Relationships as Assisting Forces |
Why Relationships Matter
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A partnership can provide attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing.
A relationship can be an experience of alliance, not competition.
When misattunement occurs, partners can communicate feelings without blame and see attunement as learnable.
A healthy and trustworthy partner is an accompanying ally. Here are some specific ways one can become such an ally.
An ally is someone who attunes to us in an empathic way. In an authentic intimate relationship, this moves in both directions. Attunement is deeply grasping what someone is saying and feeling. Empathic attunement means feeling what someone else feels. It means, in effect, mirroring or reflecting the other’s feeling by feeling it too and affirming it, by word, action, or gesture, that we understand it. We do this by showing the five A's: attention, appreciation, affection, acceptance, and allowing.
We pay attention to someone’s words, needs, feelings, and longings at a feeling level.
We appreciate and value someone’s feelings, which means we treat them with respect and don't try to talk them out of their feelings.
We hold and stay with the other’s concern or pain with physical affection that's appropriate to the nature of the connection.
We accept rather than reject the other person, making no attempts to change the........