spent so much time harming each other, that the space looked desolate and war torn.
To actually SEE what that space looks like can be a shock for some. It serves to get people to wake up to the state of the relationship and what they have done usually to harm the delicate beauty of this place where the seed of love was planted at the beginning but then ended up trodden on.
People, EVERY time you take from this space you harm your partner and the relationship and you effectively yank out all the delicate seeds of love that really need your attention, presence, nurturing and kindness. As a garden needs to flower, so does your relationship and it stands to reason that gardens don't flower if bull dozers run riot in them. Get the picture ?
So take a look. What does your relational space look like right now ? Are there some flowers but heavy boot marks through some areas ? Perhaps you feel your side of the garden or space is perfect and your partner's is like Beirut. Whatever you see IS telling you what you have been doing to build this relationship.
If you are looking for examples of what I mean by harming your relational space, then in simple terms I will spell it out for you :
Bad communication - talking over your partner, arguing, not listening to their point of view. Obvious really !
Needing to be right - yep it's common one, but why feel good about being right if your partner is left deflated and the underdog ?
Affairs - sounds an obvious one but it is pretty much the biggest bomb you could ever throw into your relational space. In my entire dating history and listening to hundreds of people talk about relationships over the years, I only know of one relationship that lasted after an affair. The odds are stacked I am sorry to say. We all know what happens so why do we do it ?
Not SEEing your partner and not being truly present with them when they speak to you.
Spending too much time engaged in what you want to do and not spending quality time with your partner in the "space". Remember your garden needs attention from both of you.
Getting your needs met - this can appear as bartering for love. Mentally you are giving to your partner BUT really you want something in return. Oh this is so common and the TRUTH is we constantly want to get our needs met, by pulling on the tug 'o war rope. "You have to love me otherwise you won't get any love from me".
Defences - when we feel hurt we keep our partner out with defences to try and get them to react. This only appears as trench warfare in the relational space. Not attractive !
The list is endless to be honest but I think you get the picture. I have no suggestions for you of "how to" to get it sorted because you are all adult and very capable of looking at this and knowing what is right for you and your partner to make your relational space the garden of Eden you so desire. You and they are unique in this Universe, so you KNOW what is good and what isn't. Its' not difficult.
What drives you to get your needs met comes from a largely unconscious drive from childhood, a huge subject for another day, but I can say this with assurity, that it is what you give to your relationship that helps you heal in the long term. As you breathe love into your relational space it surrounds you and your partner with endless possibilities for recovering and healing from the past. Taking will only set up bad energy between you where if you are strong mirrors for each other's short comings, your relational space will ever be ailing and poor quality.
Deep down we are all a huge bundle of love and can't wait to give it and feel it in return. We are created that way in a Divine sense, but relational spaces often reflect the remnants of our battle field scenes gone by as we grew through childhood into adulthood and the picture of the space you create now with your partner is a reflection of who you have become. And just maybe as you look into that mirror you can begin to see it.
If you are stuck and want to want to help each other create a beautiful healed space where deep and sacred love is allowed to blossom with purity, then please get in contact with me. I am currently developing the "Relationship MOT" which is a one off session that will help you see your relational space with clarity and from there we can work together to help you plant the flowers of love and remove the weeds that have strangled your relationship.
Finally, I wish you a beautiful love filled Valentine's Day. Make it a day of planting new and good things in your relational space. Wherever there is love, hope follows.
Namaste x
