This article is about not only following your heart in relationship situations, but also about mindfully approaching such situations with thought, logic, and reason such that you create and maintain appropriate boundaries when needed. Recently, a series of my life coaching sessions focused on helping someone sort through a personal relationship situation. She had been dating a guy for several months who had always expressed great affection towards her when they spent time together but much to her dismay he, towards the end of that period of time, commented on how much he appreciated her “friendship”.
Now, one thing I frequently tell people, when it comes to personal relationship situations, is that it’s okay to listen to your heart so long as you balance this out, from time to time, with thought, logic, and reason. In other words, feel free to follow your heart to some degree but also keep your eyes open and put some thought into, and reflect upon, your relationship situation from time to time. If someone appears to be discounting or downgrading the relationship that you thought was progressing towards something more formal and less casual, from your perspective, then you must love and respect yourself enough to treat the relationship, and the other person for that matter, differently.
This does not necessarily mean you must end the relationship but that you must decide what works for you in the more casual type of relationship and create the boundaries you need for this relationship “type”. If you decide to proceed towards a more casual relationship, such as a friendship or casual dating situation, then you must make sure you become mindful about whether the other person is respecting your boundaries or not. If not, then you might need to consider ending the relationship until the other party is ready for a more formal relationship with you. Some people do not like casual relationships with certain others and thus the only “healthy” solution for them is to end the relationship completely. Everyone is different. You must do what works for you for whatever relationship situation you are in.
In this particular situation, there was more to the story. The guy had a long distance friendship with another woman but later came to the conclusion that he wanted to pursue a formal long distance relationship with her. So, the next session focused on that. At any point in a relationship situation where such a “decision” is made you must do at least two things: 1) Respect that decision (and yourself for that matter), and perhaps more importantly, 2) Ensure the decision maker has to live with the consequences of that decision until the time that the person decides to re-decide – which could be anything from developing a casual or perhaps no form of relationship with you at all depending on what you can or cannot live with out of love and respect for yourself. The point being that if the “decision maker” never has to live with the consequences of a decision, then the person has no incentive or motivation to ever consider making a different decision at some point in time. One which might involve wanting to be exclusively with you if you still happen to be interested and available at the time.
The above describes one way to mindfully create healthy boundaries in relationship situations by using thought, logic, and reason where needed. I hope that some of you who experience similar struggles will find this to be helpful in living a happier life.
This and other happiness and self-improvement related tips are provided throughout my self-help oriented books: https://brighterdayslifecoaching.com/published-books-and-life-coaching-services/
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Joseph M. Brennan Jr.
CEO/Life Coach – Brighter Days Life Coaching
“Your Brighter Days Life Coach for Life”
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