Relationship Advice That Matters Part II

(c) 2004

My consulting expanded to include thought leadership after it crystallized for me that the individual is vital to the progress of the whole and a key component to attaining success. An organization led by someone oblivious to how critical thought leadership is to success could be in for an extraordinarily bumpy road.

I have known or worked with so many people who’ve been in therapy for six or seven years with minimal progress because they were not being honest with the therapist about what they really wanted.

What I observed, in a general sense, were people going to therapist for validation of their victimization. But what does it mean when it takes seven years to meet that need? Think of all the other productive uses of that time that have been missed.

At some point preparation is supposed to end and the business of the journey undertaken.

I understand that awful things happen sometimes, but it simply does not serve us to define ourselves by the worst events in our lives. Validation is only a step in the process, it is not the destination--- the mission is to live from your core. Perhaps, it goes without saying, but I will for the sake of clarification…I believe that this translates into the highest and best use of our innate gifts and a genuine appreciation of the same in others. I guess some would call that unconditional love, but I feel that genuine appreciation summons fewer presumptions.

However, without a genuine sense of self it can seem impossible to practice real self-love because without it I wonder if one can know what love really is. And this is what many of you say you want out of life believing it will magically make you happy.

This misperception is what I believe to be the root of what often goes wrong in relationships when the burden of making someone happy is dumped into the lap of another individual. Each of us must take responsibility for our own experience, happy or otherwise. In the best cases, people can enhance your life, but not complete it. (And I tell you this as someone who has been&nbspmostly happily married for fourteen years.)

I am not writing this because I have it all figured out. I face the same challenges as everyone else, but coming to terms with my “stuff” required that I embrace all of my talents and find ways of applying them that supported my growth and integrity.

Look, let me share an example with you from my own life. One of those gifts that I had to hold close in my quest to live from my core was my aptitude for relationship analysis (whether it be within organizations, personal life, products and consumers or b to b) and coaching others. It has been natural for me to do it with myself, as well as my primary function in the lives of others every since I can recall.

But this wasn’t what I thought I had decided to do initially, even though it was what I did every day. Degrees, titles, attire and accessories do not make a person those things create an image. It is the state of our being and what we do with that, which makes us who we are.

This is where we can get stuck in the “muck” by insisting that the plan we charted be implemented immediately and sulking (which can express itself in a number ways) in the meantime. This meantime is what is most dreaded and maybe even feared as what is in the way of having it our way now. But the choice is made to prolong the meantime by not being willing to be engaged in creative solutions, which are ALWAYS possible, because we are angry. This immature response is then endured like a toddler throwing a tantrum, but how does punishing yourself with an extend trip through unpleasantness help?

From my experience it seems that anger cuts off love, so being mired in it effectively blocks the love supply in the same way that holding your breath would---- depriving the brain of oxygen as the self is robbed of its miraculous blessing--- life.

Let me share this with you in closing. I have a very dear friend who is facing his mortality because of kidney disease. A few friends and I were gathered at his house for dinner and in the course of a philosophical debate about freedom he began to talk of how confronting his mortality had evolved into focusing on what it meant to live.

In his summation he stated that, to the best of his understanding, that what gave his life value was living from a foundation of compassion.

I confess that previously his mention of his life ending was something I did not want to talk about or listen to, but I did listen because it was important to him. Finally, I think maybe I understood. My former junior high teacher and friend of twenty years was doing what he did best. Teaching. This is what he taught me at our gathering of educators’ dinner party.

Be compassionate with yourself so that you can learn to infuse that quality of being into your relationships with others. That is the hope for transforming the world, our only hope for world peace.

I hope that tempers any harshness of the realities I’ve explored in this article, but believe me when I remind you that the best thing you can do to improve the state of the world, is to improve the state of yourself and your life. Be mindful of the micro and the macro and the part you play in the global drama.

Synthesize your own epiphanies into your simple plan, and utilize these articles to ensure that strategy factors in the requirement for flexibility if happiness and success are even remotely fraternizing with your goals.