An old Buddhist saying explains that, "How you do anything is how you do everything." Which means you duplicate the relationship (and other) patterns you live in any one area all across your life.
That assumption forms the basis for competency based therapy. The microcosm of the client-therapist relationship follows the same interaction styles that the client exhibits in the macrocosm that his world outside the therapy unit.
Huh?
How the client interacts with the therapist reveals the identical style the client uses in his personal and professional lives. Makes sense, right?
Each person has a unique communication style.
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That style, developed over a lifetime, is known as one's competency for it is used habitually (and out of awareness) in all situations.
Okay, my intention is not to share a lesson on how and why competency based therapy works - not now and not here. I brought it up to define how the Buddhist saying applies in relationships.
Some years back I had a friend who was not on speaking terms with her father. That same person, Jan, worked for someone who treated her, shall we say, not very kindly.
Jan shared her work situation, describing her boss's behaviors toward her. I was seething inside that she put up with his disrespect. And then Jan said something that completely blew me away. She said she sent her boss love.
What the heck!
He behaved unprofessionally and treated her unfairly and she sent him love? I never heard of such thing before. And then Jan explained what happened as a result of her sending him love. Mind you, she didn't tell her boss she was sending love to him. She didn't say anything, just continued to work at her job without complaint.
Ready for the outcome of her sending love to her boss?
Her boss changed his behavior toward Jan. In fact their entire work relationship healed. Notice the situation healed without argument, without mediation, and without therapy on Jan's part.
The situation healed because no positive or negative behaviors, no positive or negative thoughts, exist. The situation healed because every situation, every thought and every event reflects love or the lack of love.
Got it? There is only love or the lack of love in life.
The upshot of Jan sending love to her boss and healing that situation awakened me to the reality of the power of love. You see, Jan didn't just heal her relationship with her boss. The love she sent his way somehow also went to her father. Without ever speaking to or seeing her father, their father-daughter relationship healed too.
Note: her father and her boss shared many personality characteristics and behaviors. So her act of sending love healed every situation in her life that resembled the one with her dad.
Of course there was no coincidence that her boss was a reflection of her father.
People create relationships, out of their awareness, by energy attraction. People attract those who remind them of early childhood caretakers so in this new relationship they can finally "get it right."
Get it right? That means getting the love they always wanted.
How you do anything is how you do everything.
If you keep attracting the same people into your life, only they have different faces and different names, then you have unresolved issues you desperately want to correct for you own happiness and well being.
The Universe will continue sending you what you unconsciously ask for with a parade of similar people across your life. Each person will bring your personal issues to a higher level until they are smack dab in your face causing so much pain you will finally take action to change whatever you need to change in yourself.
Relationship issues are never about the other person. Other people serve to push your buttons so you repair or replace those programs with highly satisfactorily working programs that serve you.
Pay close attention to the people in your life who really bug you.
They are gifts, priceless treasures sent to shake you up so you can not just see clearly but move out of the insanity of doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.
Your happiness lies in your own hands.
Share your competency below. That knowledge, that self-awareness, will open doors and heal relationships you never imagined possible. For some people it is picking a fight. For some people it is yielding to whoever voices the strongest opinion, etc. Discover yours by observing how others respond to you.