Love and Relationship Advice Blog

It's pretty interesting when you think about it.

Every year around New Years day, people seem to find themselves looking back on what happened in the past year and looking forward to what they want to change in the new year.

Around this time each year, the two of us create our intentions and make some plans for the new year in our work, our personal life, as well as in our relationship.

We have a close friend who told us that he and his significant other were going to take some time on New Years Eve to talk about and visualize what they wanted for their relationship and their lives in 2007.

No matter how you celebrate the new year, we invite you to do some conscious planning some time in the coming weeks for how you want your relationships and your life to be like in 2007.

Napoleon Hill said, "Every well-built house started with a definite plan in the form of blueprints."

The question is do you have a set of blueprints for how you want your relationships and your life to be?

We have observed that most of us are fairly unconscious of the direction that our relationships and lives are going.

We often spend time thinking about planning and creating the "other" aspects of our lives but more often than not, most of us don't typically spend much time thinking about and planning how our relationships can be better.

A lot of people go from rushing the kids out the door in the morning, to work, to soccer games, to the grocery store, to household chores--often in a state of auto-pilot.

If you don't decide what it is you want for your life, it will be decided for you by other people.

One thing which is helping to set the direction for our relationship and our lives is the conscious setting of goals.

Even if you can't spend a lot of time together each week, we suggest making it a goal to spend 10-15 minutes or more talking about what you want and what is important to each of you. Your goal might also be to have more fun together, doing some of the things together that used to give you both pleasure.

No matter what you choose as your goal or goals for your relationship, we think that taking some time to talk
about them is a great way to communicate what's important to each of you--and to see where your partner's
steps may be taking them. We've found that it is a very effective communication tool and helps keep the energy
flowing in your relationship.

Most of the e-mail messages that we get from people asking for help in their relationships center around communication problems with a significant other.

Now, we don't think that everyone has to do what we do to have a passionate, alive, connected relationship but it is important to find ways of communicating constantly and connecting that work for you.

So we suggest that before you start the new year, you find some ways to communicate your plans, goals, and desires to your partner and listen to theirs.

If you don't have a partner, we suggest that you do this with a friend or simply write your goals by yourself to help you see what you want for your life.

We think you'll be surprised at the good things that happen when you do.

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a question from one of our website visitors that centers around a problem that tends to create a lot of jealousy in relationships...

"My lover is supporting his ex girlfriend and her 3 children from her marriage to another man. Although, she has another lover currently, my boyfriend feels that she needs financial help with the kids as her current lover can't afford to do that. I'm feeling insecure. I worry that one day his ex lover may take take my lover's help as an indication that he still holds a special place for her in his heart and may try to come back to him. My boyfriend told me that he's over with his ex gal but he's just helping out. Please help me overcome this feeling of jealousy. I feel that he still loves her."

Here's our advice...

You have to decide to separate fact from what you are making up in your head and playing over and over to keep your agitation going. If you have anything concrete that you can point to that indicates that he still love his ex, then you have to decide what you are going to do. If this ex causes problems, other than him giving her money, then you need to address them. If your boyfriend truly just wants to help the kids, and he may, you have to decide whether you're going to stop your stories in your head or not.

Through our work with hundreds of people around this topic, one thing we've learned is that jealousy is a habit that you can get over. So, the first order of business to getting over this habit is to separate what is "true" from what you are assuming or fearing will happen in the future. The truth is that all we have is the current moment and the trick to breaking the jealousy habit is to stay in the current moment. When you find yourself fearing the future or dwelling on what happened in the past, pull yourself into the current moment and focus on what you want your relationship to be with your lover.

It seems that you need to also begin asking yourself what you want from your relationship with this man and how you want to be treated by him. Talk together about how you'd both like your relationship to be--and leave out the ex. Start focusing on what you want rather than what you don't want.

We have a free course and also a paid course on jealousy to help anyone break their jealous habit. If you are jealous, we invite you to begin making some positive changes in your life and moving toward the relationship and life that you want.

Susie

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 02:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sometimes the best relationship tips and the most interesting relationship and life lessons come from some pretty unusual sources.

Here's one such example...

Recently, Susie rediscovered a wonderful book that she had read many years ago, "Mutant Message Down Under" by Marlo Morgan. This book is about the author's journey on foot with the Australian aborigines and the lessons that she learned along the way. Although the book is classified as "fiction," we think there are many lessons to be learned from it.

One of these beautiful lessons that Morgan wrote about held a special meaning for us and we think that by sharing it with you, it can help all of us to create wonderful lasting relationships that are filled with love.

Here's what Marlo Morgan said in her book...

"They (aborigines) celebrate no holidays in our yearly manner. They do honor each tribe member sometime
throughout the year, not on a specific birthday, but rather to acknowledged the person's talent, contribution to the community, personal spiritual growth. They do not celebrate getting older; what they do celebrate is becoming better."

What a concept--celebrating becoming better!

In our culture, we usually create holiday and birthday celebrations but they are usually not focused on honoring each other in this way.

These celebrations are usually not times of meaningful and fulfilling connection. In fact, in some cases, they are
difficult and show how separate we've all become in our society.

What we've discovered is that it doesn't have to be this way. We can all learn to celebrate each other in meaningful ways.

Here's a simple example from our own lives of how we recently did this...

Last weekend, we spent a couple of days with a group of like-minded friends and someone in our group made
a suggestion that you or anyone can do at your next gathering of friends or family that could be transformative for everyone.

What was her suggestion?

As a way of connecting with each other and deepening the friendship and appreciation we have for one another, one woman in our group suggested that we do something that in hindsight seemed very close to what Marlo Morgan described in her book that she experienced with the aborigines in their celebrations of each other.

As we sat around a table after sharing a meal together, we took turns receiving from each person in the group what they considered our talents and contributions to be, as well as how they perceived we had grown spiritually over the past year.

What an experience to hear words of love from each person and to take in who we truly were in their eyes.

Otto was appreciated for being a "dreamer" and for helping several in the group who were starting their own businesses see possibilities that they couldn't see.

Susie was appreciated for her loving compassion and ability to accept people as they were--where they were.

Each person felt "filled" and loved as we completed our circle.

So what can this mean in your life?

At your holiday gatherings of family and friends, we invite you to tell those you love (or even admire) what you see their talents and contributions to be.

It may not be as formal and structured as our experience was last weekend with our friends, but you can do this in any setting and can be done individually, one person at a time.

We're sure that there are many ways that people contribute to your life and positive things that you see about them that they may not see.

To give the gift of appreciation and celebration of others may be the greatest gift of all. We invite you to spread some love maybe in a slightly different way this holiday season, as well as in every day.

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 02:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Someone came to one of our web sites recently and asked us this question which we thought was thought-provoking enough to warrant an answer in this week's newsletter so everyone could benefit from his question and our answer.

Here's his question...

"I have a friend that flirts with everyone wearing long pants and will kiss friends on the mouths when leaving a party."

He wondered if this was "normal and acceptable."

Here's our response...

While you may not have this specific issue with your partner or with people who are close to you--what we have found is that no matter who you are-- the differences in how you and others relate to each other can create some interesting dynamics and potentially cause big problems in your relationship with them.

In this article, we're not going to discuss his concerns about his partner "flirting with everyone wearing long pants." We'll leave that for another day.

We DID want to discuss what different people consider to be a normal, natural and acceptable way of greeting and interacting with people in our culture.

Here's what we've observed...

There are at least four ways of showing affection/greeting in social situations:

1. Mouth/cheek kissers--Many in Susie's family kiss each other hello and good-by on the mouth or cheek, mainly because Susie's mom was a mouth kisser and seemed to set the tone for the family. Susie usually greets close friends, male and female, with a kiss.

2. Huggers--Otto's family are huggers, often one-armed huggers. Otto tends to greet many men and women with really good, solid two-armed hugs.

3. Pretend kissers or "Air" kissers with a slight hug--We've seen this in action but don't do it ourselves. With this one, we don't really "get it' but after all we wouldn't because we're huggers and kissers.

4. Hand shake or no touching--This is a pretty normal way for people to greet someone they've just met but in some families, this is the acceptable way to greet anyone.

And we could go on and on with examples--and we're sure you could too.

The point is that whether you've thought about it or not, we all have our "rules" or acceptable and unacceptable ways of greeting and interacting with others.

So what happens when there's a "rules" violation within a relationship?

What if the two people have two different meanings and associations to each others' greetings and goodbyes? What happens when there's a conflict and how do you resolve this kind of difference?

This question could play itself out in millions of ways in each of our lives and relationships.

Let's take for instance the example from our web site visitor who questioned his partner's kissing and flirting...

This is especially important during the holidays or during special occasions because a kiss on the mouth can mean many things depending on the intention of the kisser and of course the receiver of the kiss.

To one person, a kiss on the mouth of any kind indicates desire, love or is an expression of an intimate feeling.

For other people, kissing the people in their lives on the mouth and lips indicates a friendly connection and nothing more or less.

If there's a conflict, here's what we suggest...

1. Take a few moments and get in touch with the fear that is underneath the conflict--because some fear of some kind is always at the bottom of most conflicts and especially this type of conflict. You might even stand
back, look at your feelings and realize where your fear comes from and why it's there.

2. Talk about your differences without any accusations. Sounds easy but often not easy if you've built up resentments and beliefs about what certain actions mean. Talk about what you learned when you got in touch with your fear and even where you think it originated and that may by-pass some of those communication blocks.

3. Listen to understand where the other person is coming from and why they do what they do. If you listen from an open heart without judging, you might learn some things about your partner that you didn't know.

4. Discover what you each want more of in your relationship instead of dwelling on what you want less of. Do you want more attention from your partner? If so, suggest some specific ways this could happen instead of a general complaint that you want more attention.

5. Create some agreements that you both are comfortable with and can live with. It might be that the other person's behavior that you find objectionable may be no big deal to them--or it may be a big deal. It might be that both of you can agree to become more aware of youractions and beliefs behind those actions--and also the beliefs and actions of the other person.

We, of course, know that lines can be crossed that are unhealthy for relationships, depending on both people's rules for the relationship. And if they are, you have a choice whether to step up and stick to what you believe or ignore the unhealthy actions which can eventually kill any relationship.

Whether there's a conflict about this type of situation or not in your relationships, we invite you to explore the "rules" that you've set up for your life and the "rules" of the other people in your life.

Since we all bring our individual experiences and ways of looking out at the world to our relationships, our "rules" for interacting with people other than our intimate partner can certainly cause havoc in our relationships but they don't have too.

We encourage you to take a look at what's appropriate, normal, acceptable or customary in your interactions with the people in your life and take a look at why you feel that way in advance of situations that can cause problems and hurt feelings.

When you look at these kinds of things in advance, we think you'll enjoy more love and connection as well as a more rewarding life.

Posted by Susie and Otto Collins at 03:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)