10 tips to keep a healthy relationship

 

 

“I can’t believe my luck. I am so happy with you. You can’t believe how much I love you. Maybe, too much….”

 

“O…M…G….!!!! Who is talking this kind of gross stuff? Absolutely disgusting….”  I can already hear my teenager niece’s yelling if any chance she reads this blog. Hahaha… It’s my husband. My husband still keeps whispering these to me almost every day after 13 years of relationship. I am definitely on the right track, aren’t I? Am I showing off? Maybe… Yes, I am. Why can’t I show off and be proud of being in a wonderful relationship with my husband when big house, new luxurious cars, fancy clothes and well-paid jobs can be easily celebrated? Our current materialistic world makes us confident to be proud of what we possess or what we can buy, but we are still shy to show how great relationship we have with our partners. Isn’t it truly wonderful to have satisfied relationship with your loved ones? If you agree with me, you are ready to enjoy your wonderful life with your partner. 

 

These are 10 tips I would like to share with you to keep a healthy relationship.  These are working perfectly with me so, why not to you?

 

 

 

1.      Respect each other: You need to respect the difference between men and women. Not only men and women, we all are unique. We all think and act differently. So, don’t try to change the others to be a person like you. You need to respect what they think and how they behave and try to understand them as they are. You would never feel good if anyone tries to control over your thoughts and behaviours so, don’t do it to others. I promise you that it wouldn’t work anyway. Understanding and respecting is the first step toward to the harmonious relationship.

 

 

 

2.      Remember that no one is perfect: Have you been dreaming about Mr/Mrs Right? Did you think that your partner was Mr/Mrs Right then but not any more? ‘Right’ doesn’t mean ‘Perfect’ and no one can be perfect. Don’t expect that your partner would meet all your expectations or needs. We human are imperfect so our life is exciting and also challenging. How about you? Are you perfect? Love your partner’s weakness and imperfectness, and work on your relationships based on what you have rather than what you wish to have.

 

 

 

 

3.      Keep being attractive to each other: Keep your body and mind fit and healthy. Don’t ask your partner to love you when you don’t love yourself. Do you think your body and mind are still attractive to yourself, and to your partner? Very often, we are ‘Too’ relaxed with our relationships and expecting all will be as good as before (when we are not good as before.). Don’t neglect your body and mind. Keep your body healthy and fit and mind positive (no one can be happy with negative person). I know when you are happy with your body and mind, your partner will be even happier with you.

 

 

 

4.      Show the love: Tell your partner what you feel about him or her. There is no one doesn’t like compliments. We all are born to be loved and cherished. Show your love to your partner plenteously and constantly. Tell them how much you love them, what you like about them, how they look great, how much you enjoy being with them, etc… This will be the best investment in your life as it will give you the best return all the time. 

 

 

5.      Share goals and have a common goal: Everyone has their own life purpose and goals to achieve. Share with your partner about your dream and goals, and also try to get involved into your partner’s goals and what are their wishes. Having someone (especially loved ones) who can understand and support your dream can energise and brighten your life. Also, I highly recommend you to have common goals to do and support together. Quite often, we complain about lack of communication between partners especially when we are in a long term relationship. Having common goals can be very helpful to resolve this problem as you will share your thoughts and actions together to achieve the goals.

 

 

 

6.      Keep improve yourself: Do not stop improving yourself. Being in a relationship doesn’t mean you need to stop developing or learning things for yourself. Even though you are in a same relationship with your partner, each of you is growing different speed and also different directions. The gap between you and your partner’s growth could become a problem to understand each other (also to respect each other). Share about your knowledge and interest with your partner and try to learn more about what your partner is interested in. I believe that a healthy relationship can be achieved when both parties grow together.

 

 

 

7.      Ready to compromise yourself: Manly of conflicts between couples can start by stubbornness. Becoming a couple from two persons requires fair volume of cooperation and adaptation. You need to open yourself to your partner’s opinions as much as you want your views to be accepted. Open conversation can be very helpful. You need to let your partner what is your thoughts and you also need to clearly understand what your partner’s thoughts are. A successful negotiation can be only made based on the clear understanding. One person cannot be a dictator and the other is a follower in a healthy relationship. Both needs to have their own opinions and also be ready to accept the other party’s opinions.

 

 

 

 

8.      Be rational:  I don’t believe that a relationship without disagreements can be a healthy relationship. We all need to argue time to time. Unfortunately, it is our human nature and we need to deal with it wisely. Try to be rational and avoid being emotional when you get into the arguments. Honestly, we women are more likely to be emotional when we have to deal with this. I know it is not easy but we need to try to be rational to control the situation better. Try to get some time to calm yourself and think about the outcomes you wish to achieve. You may realise that the problem was not that big as you thought.

 

 

 

9.      Travel together: Traveling together will definitely strengthen your relationship. Spending more time and having wonderful experiences together can create a strong connection between you and your partner. Daily routines and 9 to 5 working life very often loosen our feeling of affection to each other so we need to put an effort to refresh and tighten our loving feeling time to time. Travelling can be a very helpful solution. Sharing and remembering our unforgettable memories and experiences from our last 4.5 months trip together is unquestionably one of the biggest supports for our wonderful relationship.

 

 

 

 

10.   Talk more about sex: One of the funny things I cannot understand is people are getting shyer or lazier to talk about sex when they live together longer. Any reason, we intend to avoid expressing our sexual desires towards to our partners and dismiss the importance of communicating about sex. I admit that it is not a common topic to talk out louder but why not between you and your partner. Ring or text him or her and let them know how you feel. Being naughty to your partner sometimes. Trust me. It will surprisingly boost your relationship with your partner.

 

Am I doing all of these? Of course not… but I am aware of the importance of them and trying to get closer to ‘Well-done’ stage diligently. I believe that my husband is putting the same efforts to keep our relationship fit and healthy. Relationship is not one way business. Both of you need constantly work hard on keeping and maintaining the relationship healthy as the happy relationship can bring enormous pleasure to your life.  

 

 

Positive Affirmations to revive yourself ( (Week 8 to 13)

Friday afternoon, my day is diligently running away from ‘Today’ to ‘Yesterday’ and I am (as always) struggling to comprehend this unreal flow of time/life. Already April…. A quarter of year has gone…   I have been trying to keep myself fresh as I was at the beginning of the year but honestly, it is not always easy. My New Year’s resolutions (such as preparing every week new affirmations, writing blogs, painting pictures, keeping fit, etc…) have become my routine things to do and don’t excite me as much as before.

 

I know, no one cannot be fully energised or motivated always so I am not going to blame that I am in blue today.  ‘BUT’, I also know that I need to lift myself up and refresh my determinations. So, it is time to get helped by positive affirmations. There are affirmations from week 5 to this week (week 15). Read them out with me if you feel down. I know this will help. J

 

 

 

Week 8  

I am fit, healthy and attractive.

My vision is always clear and focused on my dreams.

I love myself and I am in charge of my own happiness.

I can accomplish every opportunity I am given.

I take deeper, longer and relaxed breaths, and I am in peace.

 

 

 

Week 9

 

My body is healthy, my mind is brilliant and my soul is peaceful.

I wake up every day with strength in my heart and clarity in my mind.

I acknowledge my own self-worth and my confidence is growing.

I have been given endless talents and I begin to utilize them now.

Everything that is happening now is happening for my ultimate good.

 

Week 10

 

I can do anything I wish to do.

I discover fantastic opportunities every day.

Everything is working out for my highest good.

I am courageous and I can stand up for myself.

Creative energy flows through me and leads me to new and brilliant ideas.

 

 

 

 

Week 11

I am in charge of my own happiness and responsible for filling my own needs.

 I honour my body by making healthy choices and choose to be healthy and feel good.

 I am open and receptive to miracles in every area of my life.

I am creating financial security through the use of my talents.

 My marriage is becoming stronger, deeper, and more stable each day.

 

 

 

Week 12

I am strong, focused and motivated.

I am truly loved and approved by myself.

I am healthier, wealthier and happier every day.

I have plenty of positive energy so I can handle any difficulties in my life.

I communicate my feeling and needs in healthy, respectful ways.

 

 

Week 13

I am open and receptive to new ideas and opportunities.

I am good at many things that can open up the bright future.

I am diligently learning valuable knowledge and improving myself every day.

My life is heaven.

Wonderful things are happening in my life now.

 

 

 

Week 14

I can do it.

Everything I need comes to me at the perfect time.

Everything I touch is a success.

I am constantly discovering new ways to improve my life.

My home fulfils all my desires and needs.

 

Do Something!

 

 

Already for 3 weeks, I have been having a heel pain. The first week, I tried to ignore the pain as I constantly have some pains all over the body (e.g. ankle, knees, shoulders, hamstring, hips and so on…) from my over exercising. The second week, the pain seemed to start bothering me more that I was feeling very uncomfortable but, I was still too lazy to do anything for it. As my foot hurts more as the day goes on, this week I have been having a problem to even walk without pain. I knew I needed to do something but the lack of determination delayed me to do anything. The funny thing was I expected my foot would be fine soon like a miracle (when I didn’t do anything to get better???).

 

Finally, after lunch time work-out (I know, I shouldn’t have done J), having a serious pain that I couldn’t walk without limping, I decided to ‘DO’ something.

 

I showed my foot to one of my colleagues who used to be a physiotherapist and asked her opinion. She straightaway diagnosed ‘Plantar Fasciitis’ according to my symptoms and suggested me to search internet about it. I felt immediately better by only knowing what it could be. 

 

 

 

‘Plantar fasciitis (say "PLAN-ter fash-ee-EYE-tus") is the most common cause of heel pain. The plantar fascia is the flat band of tissue (ligament) that connects your heel bone to your toes. It supports the arch of your foot. If you strain your plantar fascia, it gets weak, swollen, and irritated (inflamed). Then your heel or the bottom of your foot hurts when you stand or walk.’

Wow… When I read the first a few sentences, I knew I was on a right track. So, what could be the causes of the pain and how to cure this? Of course, there were plenty of free advices and tips for me to try on the web instead of visiting Physio. 

•           Give feet a rest and cut back on activities that make feet hurt. (This will be very hard as I can’t stop moving ).

•           Try not to walk or run on hard surfaces. (No run??? This is even harder.)

•           To reduce pain and swelling, try putting ice on heel. (Good, I can do this.)

•           Or take an over-the-counter pain reliever like ibuprofen (such as Advil or Motrin), naproxen (such as Aleve), or aspirin. (Well…, I don’t want to take a pill not to feel pain instead of curing.)

•           Do toe stretches, calf stretches and towel stretches several times a day, especially when you first get up in the morning. (This sounds very good. I can try this.)

•           Get a new pair of shoes. Pick shoes with good arch support and a cushioned sole. Or try heel cups or shoe inserts. Use them in both shoes, even if only one foot hurts.

 

I immediately applied some of these tips yesterday and through this morning (especially icing and stretches), and guess what? I feel far better than yesterday. I am going to buy shoe inserts today to get the best result (getting rid of this pain) as soon as possible.
 

  

What am I talking about now? Sorry, I didn’t want to talk about my painful heel or how to fix all my sport injuries. What I really wanted to talk about is that I was quite amazed by my attitude on problem solving. I have been knowing/acknowledging my pain for three weeks but I didn’t take any action to release the pain and I only hoped it would be better ‘Anyhow’. Obviously, the miracle didn’t happen and I had to be in pain during the time. Once I decided to take an action for solving the problem, I could have a closer look at the problem and stepped forward to finding solutions. When I found out what could be helpful and applied some of options, the problem starts getting easier and simpler. Now, I am facing the problem and trying to resolve it. (My right foot is on ice after three sets of stretches and, I feel good J).
 

Most people including myself very often try to ignore or delay facing problems. Delaying will never lead you anywhere. Either the problems will stay there wait for your action anyway or get bigger/worsen that you need to put extra efforts to resolve. So, when you have got a problem, don’t delay it, face and deal with it. Remember that we intend to worry more than necessary. The problems could be far simpler than you think.

 

Don’t expect a miracle can happen to solve your problems. As you are responsible for your happiness in your life, all the problems occurred in your life are also your responsibility. No one can solve your problems on behalf of you and the miracle you wish could only rarely happen (if you are extremely lucky).
 

Examine the problems properly. Don’t exaggerate or underestimate.  When you are clearer with the problems, shorter time and less efforts will be needed.
 

When you know what the actual problems are, you can find out ways and take action to resolve them. I believe that most of problems can be solved by our appropriate approaches and efforts. If it is beyond our control, then we have to let it flow anyway. Am I right?
 

I know that my thoughts are jumping everywhere from my sore heel to problem solving (sorry J). However, this simple practice helped me to realize that how important to take action (‘Do’)  when we get any issues. There was no reason to keep the pain and suffer every single step for three weeks with doing nothing. I feel embarrassed that I left my body in pain so long when I know how important to keep it healthy. At least I feel better now that I have started doing something for it (be positive J).   
 

Do you have any problem? You know what to do now, don’t you? ‘Do’ something!