Taking Control: How you can nurture peace in a second chance relationship!

Second chance relationship is fragile and need to be handled with care, which can only be attainable through being conscious of the underlying motives.  Thoughts are the starting point of your words and actions and they creep in when you lose sight of your decision of being a peaceable person.

Second chance relationship defined!

A relationship occurs when the two parties build on their first encounter rapport and allow it to create a bond that connect them as they discover each other’s personality and interests.  It comes as each identifies and gets intrinsic satisfaction that adds value to their personal needs and goals.  A second chance relationship is a fruit of objective assessment of the conflict and learning from its causes.  It is based on strong determination to focus on the strengths of the other party and refusing to allow small specks to disfigure the values inherent in the other person. It is characterized by focusing on development of self and learning to allow imperfections in your life and others.   

Why is the second chance relationship fragile?

A normal person learns from his or her mistakes and would therefore be sensitive to cues that lead to similar conflict.  While it is logical to stay out of trouble by not discussing the old situations, you must purposefully abstain from negative confrontations that could arouse or encourage you or the other party to make reference to situations outside the current one.  Your subconscious mind is good in keeping records and will always perform this function with excellence. So the ball is in your court to keep that door shut by being conscious of ego’s desire to refer to previous feelings of hurt, resentment, need to revenge or being controlling. The challenge is learning to listen to your inner self and recognize negativism.  Secondly, it is verbalizing the decision not to reopen shut doors so that each will comply with these expressed needs to nurture peace and do everything to sustain it even in trying situations.  Thirdly, it is to recognize that to sustain peace is your daily goal affirmed through statements and actions of love to the other party.  By expressing loving words and confirming with actions, you are reprogramming your mind to not indulge in sabotaging thoughts.   However, you must not deny those thoughts when they surface.  Rather watch them without judging yourself because you will be repressing then instead of learning from them; thus assessing how far you have progressed in configuring a new you!

Observing the golden rule to peaceful environment

It takes two to tango so to speak! Both parties must therefore agree on a golden rule which suits them.  For an example, they could both discuss and agree that fostering a safe environment is fundamental to building trust, true forgiveness, empathy and relearning to love unconditionally.  Such an agreement could assist each party to feel normal and be under no pressure to display window dressing behavior.  This means that both parties individually seek to nurture positive attitude within self because it is the only approach that would be devoid of controlling or manipulating.

Second chance relationship does more than give you an opportunity to ‘see’ yourself.  It reveals your ability to uproot undesirable learned behaviors that could derail you and therefore deprive you of an opportunity to life a fulfilling life with others.  You take control of your life when you maintain an open mind to learn from all circumstances. The truth holds that learning transcends the grave!  If you are a human being, you have a potential to taint a good environment or neutralize a bad one! 

Taking control: Teachable attitude will read success in failures

Teachable attitude is one that sees and feels the truth behind own thoughts, words and actions and have a high sense of smell to detect when these are fishy.  All great inventions are results of persevering and teachable attitude in which each failure revealed a key to success.

Do you have a teachable attitude?

If you want to build a leader in you, you must learn to develop a teachable attitude for your greatest teacher is your inner voice and then all people you interact with outside the classroom.  First, your inner voice will rebuke and disprove your arrogant, judgmental, delusional and jealous thoughts; learn to comply for this is your in-build mechanism that seeks nothing but the best for you! Secondly, learn to recognize the motivation behind your thoughts, words and actions.  If you are out developing teachable attitude, you will identify non-positive motives behind your destructive behaviors.  Remember pride come before the fall!  In other words the moment your ego succeeds to blind you to the truth, you are not open to learn from your failures.  You have succumbed to unconsciousness in which you operate on auto-pilot mode and you have lost one of the spiritual monitoring devices that set you apart from the animal kingdom.

 Are you capable of seeing the true score in your self evaluation?

Following your decision to evaluation your successes or lack thereof; you need to engage in your spiritual self, for only then will you not intentionally overlook your failures or white-wash your procrastinations with excuses.   Here are key pointers on issues of health, wealth and relationships:

1.   Health: Why have you not reached your optimum health even though you have information and other necessary resources? Do you have accurate knowledge to know whether you are on track or you are on a queue for lifestyle diseases? If you intent to live beyond seventy, you need to get interested in yourself! For example do you know that if you have not been regular with dentist you are running a risk of gums diseases which lead to stoke and heart conditions? Update yourself on holistic wellness!

2.   Wealth: Have you determine when you will retire? If you have not, it could be that you do not have a goal for starters.  Secondly, you have not decided whether what you are doing is ushering you into perceived destiny! If you cannot answer these questions, do not despair! At least you are becoming aware that you have not charted your life for financial success! Wishful thinking will not get you anywhere; switch off your television, cell phone, remove your key on your front door and get busy!  You need to know what it is that you need money for and will satisfy your needs and wants in this life! It is not only a thinking exercise; it is a life changing writing of goals and strategies.  If you already have a plan, is the current strategy effective? Self-evaluation exercise is essential for revealing mistakes that derailed you from your plans and give you an opportunity to take remedial actions.

3.   Relationships: We are social beings and anything you are busy with will have very little impact if it is for you only! Without people you care for in your life, you will have very little motivation to get up in the morning to pursue your chosen career, seek promotion, or start a new business!  When you are young you tend to think you can make it alone at the risk of not learning to life with other people! As you age, the moment of truth sets in; you will experience the need to have someone who is not your servant, who could commune with you and rub your back without paying for that service. The Creator had a purpose for populating planet earth!

Learning transcends the grave and is fun when you have teachable attitude. Remember that there is something which only you would do it so differently that you will change someone’s life when you share it! You take control of your life when you learn to empower others to experience fruitful life in health, wealth and relationships!  

Taking control: Evaluate progress on your personal development!

Apart from biological development, it is expected that you upgrade your knowledge content in order to continue to explore and utilize available resources for your needs and pleasure. It is your personal responsibility therefore to identify given talents and continue to improve your skill until you depart from this life.

What is your current content?

It is possible that you have never really assessed your content against what you want in life and the actual level of relevant knowledge and skill required to achieve your goals. So, taking control of your life denotes honest assessment of who you are, what you want and how you will achieve it. Consider the following steps:

1.   Who you are and your goals: It could be that you are a student and undecided about your given talent.  It is important to seek career guidance so that you become focus as you progress to higher learning.  It could be that you have just graduated and are seeking a long-term relationship. To find ideal person requires an update on who you have become as an adult.  From infancy to date you have been socialized by your parents, schools, the church and other social institutions and therefore have shifted emotionally, socially and spiritually. Or you are happily married and want to update yourself with 21^st century parenting skills. The latter is the most ignored of all functional literacy; yet is fundamental in reducing societal ills. 

2.   Identify the gaps:  This is another important self-evaluation exercise which you need to engage in before you undertake life-changing decisions. For example, it could be that you enjoyed the false victory because you won the court-case against your wife, yet you know the truth that you contributed to the divorce. Identifying the gaps denotes seeking the inner peace or its absence.  Do you know that your inner self could haunt you and render your false victory an emotional burden which will steal your joy and peace?  Without these pillars and seed of positive growth, you are a destroyed man, without a meaningful future!

Reviewed plans for your personal development.

Now that you have identified your personal development gaps, you need clear plans and strategies that will enable you to reach your goals:

1.   Do you have a zeal for an improved life? This question is relevant to your current position and seeks to challenge you to determine the level of your motivation to exert yourself for a change.  Remember that you reap what you sow!

2.   Include yourself in resolving the root of the problem!  Immature people exclude themselves in identifying the contributing factors to the problem and therefore miss the mark in moving forward. Identifying your own blemishes is empowering yourself to change the soiled nappy so to speak, instead of adding a powder or adding a fresh one without cleaning the bottom first!  The problem will continue and growth will not be sustainable.

3.   Shout for help! Are you equipped to handle your mess? Be honest and seek professional help.  It is amazing that we all accept physical illness but are reluctant to notice our emotional instability and hurts!

Assessing your progress on personal growth is very important! It enables you to stop blaming delays or failures on others.  You take control of your life when you see your contribution in things that happen in your life – good or bad! You are the only one who knows the truth about your current challenges and therefore knows whether you are capable of making desirable changes with or without professional help! The truth will make you free!

Taking control: Narrow the best options to maintain your peace!

Peace is a calm joy that results in a person seeking harmony with inner self and the environment. Maintaining peace is ability to narrow incidental hurdles to now, thus ensuring that nothing negative becomes the point of reference.

Identify your best options to maintain your peace!

Any behavior starts with motivation whether conscious or unconscious.  If you seek peace, you must generate positive emotions and empower yourself with love and ensure that it saturates your mind to the point that it bars and cancels any negative impact on self. How do you acquire abundance of love? It is a decision that is supported by learned behavior. A behavior starts with thoughts which produce feelings. Peace therefore starts with your ability to monitor your thoughts.  Note that you are the mastermind of your peace; nothing more and nothing less! Let me explain: When you have decided to have peace, it means you are alert to any thoughts that are not positive and therefore sabotage your goal. It means that you will identify and deal with environment that negatively stirs your tranquil state.   It is being aware that your ego is your enemy because it always seeks to satisfy itself, which often become the source of conflicts within yourself; it opposes your spiritual desires.  Ego does not approve anything that does not elevate it. It hardly offers service to others because it finds satisfaction only in receiving.  Its major function is to judge and control others. When you are fully alert of these tendencies and know that they do not demonstrate love nor build peace, you will have identified your best options to maintain your peace.

How do you narrow your best options!

Having described factors that sabotage your goals, you can now narrow down your options by working on your own biological and learned emotional blemishes that do not support your peace. There are two types of people: Those who are self-motivated and have inner strength that ignites their positive energy towards fulfilling their identified needs.  There are also those who need external motivation from their environment to energize them to pursue their goals. If you are self-motivated, your intrinsic positive energy is sufficient to enable you to stay focus on your goal with minimum distraction from external factors.  It means your decision to maintain peace will hold because you are capable of removing yourself from anything that could possibly prevent or derail you from your mission. If on the other hand you are externally motivated, you have greater challenge because you need supportive environment to achieve your goal. Consider the following options:

1.   Victim mentality: It is said that whatever happen to you, you have attracted.  So, it follows that your actions will always impact you positively or negatively. Do good and you will reap goodness!    

2.   Stress relief techniques: When you feel you need external energy to perform, you better learn and practice emotional freedom technique (EFT) which will ignite your self-build mechanism to generate positive energy through affirmations.

We all seek peace and often we do not know how to maintain it because we look to others yet is within ourselves.  If you learn to shut your emotional ports, nothing that you do not allow will penetrate your tranquil state and stir your peace.  The key is making decision about attaining peace through your own thoughts, feelings and actions to self and others; then you shall possess peace!

Taking control: How to handle spiritual issues of the second chance relationship!

Spirituality is a personal and very sensitive subject especially if you discovered it after you tied the knot.  The challenge is how you handle the fact that your spouse is not keen to listen and is averted by the subject!

Trust the power of the Creator!

It is important to remember that you can only control you and nobody! Marriage is the first social institution through which the Creator demonstrated the need for authenticity of all human being by prohibiting sex outside marriage. So, if your spouse is not listening to anything that speaks of spirituality, run to your Creator with faith that He knew your situation and is not even surprised that you are unevenly yoked. His promise is that He will not allow anything beyond your capability to happen to you.  He knows your predicament and you must seek the wisdom of the Holy Spirit.  The challenge is; do you know how He speaks?

1. Evangelize with your actions!

Are you being judgmental? This is a very serious analysis; one that could make or break the relationship!  Actually the ball is in your court so to speak! Your husband must see your tranquil attitude in spite of the storm.  He must wonder why you are not pissed off by his non-committal attitude to his life after death and his role as the head of the family to be a role-model for his children.  In other words, it is up to you to demonstrate that spirituality is the essence of life for we come out of the Creator who is the Spirit.  It is your opportunity to show that believers are the light of the world for they cannot align themselves with any underworld activities.  Believers are also the salt of the earth for they impact others positively through unconditional love! So, practice unconditional love for your spouse so that he could see the beauty of walking in the light!

2. Observe key principle of Christian life!

Key principles of marriage is faithfulness to each other; submission; quite life; empowering yourself with the Scripture; raise your children well and love God and other people. Men like orderliness and these will surely show him that you are dependable and are truly a help-mate.  Integrity should be demonstrated at home; this will increase his respect of your openness and accountability.  Be a role-model at your work and seek God to make your strengths your winning cards! You can achieve this by updating your professional credentials and skills; simply be proactive!

3. Balance your functional roles!

Give him his undivided attention as spouse so that he would not have any objection when you set a time for your morning devotion and Scripture reading and learning.  You know that God wants believers to minister to each other; do your best to make him happy.  Avoid crowding your day to avoid a burn-out experience.  He will eventually learn to observe your determination to serve him as a husband, be a compelling mother to his children, professional woman of substance and a believer who make a difference! God says His yoke of light and wants believers to minister to Him first and everything they seek will be granted as requested!

4. Socialization blocks are real!

Sometimes we forget the power of informal foundational education; its roots could be unshakable especially if the parents used corporal punishment for compliance of the rules.  So, this handsome man beside you could still be struggling with the fear of his parents even if they are both dead.  Such classical conditioning could have a firm hold on your spouse’s ability to make new decision that deviate from his family norms, values and beliefs.  Under such conditions, no amount of persuasion will work; seek the Creator’s power to transform and bring harmony in your marriage!

  

Taking control is learning to surrender rather than being forceful about social and spiritual changes.  What you resist, persist! You will never win by pulling stances and pushing good stuff down your spouse’ throat! Surrendering is being malleable in applying good principles on yourself to win the other person!   

Taking control: Second chance relationship thrives on the power of now!

Now is the moment of power because only then can you effectively attempt to correct the past. The fleeting moment of your power signifies the rationale to internalize the value of your full awareness of your thoughts, feelings and actions.  

Unconscious people do not understand the power of now!

Life is dynamic and therefore makes History relatively useful. For you to walk with me and internalize the power of now, consider the meaninglessness of engaging in angry thoughts over your partner’s inability to give you desirable attention! Whose heart is pounding and raising the blood pressure? If you realize for the first time that you are the one suffering and you are also the only one who can stop the condition, then you are finally awake!  The paradox of life is these:

1.   You can decide to live now: The past events are mostly faulty and you cannot change any of those.  You can however start now to appreciate the fact that you are alive and well and capable of contributing to your happiness and fulfilling life or dwell in your pain by rewinding on hurtful thoughts. Life does not happen to you; but is a response of your inputs. Any good or bad things happening to you now, you have attracted.

2.   Learn about your strengths and weaknesses: If you want to really promote yourself, you will start by being grateful for your strengths; they are given tools to overcome any challenge in your life. Identify and embrace your weaknesses; only then can you watch without labeling or judging and then seek to unlearn and replace such behaviors.    

3.   Understand the benefits of operating in now mode: You can switch off angry thoughts when you think and internalize irreversible health conditions they cause to your physical body. The Creator designed your body to thrive on love, joy, happiness, and kindness.  He configured you with self control so that you are the driver of your life all the time!  In other words, you are responsible for your holistic wellness! Consider this; when you allow anger to darken your moment, are you exercising self control? Remember to love according to how love is defined by the Creator in the Bible ( 1 Corinthians 13:1 – 8) and other spiritual books.  

How can you get started in attracting ideal life?

First of all, do you want to be happy? If the answer is yes, then make decision now to maintain that condition! If you feel you cannot because your partner makes you mad, evaluate what is it that really triggers the animal in you? My point is; often you contribute to things –good and bad – that happens to you.  It could be that you are the one who is carrying a black bag of energy! How much do you know about your own make-up as a spiritual being? Do you understand your underlying spiritual and emotional triggers?  The quality of your spirituality impact on your social life: The level of happiness as a social being; your professional upward mobility; access to wealth and its impact on you and others; and whether you are on tract seeking that which you were created for - ability to achieve your goals.

 

Your second chance in building a life relationship reflects your resilience and sense of owing up the fruit of your investment! The function of the soil is to grow anything that is placed inside it.  A garden will therefore yield crops or weeds? Broken relationships could be a feedback that you did not sow anything of value in the relationship if you belief that life is what you make of it!

Taking control: How to nurture and maintain a second chance relationship!

A second chance relationship is one in which a couple reconcile their differences and agree to start-over. It is a result of a soul-searching exercise wherein both parties voluntarily evaluate their respective underlying actions which resulted in separation and project a renewed commitment to rebuild their relationship.

The rationale for the second chance!

The second chance is being able to objectively see the role of your destructive behavior and taking responsibility to identify remedial actions.  It should be a decision to go all the way in developing building thoughts, engaging in supporting actions and affirming with words of faith in your ability to follow your heart.  The following will help list and briefly discuss how the building could be done:

1.   Clear the air by addressing expressed concerns: Never underestimate the power of small offenses such as careless words that attacks personal blemishes such as, “you never pick your dirty clothes!”  Replace such an attack with, “I would appreciate if you could help me put your dirty laundry in the basket every evening”. Open talk weeds out resentment and build trust and readiness to cover each other’s weaknesses.

2.   Build trust through allowing personal needs: Trust grows from allowing your partner to live his/her life with you.  Let me explain: When you were dating, you had to be on your toes so to speak; making sure that everything about you is appealing and impresses your fiancé.  That was unreal! You would be miserable if you were to spend the rest of your life acting out a window-dressing behavior.  The point is, choosing a life mate means you consciously allow one stranger to come into your life as he/she is and allow him/her to enjoy life together with you.  If there is nothing intolerant about this person, it is worth your while to make amends and see where you failed to accommodate each other unreservedly.

3.   Accept change: Denotes maturity about life being dynamic.  Often men do no adjust to see beauty of their partner after childbirth.  Instead of unreserved support, they show signs of being bored or turned-off by the changed body. Some speak emotionally damaging unkind words about gained weight, floppy breasts and tummy.  The fact is, the girl sleeping next to you, used to be stunning until she allowed you to have your baby! Learn to appreciate her and keep her self esteem intact.

4.   Sharing life: If you both understand what marriage is, your former attitude about material and non-material things you accumulated or plan to have, stopped being yours when you vowed to honor and cherish each other until death.  Sex is the major part of sharing and it is sacred to the Creator who designed marriage.  If this is not clear, you need to seek professional help so that you stop continuing to be a boy or a girl instead of a mature, responsible adult who understand that love is not controlling nor abusing each other.

These affirmative steps can create environment that is conducive to start-over a new chapter that is intended to allow daily bridging of personal differences and building positive and accepting attitude that is key to unconditional love. The second chances is ideal as long as one of the partner is not a narcissist and therefore teachable to adapt to partnership lifestyle.

Taking control: How to assess whether you are building ideal relationship?

Building a relationship is a personal decision that comes from a determination to work on, nurture and maintain satisfactory level of peace first; then giving unreserved love  to your partner. It is being purposefully aware of the presence of the quality of your thoughts, actions and emotions towards others.

Purposeful monitoring of your emotions!

When you have been through deep emotional challenges and you have discussed and agreed to move forward together with your fiancé or husband, you need to be aware that it takes a lot of focus and determination to stay alert by asking yourself two questions: What is the nature of my thoughts when I am ministering to my fiancé or husband? The answer should honestly indicate how you feel. It should either reflect a deep and subtle resentment or eagerness to bring joy without expecting rewards.  The second question is; am I bridging the gap by being proactive and not waiting for his or her first move?  Here I am referring to your ego, which tends to be selfish and seek to receive and not give anything without conditions. This also should seek the deep private feelings because only you know the truth.  When you are being truthful about the quality of your feelings and you are ready to weed out any traces of negative emotion, then you are really working on building the relationship. 

Techniques of letting go your emotional hurts and other negative habits!

Sometimes our good intentions to let go negative emotions and bad habits do not work because the subconscious mind loves the past and ensures that it stays intact.  You have proved this to be true, so you need to consider engaging in proven technique such as Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). It is the psychological acupressure technique that helps to:

1.      Remove Negative Emotions – Often you go through life carrying invisible black bag of negative energy which you seem to be unable to let go.  Such a burden will surely affect your relationships: You will abuse the people you love because you are not capable of giving love to anybody.  Negative emotion is not conducive to placing you in a favorable position to access wealth.  It is also a source of several health conditions

2.     Reduce or Eliminate Pain – Everything is energy and the Creator designed it to flow freely.  Bad energy cause physical pain in any part of the body that it is lodged in.  Often this condition will require pain relieving medication which in turn will cause other bodily harm.  

3.      Implement Positive Goals – When you are at the crossroad you get paralyzed by indecision and invisible anchors which will ultimately derail you from your plan.  Sometimes bad energy attracts many hurdles that will cause significant delays; thus causing problematic life. EFT releases such blocks and enables you to move forward.    

4.      Reduce Food Cravings – Stress depletes energy and therefore creates a need for replacement.  You may think you are okay; but let me summarize this: Most of obese people have emotional issues and eat to fill bottomless pit.  On the other hand; when you love others unconditionally, seek peace and joy and maintains self control, you are promoting healthy lifestyle.  Happy people eat sensibly.  They love life and are aware of factors that rob people the precious gift of life.

Mankind is a social being; without other people you will have very little motivation to do anything creditworthy.  Good relationship is a basis for seeking good health and satisfying lifespan.  The starting point is deciding to be present and visit the past only to draw good experiences. You would have started over and taken control of your live when reach out and give unreservedly to your spouse and other people. The best way to treat ailing relationships, wealth and health is through Emotional Freedom Technique.   

Taking control: Your spiritual surrender to challenges outruns logical route!

Enlightened people know that logic wants congruence of goal and strategy therefore do not listen to logic when faced with important decisions.  The spiritual people are more tuned to limitless universe and know the power of surrendering to receive expressed needs.

Logic calls for efficiency.

Logical people are gifted in formulating goals and setting up planned activities towards achieving them.  If you are like me, you will sleep over the plan and revisit it to look for loop holes and collect all appropriate answers that converge to a clear conclusion.  Nonetheless, there are circumstances that defy any logic and the process of finding one will turn into anchors that will not allow you to take any direction.  This is where logical people suffer ineffectiveness regardless of their admirable plans.  The challenge is; we tend to forget that we are spirits all the way therefore logic must never be the determining factor. In other words, it is not possible to have logical answers for spiritual matters. Secondly, we do not have skills to communicate effectively in spiritual realm. Yes, we shout when we are hurting; but often we do not know how to hear nor identify our answered prayers because we tend to package it according to logical expectation.

Being spiritually skilled to communicate and surrender.

It helps to clear the clutter about your own strengths and ability to achieve things you wanted and presented through logical route. The Bible in Psalms 24:1 says: “The earth is the LORD'S, and all it contain, the world, and those who dwell in it.”  When you have a serious situation which defies logic, it is only then that you will turn to God because you know that nothing is impossible with Him. Only when you face dilemma will you surrender to Him, totally depending on His ability. God has His plans about you and nothing is being withheld from you; all He wants is for you to approach Him with expectation of His positive response as follows:

1. Purpose in your heart what your desire is and the reason for wanting it.  God says you must love Him and others.  Your requests must not be selfish; they must benefit others too.
2. Believe that you will get what you are asking.  God is not moved by your tears, but your faith in Him; that He is your Provider.
3. Love and thank Him because you came to ask in faith. God declared that He is jealous and would not want to share His glory with anyone.  This is why He says He does not want a lukewarm believer.  You must know that He loves you and His answer is always positive and much more perfect because basically you do not have the accurate picture of your ideal world; but He does!
4. He demands positive energy only.  So, as you wait for His respond He advises you to clear your conscience by forgiving those who offended you because you cannot be in contact with Him while you are carrying your negative energy.  He says He will also point your sins and therefore your unworthiness of His attention.

The longest route to reach only part of your plan is through your logical framework.  The shortest and most complete and satisfying is through your spiritual surrender to your Creator who loves you more than you love yourself.  Taking control is seeking the revelation of your spirituality and the power of surrender versus logic. Remember! What you resist, persist! Surrendering is functioning at spiritual real and is the ideal approach to access that which you desire.