3 Ways to Build Trust

Trust is often taken for granted when it comes to intimate relationships. We trust-- or don’t trust-- that the agreements we’ve made with one another will be kept. These may include staying faithful to one another, continuing to deepen your connection, or “being there” for each other no matter what among other possible agreements..
But when we really look at the day to day lives we lead with our partner, is there really a strong sense of trust?


Weaknesses in trust can range from intense to more subtle. Perhaps-- with no real evidence to indicate it-- you worry about your partner cheating on you or maybe you doubt he or she will love you if you let your true self show. It could be that you regularly expect that your love will not follow through on a promised project or task. No matter where on the spectrum lack of trust falls, it gets in the way of your relationship being as intimate as it could be.


Consider this illustration…..
Imagine you are 50 ft. up in the air on a climbing wall with nothing keeping you from falling except a harness, rope and your climbing partner—or belayer—who stands on the ground holding that rope. From the top of the wall you gaze down at the ground and begin to wonder: How sturdy is this rope that is holding me up? Will my belayer prevent me from falling and get me down safely? Needless to say, vulnerable feelings and just a little bit of fear may come rushing in.


It is up to your belayer to pay attention to what you are doing and to adjust the rope accordingly. It is also up to you, the climber, to trust that you will be eased gently down the wall to the ground when you have reached the top. A distracted belayer could mean not only a bumpy ride down the wall, but also your safety in jeopardy. At the same time, an untrusting climber could hang indefinitely on the wall refusing to move. It is literally a leap of faith when you let go of the holds and allow yourself to be lowered down. Climber and belayer must work together, stay present, and communicate clearly so that the climbing experience will be enjoyable and not end up an emergency room visit!


So it goes with intimate relationships. It is not uncommon for one or both people to feel vulnerable and wonder whether or not the other person will be there when needed. Without trust in one another, intimacy cannot grow and your relationship can become stuck.


Try these 3 ways for creating trust and intimacy with your partner….


1. Let go of the past.

Almost every one of us has had a past relationship that left us feeling wary of loving or trusting anyone again. Tune into your current situation and allow yourself to move on from those old hurts. This may require acknowledging the ways that the past comes up for you in the present. Breathe and remind yourself to let go of the past and focus on what’s currently going on.


2. Be yourself.


Sometimes we hide habits, tendencies, even desires that are important to us because we don’t trust that our partner will approve of them. We undercut intimacy by keeping this barrier up to hide what we think won’t be loved. In effect, we don’t feel lovable as our true selves. Make it a goal to appreciate yourself—“warts” and all—and then allow every part of you to be seen by your partner. Chances are your love will be more accepting than you think.


3. Listen and understand.


Just as communicating is vital to the climber and belayer, it is also important to anyone wanting to increase intimacy in a love relationship. When situations come up that challenge your trust in the other person, stop and ask him or her questions about what appears to be happening. It is likely that your perceptions are not accurate. Listen with an open heart and allow yourself to understand what is going on for the other person.


These 3 ways can help you begin to turn a relationship weak in trust into one where strong trust fosters deeper intimacy. It starts with letting go, loving yourself, and listening with an open heart.

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Communication-mini course-introduction DAY 1

Hey everyone, I find that the MAIN problem people face in their intimate as well as daily relationships with people is the lack of communication or the inability to communicate effectively so I'm going to start a 10 day FREE, e-course to help everyone with this problem.

I suggest that you print out each lesson to make reading the 
material and answering the questions easier. 

Introduction: 

There are four ways that people communicate in relationships. 

1) People communicate "unconsciously." This means they're totally unconscious in their communication and aren't sure why they're saying or doing what they do. In this type of 
communication we are living out of the past and communicating and living based on past experiences and past events. In other words, communicating the same way over and over and expecting a different or better result.

2) People communicate to inform. This means to simply communicate with the intention to share information. 

3) People communicate with the intention to influence. This can be either a conscious or an unconscious act. Simply a discussion between two people about which restaurant they'd 
each like to have dinner could be an attempt by each person to influence. We all use the intention to influence anytime we are trying to convince someone to do it our way. 

4) Finally, people communicate with the intention to connect. This is where most of us spend the least amount of time. We believe this should be where we spend most of our time if we are interested in creating more conscious, connected, vital alive and loving relationships. 

I realize that this is a very simplistic way of describing how people communicate and that most of us use a combination of all of these ways in their daily lives.

The fourth area, discovering how to communicate with the intention to connect, is where we will spend the bulk of our time together in this e-course. I'll be sharing ideas with you on how, through improving your communication, you can connect deeper, understand the people in your life more and feel more understood yourself. 

As you'll discover throughout this course, if you keep the intention to connect as your primary intention in all of your relationships, you will have more harmony (instead of drama) 
and more passion (instead of apathy). 

Communication Challenges:

It is our opinion that almost all of the communication challenges we have are because we are not clear about our own intentions and we are communicating from a place of fear 
instead of love. 

We all have developed communication challenges along the way--unhealthy patterns that separate us from the people in our lives. Even though we may not label these challenges as fear, most often, it is fear that we allow to get in the way of being our full, authentic selves and creating the relationships and life we want. 

For us, even though we have a great relationship and consciously attempt to communicate clearly, we sometimes lapse into old patterns when conflict comes up. We're 
guessing that you do the same.

These old patterns usually manifest in unhealthy ways like being afraid to speak her truth if it's 
unpleasant for the other person to hear, agreeing for the sake of keeping the peace, and not clearly asking for what you want.

Another communication challenge is--- making assumptions, fearing the future, black and white thinking, and not speaking about what's bothering you but letting resentments 
build up.

So what gets in the way of your ability to communicate with the people in your life? 

Are you immediately defensive when someone starts to criticize something you are doing or calls attention to something you could improve? Do you think one thing and say another? Is 
your mind always somewhere else instead of listening to the people in your life? 

Take a few moments now and write down the communication 
challenges you face and ways you stop connections with other 
people. 


Clear, honest communication is a skill that can be learned if you have the desire to do so. All that is required is that you make the decision to start communicating with the intention 
to connect and be willing to face whatever fears you have.

Making yourself aware of your particular communication issues is one of the first steps to creating close, connected relationships. 

That's it for the introduction. Your first lesson on creating intentions and agreements will be sent to you tomorrow. 

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Blog on beauty

Hi girls/guys, for those of you who are me regular readers "Thanks". For those who are new "Welcome." I have another blog you can visit to pamper yourself with beauty secrets once you've focused on your relationships. Dont forget to focus on yourself by visiting    beau-secrets.blogspot.com

Thanks

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Ten Destructive Habits That Demolish Trust

10 destructive habits that you should stay away from if you truly want to rebuild the trust in your relationship and make it thrive again. In order to initiate and maintain a warm relationship, avoid the following:


1. Neglecting Your Partner. You will remember that attention is one of the building blocks of trust. Neglect is its antithesis. If you consistently neglect your partner, you can be assured that any trust you’ve developed will falter. Be attentive, not neglectful. Here are some ways you might be neglecting your partner:


2. Angry Outbursts. Anger is a feeling. At some time, each of us gets angry. It’s what you do with your anger that can harm your relationship. The caution here is that even when you are angry, be respectful and reassure your partner that you are just angry, not dismissing or un-loving them.


3. Unfair Accusations. You will get nowhere by accusing your partner of not caring about you, having never loved you, going out with their paramour when they are five minutes late from work, trying to take revenge on you, or intentionally trying to hurt you. Accusation is not a good way to rebuild your relationship. It makes your partner defensive, and a combination of accusation and defensiveness generally just leads to useless arguments.


4. Constant Fighting. If you are constantly bickering with your partner at this point in the program, you need to review the 2-stage method for conversation that I presented in Section 6. In it you will find ways to be an active listener. If you cannot effectively do this exercise, then you might want to seek professional counseling. Fighting all the time is akin to being angry all the time. It simply doesn’t work to create a healthy and loving atmosphere in which a relationship can flourish in.


5. Taking Revenge. Revenge in any form is a mistake. You certainly don’t want to take revenge and have an affair yourself. Nor do you want to get involved in any other kind of revenge. We have already discussed that issue. Even small ways of being vengeful, like snapping at your partner when they say something you don’t like, biting sarcasm, or saying passive, hurtful things to or about them, should be avoided. If you feel the desire to be vengeful, go back to Section 1 and look at your feelings more closely.


6. Disrespectful or Demeaning Comments. These don’t serve any kind of healthy relationship, and you should particularly avoid them if you are recovering from an affair. There is always a cleaner, more direct way to communicate your needs than being demeaning.
Some people, for example, combine their own frustration with a simple request such as, “Will you open the door for me, please.” The combination of the frustration (whether it is related to the request) and the request make the person sound angry. If they are frequently frustrated or overwhelmed, they might come across as always being angry or always talking with an angry voice to their partner. Situations like this are not demeaning by intent, but that is the unintentional impact.


7. Nagging. You certainly will have to make requests of each other from time to time, and you might have to do so multiple times in a day. Asking once or twice about something is okay. Once you go beyond that, you will probably be accused of nagging. If a responsible adult needs more than a few reminders, then some other issue is at work. This is when you need a conversation about the request and whatever issue might be present around that request. Think of times when your partner has nagged you; what issue was going on for you that kept it going? Now think of a time when you nagged your partner. Make a guess about what issue was going on for them that kept it going.


8. Intentionally Engaging in Irritating Habits. If you intentionally annoy your partner by engaging in habits that you know irritate them, then you are not doing all you can to rebuild the trust in your relationship. Cease the behavior, and look at what lies beneath your desire to irritate.


9. Selfish Demands. A relationship isn’t about you. It isn’t about your partner either. It’s about both of you together as a unit. You need to have your needs met in order for the relationship to function in a healthy way. However, selfish demands do not fall in line with this. These kinds of demands inhibit trust by telling your partner you think your needs are more important than their needs. End the selfishness. Open up to the world of sharing your life with your partner. 
10. Dishonesty. I left this for the end of the list because if there is one of the 10 destructive habits that I want you to remember to avoid, it’s this one. The only thing dishonesty can achieve is a breakdown in trust. It serves nothing else. Don’t get confused into thinking that dishonesty will make your life easier later or that you are somehow protecting your autonomy by lying. It won’t, and you aren’t. Dishonesty only serves to further hamper your progress toward a more beautiful relationship.

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Build a triangle of Trust

In every single moment...
...And in every single relationship, you are
either building trust with the important people in your life--or you aren't.
It's either a "yes" or a "no"..
There is no "maybe" in building trust.
With everything you say or do--you're either building trust in big or small ways or you are eroding trust in your most important relationships
Consider this for a moment...
We don't really think about trust until we or the other person says or does something that catches us by surprise and destroys it.
We don't really think about building trust until we're trying to rebuild it with that person.
But the fact is, as we said before--
We are all either building trust or we're not in every moment.
As the two of us were thinking about this, Otto came up with the idea of the "Triangle of Trust."
The "Triangle of Trust" is made up of three
elements that determine whether we create
trust or we tear it down.
In order to get a good visual of what he's talking about, we'll take you through a quick activity right now.


If you're game, here goes...
1. Take out a sheet of paper and draw a
large triangle in the center.
On the bottom line of the triangle, at the bottom of your sheet, write these words...
"What I intend and am committed to"
On the angled line of your triangle on the right side, write these words...
"What I say"
On the angled line of your triangle on the left
side, write these words...
"What I do"
Okay, you should have your "Triangle of Trust" drawn on your paper, with the appropriate phrase on each line.


2. Now, think of a relationship that is important to you.
Write that person's name at the top of your page.


3. Think of a typical interaction with this person and answer these questions as you look back on that interaction...
**How did you react to this person?
(Were you open, loving, kind, supportive, honest, secretive, closed, dismissive, ignored him or her?)
**What did you say to this person and how did you say it?
(Were your words respectful, supportive, honest, sarcastic, cold, mean?)
**What was your intention and commitment in this interaction?
(Was it to connect with the other person with love or to prove you were right about something?)


4. Now write any words or phrases from this
interaction that build trust on the inside of the triangle and words and phrases that tear trust down outside of it. Stay with your words and phrases from your answer to #3.


5. Look at what you wrote inside your triangle, as well as any words or phrases surrounding it.
At the bottom of your page, write what you would like to do differently the next time to build more trust.

Here's a practical example to help you out if you're a little confused about this ...
When Olivia did this exercise, she chose an
interaction with her husband when they decided what they were going to do on one of their "off" days recently.
Because it was a beautiful summer day, she
wanted to get the yard work done--trimming
bushes, planting flowers, mulching.
In fact, she'd been planning it all week in her mind.
But her husband had different ideas.
He wanted to go to the arts festival that was held in their city.
When she asked herself how she reacted to
her husband when he said he wanted to go to
the festival, she wrote this...
"I was angry that he wanted to skip out on the yard work and I didn't want to listen to his suggestion."
When she asked herself what she said and how she said it, she wrote this...
"I told him that I felt like I had all of the responsibility for the outside work getting done and I blamed him for not helping me."
When she asked herself what her intention and commitment was in this interaction, she wrote this...
"I was committed to getting the yard work done that day, no matter what!"
Next, she looked at what she had written and
wrote these words and phrases outside her triangle...
"anger, didn't listen, blame, yard work done that day no matter what"
She didn't write anything in the center of her
triangle.
In other words, she saw that nothing about that interaction built trust between the two of them.
Of course her husband had his own issues that created mistrust too and he could certainly do this exercise as well--but the point is...
The "Triangle of Trust" helped Olivia see that
she could have done things differently to create more trust--and get the work done.
What could she have done to build trust?
Plenty.


Here are a few ways Olivia could have built trust in this situation...
1. She could have asked him earlier in the week for help with the yard work and then made an agreement with him about when they would do it--and maybe the work didn't have to be done on the particular day that she had in her mind.


2. When she discovered he wanted to go to the festival, she could have opened herself to the possibility that maybe it might be something she'd like to do too.
(In fact, later that evening, she did look at the advertisement for the festival and it did look like something she would have liked.)


3. If going to the festival appealed to her, she
could have negotiated with him about how they might do both--the yard work and the festival.

In other words, she could have been open to
changing her plans.


4. If she feels like the yard work is always
left to her, she could talk with him about
how he might share the responsibility or
might pick up some other chores around
the house.
Olivia's interaction with her husband may be
similar to an interaction that you might have
with your loved one.
On the surface, this interaction doesn't have
the look and feel of dissolving trust--but it
actually does.
Of course, if your relationship is working at
all, at least some of your interactions build
trust.
The idea is to create as many trust-building
interactions as possible if you want to create
more peace, love and more connection.

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Build More Relationship Trust

Whenever trust has been violated and the two of you want to repair your relationship, that's certainly the question that's on your minds, whether you voice it or not.
"How long is this going to take for there to be trust between us again?"


The short and simple answer is there is no average length of time since every situation and every person are different.


There are of course factors that might either extend or shorten the amount of time...


1. The severity of the event that caused the mistrust.
Being caught cheating with someone else usually causes a deeper level of mistrust than forgetting an anniversary.


2. How often the event that caused mistrust happened.
If a person is repeatedly unfaithful (or frequently lies) and wants "one more chance," chances are building trust will be a very long and difficult process--if it can be built again at all.
And...


3. How open and committed both you and your partner are to healing the issues that caused trust to be broken and your commitment to rebuilding trust.
The key in building trust is not how LONG but rather WHAT you do with that time. It's how trustable the person who violated the trust can become--as well as how open the person who was hurt is to trusting again. You have to be willing to become trustable if you're the one who broke trust. If you are the person who was betrayed or lied to, you have to know what it would take for you to trust that person again--the more specific the better.


And this takes some looking inward to discover that for yourself in your particular situation.
You both have to buy into the process of building trust together but there's a fine line you have to walk...


That "fine line" is not making guilt and blame the major dynamic between the two of you while still honoring both of your needs--and seeing movement toward trust.
If the "guilty" party is unwillingly kept on such a tight leash and "made to pay" in every moment, there's probably not much hope for the relationship.


This person has to want to prove in every moment how he or she has changed and is now trustable--and do it in specific ways that the other person has voiced.


Guilt, blame and promises won't create a relationship filled with trust, closeness and connection.
True desire, commitment and follow-through will.
It's not the length of time that it takes to rebuild trust but it's rather what happens--how both people deal with the situation.


If you're worrying about and are focused on how long it's going to take to build trust back, change your focus to what you are each going to do to grow it.






T

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Marriage Does Not Bind A Couple

Marriage is a social union or legal contract between the two individuals, which means two persons becoming one. On the contrary, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies an influential UK think-tank says that though married couples may remain more committed than live-in couples yet marriage is not the ultimate reason behind this phenomenon.

The Institute continues to say married couples are more older, more civilised and wealthier than those who have babies out of wedlock.

On the other hand, it is said that couples living together tend to look younger, less well off, less educational qualifications and are less likely to have family plan.

The claim is focused at the Government’s objective of preventing family breakups by promoting marriage. 

"The evidence suggests that much of the difference in relationship stability between married and cohabiting parents is due to pre-existing differences between the kinds of people who get married before they have children, compared to those that cohabit. While married couples have more stable relationships than couples who cohabit, this is not because they are married, but because of the other characteristics they have that lead to marriage,” said Ellen Greaves, research economist at the IFS.

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