Clean Up Your Relationships

Thank you for joining me for the Dating Mechanics Podcast. I am your host The Dating Mechanic. Today we are talking about Cleaning Up Your Relationships. I don’t know when you are listening to this but it’s always a great time to start your relationship journey and an even better time to evaluate how you participate and show up to those you are in a relationship with. 

Without Relationships, Who Are We?

I’m not talking about the positions you hold in someone’s life like mother, father, daughter, or CEO. No, really. Without relationships, as the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland so eloquently stated…Who Are You? He was rude with his puff of smoke but he asked a really good question. By the way, if they remade Alice In Wonderland with an urban spin, they should definitely cast Snoop Dogg. That would actually be cool.

Relationships are everywhere and we can’t get away from them.

Including the ones, we do not want to acknowledge. Think about all the people in your circle. You have a relationship with all of them. Your parents or caregivers, your bosses, co-workers, your dry cleaner, your kid’s teachers, your pastor. I could go on and on. What I mean, is whoever is part of your circle on a regular basis. Of course, we have a relationship we can never run from although we try. That is, the relationship we have with ourselves. 

How many relationships deep or not do we have in our circle and how well are we doing with those relationships? Are we taking the best care of those relationships? If not, why not? What can we do to make them better? 

Robin Dunbar is a British professor of Anthropology. He did a study, Dunbar’s Number, that theorizes we can have up to 150 meaningful relationships in our lives. The introvert in you just flatlined. I heard it. You can look up the study for the particulars but let’s say it’s true, that we can have 150 meaningful relationships all going on at one time. How are we managing those relationships? If we are honest (and we love to be honest with ourselves), can we say they are mostly

1. healthy
2. wildly dysfunctional or
3. all surface with no substance 

The relationship you have with a partner is going to be reflective of the sum of the relationships you have with others. That also includes the relationship you are having with yourself. 

If you find in your romantic relationships you never reach a place of deep connection, check to see if your relationships are superficial. 

• Think to yourself   
  • Do the conversations stay on the surface?
  • Do the conversations seem incomplete? 
  • Do you walk away from conversations unclear or lacking understanding of the other person’s desires for the relationship or from you?
  • Is there an absence of signs of feelings or emotions of any kind whether you received them as negative or positive? 

If you are not clear about why your romantic relationships end in resentment or hurt. Pay attention to the outcome of the relationships that have come and are now gone. Is there a pattern of expectations being unmet?  

Instead of avoiding the very thing that made us and continues to make us who we are, you can dig in. Start to discover and develop the level of connection you want to share with a partner by exploring the connections with those in your life now.

The relationships in your life are all connected.

It is time for you to figure out how. How you relate to others plays a huge role in how you will attract a potential partner. 

I want to remind you to subscribe to the podcast so you know when the next episode is dropped. Subscribe here, and follow me on Facebook. There is where you can daily tips and motivation on dating and relationships.

Make sure you subscribe because, in this season of Dating Mechanics, we are focusing on creating a foundation for healthy relationships. When the foundation is shaky, it is more likely that the whole relationship will collapse. We want to get better at relationships and that means doing something different from what we have been doing. 

I know you have your relationship journal ready so here it is. In your relationship journal write down 10-20 of the closest relationships you have. These would be people you communicate with on a regular basis.  

• That could include  
  • your boss. 
  • the barista at the coffee house. 
  • your children.
  • your hairdresser or barber.
  • your child’s other parent.

Rate each relationship on a scale of 1-5. 5 being you have a healthy, open, functional relationship with that person. 3 would be where you see areas that can use some TLC or improvement and 1 is a toxic or dysfunctional relationship. 

What you are looking for is a pattern. What picture is being revealed when it comes to your relationships? 

First, you recognize the pattern then you make a plan to turn those relationships around. I know you can do this. Remember, if something is worth doing it will not come easy. Don’t forget to hit the subscribe button and visit thedatingmechanic.com that is where you will find my one-on-one coaching services and upcoming events.