The Top 10 Ways to Attract an Incredible Relationship

Originally Submitted on 10/19/99.

"To love and be loved." Someone once told me that to love and to be loved is the essential desire of human beings - I don't doubt that. Attracting a relationship that is passionate, joyful, exciting and easy occupies the thoughts of most single men and women's daily lives. I have reflected on those things that I have done and am doing to attract and maintain the incredible relationship in which I currently find myself.

1. Extreme Self-Care.

If you want to attract a loving, caring relationship into your life, start with yourself. This demonstrates that you are capable of entering into one with someone else and provides evidence that you are not merely in the relationship to be cared for. Since you're already caring for yourself, you can enter a relationship free of requirements and needs. Maintaining self-care can also help you determine if the relationship you are in begins to deviate from the healthiest paths. Do you find that you are unable to take care of yourself in a suitable manner and unable to request support from your partner?.... hmmmmmm..... Perhaps something in the relationship is out of balance.

Be diligent about taking care of your appearance. Create a healthy lifestyle for yourself. Make sure that you are living the standard that you would want to invite into your life.

2. Strong Personal Foundation.

This goes along with Point #1. Healthy relationships are made up of individuals who are living out of their values, not their needs. Make sure that your reserves are in place or that you are working on building them. My way of wording it has always been that a relationship should be the icing, not the cake. This also includes resolving past issues. Try not to let the past insinuate itself into the present. If you need to work on issues of your past, see a professional. Allow a potential partner to see the incredibly present-tense you! Live in the "I am," not the "I was."

3. Know what you want.

Reflect. Contemplate. Even if you've never had it before, what is it that you REALLY want when you envision your day-to-day life within a relationship. I wanted to travel; I wanted someone who just wanted to have fun; I wanted someone who was born in May; I wanted someone who enjoyed the play and personality of animals; I wanted someone who noticed sunsets; I wanted someone who practiced a healthy and physically fit lifestyle; I wanted someone who loved all kinds of music.

Once you have developed a sense of what you want, write it down! Talk about it with friends! Make sure that you say it out loud and repeat it in your mind. Convert it from vision to reality - if you build it......etc.

4. Tell him/her what you want from the outset.

Once you know, you want to tell him/her what it is you want from the relationship. If he/she does not share the same pleasures and interests as you - and you see no way of viewing the differences as opportunities for exploring new experiences, then have the strength to walk away. In the end, there will be clashes and feelings of resentment. To avoid resentment - face and accept the facts. How many of your desires are you willing to give up? How many of your partner's desires are you willing to ask him/her to give up? How long do you think a relationship can survive under those conditions?

5. Listen to your Intuition Flags.

They are there. We have all felt them and seen them and heard them. We have all experienced the consequences of ignoring them. Take your time, go slow and stay alert. Oh, yeah.... don't forget to act on them.

6. Be up front about your sexual needs, wants, and desires.

Sex and money. These two areas reflect issues in relationship faster than anything else. These areas could just as easily be covered under the point on Personal Foundations, but I think sex deserves special attention. Talk about the frequency which you prefer; talk about the conditions you like. Are you an experimenter? Are you somewhat "traditional?" I especially encourage women to be straightforward with the men with whom they are getting involved.

7. Choose your battles wisely.

Even the oldest texts will state that a mutual level of respect is essential to a strong, healthy, lasting relationship. Each partner must see the other as a full equal. What goes hand in hand with this is the free expression of ideas. If you feel you must challenge your partner's position, make sure that it's really worth it. Make sure that your motivation is not merely to be right. My partner and I both share a love of debate - we are both able to accept the difference of an opinion. We never allow an issue to rise to the level of importance that a disagreement about it may lead to painful feelings and/or harsh words in the relationship. We don't necessarily agree about everything, but we are not afraid to discuss the differing points of view.

8. Always be aware that relationship is choice.

Both yours and your partner's. Every moment can be a renewal of the choice. Show gratitude that your partner is choosing in and expect to feel your partner's gratitude.

9. Be willing to let go.

Sometimes relationships end, but because we have invested so much time and energy, we feel that we should hold on past the life of the relationship. Create the value that the relationship has held for you and be grateful for it. The longer you stay in a relationship that has no true value, the more you will diminish that which is true.

10. Trust in your own lovability.

Don't spend too much time worrying about your partner loving you. If you feel loved, you are loved. Express the joy of living and loving and it will return to you. We are the final authority in experience of reality. Use your personal authority to enhance the love you feel. Questioning it is equivalent to doubting it. In that space, you cannot show gratitude, joy, or pleasure. The very things that you are desiring to create.

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