• Want relationship problem advice and tips? Look no further!
• Your relationships are a great source of personal development
• Discover the most important thing about your relationships
• Learn what the 3 most important relationships in your life are
• Get your Keys to Relationships - a help in ALL your
relationships!
• Read the answers to the most common relationship problems
• Go to overview of all the pages about relationships.
Relationship
Problem Advice
- About What?
Well, here you'll
get relationship problem advice about almost anything and
everything that has to do with you and others:
Your relationship to your family, your love
partner, your friends, your boss, your colleagues, your pets
... and just as importantly, your relationship to yourself and
to life itself.
Relationship Challenges Are
Golden Opportunities
In short, relationships are
one of the greatest opportunities - perhaps even the greatest
opportunity - for spiritual development, personal development,
self improvement and self actualization in human life.
Consequently, our relationships are also the
potentially most challenging part of our lives.
What the Relationship Problem
Advice Here Is Based On
This page will provide
you with lots of new relationship tips and relationship
problem advice - primarily based on three things:
1) My own practice and experience as a coach,
consciousness guide, self help author and personal development
teacher.
2) The (experience based) perspective that you,
I and life itself are a unified whole.
3) My coherent
empowerment
theory(on the
cutting edge of personal development, coaching, motivation and
spirituality) that I have developed in the recent years, based
on 1) and 2) above.
But first, let's just briefly look at this:
What Is a Relationship?
A relationship is a state of connectedness you have with
someone or something. When you deal more than a little with
the person(s) or object(s), you develop some kind of
relationship.
You can have a relationship with or to anything
and anyone, including yourself and life in general.
With a relationship being simply a state of
connectedness you have with someone or something from a
person, to an animal, to a place, to a pair of shoes, we need
a term that involves humans only (including your relationship
to yourself). That term is: interpersonal relationship.
The Focus of This Page
Interpersonal relationships - relationships between people -
are the kinds of relationships that this page and the underlying
relationship articles primarily focus on.
Your relationship to life itself (life esteem
and philosophy/beliefs) and your relationship to yourself (
self
esteem and self
identity/self concept) plus your relationships to your pet
lizard, potted plant or things like
money
and material possessions are
covered elsewhere on this website. If they aren't yet, in time
they will be.
And with regard to spirituality, self
improvement, self help, self actualization and all that? Well,
interpersonal relationships - your relationship to your love
partner, for example - are one of the greatest sources of
personal development there is! And that goes both when
making
love and sexis
involved and when it isn't.
Navigating This Page
I strongly recommend that you read everything on this page
(Relationship Problem Advice: All You Need to Know ...),
because as the name suggests there's some powerful
relationships information on it!
But, if you so desire, you can in fact jump
directly to the section that deals with
Common
Relationship Problems & Challenges. (Please note that most
of those aren't up yet - so, you can read about them (and get
important relationship problem advice) but you can't read the
full relationship article yet).
Also, you can jump directly to the brief
definitions, called
Different
Types of Relationships. They will help you navigate, too,
if you're looking for info on a specific kind of relationship.
(Please note that the same thing as mentioned in the paragraph
above is true of some of these articles. They aren't up yet,
so you can read about them, but no more than that - just yet).
And now, let's dig into the powerful
relationships information.
Your Keys to
Relationships: An Overview
How do you build
a good relationship to someone? What's important? I actually
have a very precise answer for you. It takes the form of a
dozen concepts that you can focus on - I call them Your Keys
to Relationships ...
Your Keys to Relationships
•
Intention(Choice
/ Courage / Free Will / Will Power / Dedication)
•
Trust(Relaxing
in the Knowledge that All Is and Will Be Okay)
•
Openness(Being
Open Towards Yourself, Others and Life)
•
Focus Inwards(Being
Centred in Yourself / Living from the Inside Out)
•
Love(Using
Your Heart / Always Choosing Love)
•
Acceptance(Saying
Yes / The Art of Allowing / Forgiving / Letting Go)
•
Attention(Consciousness
/ Awareness / Presence)
•
Self
responsibility(Taking
Charge / Not Being a Victim / Being Reliable)
•
Authenticity(Being
Who You Are and Showing It / Honesty)
•
Self Knowledge(Understanding
Yourself, Others and Life)
•
Common Ground(Shared
Interest)
•
Playfulness(Humour
/ Fun / Adventure / Exploration / Learning)
When you have problems and challenges in your
relationships, they can almost always be boiled down to one or
more of the above things, i.e. to you not using one of your
keys to relationships.
And conversely, when you do use those
relationship keys, you actually improve all your relationships
at once.
Perhaps you've noticed that these keys are the
same keys that you use to build up
a
mature love relationship based
on unconditional love. Well, those relationship keys work in
pretty much any and all of your relationships - from love
relationships, to family relationships, to friendships,
to business relationships. They even work in your
relationships to animals, objects, decisions, actions,
situations and life itself.
I'm not going to go into detail about each of
the relationship keys here, but coming up is an article that
provides an easy walk through of your keys to relationships, and pretty soon after that (on this website) you will
be able to buy a minibook or an e-book that tells you all you
need to know about them.
When to Add Logic to the
Relationship Keys
In short: Whenever you are in
a relationship the relationship keys will work for you. There
is one thing to remember, though:
Those keys are based on
love.
There are situations where almost no love is present: when you
are dealing with a machine or an organization or a psychopath,
for instance. (This includes your dealings with your boss, if
you have one, because your boss may be a really nice person,
but he or she is still an agent, acting on behalf of a pretty
loveless organization).
In those instances
where
almost no love is present, the relationship keys still work,
but you will want to add simple, cold logic to your dealings.
That's all. Just add logic. Or, if you prefer
another term: Common sense. And hey, you would do that anyway,
right?
What Works and What Doesn't
As in all walks of life some things just work while other
things just do not. When it comes to relationships ...
Knowing yourself and choosing to focus inwards
with love as your governing principle, staying open,
accepting, authentic and attentive, trusting all parts of
yourself and life completely and taking total responsibility
for your experience while keeping a relaxed, playful attitude
- that works.
Doing anything other than that - well, that
doesn't really work. But we all do it anyway.
You Have Been Indoctrinated
with Misunderstandings
So-called conventional
'wisdom' regarding relationships really isn't. Isn't wisdom,
that is.
Most of us have been taught, during our
formative years, to focus on the outside world, to let fear
guide us, to be distrustful, guarded, judgemental, serious and
closed off, and to leave the responsibility for our experience
to others (i.e. to feel like victims and blame others). Not
out of malevolence on the part of our parents, teachers, role
models and peers, but rather out of ignorance and
non-consciousness.
This kind of indoctrination will make what is
presented on these pages very hard to swallow. And it will
also make it very easy to misunderstand the information. I
know, because I have spent years unlearning what I had been
taught and after that I have presented this relationships
information to quite a lot of people over the years.
Give Yourself a Chance to
Assimilate the Info
Fully understanding the
relationships information presented here is a process. It
takes effort and time - simply because we have all been so
thoroughly misinformed from the beginning.
What I present here is going to seem upside
down and perhaps even threatening, dangerous or impossible to
do. It isn't. It is simply different from what you have been
taught to believe.
And what I present here works, because not only
do I live accordingly myself (with great success), but as a
coach and consciousness guide I have also used the information
to help a lot of people. The information is correct - in the
sense that it actually works. If you understand it and let it
guide you, it WILL improve your relationships.
So, please, take your time and read what I
write very carefully - I have weighed my words meticulously.
Relationships: The Most
Important Thing to Remember
Probably the most
important thing to remember about your relationships is this:
As you deal with other people (and life
itself), you deal with yourself.
Any reaction you have to other people or to
life itself is merely a reflection of your relationship with
yourself.
ExamplesDo your parents make
you mad? Then they are displaying or touching upon something
that you are not yet clear about inside yourself. If you had
been clear about it you would not need the anger.
Do you feel sad - or jealous - every time your
love partner says or does certain things? Then look inside
yourself to find the reason - and the solution. There is
something inside you that's not clear, and when you clear it,
your unpleasant feelings go away because they are no longer
necessary.
Do you feel nothing but love towards someone
(even if that someone is a pet, like a dog)? Then that's
because this person (or pet) does not remind you of unresolved
things inside yourself, and this enables you to feel the one
emotion that is left, when everything else is cleared away:
unconditional love.
Look InsideWhen you
experience unpleasant emotions in dealing with life and other
people the reason - and the solution - is to be found inside
yourself. Always.
In other words: When you have an interpersonal
relationship to someone you are in actuality first and
foremost dealing with yourself.
They're YOUR Feelings, Thoughts and
ReactionsThe feelings and thoughts that arise
inside you when you have an interpersonal relationship with
someone are YOUR feelings and thoughts.
All your reactions are just that: YOUR
reactions.
Why is that important? Because ...
a) It means that your reactions have nothing to
do with the outside world
and
b) since it is happening
inside you, then YOU are in charge!
Yes, YOU Are In ChargeNo
matter who or what you are having a relationship with you, and
only you, are in charge of your entire experience. You
will be able to read more about that on the page
Empowerment
Theory .
The 3 Most Important
Relationships in Your Life
The three most
important relationships in your life are these:
a) Your relationship to yourself
b) Your relationship to life in general
c) Your relationship to other people (and
animals and objects)
These three kinds of relationships cover
everything, and they are interconnected; they strongly affect
each other.
Furthermore c) above is actually a subset (a
function) of a) and b).
So, please do not forget this: Your
relationship to yourself and your relationship to life itself
are definitely the two most important relationships in your
life.
But we can get more specific than that, of
course.
Here are a number of different
types of relationships that you can have - and links to the
pages where the subjects are discussed (or will be, when the
pages are put up on the website).
Your relationship to your own sense of worth or
value is called
self
esteem.
Your relationship to your own sense of skill is
called self confidence .
Your relationship to life itself could be
called life esteem - or simply: trust in life
A friendship is what you get when you
take your relationship with someone to a more personal level
and add things like mutual: understanding, respect, honesty,
loyalty, trust, support, sympathy and empathy.
Intimate relationships occur when you
add emotional and/or physical intimacy to your interpersonal
relationships, including friendships.
A
sexual relationship
occurs when the
physical intimacy is of a sexual nature.
A love relationship is what you have
when both of you take your interpersonal relationship or
friendship with the other to an even deeper level and involve
a feeling of
love.
All these kinds of relationships can be mixed.
Also, you can (and probably will) redefine your
relation with someone (including yourself and life itself) as
time goes by.
Remember, basically
all your relationship problems and challenges boil down to the
subjects covered by
your
keys to relationships. So if something in your
relationships isn't working, those are the main areas to check
out.
What follows are some very common problems
people have with their relationships. With time each one will
be discussed in depth in its own article on this website, but
right now it is just a few of them that are online. As for the
rest, well, at least you can see a bit about what's going to
come ...
Women and men don't think the same way. Have you noticed? Men,
for the most part, don't really 'get' women. Like them, oh
yes! Understand them, oh no.
Since I have spent years getting in touch with
and integrating my feminine sides I thought it a good idea to
write a self improvement article for men on how women think
and how to understand women (understanding girls).
So if you're a man and you want to learn the
secrets of understanding women (or, you're a woman curious as
to whether a man 'get' your gender) you can read my advice in
love relationship (relationship advice for men):
Understanding
Women: Learn the Secrets of How Women Think.
Many healthy
relationships (but not all) follow a certain, predictable
pattern of courtship, falling in love, 'honeymooning', waking
up to reality (disillusionment), etc. By knowing and
understanding this pattern you give yourself a better chance
of being able to deal with each stage as it happens for you
and your partner.
The first and most important
person to befriend is ... yourself. Your friendships to other
people are very dependent on you being good friends with
yourself, for your relationship to yourself forms the basis of
all your other relationships.
Unsurprisingly the keys here are ...your
keys to relationships. Your ability to be
authentically yourself, to fulfil your own needs, and to
be trusting and loving, for example, are likely to enhance
your friendships greatly.
Also, some specific pages about friendship are planned for this website - but here and now I can't
tell you when they will be up.
All of your
keys to relationships apply
here. Common ground, honesty, openness, acceptance, love and
trust are probably the most important ones ...
Humor is nearly always appreciated, so using icebreaker questions
that have an element of fun attached to them, or that are a little
but "quirky" can also be very successful; something like "Apart from
meeting me, have you got any other good things going on in your life
right now?"
Seriously, generally speaking we all know the boundaries of
our relationships, which buttons to press, what things to say and
what things not to say. It's all part of forging a great
relationship, and both partners will give a little latitude.
If you are looking to strike up new friendships, then is it very important to
use the right get to know you questions. By doing so, you can find out a lot
about the person you are talking to in a short space of time, and you can
discern whether or not they are the right sort of person to make a new
friendship with.
Is there a difference in age
between you and your (prospective) partner? 10 years? 15? 25?
Don't worry, it doesn't have to be a problem. It really
doesn't. There are, however, certain things to consider and
get clear about.
Jealousy has to do with
your needs plus things that stem back to your early childhood
- but it affects you and your partner today. When this link
gets up and running, it will take you to a relationship
article which explains the nature and background (the cause of
jealousy) of the strange and frightening emotion of jealousy -
plus how to deal with jealousy: How not to be jealous.
Want to know about getting over a relationship and surviving a
breakup? Get relationship break up advice and break up tips
for dealing with a break up and moving on after a breakup!
Visit the self improvement article Relationship
Break Up Advice.
Some people jump into a new
relationship very quickly after emerging from a serious
relationship. Some folks even do so BEFORE they've actually
ended the previous relationship - they actually use the new
relationship as a way to break up the old one.
Such new relationships are often called rebound
relationships - and if you're the one hooking up with the
person coming out of a serious relationship then you're the
rebound girl or rebound guy.
Common belief holds that rebound relationships
don't last long and in many cases there is probably some truth
to that. For one thing the person leaving the serious
relationship may not be over it yet (unresolved problems,
emotional neediness, etc.), and for another he or she may be
using you (the rebound guy / rebound girl) to break up the old
relationship, which is not exactly a mature way of doing it.
While there is nothing wrong with jumping
straight from one relationship to another, the key ingredients
are openness, honesty and communication. Its okay to be the
rebound girl or rebound guy if you KNOW that that's what you
are, simply because it gives you a chance to adjust your
expectations.
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