As most of us can attest, relationships are tricky. Any relationship –
whether intimate, friendship, familial, work-related, political or social
– can be the best thing that ever happened to us … or our worst nightmare.
Rarely is it ever something in between. But the truth is – even where our
family is concerned – most of us would just as soon not have anything to
do with someone with whom we don’t get along than to put in the extra
effort to make the relationship work.
Yet, too often what we don’t realize is that we are the ones who create
both the ecstasy and the agony in our relationships. This is because how
we perceive and respond to the actions of another plays a major role in
whether or not any given relationship will be successful…or not.
Of course “success” implies different things to each of us, since
generally, we all long to be loved, understood, heard and validated,
albeit in different ways. Ultimately, a successful relationship depends on
the ability to listen to and empathize with another. Empathy is a key
factor in the majority of those relationships which are not only
functional, but successful as well.
In fact, for any relationship to work well at least seven essential
ingredients are necessary: communication, honesty, trust, empathy,
compromise, compassion and love.
Without these, our relationships stand little chance of success.
The 7 Essential Ingredients
From my own personal experience, as well as extensive research into the
areas of human psychology, sociology, emotions, interactions and
sexuality, I have determined that there are seven fundamental ingredients
needed to provide a stable foundation for a successful relationship. This
is not to say, however, that more is not necessary, or that it may not
differ from one relationship to another. Yet, generally, from what I’ve
observed, these seven – at least – are essential if we wish to have a
functional and long-lasting relationship. And this applies to us all –
both females and males.
Communication – Communication is listed first for a very important reason:
in order to even make contact with another, we must communicate our
intentions. Eye contact and body language help, but because most people
ignore their intuition and hence, are unable to understand and translate
what they’re seeing, they often miss important clues that might tell them
various things about another individual. So while communication does
include eye contact and body language, the communication referred to in
this instance is verbal communication. Without talking and communicating
our thoughts, feelings and ideas to another, few relationships succeed.
Still, although it is necessary to communicate our thoughts and intentions
in order to open a dialogue, doing so also requires truthfulness.
Honesty – For various reasons, honesty is one of the most difficult
aspects of human inter-relatedness to achieve. One reason for this is
because most of us want to be accepted by others. Consequently, we’re
often hesitant to say what we think for fear of losing the other person’s
support or acceptance, or because we don’t wish to hurt his or her
feelings. Then too, sometimes, we are less than honest because we wish to
protect ourselves from some (often mis-) perceived discomfort, fear or
danger. But what does it mean to be honest?
Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary* states that honesty is ‘fairness and
straight-forwardness of conduct,’ ‘adherence to the facts,’ ‘sincerity.’
When we are straightforward and sincere in our speech and actions towards
another, the chances are that that person will respond to this in a
positive rather than a negative way – even if what we have to say is not
necessarily what the other person wishes to hear.
Conversely, when we are not honest, we are not only doing a disservice to
others, but we also run the risk of creating more long-term – and in many
cases, severe – issues for ourselves. These issues can be anything from
hurt feelings when the truth does come to light (as it often tends to do
eventually), to bad marriages and violent behavior in work- and other
socially-related situations because we just didn’t know how to say what we
really meant (see my article, “I Love You”: How Three Little Words Can
Cause so much Pain and How to Turn that Pain into Ecstasy).
Therefore, being honest is an absolutely essential ingredient in a
successful relationship.
Trust – ‘Trust’ has many meanings. In this context it means to ‘believe;
hope; depend; to have confidence in; to do something without fear or
misgiving; to rely on the truthfulness or accuracy of,’ etc. This, as many
of us are well aware, is not always easy to do. Further, if there are
issues in our past, trust can be a difficult thing to attain; especially
where another person with whose character we are not familiar is
concerned.
Yet, if we wish to achieve a successful relationship we must learn to
extend others the proverbial ‘benefit-of-the-doubt,’ and trust them to do
what they say they’re going to do, or to entrust them with our feelings,
and sometimes, even our lives. Learning to do so allows us to attain a
level of connectedness in our relationships that would not be present
without the ability to trust.
Empathy – is “…the action of understanding, being aware of, being
sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings [, and] thoughts …
of another … without having the feelings, thoughts and experience fully
communicated in an objectively explicit manner…”
Etymologically, ‘empathy’ comes from the Greek empatheia, which literally
means to be passionate, to experience the feelings and emotions of
another. Or to put it more directly: to experience empathy for another, we
must place ourselves in that other person’s figurative shoes and
understand or attempt to perceive how she or he might feel in any given
situation and/or circumstance. In still other words, empathy requires
making the effort to understand the thoughts and feelings of another.
What I and many others have found is that, when we make that effort to
empathize with another’s thoughts and feelings, and reflect that
understanding back to the individual, we are far more likely to lay a
solid foundation for a successful relationship. As Stephen R. Covey,
empowerment guru and author of the legendary book The 7 Habits of Highly
Effective People said, “Seek first to understand, before you seek to be
understood.”
Think about that for a moment: what does it truly mean to understand
another? It means that we must perceive as others’ perceive, or to see an
event, situation or person as another perceives that same event, situation
or person. Once we perceive as another perceives and act on that
perception, we are far more likely to be successful in our relationship
with that individual because they will see that we are making the effort
to make the relationship work.
Compromise – Aside from honesty, compromise is probably one of the next
most difficult things to attain. Compromise requires accepting the fact
that we all have needs, wants and desires and that we all can’t always
have what we want, need or desire at any one given moment in time.
Therefore, to make the relationship work, we must be willing to concede
our position up to a point in order to allow the other individual to
experience some degree of satisfaction in the process.
One caution here, however: this does not mean that we should become
doormats by totally giving in to another’s wants or desires at the expense
of our own. If not handled wisely, co-dependence (which is an issue unto
itself and beyond the scope of this article) can result and can create
additional issues better suited for a behavioral health specialist.
The goal here is to aim for a win-win situation so that everyone can have
as much of what they want, need and desire without manipulating,
controlling or harming others.
Compassion – Compassion is ‘sympathetic consciousness of others' distress
together with a desire to alleviate it.’ As with the other essential
ingredients, being compassionate is much easier said than done. To truly
feel compassion for another requires empathizing with that individual and
feeling what they feel. I would go one step further, however, and say that
compassion is the act that follows the thought which is begun after we
empathize with another.
Applying compassion in relationships requires that we not only understand
how the other person feels (empathy), but act on that understanding by
following through. In other words, verbal or sometimes physical action is
required to demonstrate compassion.
Love – Love is, among other things: “strong affection for another arising
out of kinship or personal ties; warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion
…” etc. If we lack love, we won’t care one way or another how the other
person feels. This holds true for all types of relationships.
Finally, in order to make these 7 essential ingredients work for you in
any type of relationship endeavor on which you choose to embark, it is
necessary to be balanced. Balance or moderation is paramount in anything
we do; but most especially in our interactions with each other. The more
balanced our relationships are, the more pleasant they will be. The more
pleasant they are, the happier we will be and the longer those
relationships will last.
In fact, once more of us practice moderation in our lives and in our
relationships with others, the sooner hatred, enmity and war will be a
thing of the past.
* Unless otherwise stated, all definitions have been taken from the online
version of Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, which can be found at http://www.m-w.com/dictionary
© 2007 Kat Starwolf All Rights Reserved
Kat Starwolf is a practicing
astrologer, researcher, metaphysician and avid reader of anything
pertaining to human inter-relatedness, emotions, sexuality, sociology
and psychology. She is also currently working on her degree in
counseling psychology. Presently she lives in Tallahassee, Florida, but
will soon be relocating to her hometown, Albuquerque, New Mexico. She
may be contacted at 400 Capital Circle SE, Suite 18-255, Tallahassee,
Florida 32301, by phone at 850-980-0250 or via her website
www.starwolfastrology.com
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