Here are a few Flow-inspired tips to infuse all your relationships with more love and less conflict. While we can’t change other people, per se, we CAN change the energy that surrounds our relationship and our interactions within them. And of course, that starts within ourselves. So, these five tips will help you cultivate good, loving, open energy within yourself. As they say…change begins within.
1. Break out the honesty.
Very often the source of our frustrations is our fear that our loved one will not accept how we feel or what we need in a situation. Honesty needs to be purposefully developed and cultured. It often doesn’t just happen by itself, especially if we grew up in homes where honesty wasn’t the norm. When we expect that what we need and feel won’t be honored, we either clam up or stuff down our needs. If the idea of being honest and open sends shivers of fear up your spine, then you know you REALLY need this tip: Create a list of relationship issues with various loved ones that you want be more open about, and work your way up by starting with the easiest first. In your Flow, pre-act scenarios where you are open and honest, and feel the relief and acceptance when you do so. This opens the energies to allowing honesty into your relationships in a safe, comfortable way.
2. Fighting is good.
Well, certain kinds of fighting are good…such as arguments in which you and your loved one share honestly and openly (remember that last tip?), which work to air and resolve sticking points in relationships. Once things are on the table, they can be resolved or improved. A lack of arguing, on the other hand, can mean that you or your loved one has simply resigned themselves (unhappily) to certain aspects of your relationship. Your instincts will know if your smooth sailing is due to your ongoing openness with each other, or from your or your loved one’s refusal to engage. (And remember, fighting in which someone is hostile, derogatory, or accusational is NOT the kind of sharing that brings improvement.) To help create “effective” disagreements that result in improvement, you can daydream a scenario in your Flow in which during your next dispute, you suddenly see just the “right angle” for opening up and sharing, which is met with authentic openness and attention from your loved one.
3. Have real boundaries, and enforce them.
Real, enforced boundaries mean that you have a defined what healthy and unhealthy behaviors exist in the people around you, and you’ve made sure they know what you will and won’t tolerate. This may be the wife who leaves the house whenever her husband begins to overpower her with his voice when arguing (because unacceptable behavior–shouting–is met with a predictable consequence: she removes herself from the abuse). Or it may mean the parent who warns their child not to leave the house without telling them clearly where they’re going, or they lose driving privileges. Enforced boundaries create a comforting predictability, while “backing down” from the boundaries that keep you sane and protected leave you exposed and insecure. You can very quickly identify where your boundaries are being overrun by going into your Flow and sensing what parts or aspects of your relationships make you uneasy. These show where you’re boundaries are being crossed or uninforced. Ask your Flow to help you understand what boundaries or rules you need to have to heal these worrisome areas.
4. Action, action.
This tip means it’s time to stop waiting for “things to change” and just start acting and behaving as if they already have. This is a good tip for perfectionists, procrastinators, and overthinkers who get caught up in being tentative and waiting for the right moment or the right conversation, etc., before taking initiative. A lot of us want to make a move or shift in a relationship, but the right time just never comes. So “action action!” reminds us that sometimes the right time will NEVER come–not until we ourselves start making changes. Ask your Flow to begin giving you easy actions and to bring in the right people and perfect openings for you to begin doing first, and analyzing later.
5. Don’t doubt your feelings.
Your feelings are sensitive antennae. They point out what’s going on, often before your rational mind has time to decode all the hints. Imagine your feelings as sensitive interceptors of the Flow energy around you, reading the energy behind situations even when the logic isn’t there yet to support them. If something feels wrong, it probably IS wrong, no matter how it’s dressed up at the moment. (Although sometimes our feelings do lead us into irrational ideas, more often than not they really are alerting us to something we dislike, even if it’s not what we think.) If you’re working through tough emotional issues with a loved one, one good strategy is to use your Flow to create energy templates for healthy, mutually satisfying interactions. For instance, if you need to know exactly how someone is feeling, but they won’t tell you, then in your Flow, daydream a scenario in which your loved one feels totally free, open, and sharing. Support this with open, receptive feelings on your end. Then allow the Flow to work out the best path to this very scenario occurring in real life.
