If you haven’t read my article on health, I highly recommend you read it. Before you can start thinking about changing the other areas of your life, you really need to start there. This is about feeling good, and if you want to have great relationships and live a life that makes you happy, one that is satisfying in every area of your life, it’s important to start with your health. When you feel good, when you are happy, you make better choices. Better choices will bring you the results you want.
How to Create the Body You Want and Have Amazing Health No Matter What Your Age
Relationships are something I have always felt uncomfortable with. They’re something I never felt I was good at. I say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, and I don’t do enough, or I am not enough. Relationships felt uncomfortable and difficult to me. Although relationships aren’t always easy for me, especially when I feel I am dealing with someone who is difficult and unreasonable, they have gotten easier. They have gotten easier because I chose to make some changes in my life, accept my part and my mistakes in all my relationships and learn new skills to help me do a better job of relating to other people.
One of the most important books I ever read was The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts by Dr. Gary Chapman. Although this book is primarily for couples, the techniques I learned in this book have been helpful in all my relationships. The reason is that we all have a love language, a way that makes us feel loved when others relate to us in that way.
The 5 Love Languages are:
Words of affirmation
Touch
Spending Quality Time
Acts of Service
Gifts
There is actually an assessment on Dr. Chapman’s site you can take that will help you discover what your love languages are. I took the test, and my primary love language is spending quality time. (I scored an 11). My secondary love language is touch (I scored a 10.) I scored a six on Words of Affirmation and a zero on both Acts of Service and Gifts. (He explains each language after the assessment. This will help you understand why this is your love language.)
So, if someone does something nice for me, and act of service, or gives me a gift, I really don’t appreciate it. It isn’t because it’s not a nice gesture on that person’s part. It really is. It’s just that I don’t feel it because those aren’t my love languages. I am happiest when I am spending time with those I love. Since my secondary love language is touch, and the score is so close to my score on spending quality time, hugging me, and if it’s a guy, kissing me, and even sex, make me really happy because it feels good, and it is what I need to feel happy.
I always feel happy after spending time with my grandkids, especially if they have hugged me a lot and been affectionate with me. I love hugs from my children and even friends too. That’s just what makes me happy and makes me feel loved.
There are other books in this series, including one for children and also for those who have military spouses. Dr. Chapman has expanded his offerings so there are books for just about everything including singles. If I could read only one book on the topic of relationships, this would definitely be it because it has done so much to change my life.
Dating and Relationship Skills
I have been married twice. Both times I was married I was never able to figure out what would make them happy. My needs weren’t getting met, and I didn’t know how to verbalize my needs out of fear. I take responsibility for my actions in my relationships. Often we make mistakes out of ignorance, and unless we learn new skills we will continue to make the same mistakes in our relationships.
One issue I want to point out here is our relationships with our parents. If we have a painful and/or abusive relationship with the parent of the opposite sex, it will have a negative effect on all our future relationships unless we take steps to change the negative programming that is causing us to relate to others in a way that isn’t healthy. (This is where the Healing Codes can help because it will help you with healing from all that negative programming.)
Self esteem and self confidence are major issues in all our relationships too. We attract what we are, and when we don’t have healthy self esteem, we don’t attract those who do. I’ve attracted many users and abusers into my life simply because of my feelings of low self worth. My approach to learning new relationship skills, in addition to actually studying relationship skills and implementing them, has been to work on my self esteem issues. Healing from my issues so that a natural self worth emerges has actually been more difficult than learning the relationship skills.
(Self esteem is about who we believe we are, and our sense of self worth. Self confidence has to do with our beliefs about our abilities to do things.)
In the area of relationships it’s important to do an assessment here too. Tools like Dr. Chapman’s Love Language test can help you, as well as Dr. Alex Loyd’s Relationship Issues Finder. This will help you pinpoint any relationship issues you may have and allow you to work on those issues.
Although I have many relationship experts I enjoy, including Dr. Chapman, there are two that I have found to be especially helpful.
The first is David Wygant. Although David generally works with men, he also offers a wide variety of resources for women and even has a Youtube channel for women. I enjoy his work because he makes it easier to really understand men. Having two divorces under my belt makes it important to me to really want to get it right this time. Understanding the man in my life is important to me because it will allow me to communicate better and build a better relationship.
To get your free newsletters, go here:
David Wygant for Men – You will also receive his “The Top 10 Best “No-Fail” Magic Openers” to help you with meeting women. It’s a free audio program you can download and listen to. You’ll also receive David’s newsletter, and it’s full of all kinds of tips on dating and relationships for men. In fact, it’s so good I read it!
David Wygant for Women – In addition to receiving David’s newsletter for women, you’ll also receive his presentation on relationship advice for women. He will show you how to spot Mr. Right, and, among other things, explain why men won’t commit. It is an excellent presentation, and I’ve watched it several times. If you’ve felt clueless about men in the past, the way I felt, this will definitely help you solve the mystery.
Click here to watch one of his videos:
One of my other favorite relationship experts is Rori Raye. I enjoy listening to her because she teaches you how to actually talk to men in a way that communicates what you have to say without putting a man on the defensive.
There are no tricks here. It’s not about tricking a man into anything. This is about learning how to express your feelings in a way where a man hears you, listens and doesn’t write you off as a drama queen. It is about communicating with a man in a healthy way that grows your relationship.
When I have something really important I want to say to a man, this is how I talk to him. What I have learned is that if a man is broken or toxic, that will be revealed every time. It’s helped me to avoid some bad situations and not get involved with guys that wouldn’t be good for me. Best of all, it has helped me become more relaxed and confident in my conversations with men.
To get your free newsletter from Rori, and begin building healthy dating and relationship skills, click here:
Rori Raye’s “Learn Secrets to Making Him Fall In Love Forever”
For a preview of her work, you can watch the video below.
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