True love. Most of us search high and low for true love in that one ideal relationship. We struggle over it and with it, yearn for it, craft books, music, and poems about it–all without a clear understanding of what we seek or why we want it so desperately.
We’re not even sure what love is. How do we define it? The definition of love is as unique and as varied as every individual who experiences it. That’s a big part of the problem. Love feels different for each person. So how do we tell if the one we love actually returns the favor? After all, our loved one may offer us love that does not quite feel like what we know as love.
To clear up at least some of the confusion, let us establish a basic definition for true love. The truest, purest love is unconditional. Such love is also the simplest form of love because it has no hooks, no standards, no expectations, no conditions attached to it whatsoever. No complications, no hidden clauses or agendas, no restraints or exceptions.
Unconditional love is true love, and unconditional love is healing and uplifting–the ultimate source of all life. True/unconditional love sustains and nurtures life, joy, peace, and freedom. That is why we look so hard for true love. Deep in our souls, we long to be free, loved, and secure.
The very simplicity of unconditional/true love is also the source of its power. Lacking all limitations, unconditional love is limitless and endless. Unconditional love is simply another way of saying God, the infinite, the divine, the source, known by many names. Every major religion, in fact, asserts that God is love.
Unconditional love–God in other words–is so simple that most of us find it very suspicious if not downright impossible to understand or accept. We’re certain there has to be a catch somewhere, just as we’re convinced that some people, somehow and in some way, have done something so horrible or unforgiveable that they no longer merit God’s or anyone else’s love.
Do we damn child abusers? What about terrorists who cause death on a mass scale? Do we condemn corporate polluters? Illegal drug users? Homosexuals? Christian fundamentalists? Those of differing faiths or races?
Our personal litany of the unlovable/unforgiveable says far more about the limitations of our love than about anyone else. It also shows us that the love we give and receive is constricted and diminished by judgments, standards, or expectations. Once we impose even one tiny judgment, standard, or expectation on love, it devolves away from being true/unconditional.
Trapped in the painful web of conditional love, we devote our time and energy to looking for love in all the wrong places. We keep hoping to find true love somewhere–out there–outside of ourselves, in someone else’ eyes.
But that is not the place to find true love. Only when we look within will we find what we truly seek–love that heals and sustains us and can even help heal our world.
Everyone has relationships with anyone they interact with, even briefly. It might be the clerk at the grocery store or the gas station attendant, or it might be your significant other. Have you ever given any significant thought to the type of relationships that you have with these people, or how to improve that relationship if it is not up to the level that you desire?
First of all, you need to determine how you appear to those people. Try to put yourself in their position and look at yourself in the environment where they would typically see you and interact with you. What type of person would they describe you to be? Would they think you are sour on life and always negative? Would they think you are full of life and energy and always upbeat? The image that you portray to them will speak volumes about the type of relationship you have with them.
More importantly, how is your relationship with the people in your life who are most important to you? If you have a spouse or significant other, the same rules and logic apply – how do you appear to them? Do they see you as typically grumpy, tired, and sour on life in general, or do they see you as the full of life, positive, and energetic person that attracted them to you in the first place? Has that relationship changed over the years? If so (and it almost certainly has over time), what steps are you taking to regain that positive outlook and mentality that got your love relationship off to a good start in the first place? If your answer to that question is “nothing”, you unfortunately are not alone according to current studies, but at the same time, be aware that the particular relationship that we are talking about is not going to get better. In fact, chances are excellent that the relationship will, in all likelihood, continue to deteriorate.
On the other hand, you may be in relationships where you do not want to be. Are you in an abusive relationship? Again, studies indicate that an abusive relationship is much more common than most people think, where some estimates indicate that an abusive relationship exists in an astounding 1 in 8 marital or spousal relationships. Note that the word “abusive” does not necessarily mean physical abuse. If physical abuse is part of your relationship, you are encouraged to report it to your local police since that is not tolerated. But it is up to YOU to report it.
But the vast majority of abusive relationships do not include physical abuse. Rather, it is the emotional and mental abuse, which can be every bit as bad. Maybe that person takes every opportunity to cut you down or belittle you, whether in your home or out in public. Maybe that person has developed some habits that they have taken up for the primary reason that they know for a fact that it bothers you. Or maybe things have gotten to the point where the two of you cannot even calmly discuss something like the weather without the discussion digressing into a shouting match about some totally unrelated topic.
In a marital relationship, both parties share the responsibility equally for the welfare and continued health of that relationship. It cannot be done by only one partner, regardless of how badly that one partner may want a healthy relationship – it is a two way street. The pitfall that many couples fall into is that the responsibility for the health of the relationship is left primarily to one partner, and although that may work in the very short term, such an arrangement is doomed to inevitable failure.
Be aware that ANY relationship you have is a two way street. You and the other person share the responsibility of the health of that relationship, as well as any compromises that either of both of you need to make for the longevity of your relationship. At the end of the day, it all comes down to how important that relationship is to BOTH of you, not either one of you individually.
Jon is a computer engineer who maintains web sites on a variety of topics based on his knowledge and experience. You can read more about Relationships Advice at his web site at Relationship Types.
Define the Problem First.
It seems obvious, but how many times have we gone to a problem-solving meeting and the discussion started with either whose fault was it or an assertion about the proper solution?
Explain what the problem is—what went wrong, what are the symptoms, what is the impact on your business and your customer’s business. These are the things that someone knows at this point in the problem solving process. If the someone is not you, and you’re leading the problem-solving effort, you need to do some research to find out. No guesses or assumptions allowed: the problem description must give the facts clearly and accurately.
Write it down. Writing the problem down forces you to describe it carefully, completely and unambiguously. The statement is a valuable tool to help focus your team on the real problem and avoid wasting time on extraneous issues. Everyone who reads it should understand what the problem is and why it’s important. No jumping ahead, either: you don’t know yet what caused the problem much less what you will do to fix it.
The written statement can also be used as a “sales tool” to explain what problem you’re solving and why it’s important. Use it to make sure you have the support you’ll need from management, your customer and any other key players. This is especially important if the significance of the problem is not universally understood or accepted.
The problem is defined when everybody who reads your problem statement, including you, understands what will be different when the problem is solved and your team agrees that it describes the correct problem.
copyright 2005. Jeanne Sawyer. All Rights Reserved.
Jeanne Sawyer is an author, consultant, trainer and coach who helps her clients solve expensive, chronic problems, such as those that cause operational disruptions and cause customers to take their business elsewhere. These tips are excerpted from her book, When Stuff Happens: A Practical Guide to Solving
Problems Permanently. Find out about it, and get more free information on problem solving at her web site: http://www.sawyerpartnership.com/.
OK, so you know you have marriage problems, or believe that you do but can you actually define what the root cause of your marriage problems actually is? You might believe that your marital issues are so great that you can’t reconcile your differences but if you can’t actually identify the true problem how do you actually know?
You’re talking about a life long commitment here. How can you even consider throwing your marriage on the scrap heap if you can’t even define what your marriage problems are? And I’m not talking about all the petty little issues that you are trying to pin the problem on, I’m talking about the real marriage problems, the ones that started the wedge between you and are continuing to drive you apart.
If you can’t define the problems you have no chance of resolving them. You need to put some effort in here, it might seem like too much of a chore and a waste of your time but I can assure you that actually identifying what your true marriage problems / problem are, is time well spent.
Let me ask you one question, what is one of the best ways to learn? Most people will find that they learn by experience, by making their own mistakes and learning from them. Apply this to your marriage problems and you’ll see that it’s well worth understanding what’s going on here. Understand what your marriage problems are, I mean really understand, and you’ll have something to work with and learn from. If you know what you need to fix it’s so much easier to fix it, this applies to marriage as much as it does to any other problems you have in life.
If you don’t do something now the likelihood is that you’ll live to regret it. What if you knew that just defining your marriage problems means that you have a strong chance of sorting your marriage out? Wouldn’t that one piece of knowledge make you want to take action?
If you are reading this you are already searching for a solution and have probably already realised, like most things in life, there is no magic cure to marriage problems, but there is a systematic approach that can be applied to understand and resolve most marital issues, with understanding the root cause being the first step to getting your marriage back on track.
Just take some time to think about your marriage problems:
If the intimacy is gone, where has it gone? It’s not enough to know it’s happened you need to understand why?
If you no longer have anything in common, why? What did you used to do? When did things change? Why did things change?
If you are continually arguing, when did it start? Why did it start? What changed?
If one of you has had an affair, why did it happen? I’m not talking about the affair itself I’m talking about what was going on in your marriage before the affair started. Be totally honest here, were there problems with the marriage before the affair started? What were the problems?
This is just a small example of the kind of questions you need to ask yourself, obviously the type of questions are dependent on the marriage problems you need to address but I think by now you are starting to understand the basic fact that if you want to resolve your marriage problems and save your marriage you need to identify and understand what your marriage problems actually are.
To learn how to resolve marriage problems visit commonmarriageproblems.marriagehealth.com
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