While on our Caribbean cruise, we attended a “seminar at sea”. Meaning that every day we were at sea, we were in the seminar.
As much as I missed being poolside sipping a Pina Colada, the information and profound insights gained at this seminar more than made up for it.
The seminar was called “Creating Divine Partnerships” and it was created to help any kind of business or personal partnerships. There is so much juicy stuff to share that I think I will give you a summary of some of the most meaningful points to me and then delve more into some of the topics in future articles.
Warning: These concepts may sound simple, but they are profound and not easy to apply. We’ll start with a couple of the fundamental teachings.
- We are not 6 billion people living in one world. We are one people living in 6 billion worlds. I like this reframe because it reminds me that 1) we are all connected and 2) there is no way we can know what is going on with someone else until we are willing to step into “their world.”
- The purpose of life is evolution. Everything evolves or becomes extinct. The Universe insists that we evolve and it doesn’t care how. If we prefer the status quo (“No thanks, growing is too painful, I’ll just stay here where it’s safe and comfortable.”), the Universe will create some kind of chaos to wake you up. Divorce, health problems, losing a job, or even the death of a loved one, are all opportunities for us to evolve.
- A happy relationship takes courage and curiosity. Courage to step into your partner’s world and curiosity to stay open as to what you may learn. We all have our own “worlds” and we’re so sure ours is correct. We can’t even fathom sometimes why our partner sees something the way they do. It reminds me of what Dr. Phil always says, “You can be right, or you can be happy.” Courage + curiosity = happy.
- So if that’s the formula for happiness, do you know the recipe for misery? Expectations and conclusions! The moment we start to have expectations of another human being (that usually show up like hard and fast rules, lots of “should’s”) we will experience disappointment. Why? Because they’re human. And they do things for their reasons – not ours. Then we come up with stories (conclusions) as to why we feel disappointed. (He’s not the one for me. She doesn’t really care about me. He’s selfish. She’s needy. And on and on…)
- A real challenge is that all of us have two partners/spouses. The one we’re married to and the one in our heads. Our “ideal” spouse we’ve been with since we were old enough to start dreaming about “the one”. Our “real” spouse is that unfortunate person next to you trying to compete with your ideal (talk about built-in disappointment!). Every marriage ends in divorce. You either divorce your ideal and stick with your real partner. Or you divorce your real partner and stick with your ideal.
- Women, as naturally emotional and hormonal creatures (might as well stop denying it!), need one thing from men when we are in the middle of our “storm”. We need them to stand next to us with no fear and no judgment. And this is asking A LOT! You see, when we are “storming”, the safest place for a man is to be as far from it as possible. That is why men typically retreat. Yet this just makes women angrier! If a man can be courageous and step into the eye of the hurricane, most women’s storm, most of the time, completely dissipates.
- What do men need from women? Validation. Respect. And let’s face it, while we women may be good at this early on in a relationship, we do tend to stop finding reasons to praise our men after awhile. (“Praise him? I made him!”) The number one reason men cheat on their partners is because they are desperate for the praise and admiration they once got from their partner. And the number one reason women cheat? Because they find someone they think will give them the emotional support they once got from their partner. Yup, cheating is not about sex most of the time.
There is so much more I could share. As you can see, this seminar was jam-packed with crucial information for happy partnerships. If you’re interested in attending one of these seminars, our trainers Greg & Tamara Montana (pictured right) will be hosting other seminars at sea. Here is their website: http://www.heartvirtue.com/
