Create the way you relate

Create the way you relate

We can't create our truest selves without creating relationships in the
process. Relationships are everywhere. Relationships are everything.
"There is no end to relationship," said the Indian spiritual leader
Krishnamurti. "There may be the end of a particular relationship, but
relationship can never end. To be is to be related."
I have trained many corporations with a four-part seminar series. The
first three parts are on self-motivation, and the final part is on
relationship building. Sometimes CEOs ask me up front, ahead of the
training, if I don't have that ratio out of balance.
"Shouldn't you have more of it be on relationship building?" they ask.
"After all, team-building and customer relations are surely more
important than self-motivation."
I stand by my ratio. We can't relate to others if our relationship with
ourselves is poor. A commitment to personal motivation comes first.
Because who wants to have a relationship with someone who is not
motivated in any way?
When we do get to the fourth part, relationship building, the focus is on
creativity. Creativity is the most neglected and yet most useful aspect of
relationship building.
In relationships most of us think with our emotions rather than our
minds. But to think with our feelings instead of our minds puts us in the
unresourceful state that Colin Wilson describes as being upside-down.

When we view relationships as opportunities for creativity, they always
get better. When our relationships get better, we are even more
motivated.
My youngest daughter, Margie, was in fourth grade when a very shy girl
in her class accidentally put a large black mark on her own nose with an
indelible marker. Many of the kids in the class pointed at her and started
to laugh. The little girl was finally reduced to tears of embarrassment.
At some point Margie walked over to the girl to give her some comfort.
(Margie's astonished teacher related this story to me.) Impulsively,
Margie picked up the marker and marked her own nose, and then
handed the marker to another classmate and said, "I like my nose this
way. What about you?"
In a few moments the entire class had black marks on their noses, and
the shy girl who was once crying was laughing. At recess, Margie's class
all went out on the playground with marked noses, and they were the
envy of the school—obviously into something unusual and "cool."
This story is interesting to me because of how Margie used her
creativity and her mind instead of her emotions to solve a problem. She
elevated herself up into her mind, where something clever could be
done. If she had used her feelings to think with, she might have
expressed anger at the class for laughing at the girl, or sadness and
depression.
Any time you take a relationship problem up into the mind, you have
unlimited opportunities to get creative. Conversely, when you send a
relationship problem down the elevator into the lower half of the heart,
you risk staying stuck in the problem forever.

This doesn't mean that you shouldn't feel anything. Feel everything!
Notice your feelings. Just don't think with them. When there's a
relationship problem to be solved, travel up your ladder to the most
creative you. You'll soon realize that we create the relationships we
have in our lives; they don't just happen.
"We are each of us angels with only one wing," said the Italian artist
Luciano de Crescenzo, "and we can only fly embracing each other."

I'm reading: Create the way you relate