Take control: How to choose a long-term mate!

Choosing a mate is a life changing experience...!

The process of choosing an ideal long-term mate is challenging for most people; it is like finding a needle in a hay-stack.  The scary part is declaring your undying love to the total stranger hoping that what you are saying will outlive you.

What is a marriage?

Sociologically, marriage is defined as a socially supported union involving two or more individuals in what is regarded as a stable, enduring arrangement based on a sexual bond. Spiritually marriage is sacred; this means it is a divine covenant through which the Creator authenticates childbearing and creates a connection whereby a man is given a social responsibility of providing and protecting the offspring from the sexual relationship.   Marriage is commonly defined as a binding lifelong commitment in which a man is a head of a social unit. It has two key binding conditions: First for the man to love and honor a woman until death parts them. Secondly a woman is created for a man and is to submit to him and also honor him until death parts them.

Biblical history in the Old Testament indicated that two families agreed to marry their children and that agreement was enough to regard the couple engaged until they come mature enough to consummate marriage union. Christian marriage emphasizes leaving and cleaving to denote that both man and woman must leave their respective families and cleave to each other; withhold nothing. They are therefore referred to as “one flesh”. Another important aspect which the couple is expected to bind themselves with is to raise their offspring according to the principles and guidelines of God who designed the marriage.

The process of choosing the mate:

The following constitute key factors when choosing a mate:

1.    Physical Attraction: Unlike other mammals, mankind is equipped with internal mechanism that helps in screening several candidates for the prospective mate.  It is critical to note that physical attraction is not enough. The knowing-each-other period is very important and must be totally open.  The couple must rise above the physical beauty to the reality of life-long intimate life as man and wife. This is a huge step, which requires individuals to be guided on issues of compatibility. True beauty radiates from within and permeates the physical features.

2.    Compatibility:  Key pointers of compatibility can only be established if the couple is open and willing to regard their communication as the tool that will enable them to see and feel compatibility.  Christians are encouraged to choose a mate from Christians so that their values would enable them to raise their offspring from the solidarity of principles.  From the Christian perspective compatibility does not include experimenting with sex. While sex is an important aspect of marriage, it should not be the deciding factor and this usually requires guidance through premarital counseling.

3.    The family background: It is wise to know the family background to have an idea of the environment in which your lifetime partner was socialized into. Such knowledge will reveal childhood issues which influence the way he or she makes decisions. 

4.    Education differences: The level of education is another key factor because parenting requires both parties to re-socializing themselves to weed out values and beliefs that do not support their agreed optimal family standards. For an example, will you register your children at community school or English Medium School?

5.    Culture and social environment – Your mate could have a background, which dictates how a wife should behave and interact with the community. For example, if you are a modern woman you may be prohibited to wear pants and a make-up. This subject must be addressed and agreed upon.

6.    Personality differences: You are likely to differ in personality types and it is important to know how much. There are four types: Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholic and Phlegmatic. – If one party is a carefree and the other is cautious; the relationship is likely to experience a bumpy ride.  Hobbies could unite or separate the couple and create irreversible discontent. If one likes outside activities like hiking and the other likes to settle on a couch with a good book that will eventually affect the couple negatively.

Life is what you make of it. Nothing changes within you; only cultural norms dictate how you have to behave. If you choose to comply with such social pressures, you may lose focus of who you are or want. You are likely to develop new expectation of each other; thus unconsciously creating a gap between yourselves. Taking control denotes designing your life and finding someone who also know what he/she wants and take it from there. Attempting to find someone to control is not finding a life partner with whom you could share yourself and resources unreservedly.

Taking control: How to overcome the fear of loving again!

Love is as natural as breathing!
There is someone out there who will allow love and surrender to this beautiful gift...!

Love is a positive emotion; distinctly characterized by attachment, caring and intimacy. Fear of giving love is a negative emotion which is likely to render a person lonely, unproductive and unable to move from gross-roads. 

What breaking up means!

Breaking up denotes that a couple failed to compromise their principles, beliefs, and values to the extent that their paths became parallel; never to meet anywhere. Both parties are likely to develop deep feelings of hurt and betrayed confidence. It means one or both parties missed the mark either by faulty impressions of visible behavior and missed to engage intuition which is more accurate in discerning issues of the soul and spirit or by not addressing pertinent life principles during the initial stage of dating. Both are likely to get confused by impressions, which are objectives learned through physical senses and archived in the intellect and therefore come through that source. Intuition on the other hand comes from within and results from raised physical vibration state of consciousness through the physical brain. It is the higher state of consciousness of unobservable impending reality communicated from within; instructing you convincingly to take a particular action. In a case of broken relationship, it is critical to analyze impressions that led you astray and then reach within to get clear instruction of what remedial action will apply for you.

Learning to love again!

Learning is a mandatory ongoing process of acquisition of knowledge and skill. While psychologically erasing hurting experience is hard because your body cells memorized hurtful things that happened to you through one or all your senses, you can choose to consciously replace those memories with pleasant ones. Allowing fear to prohibit your heart to reciprocate affection from others is the clear statement of lack of faith in your ability to learn from your mistakes. It is condemning yourself to life imprisonment of withholding the most beautiful gift of experiencing emotional, intellectual and spiritual fulfillment from love; it is consciously giving power to those who have hurt you. Consider how you learned everything you know:

1.    Before you learned to walk someone took your hand and patiently encouraged you to take each step and picked you up when you fell; cheering your efforts for every step.

2.    As an adult, you made mistakes and because you have matured, you must analyze your contribution in failed relationship so that you can choose alternative strategies.

3.    Learn the principles of the natural laws:

a)   If you applied the Law of Force by way of manipulation, withholding love and attempting to control the other party, you reaped what you sowed. You created and born a free being and you cannot succeed to forcefully change others.

b)   Universal principle says that if you surrender something you cherish, it will come back to you multiplied. The Law of Harmonious Attraction says what you resist, persist. If conflict has reached resentment stage, it means a lot of damage has occurred because one or both parties have been unconscious of emotional, social, and psychological needs of the other. Trusting again will be a challenge and needs spiritual application of the principles of love. The Creator defines love (in the Bible – 1Corintians 13:1 -7) as ideal for humanity because He is love and we are created in His image. He has provided enabling mechanism of letting go of the past and giving unconditional love to others. He encourages us to choose love.

4.    Forgiving is a choice. It means choosing not to dwell on grief, instead to let time heal the emotional wounds and allowing trust to build because love cannot develop and exist without trust.

5.    The challenge of developing and building love means trusting yourself first that you can regard a new partner without comparing him or her with your ex. It is being ready psychologically to give and receive care, approval and allowing physical contact; it is deciding to be vulnerable again to another person. Loving again is being conscious about valuing the other party’s needs and happiness. It is paying attention to the quality of intimacy – sharing of your thoughts, desires and feelings with each other.

Love is a natural state of being and existence. It is a life promoting gift without which a person loses purpose and stops to grow. Decision to move out of grief will thrive if a person has decided to let go the Law of Force and apply the Law of Harmonious Attraction. To gain momentum in the latter requires application of the power of now; being fully aware of your thoughts, feelings and actions. It is learning and consistently practicing declaration of intend to start-over a new life from the premise of unconditional love; one that seek and uphold strengths and not weaknesses.  

Taking control: Reclaim your power from within!

Mankind is equipped with amazing power
to conquer anything...!

Reclaiming your power denotes awakening of all faculties that are known to be more than the physical person. It is being conscious of connectivity with the Creator of the universe and natural laws that govern it. Human power is therefore experienced at the level at which a person is conscious of.

The power within!

You are created to be complete with the resemblance of the Creator – able to experience the environment mentally, emotionally and discern the world spiritually. These non-physical components are where your power lies.

1.   You create with your mind: You have your life history in your subconscious mind and you are adorned with ability to move from the past into the new world if you choose to do so. Nonetheless, the majority of people remains in the past and suffer the consequences of non-growth. Your mind can also carry you into the fantasy world and create unachievable goals which could frustrate you and consequently make you a bitter and blaming person. Ideally you could take a pause, and assess if you have at any time of your life, experienced the power of your mind in your attempts to create wealth. Your mind is a key in experiencing fulfilling relationships, influencing your eating habits and playing a significant role in creating wealth.

2.   Your emotion makes you a social being: You may need to commune with others to balance your social and spiritual self; but you need not idolize other human beings. Note if you have a clingy attitude; that is, you need other people to experience joy and contentment.  If so, you are fixated in what Maslow call the need for the sense of belonging. As long as you are unable to exit this emotional attachment to others, you will not self-actualize. Find professional help to experience all of you:

a)   Experience your deepest fears so that you can face them and eliminate them.

b)   Learn to experience love so that you can feel inhibitions in self or towards others.

c)    Love yourself first to establish social values within which you can interact and give yourself unreservedly to others.

d)   Identify your emotional baggage so that you can deal with life challenges objectively as you climb your social ladder through various social institutions.

3.   External stimuli could be confusing: Your parents, spouse, children and friends can never really love you because you are unique being with the unique mission; it is only you who got a revelation of your life purpose.  Often if you dare express your mission to them, they will ether modify or ridicule you. Your vision is your inner power revealed to the world.

4.   Your vision is well provided for: Your wisdom comes from within; it reveals what knowledge you require and who you need to network with to create your wealth. Embark on your divine purpose for it is designed for you; your significant ones may not have what it takes to offer any significant help.

What to do to access the power from within!

1.    Get off the fast lane and create quite environment to experience your mental powers, feel your emotions, identify with your spiritual self and learn to hear the voice from within.

2.    Remove clutter in the form of unprofitable activities such as watching television soaps, engaging in social sites and Whatsapp; and refraining from excessive partying.

3.    Learn the power of meditation and practice it. Knowledge without practice is useless.

4.    Learn to purposefully improve your content with useful knowledge like discovering your social or financial intelligence. We all need information and skills on how to acquire and manage money.  We also need to live with others and therefore we have to let go the tendency to control and manipulate others.  You cannot change others but yourself.

5.    Evaluate your decision making skills and find information materials on new age thinking concepts and how to align your energy with the universe to benefit from it. The universe responds favorably to love and will deal harshly to your negative thoughts and feelings.

You are responsible to your prosperity and have key resources from within you. The universe provides resources according to your mental and emotional faculties and therefore you create your world. Taking control denotes your decision to start-over a new life and learning to reach from within you to experience optimum life.

Taking control: How failures could be stepping stones to personal growth!

The eagle is focused on the goal of getting food of crossing over storms.
Let perseverance be your personal growth value! 

Personal growth is a process of transformation from the negative lane in which negative energy motivates your thoughts and actions to consistently function as a positive being. The action of crossing into the personal growth is generated by conscious tapping into the positive socialization experiences and learned behavior acquired though other social institutions.

Failure defined!

Failure is a description of unsuccessful strategies towards planned actions. It is missing how to achieve goals in the most effective and efficient way.

Contributing factors to failure!

Whenever failure occurs, it is important to observe that there are two types of common contributors – external and internal factors:

1.   External factors to failure.

External factors are those obstacles caused by the environment and other sources which happen without your control. For an example, your business could fail due to fuel price increase which required you to increase the prices of goods you are selling to cover your cost. If the sales decrease continued and ultimately forced you to close your business, then your action to close was beyond your control.

2.   Internal factors to failure.

Internal factors to failures pertain to you; the totality of all components of who you are such as mental, emotional and spiritual faculties. Often you may not be aware that your worst enemy is you; your thoughts and feelings because they have a direct bearing and influence on your decision and how you react to the environment.  These habits and flaws are manifestation of childhood experiences that occurred during your first eight years and form your values and beliefs systems; they are central to how you manage your life – relationships, finances, career and your health. 

How to use failure as stepping stones to personal growth!

The first step is recognizing failure as the effect of something you did that simply provide a feedback, otherwise known as the law of cause and effect. The law of cause and effect denotes that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Applying this principle means that:

a)   You have a responsibility to determine what you want by identifying specific things and actions you have to do. For an example you could redefine your objective to include the learning phase so that you can allow errors while executing planned actions; thus giving yourself an opportunity to regard mistakes as an arena to refine strategies.

b)   You make choices and then take actions. It is important to believe in your ability to generate positive energy that will cause desired results. There is power in deliberate and focused attention to the quality of your thoughts, feelings and actions.

c)    Success takes time – persevere in seeing your mistakes as learning curves that enhances your experience on that particular plan.

Your efforts to reposition your refined strategy should include self-assessment of who you are. What is the quality of your thoughts and feeling from which your actions come from? Remember that most of who you are may not be fully be at your conscious level.  Your subconscious mind houses your archived systems and includes a blue print of your beliefs and values regarding relationships, finance and health. Often this archived information is not accurate; nonetheless it influences all your decisions. In order to learn from daily experiences, the following three questions will help you to regard the failures as your stepping stones to life experiences:

a)   What did I learn from this incident?  Calm yourself and answer this question as objectively as you can.

b)   How can I benefit from this experience?  Remember, you have no power over anybody except yourself! This means you can only change you by being aware of the contributing factors to your failure.

c)    What are three positive things about this situation? Do your best to identify your learning curve. Note that your mind, which houses your ego, will resist finding positive lessons in your failure. Allow yourself to feel the hurt of failure without labeling yourself; that which you feel now will build you if you do not associate it with negative emotions you experienced from those who socialized you.

Personal growth occurs when you are aware of the need to change your perception about unsuccessful experiences. It denotes taking decisive action to move from the comfort zone of undesirable habit or and fear of failure to experience the transition of actual action of running in a new lane of reform towards success.