1. Say “Yes” to You

Now, this may sound completely selfish but actually to us saying “yes” to you is critical to the success of any relationship.

Here’s what it’s not—“It’s about time I get what I want.” “It’s time I get my needs met and I don’t care what happens to you.”

Here’s what we think it is—asking “How can I open to creating my life the way I want and still maintain love, compassion in my relationships with co-workers, my partner, my boss, my family?”

It means taking a risk with the intention of creating something good or great.

Here’s what Susie learned about saying “yes”-“During the last years of my 30-year previous marriage, I didn’t tell my husband how I was feeling about our marriage. I was afraid he’d leave because deep inside, I knew he felt the same way. The life had completely gone out of our relationship and we didn’t know how to get it back. I kept quiet about my fears and feelings, thinking they would go away but they didn’t. After my divorce and when I started being with Otto, he was honest enough to tell me that he was dating another woman at the time. I said “yes” to me when I told him that I appreciated his honesty and I wanted him to choose between us before we went any further with our relationship. This was a huge shift for me and a big breakthrough because I wasn’t afraid to say those words. I knew I didn’t want the same kind of relationship that I’d had before and that I had to make a shift and say what was important to me for it to happen. I didn’t want to settle for anything less. In that moment, I was making a commitment to myself—not doing it the way I always had by running away from an uncomfortable situation and not speaking my truth.”

Saying “yes” to you reveals a commitment. If you don’t commit to saying “yes” to you, you are saying “yes” to being a victim, martyr, not your best, and not as loving as you could be.

It may require you to do difficult things and may force you to do or say things that in the moment are tough. While this may be difficult, it also opens the gate to closer, more connected relationships.

Saying “yes” to you may mean connecting enough pain to certain circumstances and telling yourself—“That’s it. I’ve had enough.”

We all have known people who smoke who have reached the point, whether because of current illnesses or potential health concerns for themselves or others, of throwing their cigarettes away and never smoking again. This is a great example of saying “yes” to you.

One of our coaching clients realized that he had gone through life with the attitude that he didn’t need any help from anyone. This attitude had helped to create a string of relationships that hadn’t worked out. Saying “yes” to him meant asking for help and being open to allowing another person to give him that help.

Saying "yes" to you can mean something entirely different and what we invite you to do is to discover what that might be.

2. Become Emotionally Transparent and Authentic in a Way that Shifts Your Relationship

What’s emotional transparency? To us, very simply, it means what’s on the outside is what’s on the inside.

We love the Bruce Springsteen song “If I should fall behind.” One of the lines in the song is “Make your steps clear so the other can see.” We think this is great relationship advice and often so hard to do because of old experiences and old “tapes” that run in your head. You do this by clearly letting the other person know what’s happening inside you.

One of Susie’s old high school friends was married to a man who changed jobs frequently. They moved from city to city and each time, she had to change jobs too. She really didn’t let him know how resentful she was and then one day, she just told him that she wanted a divorce. She had kept how she was feeling to herself until she just had had enough.

We all probably recognize that this woman could have handled this situation in a different and better way. But the truth is that we all do this to one degree or another at various times in our lives. What gets in our way of expressing and living from what is true for us is that there are emotions that we consider to be unacceptable to express.

And this is the place to start.

Start recognizing emotions as they come up inside you and then feel into yourself if it's for the highest good of your relationship that you share what you're feeling.

Sometimes it isn't.

One of our coaching clients showed her journal where she had written her rants about her husband to him after a brief separation. Since their relationship was on very shaky ground, it would have been more important for her to stay in what's happening in the present than allow him to read her thoughts that may or may not be true right now.

In this case, she needed to deal with his behaviors that were unacceptable to her but showing her journal was not helpful in any way to bring them closer. In fact, it created a separation that they haven't recovered from.

So yes, be transparent but also use judgment in doing so and don't spill your guts just to be doing it.