Lately I have been reading a book on relationships. Since I have been down in Texas I have realized how important it is to take time to develop good relationships with a select few people in my life. I've never been one to have really close friends. I may have many friends and know many people, but when I look at how many people I have in my life that I feel I could count on for anything and could talk about anything with, that number decreases immensely. There are very few people in my life that I consider to be close friends and even then I don't think they are as close enough as they could be if I took a little time to deepen my relationship with them.
I am the kind of person who loves to meet new people and get to know them on a deeper level. I will usually always ask the questions to get to know a person on a deeper level, but rarely ever give up my own experiences and life stories unless asked specifically, and only those few close people in my life know that they have to do that. While reading that book today I had an epiphany. The reasons why I never really shared anything with anyone is, because it feels akward and I absolutely hate akwardness, which is the reason I do not like to date. To deepen a relationship though you have to go through those akward stages, it means you are opening up and letting that other person in so that they can get to know you and understand you as well. The more you can get over your own feelings of akwardness and risk deeper conversations, the closer you will get to the people in your life. If you are always in a predictable state of comfort there can never be any growth. This is something that I have known for a very long time and have been working on doing in my own relationships with people. I am absolutely awful at it and know its one of the reasons my last relationship didn't work out and why I don't have the closest friends. I always expected other people to open up to me, which for the most part they do, but I never really shared my own deepest failures and experiences in my life. Today it hit me, why would someone want to open up to me and share their own failures and secrets when I don't even open up to share my own? I remember as a teenager never telling my parents anything. I always wished that I could, but they always seemed to have it all together and I never wanted to tell them what was going on in my life for fear of shame, embarrassment, or punishment. For parents, remember to share your own struggles and life experiences with your kids. If you don't share yours, why would they ever feel ok to share theirs? If you act like you are perfect and have it all together it makes them feel like they cannot share their own failures and struggles. Now that I am older my relationship with my parents is deeper, but I think parents think that maybe we are finally old enough to understand and thats why our relationships get better with age. Truthfully though we understood the entire time, so imagine if you started sooner what your relationship would be like now?
Another issue I have is making the time. I am always working or have something planned every day and every second of my life. Instead of filling it with meaningless work and activities I should be planning dates with those that I love and want to deepen my relationship with. That also requires me taking the innitiative to do so, which I am also awful at. I would be one of those people that just waits till somebody asks me to do something instead of going out and asking them. I am not a planner when it comes to other people. I hate making decisions when it involves other people, so I just try and avoid it. I have to say though I have gotten much better at that, but I know I could do even better.
I also started thinking about significant others relationships. After being out of a 4 1/2 year relationship for 8 months now and reading through this book, I now cans see every part of where we went wrong. Not telling each other when things bothered us right away, instead of dealing with issues and talking them out we let a lot of them slide. Sometimes things or other people seemed to come before the other person. Sometimes we might be together but not interacting or giving the other person our undivided attention. Sometimes it was not learning about the other persons passion and interests. And for the most part we weren't aligned in our morals and goal in life.
For the longest time I was scared of any type of commitment, another reason I do not like to date, but then I realized with the right person I won't ever have to be. See, most people nowadays think that finding that significant other and marrying them means settling down. It may mean different things to different people, but to me it didn't sound very appealing. I am a wonderer, an explorer, a traveler, a dreamer, an accomplisher, and a flyer. To me settling down meant being stuck in one spot, having kids, taking care of them and cleaning and doing housework all of the time, which for some may be appealing but for me that sounded awful. Then today I realized that when I do find that right person I wont ever have to settle down, because to me that other person will be my best friend. They will want to explore and travel and dream and fly and accomplish right along side me. They will let me be me and I will let them be them and together we will aspire to fill our purpose in life as a couple. I don't think God would really pair me up with someone who would keep me from filling my purpose in life, but with someone I couldn't fulfill my purpose without. Settling down sounds like you are settling for something that you do not really, truly want. Settling is not you. In the same sense not risking akwardness in a relationship does the same thing. It means you are settling. Because, a relationship involves two imperfect people there will always be some sort of conflict, and if you do not talk about these things and risk feeling akward your relationship will never grow deeper. Schedule time to spend your undivided attention with those relationships that are important to you in life, learn their dreams, goals, interests and passions in life and support them, and get akward. Remember never having an issue with someone means that someone isn't revealing their true feelings and if you don't have those kind of conversations the relationship will never grow deeper.
Im glad God gave me this time to be single and reflect on all of my relationships in my life and give me the chance to figure out where I have gone wrong so, that way I can fix them and deepen them before it becomes too late.
"Be willing to be uncomfortable. Be comfortable being uncomfortable. It may get tough, but it's a small price to pay for living a dream." Peter McWilliams
I am the kind of person who loves to meet new people and get to know them on a deeper level. I will usually always ask the questions to get to know a person on a deeper level, but rarely ever give up my own experiences and life stories unless asked specifically, and only those few close people in my life know that they have to do that. While reading that book today I had an epiphany. The reasons why I never really shared anything with anyone is, because it feels akward and I absolutely hate akwardness, which is the reason I do not like to date. To deepen a relationship though you have to go through those akward stages, it means you are opening up and letting that other person in so that they can get to know you and understand you as well. The more you can get over your own feelings of akwardness and risk deeper conversations, the closer you will get to the people in your life. If you are always in a predictable state of comfort there can never be any growth. This is something that I have known for a very long time and have been working on doing in my own relationships with people. I am absolutely awful at it and know its one of the reasons my last relationship didn't work out and why I don't have the closest friends. I always expected other people to open up to me, which for the most part they do, but I never really shared my own deepest failures and experiences in my life. Today it hit me, why would someone want to open up to me and share their own failures and secrets when I don't even open up to share my own? I remember as a teenager never telling my parents anything. I always wished that I could, but they always seemed to have it all together and I never wanted to tell them what was going on in my life for fear of shame, embarrassment, or punishment. For parents, remember to share your own struggles and life experiences with your kids. If you don't share yours, why would they ever feel ok to share theirs? If you act like you are perfect and have it all together it makes them feel like they cannot share their own failures and struggles. Now that I am older my relationship with my parents is deeper, but I think parents think that maybe we are finally old enough to understand and thats why our relationships get better with age. Truthfully though we understood the entire time, so imagine if you started sooner what your relationship would be like now?
Another issue I have is making the time. I am always working or have something planned every day and every second of my life. Instead of filling it with meaningless work and activities I should be planning dates with those that I love and want to deepen my relationship with. That also requires me taking the innitiative to do so, which I am also awful at. I would be one of those people that just waits till somebody asks me to do something instead of going out and asking them. I am not a planner when it comes to other people. I hate making decisions when it involves other people, so I just try and avoid it. I have to say though I have gotten much better at that, but I know I could do even better.
I also started thinking about significant others relationships. After being out of a 4 1/2 year relationship for 8 months now and reading through this book, I now cans see every part of where we went wrong. Not telling each other when things bothered us right away, instead of dealing with issues and talking them out we let a lot of them slide. Sometimes things or other people seemed to come before the other person. Sometimes we might be together but not interacting or giving the other person our undivided attention. Sometimes it was not learning about the other persons passion and interests. And for the most part we weren't aligned in our morals and goal in life.
For the longest time I was scared of any type of commitment, another reason I do not like to date, but then I realized with the right person I won't ever have to be. See, most people nowadays think that finding that significant other and marrying them means settling down. It may mean different things to different people, but to me it didn't sound very appealing. I am a wonderer, an explorer, a traveler, a dreamer, an accomplisher, and a flyer. To me settling down meant being stuck in one spot, having kids, taking care of them and cleaning and doing housework all of the time, which for some may be appealing but for me that sounded awful. Then today I realized that when I do find that right person I wont ever have to settle down, because to me that other person will be my best friend. They will want to explore and travel and dream and fly and accomplish right along side me. They will let me be me and I will let them be them and together we will aspire to fill our purpose in life as a couple. I don't think God would really pair me up with someone who would keep me from filling my purpose in life, but with someone I couldn't fulfill my purpose without. Settling down sounds like you are settling for something that you do not really, truly want. Settling is not you. In the same sense not risking akwardness in a relationship does the same thing. It means you are settling. Because, a relationship involves two imperfect people there will always be some sort of conflict, and if you do not talk about these things and risk feeling akward your relationship will never grow deeper. Schedule time to spend your undivided attention with those relationships that are important to you in life, learn their dreams, goals, interests and passions in life and support them, and get akward. Remember never having an issue with someone means that someone isn't revealing their true feelings and if you don't have those kind of conversations the relationship will never grow deeper.
Im glad God gave me this time to be single and reflect on all of my relationships in my life and give me the chance to figure out where I have gone wrong so, that way I can fix them and deepen them before it becomes too late.
"Be willing to be uncomfortable. Be comfortable being uncomfortable. It may get tough, but it's a small price to pay for living a dream." Peter McWilliams
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