The Romance Reverend’s Seven Steps to Relationship Success

1. Develop A Relationship With Yourself, First
The person you must fall in love with first is you. Too often people seek out others who will fill some inner need, as opposed to someone with whom you can truly share life. It’s important to recognize the distinction between "neediness and having someone," and "love and sharing from the heart." Dysfunctional relationships are born out of unions between people who don’t really know what it means to love, honor and cherish. People who love, honor and cherish themselves--or at least strive for it--are more capable of both giving and receiving that from a mate.

2. Build Your Self Esteem
Research has proven time and again that people who get trapped in bad or abusive relationships suffer from low self-esteem. Sometimes, because of background and personal history, the only model someone has for love is destructive behavior or pain; perhaps they lived in a household were "love" was expressed that way. It gets dramatized in every relationship they have. Utilize everything you can--books, therapy, friends--to enhance emotional health and self-esteem.

3. Change yourself. Don’t expect others to change--do expect miracles!
Your personal power to change your own life is the greatest power of all. It is impossible to make another person change or offer help they have not asked for. But you can always strive to change yourself.

4. Learn to accept yourself, and you will know how to accept others.
Self-acceptance is your model for accepting others. If you are critical, harsh and unforgiving of yourself--so will you be to others.

5. Learn how to "surrender."
Control is a touchy issue in relationships. Yet surrender has nothing to do with control. It has to do with letting down your defenses and letting go of fear, in order to surrender and truly merge with another person. There is a notion that surrender makes one vulnerable, and vulnerability equals powerlessness. Not for people who realize that, when they are healthy inside, it is a natural response to surrender. We may try to get at it through sex, but, when you surrender on more than just a sexual level, it allows you to really have that which you truly desire: True intimacy.

6. Ask for what you want.
Women, more so than men, need coaching on this. This is not just for relationships but everything. While there is a line between nagging and making a request, there is a huge area of possibility in which magical things will happen if only you request them!

7. Learn to receive well.
The best way to continue getting what you want is to learn how to receive it well. The more you say thank you--to yourself, your significant other, to God, Goddess, All there is--the more good things that flow your way. The more good things that flow your way, the more experience you will have letting them in. Work on this and master it. In order to have your romantic dreams come true, you must be able to let Love in when it comes knocking at your door … and you must also be willing to allow Love to stay!

© Copyright Reverend Laurie Sue Brockway  All Rights Reserved. 

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