4 Ways to Have Healthy Relationships, Part 1

Peaceful activity

When you want to improve your relationships, peaceful activity is always a good place to start. Generally speaking, peaceful activity means to be gentle and friendly. But especially for beginning practitioners, that can be a lot harder than it sounds! That’s because when we’re interacting with others, our unconscious habits arise, and we have an automatic reaction, which makes for trouble. For instance, a trivial situation like one person making noise when the other is trying to work can turn into a whole argument. By holding on to a small issue with the belief that things should be a certain way, you make the issue bigger and bigger, and then the arguing becomes a habit, until the relationship itself seems like a big problem.

Sometimes the best solution to this is to simply listen. Many people don’t really know how to do that: they’re actually just waiting to speak, and when someone else is talking, they want to cut them off, step in, and say their piece. In a relationship, that can quickly turn into a back-and-forth in which nobody wins. Moreover, sometimes two people actually have the same idea, but because their communication styles are different, they appear to have opposing views. So listening is crucial. If someone wants to share something with you, let them share totally. If you refrain from cutting in with your own opinions and emotions, it allows space for them to share more openly. Then, when you finally do air your own feelings and thoughts, they may be more willing and able to hear you.

Enriching activity

Being patient, listening, being present, being gentle and friendly — these are peaceful activities. However, they don’t always work. Sometimes, we need to rely more on enriching activity. This is about bringing creativity to a relationship: continually trying to develop yourself, explore things together, learn from each other. Studies have shown that the most healthy and long-lasting relationships are those in which both parties try to learn from one another, check out new things together, try to improve themselves within the relationship, and grow.

Magnetizing activity

Magnetizing activity is to become a role model, a source of inspiration and authenticity. Sometimes, when people learn to meditate, they feel good afterward and ask me, “Since this practice helped me so much, how can I teach my friends and family to meditate too?” I tell them, “Instead of saying a hundred things, just show them one.” In other words, teaching doesn’t work, but if you transform yourself through meditation, those around you will notice, and they’ll get curious to learn about it. This is why it’s called magnetizing activity.

Powerful activity

Powerful activity means setting ground rules for a relationship. A big part of that involves letting go — but remember, letting go is not giving up. It means giving space and freedom to one other. It means not being over-reliant, always seeking sympathy and support. Many people tell me, “I am looking for my perfect partner.” When I ask them exactly what that means to them, they reply, “Well, of course, they have to be a meditator, of the same lineage if possible. They have to listen, be there for me, understand me, support me,” and so on. I tell them, “Oh, then this is going to be quite difficult. In reality, an okay partner is good enough. If you’re looking for perfect, that’s a problem.” If you’re hoping for perfection, when the relationship becomes constraining, you’ll feel bad, and if something about it is slightly wrong, it will feel like a huge deal. But if you understand from the get-go that all relationships have ups and downs, and that nobody’s perfect, and if you appreciate whatever qualities the other has, it will be okay. You will learn, grow, and understand each other. Also, creating ground rules in a very literal way is a powerful activity: setting boundaries, finding balance.

Where to begin?

So, which of these powerful activities should you start with? Always begin with a peaceful activity. That sets the ground for the enriching, creative activities. At that point, you can focus on  the authenticity and inspiration of the magnetizing activities. Finally, find the balance, the ground rules for all of it with powerful activities. And of course, always remember that like everything else, these four are interdependent.