5 Ways To Improve Your Relationships with Philippa Perry

we all need relationships and some of us have got relationships but we can make those relationships better hi my name is Philipa Perry I'm a psychotherapist these are five ways you can improve your relationships everyone needs to feel they belong connections with other people are important because we are creatures of connection we're pack animals a human is sort of born prematurely because our hips are so narrow and so this human forms in relationship with the human that it it is attached to so we form in relationship with another and we carry on forming all our lives in relationships with other people and if you think about evolutionary biology we couldn't have survived on our own we needed the group to survive and we haven't evolved so much that we don't still need this feeling of being in a group yeah we can have relationships with books with films with ideas with nature but primarily we have relationships with other people when we meet another person if we truly meet we both change maybe not very noticeably but we both change in that encounter relationships can be hard sometimes relationships are hard because we've made assumptions about them that are wrong and then we get crossed because our assumption is wrong and we think they've deceived us or something no they haven't you just got the wrong end of the stick well we often get the wrong end of the stick and we often have different ways of experiencing the same thing and different ways of seeing the world and this makes for interesting times sometimes we just disagree with them and we need to have a discussion about that disagreement so that we can get nearer to understanding each other and become on the same page if we think of it in very simplistic terms of me right you wrong it's too binary it's too binary to work and if you're having an argument with a loved one and you've got this me right you wrong thing and you wear the other person down and AR eyes Victorious you have only won to the cost of someone you love it's not really a very nice way of going about things much better to take your time slow everything down and really find out where each other are coming from and then come to a compromise some people say we argue all the time and we've got a great relationship and other people are horrified at the idea of this maybe they're a little bit conflict phobic and they think oh we never argue we get on just fine right well let's find the middle way it is impossible to be two people in a relationship and not to have different preferences and so there are always going to be differences but you don't have to argue about them you can discuss them now the trouble with a conflict phobic thing is that you're so scared of difference that many subjects become taboo and when many subjects become taboo you get a little bit lonely because you're not talking about everything and when you're a little bit lonely then you just might go off the other person and find someone who you can air your differences with change is inevitable change can feel like you're holding on to a rad rope and beneath you is an abyss and the change is to let go of the Rope what I'm telling you is this okay you're holding on to the Rope you've got to make some changes so you're going to make them so you let go of the Rope you know what the ground is only 2 in below your feet that Abyss wasn't there change the most difficult part of it is thinking about it before we do it because we're uncertain what's going to happen sometimes we need to change the way we are in say romantic relationships maybe you've always tried to please your partner too much at the expense of yourself and then get dumped anyway so you think well this way of working isn't isn't working so maybe I'll do more of what I want and I'll Define myself more in this relationship rather than just doing what the other person wants cuz I want the relationship ship so badly that sort of change to me feels like letting go of the Rope it feels very scary but then when you do it and you put little bits of boundary down and say no I don't like that I like this and no I don't want to go there I'd rather go here then the other person has a person to have a relationship with and you find oh my God I'm having so much better relationship now it's scary letting go of a defense mechanism we might have used in the past you can cope with your feelings you can observe them and not be them so if you need to make a change you can make it and it won't be as scary as you think learn to get to know yourself you're going to love you the relationship you have with yourself is quite possibly going to be the blueprint for the relationships you have with other people so if you're very dismissive of you you will project that out on your relationships into the world and tend to be dismissive of other people so if you think oh I'm no good at anything and then somebody else thinks actually I am quite good at this you'll think who the hell are they because that's how you speak to yourself so your relationship to yourself is echoed out into your relationships with other people how can we get to know ourselves better well there's a wonderful exercise you can do which is give a number to every part of your breathing cycle right so breathe in that's number one top of the breath before you breathe out again that's number two exhale that's number three bottom of the breath number four that's before you breathe in again one 2 3 4 got that good now add these words one I take from the world two I make it my own three I give back to the world four I come back to myself this is how we live we observe we listen we hear we take from the world two we interpret it we make it our own three we give it back and then four we come back to ourselves and reflect it's a great exercise for self-reflection it separates everything that we think is all one big lump because when we take from the world make it our own give back to the world and come back to ourselves we do that in a second in a Flash and we haven't picked out what we're actually doing just a little exercise to try don't deny your need needs sometimes it feels easier to deny our needs maybe our needs for other people our needs for recreation our needs for rest sometimes we deny them because it's easier than seeing to them and that's a little stop Gap but it's a bit like a plaster to deny a need if you stick that plaster on the need and hoping it's going to go away it might feel better for a moment or two but just like if you don't take a plaster off a wound it's going to get gangrenous when I'm talking about denying our needs I'm really thinking about specifically our need for other people so you might feel too shy and too awkward to go to that work thing you've been asked to go to but I say listen to other people and join in forget feeling self Consciousness instead be interested in the other and then you'll begin to float on the beautiful cushion of social interaction and it will feed you where it drains us is when we're not who we are but we pretend to be who we think we should be or who we think they want us to be but if you can just stay with who you are being all of yourself it's not half so taring we all need relationships and some of us have got relationships but we can make those relationships better we can be more of ourselves we can have more connection we can feel less lonely and we can have more contact with other people that feeds us rather than drains us thanks so much for listening did you get to the end of this you've done very well anyway all the ideas are in this book the book you want everyone you love to read and maybe a few you don't and it's available from the link at the bottom of the page and follow for more penguin authors talking about their stuff

Channel: Penguin Books UK

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Id: tiXh4VQyPTI

Length: 10min 14sec (614 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 16 2023