What If We All Just Got Better?

What if we all got better, instead of bitter? It's a crazy time right now. I feel like everyone in the world is spinning on their head. It seems like we are all trying to make sense of what is happening in our world.

Recently, my fiance and I started counselling. We have both been through some difficult times and really want to grow and have the right intentions, but with a lot of past baggage, it’s hard to have the right perception about a healthy relationship.

If it wasn’t for this pandemic to take us to stop or slow down, what else would it be? Seems like we all have to pause. For many people, this pause looks like, “ I need to change my whole life.” For some, it is “ I need to redirect my attention on more important things.” For others, it's, “ I need to find my purpose.” All these are great questions to be asking yourselves, and finding things that are giving you more meaning.  Aligning with your purpose can only give you more positive results. 

We should really take the time to stop, look around and ask ourselves one question – What would my world look like if I got better? And I mean as a person with increased integrity, compassion, empathy, communication skills, and accountability?

Would our work environment change? Would our family life be better? Would our intimate relationship be better?

In our last session, the counsellor said “ If you could rate your relationship from 1–10, what would you give it? And what is missing to make it a 10?  I quickly wrote communication and thought about blaming John for communication issues. And then he said OK, now write down how you will initiate the very thing that is causing you the problem. Wow, this is genius! He is totally holding us accountable for everything we say or we want.

If you took the time right now to sit down and rate your life from 1–10, what would you give it? And without blame, if you really sat and thought about you and your responsibility to what is stopping you from having a 10 life, a 10 work environment, a 10 relationship, what is it?

Maybe it's more time with the kids, maybe it's spending more time with your family, maybe it's to have more money, maybe it's to have more meaningful relationships. Now, what if you would say no one else is responsible for this except you? 

And the bigger question here is how would you change it?

For me it was communication. So, I had to think about a communication plan. How will I initiate more communication monthly, daily, and weekly in our relationship so that things don’t fall through the cracks? By doing this, it has helped me not get bitter when we don’t use a plan to initiate our communication. Because I realize that without taking responsibility to make things better, I can’t blame anyone but myself.

What would you do differently and how would you create a plan to get better and not bitter?

Stay curious and keep growing!