The benefits of clean relationship practices are a lot like those of clean eating: a sense of well-being and knowledge that your are on the right path.
Speaking of eating, my brain loves to think in recipes so here’s mine for clean:
Clean = Being Clear + Being Responsible + Being a Leader
Being Clear: understanding who your are, what your strengths are, what you offer, and what your intention is in as specific way as possible. The more specific you are, the better.
In relationships, part of this means knowing and accepting your preferences. Example—you live to go on camping vacations. Cool—your prospective mate should better be an outdoorsy type or at least open to it, right?
Compromise is always an option and of course we aren’t going to get everything we want all the time, but you must at some point to stand up for your own preferences–especially the ones that you have continually because they are often calls from your soul. Abandon these preferences at your own peril.
Being Responsible: This is where you create habits and practices to support yourself, your soul, and your relationships and keep your mindset as positive as possible. These include a dance between what I call masculine and feminine activities such as:
Masculine: meditation, exercise, eating well, and getting enough sleep.
Feminine: play, fun, creativity, pleasure (sexual and/or sensual, breathing), song, and dance.
Women have to pay special attention when it comes to self-responsibility to avoid nurturer overload. As the past and present Chief Nurturing Officers of our society, we have a long history of natively putting others needs before our own. Yes, men do it, too—most caring people do—but it can be even more insidious to women because most men, compartmentalizers that they are, know when to shut it off. You may have seen it in your man’s face, that energetic “enough, I’m done” look as he takes a break and goes to veg out somewhere.
Women have a harder time doing that. If we aren’t careful, we can work too hard nurturing—and I’m not just talking children either—it can be pets, friends, family, home, projects, etc.—and end up overworking ourselves. Overwork leads to depletion.
Depletion can really mess with your mindset. You are responsible for your positive mindset. Positive mindset doesn’t mean you are always happy. It means you take the steps to take to move yourself towards feeling better.
Being a Leader: 1. getting the skills–communication, kindness, compassion, boundary-setting, negotiation, etc.–needed to educate your friends, spouses, family, etc. about your preferences, and value AND 2. taking the action to educate them in a kind, compassionate, and firm way.
True, life is seldom as simple as a recipe, so I’ll say that working clean in relationship means living with integrity as often as possible. Integrity means both acting honestly AND acting as a whole—all the parts of your intelligence system—head, heart, spirit—working together. While it’s not perfection, it feels much more peaceful over the long haul than consuming and producing junk.
What are your tips for working clean in your relationships?
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