Have you ever wondered how would it be possible to improve relationships with kindness? Or what can you do on your part to improve relationships? For me, life is all about the relationships that we make and the close bonds we build, where kindness plays a major role.
Some of you must be dreaming, wondering, or thinking about what and how you can do to improve relationships and have a loving, secure, intimate, or open relationship with your families, friends, and lovers.
Remember, relationships thrive on kindness and love, and human beings are born in relationships, so essentially the lives we lead right from infancy to old age are fastened in the bond of relationships.
People often have a hard time in their relationships as they play the “I’m right and you are wrong” game, and start blaming each other instead of taking responsibility and practicing the act of kindness.
“Speaking with kindness creates confidence, thinking with kindness creates profoundness, giving with kindness creates love.” —Lao Tzu
Kindness to others and to yourself comes from a desire to support your own utmost good and the utmost good of others. You are genuinely kind when your uppermost priority is to support the highest good of everyone. You don’t even have to think about it, as it flows easily when your sincere desire is to be a caring, loving, and kind person.
However, when your deepest desire is to protect yourself from getting hurt, then your natural choice in conflict is most likely to attempt to control with blame, withdrawal, anger, compliance, resistance, or judgment.
When you extend kindness to others, you are really extending it towards yourself, as it leaves you a gentler, better, and more joyful person.
Whenever you want to improve relationships with kindness with your friends, family, spouse or any other person, you need to have noble, charitable thoughts, and should express more love. Mentioned below are 10 ways to improve relationships with kindness-
1. Love is the key
If you want to improve relationships with kindness, remember that love is the key part to making a relationship work, and kindness is a product of love. You cannot have a successful relationship, friendship, marriage, etc. without some degree of love. You need to try and become best friends with your spouse or simply a friend.
2. Be kind and sensitive
You are most likeable when you are kind, as people think of you as someone who is good to and for them. If you turn out to be the person people like, it becomes much easier for them to spend time with and around you. Also, learn to say something kind, some words of love (try out “I love you”!) and positivity on a daily basis. Remember, the more you give, the more you get.
Kindness also makes you more sensitive, as those who are kind don’t hurt the people they have relationships with, thus they are careful about how they treat them and are never harsh, or insensitive.
3. Start afresh
If you want to avoid petty, small, or even big arguments and problems in your relationships, you need to put such arguments or problems in the past or behind you. By doing so you are saying to yourself that the argument is over and it’s time to look for solution, look ahead, and start afresh.
I have practiced this often by focusing on the end results and how the problem is going to affect my relationship in a few days, months, and in the long run. This small shift in my thought process has helped me immensely to put the argument behind me, and focus on the solutions and make a huge positive impact in my relationship.
4. Show compassion and acceptance
To improve relationships, treat others the way you wish to be treated. We all yearn to be treated lovingly with respect, kindness, understanding, compassion, and acceptance. Though there are no guarantees, but often treating another with kindness brings kindness in return. Kindness to others doesn’t mean self-sacrificing, but taking the task for yourself as opposed to blaming others is the most important thing you can do.
If you are always kind to your partner and to yourself, but your partner is always blaming, angry, unavailable, and withdrawn, then you need to accept it as a far off relationship, or you may need to leave the relationship. Remember, you cannot change your partner, you can only change yourself.
5. Learn rather than control
While trying to improve relationships, you will have conflicts. However, there are only two ways to handle the conflict- one is to remain open to learning more about yourself and your partner, and discover the root issues of the conflict or trying to win the battle so that you don’t lose, via some type of controlling routine.
Such controlling routines are ways to conquer others into behaving the ways we wish, but all the different ways that we try to control will develop more conflict. Remember to learn to become better yourself, rather than control others if you want to improve relationships with kindness.
6. Create time for fun and play
People make time for each other when they fall in love or meet for the first time. Similarly, to improve relationships, you need time to be together, to converse, to play, to develop trust in friendship, make love, share things, take walks, sit and talk for a few minutes daily, share a hobby, watch a program together, laugh and play, or just about do anything together.
You need to understand about the feelings, emotions, and care about the other person. And remember, intimacy flourishes when here is lightness of being, not when everything is heavy!
7. Practice gratitude
When there is an attitude of gratitude between two people, positive energy flows, whereas permanent complaints or nagging develops a heavy, negative energy all around. In order to improve relationships with kindness, learn what moves you and your partner, and practice to be grateful for what you have, rather than focus on what you don’t have.
Complaints always develop stress, while gratitude brings about inner peace, so it builds up not only emotional and relationship health, but physical health as well.
8. Appreciate and acknowledge
Small deeds of kindness matter, so learn to appreciate and acknowledge the kindness from your partner. A small note, a loving comment, or a phone call during the day may be all your partner needs. When we express and notice gratitude for the kindness shown to us, it strengthens the relationship.
9. Help each other
To improve relationships with kindness, learn to help each other out. For example, when one partner or friend finds decision making a tough task and seeks your help, the partner who is more decisive may be tempted to be angry or impatient. But, if we are wise we will patiently help our partner to make a decision. To help in the household chores, look after the kids, or take on your partners responsibility for the day are other ways to help each other.
10. Improve yourself
In order to improve relationships with kindness you need to take responsibility for yourself and improve yourself. This means that rather than trying to change your partner, you learn to introspect and examine your own feelings and emotions. Develop the required inner strength and power that builds you from within.
Once you learn to take the responsibility on yourself, you stop blaming your partner for things that upset you. This in turn helps you improve relationships with kindness and creates a beautiful relationship.
Kindness allows you to love, forget, forgive, and be loved in return. When you are kind yourself, you put the relationships first. So, with the above mentioned 10 ways to improve relationships with kindness, and with World Kindness Day coming around the corner, what deeds of kindness are you going to practice for yourself and your dear ones?
“You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late.” ~ Ralph Waldo EmersonOver to you- How do you try and improve your relationships? When you enter into an argument do you practice kindness or try to improve relationship with kindness or try to prove you are right?
