One of the keys to a successful relationship, be that relationship between friends, roommates, lovers, business or for that matter, any relationship is to create a bond. The tricky part is creating a bond that is not so tight it will strangle the relationship.
Within any relationship growth and change are a perfectly natural and desirable experience. There is no way to successfully fight what is inevitable, and why would we want to fight or block the growth of a person with whom we are involved? Would you want to stay with someone who could not accept that each day you learn something new, experience something new, develop different outlooks based upon experience? This is what I mean by strangling a relationship. Unfortunately this is all too common. What I often see and hear in counseling sessions is that the other person is so insecure about themselves that change, rather than being exciting and freeing, is a threat to their own identity.
All is not lost, my friends. Sometimes the real key to successfully binding together, or reestablishing that treasured bond is learning to hear what the other person is saying. This is exactly the reason I wrote the book Bear and Butterfly. As we come to understand what the other person is saying, regardless of gender, we discover that what we fear can be cleared-up easily. It is simply a matter of hearing what is actually being said rather than imposing our own limitations on what others are saying.
I invite you to get a copy of Bear and Butterfly, read it, then see if you can detect a change in your own understanding of what others are saying and not saying. We cannot change what others do or say, but we certainly can change how we perceive and how we respond.
