How To Use Science To Understand Your Relationship
Do you find that a lot of your conversations with friends turn to dating advice? As a life coach, more often than not, I find many of my one-to-one social liaisons with friends or acquaintances veer to dating discussions (read that as dating coaching conversations or seeking dating advice from a life coach).
Either how to attract ‘Mr or Miss Right’, or that someone is unhappy in a relationship (where the chemistry has started to waver), which is subsequently having a negative impact on other areas of his or her life.
The principles of attracting ‘Mr or Miss Right’ I’ll leave for another article. It’s the second one that I find intriguing and the one that can create a fair bit of turmoil. What may have started out as a light-hearted conversation, can so easily end up with the other person in a negative emotional state.
People often read quotes like the following:
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” — Jim Rohn
“You have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others.” — Dr Phil
With the thinking being, that to better themselves in areas of their lives they need to rid themselves of that ‘bad’ relationship and focus solely on themselves.
Because I’m a life coach, they want me to validate their decision. Which isn’t going to happen! Fortunately, life is not so straight forward. Because if it was, there wouldn’t be successful relationships, marriages or business partnerships.
With our digital ‘always on’ world where we are being bombarded by positivity messages and affirmations about self-love and looking after ‘number one’, I believe people are mistakenly getting validation for the ‘easy out’. Relationships are not easy — they take hard work to succeed.
“Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other.” — Walter Elliot
Yes, it’s important to ensure you look after yourself and to be in a position of strength. But being in this position of strength should be about helping others that may not be as strong as you.
One thing I always do with people when they’re about to take the decision to end a relationship is to take them back to the time they first met. To try and remember the qualities that they both had in each other that first lead to that attraction.
Reminding them that relationships aren’t about achieving an end goal, but rather the accomplishment of successes along life’s journey.
“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.” — Henry Ford
For anyone going through a difficult period, I always like to describe relationships like the double helix of a strand of DNA.
Taking the 2 strands of the DNA backbone as the two individuals, where they originally intersect is akin to when a relationship with 2 individuals starts. As the relationship moves along, one or both of the partners grow and start moving apart (much like the helix).
The connecting lines (the nucleotide base pairs) are the experiences they each share. The strength of these are what draw the individuals back together again, and so the cycle repeats. Growth and the coming back together. Much like heating DNA can weaken the bonds between the nucleotide base pairs leading to separation of the strand, heated arguments can drive relationships apart. So it’s important to keep your cool and keep those bonds strong.
It’s all about the growth of the individual within the relationship, but also the support required from each other and the coming back together with the strongly shared experiences.
Simplistic I know, but who can argue with science.
“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” — Mignon McLaughlin
The quote is apt not only for a marriage but the beginnings of relationships also. If you are struggling in a relationship, think about it in this way or as a DNA strand to see if it can help.
Dr Rakish Rana is a warm and caring executive life coach who transforms you to become the best version of yourself, by instilling confidence & self-belief and focussing on general well-being.
