By Melanie Turner
Strong, meaningful relationships help us on the path to wellness and satisfaction. Our ability to improve our connections increase when we take time to get to know ourselves, and others, better. One of the ways we can cultivate this is with mindfulness. This allows us the ability to be more open, compassionate and potentially better able to relate to our significant others. Mindfulness involves deliberately directing your attention away from autopilot and negative, judging thoughts, allowing you to be more present and connected to whatever is happening right now.
- Mindfulness helps us be more present and attentive – by really ‘hearing’ what the other person is saying, giving them your undivided attention which really says “you and what you have to say is important to me”.
- Mindfulness lowers negative emotional reactivity- we learn how to respond with choice and thought over what we say and what behaviour comes next, rather than habitually reacting to our significant others which is usually in part, due to past history.
- Mindfulness improves emotion regulation- the ability to look at our own emotions as they arise with curiousness and choose an appropriate response borne out of awareness.
- Mindfulness enhances self-awareness- to know more deeply why we feel a certain way and to not act on that feeling without forethought.
- Mindfulness makes us more empathic and builds compassion- we may develop the capacity to look at others perspectives and to learn ways in which to show more love and understanding. This is turn, builds intimacy.
