MEGHA BAJAJ shares a few tips on building healthy relationships by dealing with emotions in the right way and at the right time.
There is this strange thing that many of us do in relationships. If we didn’t do it I believe we would have much better relationships. We displace our emotions from one relationship to other relationships. Does it sound familiar?
Let’s say, for example, you have a husband who is very dominating. It’s his way or the highway, and you really don’t have much choice but to follow him. You have tried speaking to him, you have wept, you have done everything you could, but to no avail. Ultimately you resign to your fate and start finding ways to deal with the issues within, without really letting them out.
Yet, the nature of emotions is that they are never buried dead, they are buried alive. You can suppress them but not for long. The pain shows up in your body through aches and pains or disease, and it also expresses itself in other relationships. These are the relationships where you feel the ease that the person won’t leave you, or sometimes it is with support staff like house help or drivers. You start behaving like the dominating person in your life, and project your emotions onto others to somehow deal with the pain. It could be your children, or your own parents, or anyone. The emotions from one relationship are displaced to another, and the people who are subjected to them have no clue why you are behaving the way you do – just like the way you keep wondering why your husband cannot be a little more empathetic.
The problem with displacing emotions is just that – they are displaced. In no way does it provide a permanent solution, because somewhere you know that you are not doing the right thing. There is a sense of guilt, a sense of not feeling good enough about yourself, that hinders life from flowing the way it should.
Think of some of your relationships that aren’t as beautiful as you want them to be. How do you deal with the negative emotions that you go through in those relationships? What do you do to ease yourself?
Here are some of the positive ways I have realized to deal with the emotions in a dysfunctional relationship:
CONSISTENT COMMUNICATION
Although most of us may be communicating how we feel with the person concerned, we probably don’t do it consistently enough. We express, then let go, believing he or she won’t understand. Yet the secret to good relationships is consistent communication. Instead of blaming and saying, “You are …” say “I feel …”. When you express what you are feeling instead of blaming others, they are a little more open to listening.
NATURE
Nature absorbs negative emotions like nothing else. Taking a long walk in the garden or near the sea or mountains, as part of your daily life, is bound to help you clear your heart and mind of residual emotions so that they don’t form a chain and hurt others into the bargain.
WRITING
There is something incredibly healing about the writing process.
Writing helps you to understand all that you are feeling. In a way it is
your innermost core on paper and allows you to release and vent emotions
that may be burdening your within for God alone knows how long. Writing
letters to people who hurt you, whether or not you let them read them,
helps you to deal with the emotions within the relationship.
The world is in dire need of better relationships. A lot more love. Compassion. Whether someone is good to us or not, somehow we need to ensure that a lot of good flows from us to the world outside. Break the chain reaction and, in our own way, we will create a better world.
Article by MEGHA BAJAJ
Megha Bajaj
