Clean energy relationships

11-17-20

How green is yours?

Let’s consider for a moment, your “carbon footprint” in the context of your interactions with your partner. How balanced is the ratio between what you extract from the relational ecosystem and what you preserve/protect/restore?  What is the premise that guides your behavior—does the relationship exist primarily to serve your needs and/or increase your comfort level at some cost to those near you? 

No one I know would answer yes to that, but if we’re honest, that’s exactly how we often act in our relationships. Something happens that challenges how we want things to be and we feel unbalanced and vulnerable, and then we set out to make our partners align with our position and ease our discomfort. 

Rather than seeking alignment, a healthy alternative is to seek understanding—first internally and then externally.  Pause to examine your tender spot and consider how you might respond if you were to offer care from the inside.  Then if appropriate, share what you’ve learned with your partner so that they have the data needed to inform their next actions. By first acting “locally”, you end up needing less from your partner. This becomes an act of relational conservation that saves reserves of time, energy and good will that are needed for bigger issues. 

So what constitutes “clean energy relationships”?  Below is a short list of recommended practices—day-to-day choices that are really good for the relational environment:

·      Recognize that you’re part of a relational ecosystem and that every behavior affects its vitality 

·      Limit your partner’s energy usage by managing your own emotions  

·      Reduce toxic emissions by a substantial percentage

·      Replace what you use in time, energy and good will

·      Repurpose “what’s in it for me?” with “what’s good for this relationship?”

Go green and feel the difference.