Recently, since last few months, I have been meeting quite a lot of people in unusual meetings at my work and also when attending many (maybe just for me) family functions. Reading people (but not judging them) is one of my hobbies. I try to look at good thoughts from people around us to absorb that into my life in making it more happier, healthy and loving to me, all and sundry. Well, I was always doing this from the days of consciousness, maybe knowingly or unknowingly. But, what makes my experience in last few days distinctive is looking at myself and looking at various situations I had surfaced.
It has been a great learning experience about people and relationships. What I understood if I can say in a single line is "Relationships are beyond self and people". They present your character and exemplify your steady attitude towards people irrespective of any situation thrown at you. Probably this is what I had missed all the while and now started enjoying them as I move forward in this new lease of life that is going in fast track mode.
Relationships are always an important part of life. And I mean all relationships - friendship, love, marriage, relationship by choice, relationship by birth, etc. Your life started from the day you were in mother's womb when your first relationship transpired. One that denotes love & relationship by birth. You then gain the love of everyone around within the surroundings or elsewhere based on the interactions and communication with them. You move onto a greater life of relationship with a life partner in wedding. What you gain in making these wordly relationships is happinness, feeling of everyone. Silence is golden. But it is only when a relationship is entirely built. Every relation you build is with your communication and thereby your character. One of the greats Francis Bacon once said about relationships that "We think according to nature. We speak according to rules. We act according to custom."
Think naturally, speak per rules and acting in your custom will ensure your honesty to your life and everyone around you.
Communication involves how you express your thoughts, ideas, and feelings to others, including what you say and how you say it. But when you communicate with others, you also communicate your attitudes, values, priorities, and beliefs. No matter what is actually said to other people in words, you also send messages about what you think of them, what you think of yourself and whether or not you're being sincere and genuine in what you say. Everyone of us also inherently communicate those things we don't say with words, but with our gestures, our facial expressions, and our attitude ; they speak volumes.
So it is with our thoughts and emotions. The more and more we keep building thoughts but do not communicate, and the more and more we feel the emotions but do not express, the greater becomes the gap in the relationship. How long will we hold things under the rug? Eventually it will come out, and when it comes out it will come out in unmanageable ugly proportions. Thoughts formed but not communicated, and emotions felt but not expressed become incomplete sequences. Incomplete sequences remain alive in the subconscious. These lingering incomplete sequences are like scratches formed in the spectacles -anything and everything seen through the spectacles looks scratched. It is ironical that the scratches are not on the objects, but in the medium through which the objects are viewed. All in all, it hampers the vision.
When you do not spontaneously communicate your thoughts and express your feelings, you begin to distort it. You tend to exaggerate or diminish the truth to pacify your suppressed feelings. When you cannot face, you tend to deny. What you cannot accept, you pretend as if you do not care about it. As far as our incomplete sequences are concerned, time makes a liar out of all of us who are lying to ourselves and our conscious. There is no more honesty in what we feel, express or communicate.
Life heals itself from all pains when lived honestly. The battle you fight is the truth you resist.
The secret of emotional health is to tell the person who hurt you that they hurt you, when they hurt you. This will make the relationship lot more healthier. Otherwise these incomplete sequences will reappear sometime in the future and ruin even your good times. The weight of the emotional baggage burdens the present. Something in the present will remind you of these unfinished suppressions and reawaken those old feelings. Those reawakened feelings will lead you to take action, which may be completely irrelevant to the current contexts of your life. But, it is important to remember that the old feelings resurface in order to be resolved and not to control/penalize you or anyone around you. Emotional stress is purely due to thoughts not communicated and emotions not expressed. Emotional illness is a storage disease. The lesser the storage, the better the relationship.
We might think that, “Honestly, if I start expressing all my thoughts and feelings, I will hurt the person who matters so much to me.” But look at it in a different way, “If you don't, you will eventually hurt the relationship itself.”
More important here is to understand in expressing it rightly. Never communicate with labels / strings attached. People cannot handle labels. People get ego involved with labels. Labels, somehow close the minds of people. Whatever is said under the guise of a label is never well received. For example tell someone, “Fibre food like leafy vegetables are good for you,” and they will take it. Instead tell them, “I know it well and I suggest you start having Fibre food like leafy vegetables,” and they will argue with you. The label 'I know' is the problem. Advice your wife or mother, “Why don't you take care of your health,” and they will infer that as love. But say it like “As a husband/son I think I have the right to tell you to care for your health,” and you had it that day. Ask your son/husband to come home on time and he appreciates your concern. Instead tell him, “I have seen many people too work. Why can't you come home on time,” and you will get what you do not want to see. Most commonly seen in many indians conversation, “I wish our airports are more organised,” and the view is endorsed. But say, “Living in Singapore I have seen how organised things can be. I wish even our airports are more organised,” and you will be considered a national outcast. The label is again the problem.
Human, in confronting labels, somehow feels less about themselves. So they try to defend it with all might, which is ego. Inexplicably, labels make you suffer. One one has problem with you. The problem is what you represent - the "Label". Anyone who lives on the strength of labels can never have deep relationships. If you are the one who is adding value to the labels, then you don't need the labels. That's the beginning of deep relationships. When you, as just you, are enough unto yourself - that's independence. In it is true freedom. Help yourself and help others. Just drop your labels. You are more than enough.
When it comes to relationship building, naming someone's deficiencies or failures is rarely as effective as praise. Focus on each other's positive traits. Find something good to say, catch each other doing something right, and help build self confidence and self esteem.
Communicate effectively with direct to the point, congenial (friendly), clear and open (no hidden messages or meaning) and honest. You should make is two way by being receptive and responsive to the other person.
The core thing in this whole communication for healthy relationship is "THOUGHT". Some unknown author wisely said, "Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny." You can make more friends in two minutes by becoming interested in other people than you can in two lifetimes by trying to get other people interested in you.
Build a healthy relationship. Share your daily life. Share those things in your life that are mildly interesting, funny, sad, or affect you in some way. Find a way to connect with others, sharing your life with them and allowing them to share their lives with you. Share your problems. Sharing the good times and the bad times is important in relationships, and serves to deepen and strengthen relationships and communication within them.
Communication is the key to relationship. Let us learn to face the truth, even if it hurts. Let those who matter to us the most learn to face the truth, even if it hurts. Communicate your thoughts and feelings directly to the person who instigated it. Do not get mediator. Say it directly. Be prompt. Don't wait for ideal conditions. Be simple. Communicate effectively. Finish your complaint and let go. Don't exaggerate; don't nag; avoid overkill. If the person feels with you, you have succeeded. If not, understand whom you are dealing with. Accept what it is. Forgive and let go off your hurt. Move on… You have nothing to prove....
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