Partnering with Mindfulness offers the opportunity to have thriving, mindful, mutually empowering relationships.  In November, I wrote about how to negotiate the holidays with grace and included this acronym as a way to focus your energy. https://instinctivehealthmedicine.com/2014/11/19/smile/.  I have reposted some of it here:

Smile:  Spirit, Mind, Intention, aLignment, and Energy 
Spirit: reconnect to your heart’s joy through tastes and smells that elevate your heart connection:  dark chocolate, helps to calm your heart and treat palpitations and and anxiety ( not too much at a time of course) Blue and red berries, great antioxidants and blood builders help to elevate your mood,   cinnamon has a calming warming effect, and a positive side effect of balancing blood sugar so helps to balance mood, the sweet licorice taste of fennel, tarragon, and anise help to calm cramping, aids digestion and calms the heart. Ylang ylang, orange zest, lime, bergamot, rose, geranium, and vanilla all assist to set the mood. They have positive effects at the olfactory level and assist to reduce feelings of depression, apathy, anger, and insecurity and increase feeling of joy, connection, acceptance, and forgiveness.
Mind: Shift your attitude to where you actually have power, engage compassion, forgiveness, and perspective shifting. (see below the 2 steps that assist in this activity).
Intention: reset to your parasympathetic nervous system.  Breathe! Slow down and rest then refocus from your center.  Identify what you really want to accomplish- what is your goal for the holiday ? — Begin with the attitude of gratitude.
aLignment: reorder your priority: Focus on what you WANT, rather than what you Fear – See and focus on what is working – What you are grateful for – Stand in the center of your internal power… About what you know about yourself and our partner and what feels like love to your partner…try to live there.

• Feeling loved has the qualities of acceptance and feeling seen.  Really loving has the qualities of seeing with acceptance and understanding.
• Most people spend their lives looking for love and or acceptance.  The best way to feel love is to love another.
• A book by Eric Fromm called The Art of Loving, is one of my guiding sources for how to love as well as the book The Road Less Travelled by Scott Peck.   These books provide a view of love that is an offering for a paradigm shift from the traditional concepts of loving and seeing.  It’s about how to see the other, to experience and offer love more fully with acceptance and compassion. (see this post for more information:  https://instinctivehealthmedicine.com/2010/07/20/love/ )

Energy: Release and let go of historical grudges – forgive, (if the action is something that disallows you from seeing the person – this is a reasonable choice -> it is the holding on that I am suggesting you release – it happened, it changed you or the other person or your relationship – accept that fact, and then release the anger, fear, and negativity so that it can be placed into your history and not create stress or disease in the now).  Part of energy is movement so if you begin to feel down remember to eat whole foods, drink clean and healing water, BREATHE, and get your body moving, with dance, yoga, or hiking to get the bugs out, go into nature and experience the tapestry of life all around you sometimes hidden when we are focused on too much thinking and not enough heart….Energy is also part of everything above..it is the culmination of integrated spirit, body, and mind lead by your heart- intuition.

Smile. The actual action of smiling relieves, heals, builds your immunities, offers an opportunity for connection to others in peace and on the same plane.  It is a gift to yourself and a gift to those with whom you interact. It is a flower that can uplevel your and other’s consciousness. Smile with gratitude, in forgiveness, to rejuvenate, –>> return to balance.

Another great post on how to https://instinctivehealthmedicine.com/2014/07/23/the-art-of-partnering-with-mindfulness-how-to-get-there-in-2-easy-steps/.  Here are some helpful tips from that post:

The most challenging aspect of relationship is connecting…not when you feel all gooey and lovey, but when you feel hurt, disconnected, or angry…of course that is one of the most important times to connect..

Try these two steps when you are faced with that situation..

• Do a cognitive head stand:
  Think of everything you like about that person, whether you feel angry because of something they did or didn’t do or say OR hurt by them in some way,
• This focuses you on why you want to work out the disconnect and how much you care about him or her… once you do that, you free yourself up from the defensive, fight posture and open yourself up to the connection posture…
• Hold an image of the person in your mind in that loving space when you begin to discuss the problem…every time you feel his or her negativity, reorient yourself internally – look at that image,
• That will help you communicate from your heart, you will have to say what is bugging you, but HOW you say it will be what is communicated – the love and connection.

Consider this:  ‘It’s not about being right it’s about be with (connecting)…that’s the glue of relationship.’ (Gineris, 2013, Turning Me to WE: The Art of Partnering with Mindfulness).

Relationships are dynamic and multi-level.  You come in and out of being in the same space.  Sometimes you are completely in sync and when that happens you flow.  When you feel the stickiness, the flow not flowing, but sticking, then you have to check your perspective and reorient yourself.

It helps to remember what brought you to the relationship in the first place.

This requires you shift out of a right/wrong, defensive perspective and into a clarity of connection.  It requires you disperse and shift defensiveness in to connection.

Defensiveness is a product of feeling attacked.  In most relationships defensiveness is the way in which the fight continues…so if you feel defensive, you can shift out of it through the above two step process.  Defensiveness and competition go hand in hand.

Competition is a wonderful thing.  It is a great way to discern who is the best athlete or competitor of the people who showed up to the event…but in relationship competition can be divisive, and create distance, and resentment.  In relationship individuals are looking to be seen, accepted, and co-create.  There can be a sharing of leadership, and knowledge and teaching.

Connection and collaboration  – interdependence is the key.

Collaboration offers the best style of interaction in relationship.  You cannot collaborate when you are vying for proof of rightness.  Collaboration is a byproduct of mindful paradigm shifting.  It allows both parties to share personal perspectives while discovering a centered place where both perspectives meet.

Family and love relationships are the kind of relationships where this is most paramount.

Often it is a tone, phrase, feeling, or style of interacting, that creates the defensiveness.

Left over resentments, and injuries must be resolved.  Partners and family members must let go, forgive, reset, if they are going to continue in the relationship.  This is the only way to disperse the defensiveness.  If an injury or resentment is too big to release then you may have come to the end of the line with that relationship.  Release it with love and forgiveness. Discern what is your part and make a lesson of the loss to assist you in future relationships.  Don’t hold on.  Let go.

When you are bound to the injury and resentment and also unwilling to let go of the relationship, you can create a difficult and unpleasant relationship.

Whenever you feel defensive, look to see what is underneath…is it connected to a historical relationship?  Is it connected to an unresolved injury or resentment?  Clarify what is underneath, unearth it and bring it to the surface.  Then use the above two step process to try to resolve the problem with your partner.  If it is unresolvable, allow yourself to release the unforgiveness.  Forgive your partner and yourself; this may result in the dissolution of the relationship but it will create a freeing within you to honestly connect in your future relationships without holding the next person accountable for an unresolved injury. Namaste, in love and light, bg

Use the word SMILE to focus your energy for the Valentines day weekend. If you are struggling with your partner or feeling out of sync use the 2 steps above to reset your focus and remember what brought you together.  Let go of being right – move into connection and alignment…whether in a relationship or not these will help you be mindful in your life. in love and light,bg

You can find out more at http://www.bethgineris.com.  Beth’s upcoming book, 6 steps to transcending conflict and elevating consciousness, due out in 2014 offers special techniques for releasing unresolved injuries..  

You may participate in seminars to learn these techniques through the bethgineris website. Beth’s groundbreaking book Turning Me to WE: The Art of Partnering with Mindfulness(2013), has some great tools about Temperament style and your personal style of partnering, as well as the insecurity Drivers MAAPS.  Discover where you are in the Temperament and  the MAAPS section.  You can see how you see the world, and whether you have an attachment that is creating problems in your relationships.  MAAPS will help you to discern your insecurities and understand how and what underlies how you developed your insecurity driver (Money,  Achievement,  Attachment, Power,  Structure).

You can find ways to simply connect to yourself in a loving forgiving way through theTurning No to ON: The Art of Parenting with Mindfulness Book (2011). If you want to change your life, see how you can bring mindfulness to your parenting and relationships.

One being at a time you can elevate the way in which you treat one another and elevate the consciousness on the planet so that equality, balance, and freedom BEcome the norm for all.  in love and light, bg