The Dance of a Relationship & how Intuition can help

Intuition is not something that pops up during crises or some brilliant idea dash alone. Intuition is ever present and is an integral part of being alive. Tapping into one’s intuition, strengthening that voice from within and gaining the ability to distinguish it from fears can give you an edge in life. It can help you operate smoothly and avoid a lot of unnecessary heartache and unpleasant surprises. Listening to your inner voice can tremendously strengthen your relationships, especially in intimate relationships like husband & wife or life partners. It can help you empathize more, listen and observe more and respond rather than react. It can help you analyse your own emotions, outbursts and enthusiasm. When we use a blanket term like Love, what we mean is harmony in living with each other. Similar to an orchestrated ballroom dance, when one person puts a foot forward, the other moves his/her backwards so as not to step on each other’s toes. Effortless living under the same roof, without locking horns every other day so that each person gets the space to grow.

Here are a few ways you can inculcate this in everyday life. No one is perfect and neither is any relationship, but if we want them to succeed these small steps can go a long way.

1. Becoming aware of the person’s energy: They say when two people live together for many years, they even start looking like each other. What does that mean? It is not the physical features; we imbibe each other’s energy and hence they feel the same on an energetic level. Start by detecting your partner’s energy, it is something to be felt and its natural, you don’t have to try too hard. You can instantly feel if your partner is sad, angry or happy if you take the time daily to observe them in silence and just sit next to them for a while. Maybe they are watching a movie, reading a book or just sipping coffee. Slowly you will start picking up on their energetic well being and will help you communicate better. For example, you sense that your partner is tired, you may want to give him/her some space and maybe keep stressful topics like finance for a later time in the day. Springing this topic on them when they are tired might stress them out further and cause some unnecessary exchange of words. This is a simple example; it does not mean walking on eggshells around your partner. It means dancing with their energy so that you have harmony. If both of you decide to be conscious of each other, it will definitely improve the relationship. Note- this is not a one-time activity, this needs to become a part of daily life.

2. Being more empathetic:

Empathy is dying in our society and even within our families. Empathy is important for us to have emotional intelligence, compassion, kindness, gratitude and love. It is the sensor that first pushes us to feel another person’s sorrow, difficulty and challenge so that we can either help them or stop interfering or expecting from them. For example, a young wife with a toddler at home has her hands full and is exhausted most of time, physically, mentally and emotionally. If the husband can come back from work, freshen up and make a small effort of making tea/coffee for the wife, that itself can relief a bit of her stress. He can choose to cook sometime maybe a good way to destress himself and support his wife. He can take his toddler son/daughter to the park for an hour. These small yet conscious steps without expecting any acknowledgement are driven by empathy. Empathy does not demand acknowledgement; it is the conscious effort of supporting your partner and treating her/him truly as a partner 50/50.

3. Knowing when to back off and when to motivate: Staying together under one roof does not guarantee you know a person. You may become familiar with the routines of a person, but unless there is quality communication, you never really know each other. There have been countless incidents of suicide when the husband or wife were clueless that their partner was in depression. It is very easy to step on each other when living under the same roof, even if you cannot understand each other fully, the attempt should be that you are not pushing each other to any extreme actions. Self-observation is the magic wand, there are times a person needs motivation and times when a person needs to be left alone. You will only know this through trial and error, but once you do, ensure you follow through and do not keep pushing the same buttons again and again. For example, men really need to man up and understand that women go through monthly periods and they suffer the same amount of pain, discomfort and mood swings as the first time they experienced it. No human being can get used to pain over time, that is a ridiculous notion. Women learn to hide their discomfort and push through every month. The next stage of challenge is during menopause when the discomfort is doubled and the emotional swings are even aggravated. Men need to be aware of their partner’s monthly cycles and support them emotionally, physically. If a woman has period cramps and cannot attend your boss’s birthday party with you, instead of sulking, complaining, and asking her to man up, you need to man up, ask her to rest, go to that party and bring her some cake. That is all that it takes to respect your partner, her body and her space.

4. Are you really listening? I want you to stop reading this and for a moment think, do you really listen to your partner. You may have amazing hearing capacity, but do you listen to your partner? The difference is subtle and yet profound. Listening is not just by your ears; listening is also in terms of body language and non-verbal cues. Women sometimes miss these cues in men. Men may not explicitly tell you what they need, but they do express themselves their own way. Instead of hovering over and suffocating your man, learn to listen to him, he will tell you he needs an evening with his friends to watch a match and have some beers, let him go. Or he needs his time to read a book or meditate or go for a walk on his own, let him. Women often confuse love with neediness. Trust is something you should have, it does not depend on the other person, it is your decision to trust someone or not, whether they break that trust or not is not in your control. So, relax and learn to listen, you will be able to identify genuine needs from the rest and the other person will appreciate you that much more.

5. Assurance of being there for each other: As humans we need reassurance often. Life is unpredictable, situations change, people change and the highs and lows of life can get really extreme. The reason we crave for a committed relationship is our tiny effort at bringing some stability to our lives. The reason many marriages fall apart is that the husband or wife stop caring enough to provide that reassurance to each other. They take each other so much for granted that they don’t see the need for it. But there is always one of them who needs this and if denied starts acting too clingy, needy and eventually resentful. Reassurance in terms of direct communication is the best way, but if that doesn’t work, show each other the same through action. Freedom in a relationship is knowing that you can fight and disagree without the fear of the relationship falling apart. At the end of the day your relationship is important enough to form the strong foundation for each other and the family you create.