Celebration. The word celebration means, “To observe an occasion with appropriate ceremony or festivity.” (Dictionary.com) When we first begin a relationship with someone, we celebrate him or her constantly.

Every time the phone rings, our heart jumps with joyous celebration. A night or day on the town with them becomes a celebration of time well invested.

Each passing day we get to know them with deeper understanding, we celebrate all the wondrous qualities that endear them to us until we eventually make a decision to keep them in our lives on a permanent basis because they have so many fundamentally important attributes we hold dear.

During this time, we overlook certain things that seem trivial. If something bothers us, once mentioned to the other person, it’s quickly forgotten and forgiven. We focus on all the positive things we find both fascinating and alluring in our new relationship.

Then suddenly, as if the ball dropped for the final moments at midnight on Time Square, the lid blows open to a new era of the relationships where suddenly you stop celebrating and take a step back and say, “Hey! That really irritates me about you!”

Suddenly, we begin to focus on the negative qualities and attributes and forget about all the wonderful characteristics that in the past made us love them more. Forgiveness and moving on become a thing of the past.

The more we focus on the negative, the less we remember the positive and an ugly cycle begins. Then the stage is set for the downfall and complete demise of the relationship. Suddenly the relationship is all about what the other person did or didn’t do. Statements like, ‘you never…,’ ‘you always…’ and other negative superlatives become the main source of communication.

At first, the receiving partner may try to accommodate the complaining partner (and both may switch which end they are on, the receiving or the giving end). Eventually, they may give up trying to please the other partner, feeling as if nothing they do will ever be met with satisfaction, so why try.

The erosion of the relationship reaches critical mass where neither party wants to spend or invest time with the other, which will lead to problems that are even more serious. What happened? This was the perfect person a not so long ago and then suddenly they pulled a Jeckle / Hyde on you.

Where is your cherished partner? Have they disappeared? Perhaps they played some trick on your senses that caused you to see through Rose Colored glasses instead of seeing who they really were.

To help you understand what happened, let me use a common example. When you purchase your first home, excitement can alter your judgment. In order insure you’re getting a good deal, and not a dilapidated shack that may fall apart soon after closing the deal, you inspect the house very thoroughly, hiring outside inspectors for better judgment.

The deal is sealed, you move in and after a few years new paint is needed, the plumbing may begin to leak and there is a definite leak in your ceiling. Other factors in your life are adding to your frustration. The downfall of the economy has started rumors of layoffs in your company and your car is on the fritz.

You come home from a frustrating day at the office and boom, the dishwasher is broken and suddenly the house that you loved with so much passion has become a liability. You begin to list all the negatives about your home and forget about all the wonderful times you’ve spent there.

What changed? You forgot to look at the positive and the celebration has ended. That’s what may have happened in your relationship. You have forgotten all the wonderful times and have only focused on the negative. Garbage in, garbage out. Negativity in, negatively out.

Just as with the house, at first you are cautious not to end up in a bad relationship, even recruiting friends for inspection. Once you settle in and the hormones that course through the veins of those “in love” fade. (It’s really “in chemical,” but that’s another article). The cracks start showing and your focus shifts from the positive to the negative until eventually you can’t see beyond the negative.

So how can you turn the tide? How can you get the love, passion and esteem back you once held for the person in your life? By beginning the celebration again. I’m not saying you have Pollyanna out or that problems don’t need to be addressed, but take a poem I wrote to heart, ” It’s surprising how when you accept people for what they are and who they are, they become exactly what you had hoped they would be.’

If you start slowly focusing on the positive attributes about your partner, it will soften your heart to a place where compromise and solutions start to replace bitter anger and hurt.

To start the process, begin making a list of all the wonderful things that drew you to this person in the beginning. Write all of them down and go over the list. Don’t talk back to yourself with statements like, ‘Yeah, but they aren’t like that anymore.’ That’s not the point of this exercise.

The point of this exercise is to reach out beyond the justice you feel your entitled too and straight into the mercy that is necessary to not only help you understand the flaws but come to a point of sincere emotional availability that will help both of you reach an end of the argument and a beginning of genuine communication that leads to results.

Another exercise you can partake in is something I call Soul Gazing. Soul Gazing can take a couple on the brink of implosion and help put perspective, understanding and compassion back into the mix. I have seen couples who had been fighting for years say, ‘Wow! I felt his pain.’ Or ‘I understand her needs.’ And real change begins.

It’s an uncomplicated method of gazing into your partner’s eyes; the eyes in this case really are the windows to the soul. The exercise takes about 15 minutes to complete, but if you’re a beginning, I suggest 2-3 minutes.

To begin, one person, usually the man needs to be on the bottom, and the other needs to sit on top of the other person with their legs wrapped around the back of the partner. Use a pillow of a soft cushion so your rump won’t be sore.

Take each other’s hands and clasp them together, and without talking or turning away. Gaze into the others eyes, intent on thinking only about that partner, emptying your mind of all negativity. Visualize them as the way you remember them in the beginning, not as you see them now.

Do this exercise at least three times a week and re-read the positive attribute affirmations you wrote about your partner at least every other day and then watch your relationship turn around in a short matter of time.

If you want the love you deserve the last piece of advice I can give is to really understand that love is a gift and it’s not a right. It’s is a decision, not a feeling. If you make the choice to make your relationship work, it will stand the test of time and you can have the enduring and deep love you deserve. Begin the celebration of each other’s souls again and let the joy enter into your lives, enveloping you for a lifetime.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 17th, 2009 at 9:46 am and is filed under Relationship Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.