Ep. 14 How To Work on a Relationship In 4 Steps
Should I even try to work on my relationship?
You might say, “My partner and I have so much in common. Why can't we just get along? I'm so confused. Help me!”
Here is a Story
Once upon a time there was a little bunny and the little bunny was so cute, she would frolic and play in the midst.
She was in the meadow, she would eat clovers and she loved carrots. She was enjoying her life so much with her little friends. One fine morning she heard a banging sound. She looked up, and across the meadow, she saw the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen in her entire life. She stood back and in a little bunny way, she gasped. What she saw was like a God, the most beautiful, large, white horse galloping across the meadow. It took her breath away. She just stood there and froze. Her little birdie friends came up to her and said, " Bunny, what's the matter? How are you doing?" She couldn't talk, She said, "oh, nothing. I'm fine." The next morning she came outside and stretched and she looked across the meadow hoping to see the same scene. Sure enough, the most beautiful thing yet again galloped across the meadow.
The Meet Cute
All of a sudden that beautiful creature she was looking at got larger, it was getting closer and closer. Pretty soon she just couldn't breathe. The horse came all the way up to within her vicinity, like ten feet away. Now, she really couldn't breathe, she just stared at him. He was stomping his foot, eating the clovers, and she still couldn't move. Finally, he looked up at her. She's like,
"Oh, my gosh, he's looking at me, he's looking at me."
The horse walks over to her, he says,
"Hey, little bunny, what are you doing?
She says " I'm just sitting here."
She thinks to herself, "Dear God I'm acting so stupid." So she says, "Well, I'm just here. I'm just eating clovers, hanging out. What are you doing?"
He said, "Oh, I'm just hanging out eating clovers. I saw you sitting there, you actually look kind of cute sitting there."
She's like, “I do look cute! You're kidding me.” She thought, “Why did I say I'm kidding me out loud?” She just couldn't believe that he was looking right at her.
He'd run by and come over and talk to her, and every day she couldn't wait. She groomed her little ears and she cleaned herself off. They started talking more and more. They found out how many common things they had together. She'd come home and tell her little bunny friends,
The Easy Infatuation
"You guys, he likes carrots as I do. We both like carrots, who likes carrots? Do you know what I mean? It's just so weird. The birds don't like carrots. Bunnies like carrots. Can you believe this beautiful creature likes carrots, like carrot soup? I took him some the other day and he ate it all up. Then you know what he did, he took his nose and he rubbed his nose on me, he gave me Eskimo kisses. Guess what else you guys, we both have fuzzy, soft noses. Are you kidding me? His is big and mine is little, but they are both the best soft noses. Lizards don't have soft noses, nobody else in the forest has soft noses like us. We have so much in common. We even have the same long and tall ears! I couldn't believe it. We both like clover. We both like to jump. The similarities that we have are amazing."
As time goes on, you can imagine what happens. He takes her for a ride, she jumps on his back, she sits in his ears and holds on tight and they gallop across the meadow together. One day he shows up with a big bouquet of flowers in his mouth. He drops them down and she looks at him. All of a sudden, what!? He drops one of his legs back and drops down on one knee.
She looks up at him and he said,
"Little bunny, you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. You make me feel like me. You make me feel happy. I want to live the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?"
True Love
The wedding was beautiful. All the little birds had strung up all these little things in the forest and all the little flowers. They made wreaths and lays and it was the most beautiful wedding ever seen. The owls were there, all the squirrels. It's the wedding night. Now besides that thing, we won't talk about. They decided they're so excited to snuggle together. So they went into their little home, which was kind of a little nest thing at the side of the hill, a little overhang. It was so cute and she was excited to decorate it.
She says,
"Are you going to lay down next to me so we can snuggle?"
Reality
He's like, "what do you mean snuggle? We snuggle all the time when you're on my head and I'm running around with you in my ears."
"It's our wedding night, and I was hoping that we could snuggle laying down."
"What are you talking about? Horses don't lay down."
"Can you just like lay down tonight?"
He's like, okay, I see that this must be so unreasonable. So he walks over to her and says, "okay, look, you have to move over because I'm going to lay down now." She runs clear across the way so he can lay down. He leans, he puts his butt out to the side, and then he drops his butt, and he can't quite do it. “I'm laying down.” His butt is down and his legs are still straight and he says, "Okay, now I need to bend my leg on the left so I can lay down."
Finally, he's laying down. He loves me, he just is so wonderful, he cares about me. She runs and she snuggled in his neck and they rub their noses together and plan their future. It was a wonderful night. They kissed and hugged and rubbed their noses together all night long. The next morning he wakes up and he says,
“All right, move."
"What do you mean we are snuggling?"
"I have to go, I have to do my mountain thing today. I have to do my horse thing."
"Okay."
She backs up a little bit and he said,
"Move farther away."
Then he had to reverse the whole process, just to stand up. He finally gets on his feet, shakes it off. "Oh, I'll be back later."
He takes off running and there she sits. “Well, he didn't say goodbye to me.” As time goes on, you can see there are differences. Numerous differences mingled with so many things in common. The question, should they have ever gotten married?
Is It Already Over For These Lovers?
When I ask this to my college classes. I get about a third of the class saying they should never have done that and the rest is yes, they should, they just need marriage counseling. What do you think? In any marriage, there are differences. In any relationship! We look for similarities as were dating. What are our cultural similarities, religious similarities and or differences, money, thoughts, and ways? What's the age difference? How tall or short are we? What's our size? What species are we? Just kidding. What is it that we have? How are we on the same page, and how are we on the opposite page? The ways that we can learn to work on a relationship is, first of all, accepting differences. That's number one. I've got four steps here.
How To Work on Your Relationship
Step One: Accepting Differences
Your differences can be many and your similarities many. Let me tell you, it's not just about what you have in common. I had a couple who had nothing apparent in common yet, when she'd go hike, he would call her at the summit. He would help her stash water for her long distance runs. She would support him in playing football, basketball, or whatever his sports were, and bring in popcorn and beer. She accepted his differences. That's number one. Probably the biggest thing. Number two, care. Do you care? If the bunny really cares about the horse, and the horse really cares about the bunny, they're going to stop mind reading. He needs to get up and out and about. He doesn't like to snuggle in the morning. He doesn't like to lay down because the hassle. The next night, of course, when the story continues, he comes home from his doing his horse thing and she's ready to go to bed and she'll say, "Well, aren't we going to snuggle?” He goes, “I ain't doing that again!”
Isn't that what happens in a relationship? “Wait, you think every morning I was going to go to work. I went to work for a week. I'm not working anymore.” “You thought that I was going to make your food. That was just when we're dating, I'm not making your food.” Do you care? If you care, you might still make a breakfast or you might still send a little note when he’s out doing his man/horse thing. Do you care?
Step Two: Care and Communication
How big is the word communication? As many stars in the sky is how many times I could talk about/teach about/PREACH ABOUT communication. Trust me, I'll be pouring them out. What I have right now, just basically to tell you today about communication is to focus on the good. Focus on your love language.
I love The Five Love Languages book! Gary Chapman is the best! I strongly suggest you give it a read. The importance of quality time in a relationship is something else to work on. Recognize that when you're together your phones are in the garage, and if you do that one thing, you put your phones in the garage, when you have quality time, you will not believe how much better a horse and a bunny can get along. Look for qualities of a good relationship you've seen, and model them. Don't expect your partner to do it, you do it.
You don't have any ability to change them, but you have the ability to change you. You pull in the qualities of a good relationship. Are you begging for attention in a relationship? Well, stop it. Get your own life and be a cool person. Be the cool girl, be the cool guy. Be the person that they are going to want to be with. Be the cool person that you want to hang out with all the time! That's how not to be needy, you get cooler.
Number one is differences, two care, and communication.
Step Three: Get Your Poops in a Group
Get your turds in a hurd! In other words, get your shit together. Getting your life together so that you're not putting your mucky-muck on them. Now, if the Horse is normally a horse and the bunnies normally bunny, that's not crap. That's just who I am. But if the bunny has to go dig a hole and put little weird things in it, that takes time away from them being together.
This Is The Secret How To Not Be Needy!
Not getting your stuff all over the other person is so important. Financial, weight, addictions, …. Get your crap together. All the way together. That's how you're going to absolutely enhance how to make a relationship work, focusing on yourself. Understand that communication is just one thing and one way to make your relationship work or getting your act together is different.
Step Four: Core Intent
Number four is core intent. Getting that together. A core intent is a reason I operate. I operate my whole life out of love or I operate my whole life at a core level out of resentment fear or happiness.I operate my entire life out of service. My whole life is operated by how I can get away from pain. I operate my life with how I can make relationships or how I can hide.
If a horse and a bunny have the same core intent that is positive, they can get along. Our core is to create and to make the forest more beautiful. Our core is to have friends, more friends in the forest. Our intent is to serve those in the forest. Our intent is to plant and to grow things. What's your intent? Are you operating out of fear? Are you operating at getting away from pain? How that shows up after your intent is not going to go together with the other person even if they're the same species?
What's your core intent
Find out yours. Have a chat with your partners. Say, “I just listened to this really cool podcast and I'm wondering what are our cores? What's your core? What do you think it is?”
Let me tell you how to find your core intent.
When you're brushing your teeth or you’re in the shower and you're in this mindless state, you're not thinking of anything. You'll be kind of asking a core question like, “How can I succeed? How can I be good enough? How can I get away from that? How can I survive? How can I love?” That's how you seek out your core. When you've discovered your core and you know his/her core, you can shift and change. If your SO’s is a negative and yours is positive, you can do what you can to accept and honor and compliment your partner. “I love how little your nose is, little bunny. I love how you've got those cute little jumping bunny legs in the back. They're as long as my horse legs. They like to tap and the thumping!?” I love how you this or that. That can shift each other's core intent at a deep level.
Can you live without her?
That's how you know whether you want to marry a horse and a bunny together. Do you want to, or can you live without him? What do you need to live with her? Follow these steps when you care and communicate, when you get your crap together, and accept differences, and understand your intent. Then you can begin to enjoy each other, just the way they are.
Then you know what happens? You then live happily ever after.
Thanks for listening. We'll be in touch and talk soon!
