Jennifer: Hey, we are still here with our friend Paul Carlson, he is a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist and life coach here in Dallas.
Paul, our next question for you is this, what is the secret to long term happy relationships?
Paul: That is a big question—love. But you know what most people do not have a definition of the word love. They say, “I love you”, “I am in love with you”, “I fell out of love with you and I want a divorce.” Ask them once what is your definition of the word love. Most of them cannot come up with one.
Jennifer: It is hard one to define.
Paul: Yes, if you just have the definition that love means unconditional acceptance, of that what you love, all of a sudden, everything gets easier.
Part of the problem that we have in not having long-term relationships, is that one or the other or maybe even both of the parties in the relationship try to micromanage each other. And they do that because they feel fear. Fear that they are not going to be a certain way or react to certain way instead of just accepting them the way they are.
When you love someone, you accept them as they are—the good stuff and the bad stuff. Now if the bad stuff out weighed the good stuff, you would not be in a relationship.
Jennifer: Hopefully.
Paul: You are never going to find someone that you are 100% in sync with. It is just not realistic. There is always going to be some little behaviors or things that they do, that kind to tick you off. Why? Because you would do it differently. But you know what, it is all okay. Learn to let go. Learn to give up trying to micromanage them.
When we try to micromanage our lives and micromanage everybody else in our lives, we create a level of suffering, that is terrible. But we are doing that to ourselves. We do not have to do that, okay. We can just let go.
Jennifer: So, it is self-inflicted pain.
Paul: Yes, it is not, “I love you, but if you are late for dinner, you are in the dog house, okay.” “I love you the way you are and the way you will choose to be in the future.”
If you have that latitude, if you have that looseness and that easiness to your relationship, it just makes everything a lot easier. And we do that, by getting out of judgment, our ego creates a lot of problems and we probably talk about this a lot in these sessions to come.
About we have an overdeveloped parietal lobe that part of our brain with the ego resides. And of course, the ego you have talk about this and your various recordings as well. The ego, among other things, has a purpose to prove I am right and you are wrong, if you disagree with me. What about if it is okay for you to both be right? For you to both have your own opinion. You both have your own perspective, okay.
Also, being very honest in your communication. And having good communication skills means everything gets easier. The longer the relationship lasts, we learn how to get over those things. Get over trying to control everybody else.
Jennifer: Great advice
Paul: Let the other people take care of their selves.
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