Creating Happy Relationships

Recently, I jokingly referenced the film “Jerry McGuire” in a post on Facebook, saying that my husband – the lovely Martin – “completes” me.

Although it was tongue in cheek, it’s true – I know that together we form a whole that is bigger than the two of us as individuals. Together we have a solid foundation that is a complete joy. But the key to that togetherness is that we are also individually whole and that’s not always been true for me.

The lovely Martin

Before I met “the lovely Martin”, I’d been on my own for many years. On the surface all was well with my life – it was good, maybe even great. I loved my work, my son (Joe), who I’d raised on my own, was happy and healthy, we had a comfortable home and a varied social life with friends and family. I was a strong, independent woman with a busy life, and popular with it.

After a diagnosis of breast cancer in 2012, part of my healing was to understand myself better.

This exploration included Reiki, mindfulness, naturopathy, cycling, travelling, yoga, hill-walking, journey-work, body-wisdom therapy, retreats and more, bringing me to a place of accepting myself as I am and as I’m not!

From this I also came to acknowledge that I wanted to be in a loving, intimate relationship with the man of my dreams, but I’d never thought I was good enough to achieve this, until this point. In time, this acknowledgement brought “the lovely Martin” into my life.

As I pondered on this, in the context of our March theme of Happy Relationships, I realised that the most important thing, to help us build happy relationships with others, is to first build a happy relationship with ourselves.

How do we do that?

The answer is simple – we do it in much the same way we create happy relationships with others.

In the chapter on Happy Relationships in our Fresh Air Fridays book “Simple Life Changing Ideas“, we suggest a few strategies to help us when we feel upset with other people and the same ideas can be applied to ourselves too.

Noticing our thoughts and emotions, as well as the things that trigger our internal upset, helps to bring awareness and acceptance of ourselves, just as we are. Read some of our other blogs on this theme.

I know I’m not perfect but creating a happy relationship with myself – one based on openness, trust and acceptance – has given me a much better chance to create the same kinds of relationships with everyone in my life.