Soulmate Skills

She walked across the campus greeting each person with a smile and a bright “Good Morning!”  With only one exception she received a grunt, “Uh,” in reply!  To the one person who returned her smile and greeting, she said, “How are you?”  He said, “Blessed!”  She agreed with him, “Me too!”  The lesson I see for us is not that we have to always be smiling.  It’s that we have a choice to be happy.  We can exercise that choice by connecting with each other.  We can recognize that we are blessed in this amazing way:  love is always ready to flow through us to others.  Today, try greeting each person you meet.  Let love flow through you.  Have a blessed day.

Want to be happy?  You need to know that your Inner Critic doesn’t want you to be happy.  It wants you to be safe.  Safe from what it sees as dangers of your becoming free.  And it’s willing to constrict your life in order to keep you safe.  That is, what it thinks of as “safe.”  That Inner Critic-created safety comes at a price.  It will tell you to hold back; don’t take risks; don’t put yourself out there in the world.  Once you know this, you can make a choice:  Do I want to be safe, or do I want to be happy?  If you choose “happy,” you’ll be choosing to make those connections your Natural Self wants.  You’ll follow your sparks.  We want you to be happy.*

For more on how to be happy and free from your Inner Critic, see Disarming Your Inner Critic by James Elliott & Kathryn Elliott.  You can get it here on our Products page and at www.amazon.com.

High-Voltage Relating = Happiness.  It’s an equation we’ve experienced in our relationship for 21 years.  And we’ve watched it work for others in our therapy practice.  But now research* supports it.  People who spend more time in deep discussions and less time in small talk report feeling happier.  We’re just built that way.  We long for and need connection.   We’ve found the most satisfying way of connecting is to talk to your partner about themselves and about your relationship.  Try this today:  Ask your partner, “Have you had any thoughts or feelings about our relationship you haven’t told me?”  Watch closeness grow.   

*For more on the research, go to http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/talk-deeply-be-happy/

Note:  More Love Names from yesterday’s question:  “Lovebug,” “Babe,”  “Sugar,” “Handsome”  Thanks for responding.  It warmed our hearts.