How to Attract the Blissful Relationships You Actually Deserve

Image by Larisa Koshkina from Pixabay 

Having had my share of unhappy relationships, both personally and some professionally, I’ve reflected a lot on the question of how to attract better relationships; ones that nourish rather than deplete me.

The key, I’ve decided, is in that word deserve and there are two angles to that.

The first is like mine, going about my life for years believing that - since I was attracting poor situations and behaviours - it must just be as good as it gets. I felt that, clearly on some level, I must be undeserving, or unlucky, or this is simply how life is.

The other angle, if I look at it from the perspective of some of the self centred people and circumstances I seem to have attracted, is that clearly there are people who go about their life fundamentally believing that others exist to serve their needs, the deserving manifests as a sense of entitlement without any conscience or consideration towards the rights and feelings of those others.

Of course there are all shades of grey in between these two angles, but it demonstrates a spectrum of sorts, along which people sit.

So, with this in mind, I was reading an article by Teal Swan about people who experience some sort of dishonour in their relationships (which inevitably stems from their childhood experiences) and come out with an attitude of wanting to be accepted “no matter what”. This effectively makes them the aggressor, perpetuating dysfunctional behaviour, and expecting unconditional love from another “no matter what” they do/don’t do or who they are/aren’t.

The juicy bit for me, was when Teal explained:
“It is important to beware that when we first get into relationships, we often do so by hiding the parts of ourselves that got us rejected before. But this means we are selling someone on something that isn’t the full truth of us. It is guaranteed that sooner or later, we will either bring out or switch into the part of us that we were hiding. And the other person will feel duped.”

She says that the what in “no matter what” is actually very specific; it is a specific thing, or multiple specific things that we need someone to want and value. The answer involves the very things about us that were rejected, not accepted, pushed away, unwanted, not valued, disapproved of and/or unloved.

Teal asserts “By figuring out what that specific thing is, we can improve our own relationship with that thing and then we can go about finding conscious and direct ways for that thing to be accepted, included, wanted, valued, appreciated and loved in compatible ways i.e. finding people who do want that. People, who can accept, include, value, appreciate and love that.”

So the real question, she says, is:

“Who is the me that I need people to want? Or what about me do I need people to want?”

This struck me in its simplicity, it makes so much sense.

In A Triumph of Authenticity - Can You Embrace the Totality of Your Being? I shared that I wrote in my journal, quite some time ago, “Imagine what it might feel like to be with a person who takes an interest in me, in what I think, do or feel, or someone who offers to do things for me, or someone who does stuff with pleasing me in mind.”

That had kicked off some soul searching about the aspects of myself I had rejected along life’s path. So instead I imagined a life in which I reflected and embraced the totality of who I am, especially in the way I interact with others. Today I am deeply grateful for my closest confidants who know and love me as the curious, deep thinker I am, which was the example I talked about.

But another aspect of me that has come to light recently, after having been shoved in a dark closest for too long, is the part of me that really likes to take my own sweet time going about things. As opposed to feeling constantly harangued and rushed, which actually triggers me into flight/fight or – most often - freeze.

When I took my kids away a couple of weeks ago, we rented a holiday home for the week in a beautiful area we had never visited before. It was lovely to just get up in the morning and take our time getting ready, deciding whether we wanted to go somewhere or not, or just hang out and relax.

When I think back to my childhood, rushing here and there was just part and parcel of life that involved school, training (I swam competitively), family commitments, and friends and so on. Really, I feel we live in a society that values productivity above all else, yet I find I am far more productive given space to allow my creative thoughts to wander untethered across the vast fields of possibilities in my mind.

Having and holding healthy boundaries has been revolutionary, to uncover my boundaries was a process, answering questions about my needs and desires. But this was a new angle, that helped me cross reference and sense check how I’m putting myself across.

I was laughing with some friends about the irony of all that I’ve attracted into my life in recent weeks, after saying how new relationships were not top of my agenda, in fact not particularly even on my radar, yet all that the universe seems to have served up is guidance about relationships in various guises.

That probably makes a huge amount of sense given I’m on the cusp of re-establishing my career and no doubt making many more new contacts and forging relationships in the months and years ahead.

I’m in no doubt that all the inner work I’ve done will pay dividends and help me recognise which relationships are compatible and which are incompatible. Especially without feeling the need to morph into someone else and to have the courage to let the incompatible ones go regardless of the opportunities i might be afraid I’ll miss.

I have learned the hard way, if there are red flags, pay attention. If someone seems unreasonable one time, fine, if it happens with regularity, they aren’t going to change. And if they treat other people badly, you won’t be the exception forever even if you are now.  

Watching other friends struggle in relationships where they are treated in ways that are far from blissful and are certainly not deserved, I can now appreciate how my closest friends felt watching me from the sidelines for years. Of course it’s also now gratifying for them to watch me step into authenticity.

One of my dearest friends told me the other day “How inspiring you are at this juncture Shona, I see you just going from strength to strength...Just love witnessing this bud beginning to bloom”.

That is what I want for everyone else too. We are all buds waiting to bloom, whether we are the oppressor or suppressed, people are in pain. Incompatible relationships serve to help us see ourselves just the same as compatible ones do, but they are more painful. Let’s stop the pain, and learn to attract the blissful relationships you actually deserve.

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Simplify Your Life to Be Accepted and Loved as Your Authentic Self, Does Your Heart Long to Be Accepted for Being Just You?, Ask No One to Be Different So That You Can Feel Good, What Do the People in Your Life Have to Teach (Good and Bad)? and How Do I Honour What I Believe and Care Less What You Think? To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.