Choosing a New Relationship Partner (4)

Laugh at yourself. You are brave, beautiful and ridiculous, just like the everyone else. If you laugh at yourself, you give your partner permission too. Tease your partner. Teasing should be fun. It is not the same as picking on someone, or rubbing salt in their wounds, or being sarcastic. Teasing is affectionate, and it targets your vanities not your vulnerabilities.

Say or do something you found really difficult in your last relationship. Each relationship is a chance to step further in your personal development. Deep down you are looking for someone to share that journey with you. A new relationship is a chance to go further towards self-knowledge and further towards love than you have been before. Don't let your old habits surface in to inhibit you or limit you. Go further than you went last time around.

It can be difficult to ask for help or to be seen to be weak. Learn to ask for help, just once, and see what happens. It can be difficult to bring thoughtfulness to your passion. Try not to throw yourself at your partner and abandon all restraint.

Go a little slower, put the brakes on your runaway feelings, let your partner's feelings take the lead and see what happens. Pace yourself. If a relationship is really going to work it will change you by taking you further towards your own truth. We all have a lot of habits, beliefs and behaviours to shed. A good relationship will help you do that.

Don't expect to win every argument. Arguing is necessary and healthy, but it must lead somewhere. If you are arguing, stick to the subject. If you both find that difficult, write down what you are disagreeing about and stick to that point until you have reached an agreement. Then stop. Don't drag up the past or throw in personal insults, and don't try to guilt-trip your partner. Be prepared to win or lose an argument gracefully.

Value yourself. When you value yourself you treat yourself and your wishes with respect. We can be loving and generous and happy, but it is important to recognize that we all have selfish needs. If we don't ask for what we want consciously, our desire tends to come out in unconscious, uncontrolled and often unpleasant ways. If you don't ask, how will anyone know that you want something? If you don't get what you want, how will you know whether you really needed it?

Put your needs out in the open, to reach a deal you are both happy with. If you do say what you want, you give permission to your partner to say what they want. Then you can negotiate until you reach a situation where you are both satisfied. To love someone, sooner or later you have to do something. So do it now, make it happen! 

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