How To Build Deeper Connections in Your Relationships
Life is short, which means that the time you choose to spend with another person or that another person chooses to spend with you is truly an honor, a gift of the highest sort.
Respect this time, and actively choose to grow even closer with your spouse, best friends, and family members or build a stronger connection with someone new in your life.
While this is far from effortless and requires mindfulness, openness, and even self-love, it will create a glow in your life unlike anything else.
Carve out time for relationships and commit. Just as you block out time in your schedule for important meetings and appointments, set aside designated time to share with loved ones. Doing so will help protect this cherished time and prevent work, chores, or other obligations from creeping in and taking over.
Be present with the people who are with you or the activity that you have chosen to engage in together. Actively listen to your companion, and avoid multitasking or letting your iPhone dominate your attention. If you’ve both decided on spending an evening watching a film together, watch the characters as if they were the person you’re with. If you’re on a hike together, take in the birds and the flowers. Even though you may not be speaking with or directly focusing on the person that you’re with, you’re both sharing an experience together. Create a moment that you will be able to remember at the end of the day and beyond.
Engage in meaningful, open conversations. You don’t have to offer up your darkest secret or delve into your religious or spiritual beliefs—just be authentic and allow room for vulnerability in your conversation. Speak your heart, your truth, and your values, and by opening up, you’ll invite your companion to as well, allowing for a deeper connection and a stronger relationship.
Draw upon your own inner-resources to offer love, attention, and nurturance to yourself when you need it. If you look to constant togetherness to fill a void in yourself, this will immediately cause suffering. Unconsciously expecting to receive love in certain ways and avoiding giving that love to yourself will put your sense of security in someone else’s hands. Love yourself and let love organically come to you instead of setting expectations on what it needs to look like.
Let go of expectations and respect that each relationship is unique. Each person is different. No relationship on this planet is the same, which is truly beautiful and makes each relationship you have all the more special.
