8 Ways to Strengthen Your Relationship
:: By Heather Prouty
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Love is perhaps our most powerful emotion, and the need to be in a loving relationship may be one of the strongest needs we have. Being in an intimate relationship makes us feel connected, not only to our partner, but also to the world at large. When our hearts are filled with love, we feel profoundly content and satisfied. We become more patient, more empathetic, kinder, gentler.

But personal intimacy doesn't merely effect our emotional well-being. According to numerous scientific studies, the power of love directly affects our physical health, too, by boosting our immune system, improving our cardiovascular functioning, and increasing our life expectancy. "Love and intimacy are at the root of what makes us sick and what makes us well," says Dean Ornish, M.D., who explores the connections between love and health in his book Love & Survival (HarperCollins). "When you look at the scientific data, the need for love and intimacy is as important and basic as eating, breathing, and sleeping."

On Valentine's Day, we celebrate our love for each other over candlelit dinners or through exchanges of chocolates, flowers, and slinky lingerie. But a box of bon-bons only lasts so long. Experts agree that the key to a vitalized, long-lasting relationship is what you and your partner do the other 364 days of the year. Indeed, keeping your love alive requires continual time and effort. Following are eight steps you can take to keep the flame burning.

1. Be Friends

Any healthy relationship must be based on a solid underlying friendship. Remember to treat your partner with the same kindness, respect, and appreciation as you would a close friend. Support, listen to, and laugh with each other. Don't allow yourselves to be rude or disrespectful.

2. Stay Connected

"Couples need to spend a lot of time with each other," advises David Kaplan, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Counselor Education and Rehabilitation programs at Emporia State University in Emporia, Kansas. "There is no substitute for quantity of time." Kaplan encourages couples to take a half-day a week to go out on a date. In addition, devote at least 15 minutes of your day to meaningful, one-on-one conversation-no television or kids allowed.

3. Get Physical

Physical intimacy is a natural, and healthy, extension of a relationship. Our best sexual intentions are often put to rest, however, as we collapse into an exhausted heap at the end of the day. Instead, you and your partner need to consciously commit to turning up the heat. Leave the dishes in the sink, turn the laptop off, and just do it! Set the mood with the sensual music, and light some calming aromatherapy candles or incense. Learn to communicate your loving energy through touch.

4. Celebrate Each Other

Saying something kind and affectionate to your partner should be a daily habit. The expression of loving thoughts nourishes your relationship by helping you both remember what it is you treasure about each other. Let your partner know how much you appreciate him or her, and be generous with compliments and expressions of affection.

5. Fight Well

Since disagreements and arguments are inevitable, what's important is not whether you fight but how you fight. When disagreements surface, keep them short. "No more than 10 minutes," says Kaplan. "After 10 minutes, it gets nasty and repetitive." Also, keep boundaries on the subject matter. Don't dredge up issues from last week or last month-keep you dispute focused on the matter at hand.

6. Take a Class

Feeling like your relationship could benefit from professional advice? Why not take a class on communications skills, attend a seminar on loving kindness, or read a book on relationship-building together? Your efforts will likely spark important discussions about your relationship and, ultimately, enhance it. A good starting point is Phillip McGraw, Ph.D.'s straight-talking tome Relationship Rescue (Hyperion, 2000).

7. Listen Carefully

Being an attentive listener lets your partner know that his or her thoughts and feelings are important to you. Moreover, good listening encourages partners "to open up and be willing to share," say Richard and Kristine Carlson, authors of Don't Sweat the Small Things in Love (Hyperion, 1999). The secret, say the Carlsons, is not just to "hear" what your partner is saying, but to be truly "present," having a heartfelt desire to understand what is being said and listening without being judgmental.

8. Maintain Your Sense of Self

Partners must learn to balance their needs as individuals with their needs as a couple. "On one hand, you don't want people to be too far apart emotionally. If you don't spend time together, you become disengaged emotionally," says Kaplan. "The other end of the spectrum is couples that become too dependent on each other and their individual identity gets lost." Ideally, the two of you should be close enough to have intimacy, yet "far enough away to have individual identity," says Kaplan. Don't be afraid to develop some friendships and interests separate from your partner.

(End of article.)

Source: This is an article from the GAIAM Community

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How To Feed The Hungry Heart

By Dr. Brenda Shoshanna

Greetings!
As we prepare for the holidays and welcome spring, we find ourselves in a season where we can pass through hard places and allow the best in ourselves to come to life. This is a good time to look at all the ways we can open up, become available and rejoice in the gifts we have been given. As the days become warmer, as spring flowers begin to stir, we too can break through the coldness of winter and give ourselves and others a chance to bloom.

Happy holidays to all!

This article is dedicated to those who wish to learn he simple laws of love and how to practice them in all their relationships. Combining eastern and western wisdom, we discover easy, enjoyable steps to take which help make our relationships all we want them to be and allow us to live life to the brim.

How To Feed The Hungry Heart
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Most of us live our lives hungry - hungry for love, attention, praise, success. But no matter how much we take in, it’s hard to be satisfied. The pleasure lasts for a little while and then before long we’re craving more. It is easy to spend each day waiting for tomorrow when we will get what we dream of, arrive at our goal, find a new job, have good weather, or finally, magically, meet the love of our life. Then things will be better. Right?

Wrong. When tomorrow comes it’s another day, just like this one. Unless we know what this day is, and how to live it fully and truly, the joy we dream of never comes. Or if the joy and success does come, it lasts a few moments and then leaves us oddly insecure.

After getting what we have wanted or worked for, for a long time, there can be a strange emptiness. Is this all there is, many ask? Others become afraid to lose what they have found – and start grasping it tightly. Others just want more, greed arises, hunger, addiction. In Zen it’s called being a hungry ghost- someone at a banquet who eats and eats, but is still unable to taste the food, feel full or be nourished by it.

The good news is that there are ways to live which allow us to eat, digest and be nourished all that comes to us. Many have no idea how to do this. They become so driven chasing the elusive golden ring on the endless merry go round, they lose the fun of the ride. They may not have even realized the ride is over, the sun has gone down and it’s time to go home. Some have even forgotten where home is.

Zen practice is about stopping the merry go round of our minds and heart. We take our attention off the prizes we think are waiting for us, somewhere else, someday, if we were only good enough. We take our attention off being good enough, and realize we’re good enough now. At this very moment we are that which we seek so fervently.

How To Take The First Step

Stop For A Moment

Practice is about stopping. We stop our usual way of running, moving, chasing, fixing, thinking, doing and take a breath. Just a simple breath, just like one we take every moment of our lives, but pay no attention to. The first step is to take charge of our focus and pay attention to what’s happening right here, under our eyes, to the breath we are taking, this very moment.

Where will that get me, some ask? They do not realize that without this very precious breath and the next one that follows it, they would not be anywhere. Strange, isn’t it, how we take this breath for granted. What else do we take for granted? It’s worthwhile to look and see.

Exercise: Pay Attention
Consider for a moment what you pay attention to all day long. What seems important to you, what do you take for granted and hardly attend to at all? Write it down. Do not judge your answers. Be honest and simple. As you keep track all week long, you’ll be amazed at what claims your attention, what you give your precious life force to.

We take so much for granted, as though it will be here for us forever - our breath, our children, our health, our spouses. But all is given for a short while. All comes into our lives and eventually goes and we may never even have taken the time to realize what was there.

As we live most of our lives paying attention to the dreams created by our racing, yearning, scheming minds, we are allow our Monkey Mind to rule us. The monkey mind is the mind that hops from branch to branch, person to person, job to job, desire to desire, thought to thought. It always wants more and more, never feels good and doesn’t now how to say thank you. It is unruly, reactive, unhappy and cannot be made to feel content. It chatters endlessly and is an expert in spoiling, judging and criticizing everything.

That Monkey Mind lives in us all. Sometimes it is very loud in our lives. Other times it settles down for awhile. This monkey mind pursues that which has no value and doesn’t know how to find that which it is yearning for. In order to fill our hungry hearts, we must learn how to recognize and dissolve this monkey mind, to take our attention away from it, to turn our focus to what counts.

Exercise: Stop The Monkey Mind
Spend some time getting to know how the Monkey Mind is operating in your life. Much of the misery we go through and blame on others, has nothing to do is simply the effects of our own monkey mind. The first step is becoming aware of its thoughts, deeds, impulses. We need not hate, reject or try to get rid of it, just to recognize what’s going on. This recognition takes its power away.. As we learn to make friends with this part of ourselves we help it to settle down and take its proper place.

When a sense of hunger, loneliness, dissatisfaction and craving comes, don’t blame it on others, or on circumstances. Instead, stop and look within. Know it is the monkey mind that is robbing you of the joy and fulfillment that is your natural birthright.

As you pay attention, stay in the present and take power back from the monkey mind, little by little you will be returning to your original nature. This nature is beyond words and thoughts. It is the part of yourself which knows the truth, which is kind and filled with clarity and satisfaction. This part of yourself will take over as you continue to practice paying attention, staying in the moment, and truly experience all that comes to you.

Everyday life and the struggles it brings, will become transformed into a series of moments that are fresh and new. You then take your newfound focus and are able to “be here” in a brand new way. Not only does this eliminate hunger, dissatisfaction and cravings, but it brings new spaciousness and possibilities to those you interact with as well.


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Dr. Brenda Shoshanna is a top-selling author of many books, including Zen And The Art of Falling In Love, (Simon and Schuster), Zen Miracles (Finding Peace In An Insane World) and others. She has conducted over 500 workshops and talks regionally and nationally, which have been widely acclaimed.