Soulful relationships

What determines the quality and quantity of your personal relationships? I think the #1 factor is your mindset towards relationships. There are many ways to frame the role of relationships in your life, and some options are more empowering than others. Look at relationships one way, and you’ll find it difficult to relate to others. But change your mindset in a certain way, and you’ll find yourself attracting compatible people with relative ease.

In this article I’ll share with you a mindset shift that significantly improved my personal relationships, including my marriage, friendships, and even everyday encounters with total strangers. I’ll say up front that this was not an easy shift for me to make, but the results have been well worth the effort.

The mindset of disempowered relationships

First, let’s consider the basic objective mindset about relationships. This mindset assumes that other people are separate and distinct from you, and you communicate with them through words, voice, and body language.

Here are some facets of the objective relationship framework:

1. Separation - Other people have their own thoughts which are separate and distinct from yours.
2. Risk of rejection - Human relationships are both imprecise and risky because you never know for certain what other people are thinking.
3. Potential resistance – It takes courage to approach a stranger; you never know what kind of resistance you may meet when you try to initiate a conversation with someone you don’t know.
4. Trust takes time - Relationships are built on communication, trust, and familiarity, which takes time to build.
5. Bonding takes time - You feel closer to people you know and more distant from people you don’t know. Total strangers are the biggest risk of all; the less you know about a person, the less certain you are of your mutual relationship prospects.
6. Risk of attachment – There’s a risk of becoming attached to destructive or abusive relationships (or simply those that no longer serve you) because you’ve invested so much time and energy in building them.

This is the basic relationship framework that most people identify with. It’s so common we could call it “common sense.”

However, I consider this a disempowering mindset, not because it’s so terrible — it is fairly functional — but because there’s a more empowering alternative. I spent most of my life using this framework, and I got average results with it. I had fun spending time with friends, and I didn’t suffer from undue loneliness, but I never had close relationships with friends who’d encourage me to live up to my true potential or who’d allow me to do the same with them. It was sort of an unspoken rule that you didn’t talk about things like mission, purpose, or service to the greater good. Such topics were the domain of saints and historical figures, not ordinary people with bills to pay.

A chance encounter

One day I had a chance encounter with a peculiar woman. I call it a chance encounter because our meeting was the result of an odd synchronicity. During one of our first conversations together, I practically bared my soul to her. She learned more about the real me in a single conversation than my other friends learned in years. At the time I didn’t know why I felt open to discuss such things with her — I just felt safe with her, and I could tell she wasn’t judging me for being who I was. We became close friends almost immediately. I’d never had such a deep emotional bond with another person occur so quickly before.

As I got to see this woman interacting with others, I noticed how ridiculously easy it was for her to relate to people, whether in person, online, or on the phone. Total strangers would just open up to her and tell her their darkest secrets in the first 10 minutes of conversation – I could scarcely believe it. I had to ask this woman how she did it, and she explained that it was the result of a particular mindset she had about people.

For many years I resisted adopting her mindset as my own because even though I could see that it worked for her, it just didn’t seem accurate. I felt like I’d be adopting a false view of reality, but I also wondered how a false view could produce such positive results.

Eventually I relaxed my skepticism enough to try it, and she was right. It made a huge difference for me too. I began attracting new friends much more easily.

As you might have guessed, that peculiar woman was Erin, who’s been my wife for 12+ years now. If you’ve ever talked with her yourself, you already know what she’s like. She talks to you as a fellow soul, treating you as a real human being instead of as your job title, your physical appearance, or your personality. She connects with people so easily and so naturally that grown men often cry during phone readings with her.

While Erin certainly has some serious natural talent in this area, I’ve seen that her mindset is a key component of her ability to genuinely connect. She doesn’t do anything premeditated or manipulative – her ability to connect is a natural consequence of her beliefs. And to the degree I’ve been able to adopt her beliefs in this area, I’ve been able to get closer to her results. My results aren’t a match for hers, but fortunately this isn’t an all-or-nothing deal.

Our aim behind xHow2.com is to straighten old and new beliefs in the world of self-help. We give forward and directive steps on how to carry a successful life, relationships, social life, public etc. We have been empowering and giving tips to both married and unmarried people on how to build successful relationships and on the other hand understanding their feelings and getting rid of unwanted ones.