Posted February 3, Reviewed by Kaja Perina. Over the years, I've considered how relationships define, drive, and affirm our sense of self and how we are all interdependent. Many profound insights arise within these interactions. They offer valuable gems waiting to bloom and be heard collaborativelyβour subconscious processes information at a million-to-one ratio compared to our conscious state.
Just about everything we have ever seen or heard is accessible. Thus, many resources and seeds of wisdom are waiting to germinate and create mutuality and common ground. I've written about sustaining, forgiving , being creative, and celebrating the possibilities available within relationships. We gather fantastic insight when we improvise, learn, and evolve in their complexity. It starts with accepting that it takes two to know one.
Yet, we still struggle to fully understand and use the gifts of our relationships to help expand our perspective and dissolve polarization, which creates profound differences in our larger society. Improving relationships starts with our daily encounters. Suppose we agree to use win-win volleys, like being on a ping-pong table, in our interpersonal interactions.
If you spike the ball, you and whoever you communicate with loses. However, with an agreed-upon communication volley, individual differences will blend mutually between you and another.
This fosters a context to resolve previous differences collaboratively. All things, no doubt, will return, but in another way. As a family therapist and a problem-solving facilitator, whether in group settings or couples therapy , I have found that there is unending discord when there are unresolved differences.
