💕😁Find Your Relationship Happiness😁💕

This holiday is often voted the “most hated” on social media. If you are alone (and don’t want to be) the day can be really difficult. If you detest Valentine’s Day but care about your relationships, this post is for you.

While many people think of mindfulness as sitting alone, silently, it is enormously helpful in relationships. In the practice of mindfulness meditation,  we are taught to get curious about our experiences and to gently “turn toward” them. This is done starting with something small, such as an itch or a pain, and then progressing to something larger, such as an upsetting memory, or a charged emotion, or even heartbreak.

Here are some  relationship “hacks” to help you not just on this holiday, but every day.

Try Turning Toward

When one person tries to connect with another, there are basically three responses that we can have:

1. Turning toward is a positive response when we engage with the attempt to connect.

2. Turning away is giving no response, either ignoring or not noticing the effort to connect.

3. Turning against is an angry or irritable reaction that shuts down an attempt to connect.

Turning toward is the biggest predictor of happiness in relationships. Couples who stayed together turned toward their partner’s effort to connect 86 percent of the time. Those who later divorced only turned toward the bids 33 percent of the time. These moments of turning toward the other accumulate over time, creating goodwill and helping mediate future conflict. Think of it as making a deposit in an emotional bank account.

Like meditation, it involves practice. Turning toward another is not a one-shot deal, but a daily exercise in actively paying attention.  Small, daily acts can determine the quality of a relationship. If we train our minds to attend to the needs of another, just as we train to return to the breath, sounds, or the sensations of the body, we can increase the chances for a fulfilling relationship.

Gratitude Makes a Difference

Gratitude is a game-changer. Nearly all the meditation teachers I have studied with suggest noting what you are grateful for during your day. Research shows it can help us focus on what is positive in life. However, in an intimate relationship, writing things down in a private journal isn’t enough; you need to actively express thanks. This may seem like a no-brainer that you learned in nursery school, but our psyches are complicated. Because the brain is often on autopilot (or stuck in past hurts) we don’t see clearly. Often, we don’t see it when others are kind to us. Really. The research shows that couples who were unhappy missed 50 percent of the positive things the other partner did. It wasn’t that the happy folks were doing more nice things, they were better at seeing them.

It’s important to have some self-compassion here. Don’t beat yourself up for not seeing.