Now is your way to love: brighten up the painful moments of the past

Relationships are fluid and moving. It’s never the same. It’s easy to lose in the swirling complexity of emotions, thoughts, desires, preferences and differences.

How do you find your way?

The willingness to receive each other is constantly changing, allowing or limiting compassion and connection. Learn the senses Openness At each moment there is a key to navigating the complexity of the relationship. I often refer to the openness of relationships Opening And the ability to be recognized and guided by the recognition of the openness of each moment. Opening effect.

At each moment I’m not looking for the overall sum or average of my previous experiences with this person. I am not evaluating the abstract ideas of openness in general. You are accurately sensed this Instant: How open are you, how open are they, now? Because despite our enthusiasm for the past and future, the present moment is the only moment you can act to influence your relationship.

now The part is a difficult part

So what do you do? now? Start by realizing that you hardly do that. Observing our experiences occurring is not something we generally do. Many times, we Note It’s somewhere else. Matthew Killingworth and Daniel Gilbert;¹ Research psychologists have studied their ability to attend the present moment to randomly check in 2,250 volunteers using the phone app, asking them what they are doing and what they are thinking. They found that 47% of the time participants were thinking about something other than what they were doing.

There are two neurological biases that make experiencing the “now”. First, we are neurologically wired to predict the future from the past. This is very useful for finding delicious berries and avoiding lions. They are also neurologically biased to pay attention to negatives rather than positives. If physical survival is an issue, make sure you check where the berries are and that you don’t realize that the lion is important. Additionally, the lion comes in front of the berries.

However, incorporating these same survival skills into an emotional relationship will result in serious disadvantages. We have been overly affected in the past and are overly careful about the negative.

On the way to know what is happening at each moment, we take many shortcuts and make many guesses based on previous experiences, especially negative experiences. Except if not, it’s very useful. The past and fear Being hurts damages your ability to perceive what is happening now. This is a downward spiral recipe where many couples have found themselves.

Downward spiral

In the downward spiral, your relationship is at the mercy of self-fulfilling prophecies. This means that if we allow neurological bias to govern past and negative experiences, we tend to predict that the interactions unfold at this moment will be like the previous painful conversation. Therefore, you increase the chance that this moment will become like a previous unfortunate moment. When you and your partner are going too far in this direction, you are in a downward spiral of negative expectations and actions that can make you miserable.

At each moment in the relationship, if you think you were here before, you reduced the actual moment to one or two of its features, filled with the rest of the experience, and assumed you had the big picture. The expression on her face seems to be the look she had the other day, just before she closed her mind to you. But that’s true do not have Its appearance. the this Look, and you still don’t know what will happen next.

If you can free yourself from the past and its defeated negative assumptions, then there are many possible. Fortunately, we can learn to manage and surpass neurological biases.

Mindfulness practices can help you do this

Mindfulness It means paying attention to what is happening in the present moment with curiosity, openness and acceptance. Mindfulness often evokes the idea of ​​sitting on a cushion with your feet bent into an unpleasant shape. This is one way to learn mindfulness, but many prefer yoga classes, walking through the forest or playing the piano. All of these things can be seen to help us arrive in the present moment. This freedom to perceive newfoundness at each moment does not mean that you are denying the past, but you know that you know that you know how to recognize the new present moment without being overly influenced by these biases.

if now What are the difficult and simple parts?

Perhaps surprisingly, sensing openness, or perceived aperture, is a simple part once you understand it. Luckily, we are well equipped to feel open. As our brains evolved, we went beyond the lion and berry to strengthen our connection with others. We are adept at sensing these connections. Our brains are already well equipped for this.

Once you have built your consciousness at that moment, you can learn to adjust to your ability to feel openness. And, like many things in life, knowing what to do with a particular perception can help you to reinforce them. Learning how to improve each moment using aperture recognition will naturally improve.

Inside I’m worried Uncertainty, ask yourself: am I open or closed? If it is closed, I encourage you to open with gentle and compassion. Next, tune it for someone else. Are they open? do not have why Are they open? or Generally, Are they open? but Now, Does this person feel open or closed?

Others may also feel anxious and uncertainty. Helping yourself open up is a way to help them open up. This is a fundamental paradox of safety in relationships. Your safety and being loved other A safe and loved person. Move towards it as much as you can and open up to the mystery of what will happen next.

Will they open? There is no guarantee. If you need a warranty, you can pack it now and go elsewhere. Bake the cake. Mow the lawn. Wash your hair and clothes. Almost anything has more solid results than a relationship moment.

For relationships to flourish, we must let go of certainty and demands. And let go of safety, especially based on predictions and past injuries.

It’s now. You are here to hear each other’s words, their voices, yours. Hearing silence. Detects connection and disconnection. A closed feeling and the possibility of openness.