It is officially 2012-- and the season for reflecting on the past year and making plans and resolutions for the coming year. Almost everyone I know makes goals or intentions related to their business, and many people make resolutions related to health and fitness. But how many of you make resolutions for your relationships?
Relationships are arguably the most important aspect of a person’s life. Even if you’re not currently in a romantic relationship, you have relationships with friends, family (if you’re lucky) and co-workers or colleagues. You can’t live in the world without having relationships, and relationships take work. Just like your business or your health, relationships thrive when you put your positive attention and energy into them.
Here are 7 Relationship Resolutions for 2012
1. Resolve to treat yourself better this year. Whether that means putting healthy food in your body, getting more sleep, or being more compassionate with yourself for your perceived shortcomings. Start the new year by treating yourself as you’d like others to treat you.
2. Resolve to decide which of your relationships are most important to you. Try this: take a piece of paper and a draw as large a circle as will fit on the page. Inside the circle, draw 2 concentric, smaller circles (like a bulls-eye). The smallest circle in the center represents your “A” relationships: those which nurture you, make you feel better about yourself, and support you. The second circle represents your “B” relationships. These relationships are good, but not as important as the inner circle. Last, the outer ring represents your “C” relationships. These are people you can’t or don’t want to cut contact with, but they’re not supportive relationships.
Related: 3 Steps to Create a Supportive Community in Your Life
3. Resolve to spend quality time with the people you’ve decided are most important to you. Talk with each of the people in your “A” circle and together decide how you want to nurture your relationship with each other. This requires a commitment on your part. It requires a resolution to stay focused on the relationships that nurture you. Are you willing to make that resolution?
4. Resolve to say no to demands on your time from people who don’t support you. This is a little more difficult than spending time with people you love who support you. This resolution may mean that you limit contact with a toxic parent or sibling. It may mean that you finally end the romantic relationship that’s not moving in the direction you desire. Are you willing to make that resolution?
5. For romantic relationships, resolve to hug your partner every day for at least 20 seconds. That’s about how long it takes for oxytocin to start flowing through your system, making you feel closer to your partner. Oxytocin, also known as the “cuddle hormone” works to make you feel better about people you...yup... cuddle with. Especially when you’ve been with someone for a long time, cuddling can fall to the bottom of the priority list. This year, resolve to let the oxytocin flow.
Related: When You're Just Not Feelin' It
6. Romantic relationships need more than just cuddle time. One of the pitfalls of long term relationships is that the sizzle starts to fizzle. While oxytocin will help you feel more loving toward your partner, it won’t keep eroticism alive. For that, you need to resolve to get your sexy on. I’ve written volumes on different ways to bring the sexy back into your long term relationship, and you can find them on my blog here. If you’re short for time, my first tip is to initiate sex every single day for 7 days.
7. Lastly, resolve to be kind to strangers. While technically, according to most common understandings of relationships, you’re not in a relationship with a stranger. Yet this resolution will create a more powerful impact than you might imagine, because the truth is that we are all in relationships with ourselves, our loved ones, those we consider enemies, and with people we don’t know. We are even in relationships with animals, plants, and the planet itself. Kindness toward strangers (and animals) is considered to be one of the measures of a great soul. If you want a truly amazing 2012, resolve to be kind to strangers.
More from GalTime:
- Lets Face it, You Are So NOT the 'Cool Girlfriend'
- How to Talk to Men (In a Way They Like!)
- Is Texting Ruining Your Marriage?
- 12 Ways to Feel Sexy in 2012
Johanna Lyman is a published author, an internationally known speaker and teacher, and a Spiritual Love Coach. She is a certified life coach (CCUG) trained by CoachUniversity. Johanna combines personal experience and esoteric studies in a humorous, practical and accessible style that empowers her clients to live the fullest expression of their lives.
Her business is Romance Recovery: Whether You Stay or Go: Do It With Courage, Clarity and Ease www.romancerecovery.com. She can be reached at Johanna@romancerecovery.com.
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