Derek Smith’s Real Answers

Positive ways to help yourself

Relationships as we know them do not exist!

It is an intangible concept. We see others through our filters (our background, fixed ideas, opinions, beliefs). You have to ask several people to define their relationship to discover they do not know.

A relationship is not what you get from someone else. It is what you ‘give’ someone else. Our concept of how a relationship works is fundamentally flawed. We seek perfect communication through agreement, compromise, resolving conflicts, sharing information about past experiences and sharing similar interests. We want to be understood. Does it work? Rarely.

You look at a relationship through your own ‘filters’ thinking your partner sees it the same way, and then make them wrong before they have said anything!

The person with whom you wish to share your life is a person who has experiences separate from your own and sees the world differently from you. So why do we pursue the objective of perfect understanding?

How to improve your relationships? The ‘real answer’ is to change yourself. That is the only true way to change relationships with others. You can only have absolute power and full control over one person – YOU.

Let’s address one concept that is crucial to understand if you want to improve the quality of your relationship with your partner. I call it ‘the mirror of self-reflection’.

What is actually happening is that all your fixed ideas, opinions, feelings, beliefs, being judgemental, feel as if they are bouncing of a mirror back at you, like a ‘mirror of self-reflection’. AND that is happening in exactly the same way to your partner!

Most of how we see people is a ‘reflection’ of how we ‘think’ people are!

I give love because I want to give love not because I want something back – unconditional love. I have no expectations of what I receive in return. It is not ‘what can I get’ but ‘what can I give’. Most often, what you put out you get back.
Wishing you health, wealth and happiness.

Derek lives in Edinburgh and does one to one therapy and new awareness sessions house calls in the surrounding areas including Midlothian and the Scottish Borders. This column is written based on his book ‘Real Answers’. For information regarding one to one sessions and his book please see his web site or give him a phone call.

www.fullcircletherapy.co.uk

info@fullcircletherapy.co.uk

0131 666 0346

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