Relationship Upgrades

Welcome to 2016! It’s a brand sparkling new year full of promise and possibility. Everyone makes resolutions, and they fully expect to run out of steam within a few weeks. I challenge you to do something different. Upgrade your relationships. Marriage, children, relatives, friends and colleagues. Technology forces you to upgrade regularly. It’s inconvenient and awkward during the learning period. Change is not comfortable. Neither is childbirth. But we get through it and the rewards are worthwhile.

Investing in relationship upgrades holds the most promise and pay-off. When relationships are satisfying and solid, life is good! When relationships are strident and sour, life sucks! The formula for effective relationships is not a mystery, the wisdom is old as time. It is called The Golden Rule: “treat one another with the same love and respect you want to receive.” Here is a simple, practical way to accomplish that goal – relate to others with curiosity and intention to appreciate and understand.

There are a few rules and guidelines to help ensure a successful and transformative relationship upgrade in the new year:

• When it comes to relationships, kindness and fairness are minimum standards!

• Growing and enriching a relationship and the people in the relationship is the primary goal of any interaction.

• A loved one’s needs, feelings, opinions and happiness are as important as your own.

• Nobody wins unless everybody wins, and never at the expense of another.

• Never blame or judge; always give every benefit of the doubt.

• Seek first to understand and second to be understood.

• Integrity is telling your truth in this moment, relevant to this discussion, not recounting errors and omissions of the past, your own or another’s.

• Fear and ego are the enemies of love and true intimacy; they are selfish and closed-minded.

• When you are sure you are right or need to be – you are probably wrong.

• Every problem offers myriad possibilities; the real issue is limiting beliefs, feelings and attitudes.

• Miracles can be a slight shift in perspective – understanding from another’s point of view.

Consider thoughtfully, with intentional openness to discovery to one another and to an issue. Discover what works and what you want to keep and create more of in your relationship. What doesn’t work falls away with lack of mutual support. Don’t rehash old grievances or disagreements. Issues that keep recurring without resolution tend to come out of unconscious scripts and beliefs from your childhood. Take a fresh look and consider whether they serve your current objectives. Rewrite and refine your operating rules, and agree on how you will relate on a troubling issue moving forward.

Time-out loaded issues and revisit later when you have had space to absorb and reflect.

Welcome to a new year, make it the best ever.

Joy Evans Peterson, M.A.

Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.

Author of “22 Myths of Divorce” and “Discovering A Dynamic Marriage.”

DiscoveringDynamicMarriage.com

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