Mindful Thought: Relations pt3

Today pt 3 of Relationships and Mindfulness: we focus now on expectations

All of us have an intense desire to be loved and nurtured. The need to be loved, could be considered one of our most basic and fundamental needs. Since we were babies we feel the desire to be held and touched. 

This need is important and it isn’t surprising that most of us believe our happiness is whether we feel loved and cared for.

Having healthy relationships, is for most of us the top goal—on par with the goal of leading a happy and fulfilling life.

A relationship has two parallel streams at the base: one that moves constantly and is about desire, wants and needs 

and another more deeper and slower that is about the conscious feeling of love for the other person.

Every long term relationship goes through 3 stages:

- The first stage is solely based on needs; you are in love and the neurological storm in our brain enhances the strong desire to be with the other and

you need physical touch and want constant affirmation the other feels the same. This is all about you and your own needs.

- In the second stage a more healthy exchange appears where both partners try to meet each other’s needs and have mutual respect 

and love for each other, behaving like equals, the relationship is now about you and him or her.

- The third stage is conscious love, where you love even when your needs are not met and where the love for the other becomes part of your 

identity. Unconditional love, the love you feel naturally for a child or a pet, also comes into play. Here the relationship becomes all about him/her and no longer 

about you.

Some people have serial relationships one after another, staying in stage 1 forever and driven by this constant urge to search for love.

A relationship that reaches stage 2 has a bigger chance to succeed and become committed and fulfilling. If partners evolve through the stages 

differently the relationships can be very painful for one of them. For example one stays in stage 1 and the other one grows in stage 3.

Love is so awesome until it is not,

Love is the best feeling in the world until it’s the worst.

Love feels eternal in the moment till you break up.

There is a lot in love that feels very contradictory.

When we get into a new relationship we always arrive with high expectations, we project all our wants and needs onto the other and ignore the red flags just to surf the wonderful storm of feelings going through our minds and bodies.

Who of you has felt disappointment in his/her relationship in the past or now?

Not so long ago all marriages were arranged by parents to serve economic and social ends, by the 20th century 

the feeling of romantic love became the base for making a lifelong commitment

Our current expectations are based on our culture's concept of romance

Hollywood's happily ever after romantic comedies carry the implicit message

that if your relationship isn't ideal in all ways then it is second rate.

For many people, a relationship is considered successful only if all of their sexual and emotional needs are fulfilled, 

or their economic and social status aspirations needs to be met. 

Obviously, most of the time things don't work out in this manner, 

and often there is a feeling of disappointment in the relationship.

Many men and women have very unrealistic expectations about relationships and they

make themselves miserably by comparing their situation to how they think love is supposed to be.

There is no connection to the idea that love itself could be the actual reward.

Human beings are designed to get used to the good things and get used to the bad things,

it has to be this way or we would go crazy.

Unfortunately this has an effect on our long term relationships. What first was exciting and wonderful we take for granted

after a while, we get bored and get back in stage 1 thinking.

Our hardwired negativity bias kicks in, we start to focus on the flaws of our partner, we ruminate on things from the past, the story

of our relationship changes and that story can become anxiety and toxic. Most of us have experienced it, nobody is immune to it.

So how can mindfulness help in this?

A lot of people when they think of mindfulness they think of meditation,

or some pro guru sitting legs crossed on a cliff overlooking the ocean meditation all day

But that is not what it is, mindfulness is an approach to life, it's an approach that says whatever experience I have I try as much as possible to be present for that experience to be focused in the moment and to non judgmentally accept that experience.

There is nothing that I experience that is good or bad it is just an experience.

What will serve me, my survival and happiness, is to see that experience clearly.