Day 6: The Relationship Dance

You have been pondering your personality for several days now, considering how you can cultivate yourself to be more loving and virtuous, and how to grow a better relationship with the world. 

But relationships are a dance with partners, who have their own styles, strengths, and excesses. If we bump up against them in the wrong way, we might send them reeling into excess, which will possibly spark our own spiral into excess, and it can become a crazy dance pretty fast.

The relationship dance is complex, and it helps to take some time to practice the steps. If you are having conflict or discomfort with another person on a regular basis, you might find yourself saying, "I just don't understand where he's coming from." And that is exactly the problem: You don't understand his style, his strengths, or what pushes him into excess. You can use your instincts and a little thought to figure it out.

The most common factors leading to excess are physical factors: Hunger, lack of sleep, illness, hormones, and stress. The list below shows generalized examples of other factors, divided into four personality styles. (Note that its normal for people to fall into more than one style):

1. Easy-going Accommodating Styles might get excessive if they perceive unfriendliness or disapproval; have an intense confrontation; have too little structure; feel stifled by deadlines; or if others reinforce their clowning.

2. Methodical Analyzer Styles might get excessive if they are pressured to hurry or make quick changes; are not taken seriously; are faced with emotional confrontation; or are asked to do something embarrassing.

3. Achieving Leader Styles might get excessive if they are slowed down or blocked from action; are not feeling challenged, or get bored; are not put in charge, or do not get a responsive following; or are mocked or insulted.

4. Uniting Perfectionist Styles might get excessive if they are asked to go it alone; are criticized or belittled; if others cut corners or don't maintain high standards; feel taken advantage of; or are unable to do the excellent job they want to do.

Take out your love Journal:

• First review conversations and interactions you had yesterday, and your general frame of mind with the world.

• Next, think about the people you will see today, and the conversations you may have. Make note of the people who are the hardest to dance with - who seem to push your buttons the most, or who seem to have an excessive style.

• Can you pinpoint any factors that seem to push those people into excess? Might something YOU are doing be making it worse? List a few steps you could try to smooth out the dance.

• And end with a 5-minute Love Meditation. Send the "pink light of love" to those difficult-to-dance-with partners.

At the very least, if you begin to think about those challenging people as people with pressures you don't understand, and a unique style with unique strengths, then you will be better able to hold on to equanimity and offer loving kindness - that is always the first step to a smooth dance.