Tiny Buddha

Author: Lesya Li

  • 5 Tips to Create a Loving Relationship, With Fewer Disappointments

    5 Tips to Create a Loving Relationship, With Fewer Disappointments

    Happy Couple

    “Love does not obey our expectations; it obeys our intentions.” ~Lloyd Strom

    Have you ever felt less about a relationship when it didn’t exactly pan out like a fairy tale? I sure did.

    I had it stuck in my mind that a great relationship should be picture perfect.

    When reality would give me a sobering slap showing it was far from perfect, I would walk away from a relationship that refused to meet my standards.

    I thought that a relationship is like a flower in a pot, ever blooming by itself. No hard work whatsoever. But the “flower” also has a tremendous thirst for nourishment and requires time and dedication to ensure it grows and blossoms.

    Stubbornly, I believed that when I met my one and only, my life would change for the better. Just like in a romantic movie, I was expecting the credits to roll up the much anticipated “Happy Ending” sign.

    Real relationships have nothing in common with a fairy tale.

    I had to learn that in order to find genuine happiness (in any relationship) I needed to let go of that silly, romantic movie-like metaphor. When I let go of what a relationship should be like, I started enjoying relationships as they were by looking beyond the flaws and releasing false expectations.

    5 Tips to Create a Loving Relationship

    1. Find wholeness instead of expecting someone else to complete you.

    Give yourself and your partner the greatest gift by becoming whole so that you won’t look for a relationship to complete you, or lose yourself and dissolve into another person completely.

    It was challenging to break free from the notion that in order to be whole, I had to find my other half. I also struggled to find a connection with myself outside the walls of relationships. But I was convinced that it was crucial to be able to find comfort in my own company.

    We all want to be happy, and happiness comes from within. Solitude allows us to clear our mind and unwind. It gives us to chance to reflect on what we want to experience to create fulfillment in life.

    Put some time aside. Nurture yourself with the love and attention you deserve. The more you fill yourself with love, the more love you’ll be ready to give. Be kind to yourself. Find your peace and comfort in solitude.

    All great love stories start with loving ourselves first. When we nourish our internal light, then we are ready to share it with the rest of the world.

    2. Focus on yourself instead of trying to change someone else.

    I was determined to change my partner and teach him something that just didn’t appeal to him. I’ve only recently realized that it’s fruitless to try to change someone else, and better to focus on yourself, acting as an example of what’s possible.

    For instance, two-and-a-half years ago I started eating healthy and exercising daily. I became a vegetarian and was excited about the way I felt and the weight I dropped in a matter of a couple of months. Of course I wanted my significant other to feel what I felt. I wanted him to feel good.

    I was forcing him to attain my new healthy habits. It turned into an obsession to see dramatic changes in him in a heartbeat. The result? He became furious and resentful.

    When I quit nagging about what he should do, I gave him space to breathe and be himself. And eventually, when he was ready to change, my significant other turned his eating habits around. He followed my example because he felt compelled, not forced.

    3. Learn to see the extraordinary within the ordinary.

    We often do just about anything to avoid the ordinary, don’t we? For years I couldn’t see the magic in sharing the day-to-day life with the person I love.

    I was comically obsessed with avoiding ordinary, so I wished that each moment would take my breath away, or that my partner would do something that would. I wanted each moment to be epic and filled with glory.

    I had my expectations way up high and forgot how to appreciate all the “little” things—things that might seem ordinary, like going for a walk in the park hand-in-hand.

    I’ve learned how to see the beauty in each moment shared with my loved one knowing that ordinary is extraordinary when you see things through the heart.

    4. Let go of conditions and expectations.

    Have you ever placed conditions on your love? I did.

    When we expect people to give us love in a precise way we yearn for it, we put our contentment in someone else’s hands and suffocate our relationships with impossibly high standards.

    If you’re not happy with something, share your feelings, but consider that love won’t always look exactly as you expected it would. Letting go of heavy expectations gives our relationships room to breathe and allows us to appreciate everything that’s going right instead of focusing on what we think is wrong.

    5. Listen to understand.

    Arguments are awful, aren’t they? They leave us with that bitter aftertaste. Arguments have also made me think less of myself, and the relationship.

    I failed to realize back then that the more we communicate and listen, the fewer challenges we face.

    State your point patiently and listen to what your partner has to say without interrupting them. Construct the bridge of understanding through the chasm of the argument.

    We all want to be heard and understood.

    The biggest problem with communication occurs when we don’t listen to understand; we listen to reply or to fight back.

    I still struggle with the whole “not acting upon emotion” thing; however, I understand that emotions are temporary, but the situations created by them may resonate for much longer period of time.

    —

    When we allow our relationships to be imperfect and accept that we all have imperfections too, that’s when tiny yet noticeable changes occur. We all deserve nourishing relationships that are filled with love, respect, and warmth. Share your light and let yourself be loved in return.

    Happy couple image via Shutterstock

  • 4 Toxic Habits That Can Control Our Lives and Keep Us Unhappy

    4 Toxic Habits That Can Control Our Lives and Keep Us Unhappy

    “We first make our habits, then our habits make us.” ~Charles C. Noble

    Until recently, I firmly believed that a classic set of toxic habits consisted of nail biting, smoking cigarettes, and abusing alcohol and drugs.

    I completely forgot that there are some behavior patterns that can do equally bad damage to our vital and creative energy, claiming control over our lives and holding us back.

    Ignorance is bliss, someone once said. I overstayed my welcome in that state of mind more than once. I thought my bad habits were actually making my life easier, and following the path to personal growth always seemed so cumbersome.

    Eventually, my desire to improve became stronger than my fear of getting out of my comfort zone. I realized that the patterns of my behavior were too destructive and the feeling of comfort and familiarity was just an illusion.

    So I decided to look long and hard at everything that had to be changed. The first step would be to break a set of toxic habits and take back control.

    1. A thirst for approval.

    I spent a large part of my life doing things in the hope of getting others’ approval.

    I did things I didn’t want to do and not things I felt passionate about. I would sit and learn math to fulfill my parents’ dream of me becoming an economist, while all I wanted to do was to paint, write, and read books about nature, biology, and psychology.

    I even stopped writing, which I feel is my purpose, because certain people saw it as a hobby. In chasing their approval, I completely gave up control of my life.

    But the ugliest truth is that I valued their opinion of me more than my own. No matter how great I did, no matter how much positive feedback I received, it never seemed to be enough.

    When we make approval-seeking a habit, we lose touch with who we are and what we really want, meaning we’ll never be able to truly approve of ourselves.

    2. Sit. Wait. Hope.

    I used to sit and wait and hope that somehow a complicated situation would magically resolve itself. I thought that if I waited long enough, I would suddenly understand my purpose, write a book in one sitting, and my body would get in shape without doing anything.

    I would spend countless hours sitting and procrastinating, believing that “good things come to those who wait,” whereas, in reality, “better things come to those who work hard for it and have patience to wait for the results.”

    There is a huge difference between procrastinating and mindfully waiting for something good to happen. When you work toward a goal and you have patience to see it through, you mindfully wait for the fruits of your work to bring you closer to your goal. And there sure isn’t anything mindful about aimlessly procrastinating and not doing anything productive.

    I finally understood that waiting and hoping for something good to happen in my life would never bring me any satisfaction. Notice that the word “satisfaction” ends with “action.”

    Action is that formula that brings us happiness, as we need to take action to see results.

    3. Super competitive-comparative mode.

    From childhood, it was somehow wired in my mind that I had to prove that I was better than everyone else in whatever I did. This state of constant competitiveness and stress about being taken over by someone else kept me going for years.

    I cared so much about being better, stronger, and about reaching excellence before everyone else that I completely forgot how to breathe normally, how to connect with people, and how not to alienate everyone.

    I didn’t have many friends back then. And it’s really lonely up there on the top when you have no one to share even the smallest of your achievements.

    Excessive competitiveness brought out the aggressive, rootless, and a little bit obsessive-compulsive part of me.

    When I saw my true colors, I simply didn’t like that person in the mirror. I decided mindfully to release the desire to be better than everyone (which isn’t even possible) and only compare myself with myself of all the yesterdays.

    After all, it’s not about being better than everyone in this world (that’s a lot of competition); it’s about being better than ourselves compared to who we were before and reflecting on our progress from that point.

    4. Relying too much on other people.

    When I wasn’t feeling like doing something, I would pass it over to someone else. And then I would rely on that person to do things for me instead of learning how to solve challenges myself.

    I relied completely on other people when I moved to London from Saint-Petersburg. I was hiding behind my fear of having to meet new people, learn new culture, and speak a different language.

    My partner was extremely supportive, but even he would get annoyed with me sometimes when I would be afraid to go to a shop, call my bank, or try to plan a weekend getaway. He kept insisting that I took more responsibility, because this was the only way to learn how to solve problems.

    I didn’t see that the more others did things I didn’t feel like doing, the more opportunities for growth I missed.

    When you look at a sequoia tree up close, it is so enormous, you feel like an ant before it. But when you step back and see it from a mountaintop, it looks like a tiny match from a matchbox.

    The same goes to our daily challenges in life. Up close, they seem so formidable and unsolvable, but that’s only true if we refuse to try.

    And no matter how many challenges we pass on to someone else, life will always have more in store. After all, we receive one lesson that repeats itself until we learn it. And the fastest way to learn it is to tackle it head on. Then, and only then we are ready to move on.

    —

    We all have unhealthy habits. Identifying them and working to eliminate them can dramatically improve the quality of our life. It may take time to introduce changes, but if you do it mindfully and focus on the benefits, you’ll feel less resistance and a readiness to change for the better.