Successful relationships and how to maintain them.

I have been thinking a great deal recently about relationships and how we start them and then maintain them, but more importantly how do we make them successful.
Relationships are by nature very tricky and can be as simple or as complicated as you make them, but they always involve more than one person or being.
The most important relationship that we have is our relationship with self, you may say then that is just one, however I believe in the principle of four elements to self, they are your:

Physical self – how you see and look after your body. Do you eat healthily, have a good sleep regime, engage in health promoting activities like going to the gym or swimming.

Social / emotional self – How do you interact with others, do you have healthy boundaries, do you keep your promises, do you have a good and positive network of friends. Do you look after your emotional health, emotional well-being is becoming more and more important in the world today especially with life and its stresses, the need to be liked, feel valued and have a sense of self-worth are often sought from the approval of others, people who post regularly on social media especially younger people rely on the likes of their peers to make them feel good.

Do we show our appreciation to those who help us and do we then look to help others.

Spiritual – I don’t necessarily mean this as being a belief in God or following a set religion, it is more about how we feel internally, our relationship with the outside world and the way that we view the things of the world. The Dalai Llama once said that when he became the spiritual leader of the people, he would look out for ants on the pavement so that he would avoid them because God put them on this earth, some would say that this is a bit extreme but we should value the lives of others and show kindness and humility.

Mental – This is really about how we keep our brains stimulated, do we do new things, research or study in education. read inspiring and uplifting books, these often give us a new way of thinking, crossword puzzles and Sudoku are both good for the mind.
If we work on our relationship with self we can then start to look at our other relationships starting with those who are most important in our lives, after all if we see them as being important then shouldn’t our actions be in harmony with that feeling.
Love is a verb a doing word and has a friend of mine said recently “Actions speak louder than words”
How very true this is and I hope that you may feel inspired by these thoughts today and that you have a wonderful and fun filled day. xx

Paul’s blog on health and lifestyle choices.

I am writing this blog as a 55 year old male, who has made many choices throughout his life some of them good, some not so good and even the odd one that has had an absolutely disastrous outcome and as time goes on I will tell you more.
I am writing this blog to introduce you to a world without limits, a lifestyle where you have the choice, where it is okay to go against the grain, a lifestyle that gives you permission to be you.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.