In part 1 of this blog I talked about the importance of self-love for successful (ie loving & connected) relationships.
There are two things which make self-love easier, and they also make it easier to love your partner deeply and unconditionally. So finding out about both of them is a no-brainer, right?
The first of these two magic ingredients is curiosity
When we get curious, things really start to shift. Curiosity is an excellent antidote to being judgemental. And it’s useful for understanding what’s happening for you, and for understanding what’s happening for your partner.
If you find yourself constantly caught up in arguments with your partner, it is really helpful to get curious about what’s going on for both of you.
You might not believe the number of conversations I have had with women about the ‘fact’ that he forgets to take out the bins or that he leaves dirty dishes lying around, or maybe he does wash up, but not to her exacting standards.
And with men the conversation is about how he doesn’t feel like he matches up to her standards – which is why she nags and shouts and expresses her disappointment in him.
But when we start to get curious the landscape changes. Instead of expressing judgement, frustration and anger about the bins or the nagging, you can simply stop to ask yourself the question “why?”
When we do this honestly we may realise there is something we could also be doing differently. So you may ask yourself “why does it matter so much to me that the washing up is a little sub-standard?” or “why do I find it so difficult to remember to take the bins out?”
Do you really believe that what your partner says or does makes you angry (or upset)?
One of the things that most trips us up is believing that what someone else does or says causes us to feel a certain way. For instance believing that you are angry because your partner didn’t take the bins out in time.
Now I won’t deny that it is very inconvenient when the bins get forgotten and are close to over-flowing. But there is no direct link between that failure to take the bins out and the anger you experience. No-one can inject you with anger, least of all a bin that is still sitting behind the garden gate.
Similarly there is no direct link between a screaming child and your anger; or between a nagging spouse and your anger.
So where is the anger coming from? This is where curiosity comes in handy. You simply ask yourself “what is it about this situation that I am finding so triggering that I get angry?”
It may be that you are angry because a boundary has been crossed; or it may be that it triggers an old implicit memory (one which you cannot easily bring into consciousness); or it may be simply that you are tired and depleted.
In the same way you can get curious about what’s going on for your partner. And whether there is something you are doing which is triggering something in them.
Compassion: Curiosity's Twin Sister
This curiosity naturally brings out your compassion. That is compassion for yourself and for your partner.
You may not like it if your partner gets angry when you are critical, but if you ask with compassion why your criticism is triggering their anger, you may discover something you didn’t already know. This doesn’t mean you should just give up, but it means you may realise you could be less judgemental or more flexible.
This type of compassionate curiosity is wonderfully demonstrated in an interview I did with my mentor, Chip Chipman, who talked about his compassion for his alcoholic father and how he came to forgive him for the violence he had meted out when Chip was a boy.
The key was the curiosity Chip had about what had led his father to become so angry and violent.
When you continue to approach conflicts in your relationship with compassion and curiosity, you will find that communication becomes easier between you. And your connection will start to deepen.
In the final part of this blog series, I am going to be talking about asking and receiving.
In the meantime, you might be interested in a short guide I am currently working on, called Three Steps to a Magical Relationship. If you’d like to get access to it, sign up for it here, and I’ll notify you when it's finished so you can download it.