Step Two: Relationships and The Rules
Welcome to Step Two. Here is where you begin to find the sources of what works and what does not in all of your relationships: The Rules.
Relationship is everything.
Whether it is the relationship with yourself, your spouse or lover, your kids, friends, people at work, neighbors, and even to the world, relationship is at the center of mood, experience, perspective, and so much more. This includes our relationships to things and concepts like food, exercise, sleep, liberty, justice, healthcare providers, or hooch (that’s slang for alcohol there all-star…)
Since relationships are such a big deal, it may help to understand what they are and to define them. Human beings are social animals designed for relationship. Whether you believe that design is divine or evolutionary or both, the human animal is a social animal and sociability is relational.
Relationships are all about The Rules.
Now, when I say this in the beginning with my clients, sometimes people react a bit negatively because they think about rules or define rules as meaning “restrictions.” That’s not the definition I use.
Our rules are our values: needs, wants, desires, fantasies, preferences. These are our rules. And the people, things, and concepts we share relationship have their rules. Some rules are known to us and not to others, some rules are not known to us but are known to others, and some rules aren’t known by either. And yet, all the rules exude an influence on our system.
System? What system?
Your relationships exist in a system. A marriage, a family, a company, a neighborhood, a country, a world- these are all systems. And all systems are complex. Inside of your own body, a multitude of complex, interactive systems function interactively. And systems are governed by the rules. Break a rule and there is conflict. If your body has a rule about bean burritos, and you break that rule, off to the can you go whether you know why or not. If your partner has a rule about affection and you don’t know it or how to play by it, well, off to the can you go…
Remember our posture? Conflict contains the potential for relationship enhancement. We now know conflict is a rule dispute. Therefore, when in conflict, don’t look at the person. Instead, find the rule or rules in play and focus on that. You will be focused, efficient, and accurate when you use this concept to lean-in to conflict to manage and resolve it.
