In relationships, compassion can often take a back seat. Life is busy. We stop making the effort to be in his shoes or to see his point of view when it’s one we disagree with, or worse, one we believe is intended to or is hurting us.
Especially amid disagreements, taking a moment to pause, taking ourselves out of the equation, and attempting to see a partner’s POV can be crucial. Like any behavior, reprogramming ourselves to listen and breathe instead of lashing out, takes practice.
Here are 6 cheat codes the most compassionate couples know, that others don’t:
1. Stop thinking so much about yourself
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This sounds harsh, I know, but there’s an ancient Indian saying that the total amount of unhappiness in the world comes from thinking about ourselves and the total amount of happiness in the world comes from thinking about other people.
It’s the reason we get so excited, as adults, to give rather than receive. It’s also the reason we want to see our children do better than we have, and why cultivating love and compassion for a partner feels so great in the first place. Studies prove that being more compassionate can lead to a healthier and happier life.
2. Be aware of your partner’s emotions
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Your partner fails to compliment you on the meal you spent hours preparing. Emotions get carried away so quickly. Suddenly, any logical or reasonable alternative except for “he does not and will not ever understand me” or “this is another sign of how selfish she is” has no chance of winning out in our minds. Reflect on some of your past arguments.
Are there any hostile engagements or hasty conclusions you’d redo if you could? Use them to help you monitor the ways the mind can quickly jump from A to Z.
3. Pause before responding
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Once you have awareness of the lightning-fast way our minds turn molehills into mountains, use it. Some say our mood changes every minute and a half. If your partner hurt you or deserves to be called out on something, it can probably wait a minute, right?
And in pausing, you’re giving yourself the ability to check out your thoughts and evaluate whether or not they warrant the emotional response you’ve generated. Research from The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health shows that taking a moment and pausing can help us handle life’s challenges. As Nance Guilmartin writes in her business management book The Power of Pause:
“Today you need the ability to discern what lies beneath people’s words, their reactions, or their silence. If you don’t build the neuropathways in your brain to pause, to momentarily disengage your automatic reactions, you can trigger a chain reaction that derails your best intentions and strategies.
Emotions can also drive illogical reactions masquerading as gut responses. That’s why a pause is powerful: it restores your ability to access your intuition and to trust that what your gut is telling you works in a particular situation.”
Pausing allows you to double-check with your mind: “Do I want to go in that direction? Am I sure there’s not a better alternative here?” which can make all the difference in business and your relationship.
4. Follow the Golden Rule
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The golden rule: “Do unto others as you’d have done unto you” has persisted in so many incarnations throughout time for a reason. If you are untruthful with your partner, don’t you find yourself more paranoid that he/she’s untruthful, too? Because you understand how it’s done.
Likewise, if you make a point of increasing affirmation or encouragement to your partner, you’ll most likely see a similar response returned to you. When you pause, keep this idea in mind. How would you want to be treated if you’d made a mistake as he/she had?
How do you respond to someone shouting at you? And, how wonderfully unexpected is it to see your partner stop and try to see it your way?
5. Have your own thing outside of the partnership
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While compassion depends on selflessness, if you are out of whack, mentally, physically, or emotionally, it’s hard to see outside yourself. As a culture, we could be well-served to better honor respite, leisure, and balance.
The benefit of being fulfilled, of having worked out the kinks — be that during a jog, a power nap, a yoga class, a course of graduate study, or a night away from the kids — can’t come from your partner. It can only come from you and by being better, more complete, and more peaceful you will allow your relationship to follow.
6. Practice compassion with other people
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Practice on everyone you know. That annoying coworker? Think about what made him/her that way. What challenges does he face? Put yourself in his shoes and see if you don’t feel more connected and empathetic to his plight.
Say your wife is constantly “nagging” you to put your dishes in the dishwasher immediately after a meal. You don’t see it as a big deal, but to her, it represents [fill in the blank] and at the end of the day, if putting dishes in the dishwasher helps her to be happier and less stressed, why wouldn’t you do it? When do you feel you’ve made a misstep and acted without compassion? Start over. It’s that simple.
Acting compassionately towards the one you love is a practice, not a perfection. Start small. Lay a hand on his shoulder while you’re discussing a tough subject, and call her “my love” before you point out how she failed to inform you about dinner with her parents, for the third month in a row.
Take the highest worldview whenever possible—is winning an argument worth diminishing your partner? Or would you rather go to all lengths, including overriding your own egotistical needs, to make him/her feel happy and secure?
Genevieve Lill is the Editor-in-Chief of Simplemost.
