Ever feel like you are not truly connected with your partner? It’s not surprising if you’ve ever felt this way because most relationships have this problem at one time or another.  You don’t feel you are connecting, communication drops off and ton of insecurity starts flooding your brain. It really sucks when this happens because you know you truly care about your partner but you just don’t know how to bridge that gap.  It’s really attributed to a skill that necessary for both of you to have in order to connect in ways that fosters everlasting love. This skill is called “Heart Felt Understanding and Putting Your Partner First”.  Some people have different levels of natural mastery of this skill and hence different levels of success with this. Have you ever seen one of those couples that you are truly really envious of because they are so in love?  When I refer to those types of couples I am not referring to couples that are new in a relationship and still in the lust stage, but rather I am talking about the couples that are truly in love and have been that way for many years consistently. These couples early on were capable of putting this skill to work and build this skill over time to mastery.

So let’s start by breaking this skill up into segments and understanding them a bit better. The first part of this skill is Heartfelt Understanding. What I mean by heartfelt understanding is being able and willing to connect to your partner’s emotional world. In laymen’s terms this means being able to put yourself in your partner’s shoes and understanding things from their perspective.  When your partner doesn’t feel understood by you the relationship cannot grow and develop. The trick and the power comes in when you can listen to your partner without out judgment and truly understand and feel what they are feeling.  Most people are so worried about their agenda and themselves they over look the one main thing that it takes to make your relationship work and that’s your partner and his or her feelings.  Now that’s not to say that you have to agree with everything that your partner is saying, but they need to feel that you are on their side and understanding their perspectives.

The next part to this skill is being able to put your partner first, because it can’t be about you in a relationship.  The thing is, when you put someone else first and you are not concerned about you it puts you in a place of perceived vulnerability. After all if you aren’t worried about yourself and you’re putting yourself on a limb who’s going to have your back, right? The answer is your partner will if you both are truly committed to this practice, but you both have to have trust and faith in each other.  Scary, right? We’ve all been hurt or let down at some point or another in past relationships or even the one you may be in right now. But I truly believe the end result is amazing if you both can commit to taking this leap of faith and developing this practice. You can’t be your partners observer or critic, you need to develop that inner heart connection and become totally conscious of what your partner needs and feels.  It takes a little practice but I fully believe all the best things in life come as a result of practicing good habits.

There are a number of things you can do to help develop this practice. First be totally selfless, its about your partner not you. No matter how busy you and your partner get in this crazy world have scheduled periods of time where you tend solely to your partners needs and putting your needs second or third. Maybe bring them breakfast in bed, massage their back while talking after a hard day, or just hold them and touch them in ways that make them feel special, and I again emphasize “them”.  For this to work you want to spend time to fully understand what your partner likes and continually refine your approach. Understand what gifts, gestures, touch, or words makes your partner feel loved and appreciated. Focus on continually becoming more proficient at loving and pleasing him or her.  One thing I do need to emphasize is that for this to work you both have to be committed to doing this. If one side is consistently putting in and the other partner is just taking with no reciprocation it becomes somewhat of an emotionally cannibalistic relationship that eventually harnesses high levels of resentment by the person that is giving.

One movie I always reference is “The Notebook” , through the course of the movie you see this couple refining this ability to such a high degree that they become what most of society only dreams about becoming, hence the reason there are so many tears flowing through the course of the movie.  Fairytale endings do exist, you just need to know what you want, and prioritize the things that brings what you want to life. In this case its needs to be all about your partner, and your partner needs to have the same mindset towards you. Spend time, talk, explore each other, let your walls down and enjoy each other. A world with a lot of walls and distrust, while it may feel protective in the short term, is a very lonely place in time. Take some chances, after all if you are seeing someone and you care about them aren’t they worth it?

Live life with passion, and not regret. Put your partner first and everything else in life will fall in place because you will then create an unstoppable team formed out of love and understanding.  The possibilities then become endless.