Improving your relationships-Making a change
Maintaining good relationships with family and friends gives you emotional support and makes you feel more positive, thus reducing stress levels and engendering calm. All relationships need to be worked at, so that everyone feels valued and loved.
Improving your relationships
Learn to listen to what others have to say and in return thaey will respond to you. Practice kindness, tolerance, foegiveness, and trust. Confide in your friends or family, and tell them how you are felling.
Friends
For many people in the Western world, it is friends rather than family who provide emotional support, and just as we sometimes do with family members, we often take friends for granted. It is important to make time to show your appreciation for your friends, and to reflect upon the benefits they bring.
Partners
Successful adult partnerships provide support, security, and fulfillment, and physical and emotional communication is essential for a stress-free relationship. To make the most of your partnership, it is vital to take time to be with each other. To promote intimacy in your relationship, try thr following:
- Establish the mood by lighting candles and playing soft relaxing music.
- Add aphrodisiac essential oils such as ylang ylang or jasmine to a massage oil, and give each other a sensual, soothing massage.
- Add essential oils to a warm bath, or burn in a vaporizer in the bedroom to give it a sensual scent.
- Take a relaxing bath together.
- Talk about the good things in your life, and plans for the future.
!When spending time with your partner, burning aromatic candles can be a perfect way to create an intimate atmosphere.
Discussion
Relationships are much more open and fulfilling if you are honest with each other about your problems and nedds. But you still need to maintain a degree of tact and try to avoid hurtful statements and actions.
- Set aside a tome for discussion, but reschedule if either of you is tired, stressed, or has had too much to drink.
- Think carefully about what you want to say beforehand-jot down a list of points you want to discuss.
- Try to be positive rather than focusing on the negative aspects of a situation.
- Don't hold your discussions in the bedroom, especially just before you are going to sleep, and avoid using a room where you would usually relax-you may even prefer to go for a walk, away from the home.
- Once you have reached an agreed conclusion, reaffirm your love for each other.
Children
Childrem are physically, emotionally, and financially draining. However, they are also an endless source of pleasure and inconditional love, and they grow up all too quickly.
!Take time to enjoy your children; play with them, and their enthusiasm and vitality will rub off on you.
Bereavement
The death of a loved one is a source of profound stress. Grief increases your susceptibility to illness and diminishes your ability to cope. Grieving is a process that passes through various stages, including shock, denial, anger, and finally acceptance. Expressing your emotions will prevent you from becoming overwhelmed by grief.
!When grieving, don't bottle up your emotions-this will only prolong the pain and could lead to mental health problems.