The number one skill that you need in order to have a beautiful, joyful and loving realtionship is not love or beauty.

It’s not your capacity to be all cuddly, it’s not even your sex life.

It’s in fact your willingness and elegance with which you face conflict.

One of my friends says that your relationship starts with your first disagreement, in many ways, that’s true.

It is in the first moment that you’re bumping heads against each other that you understand who you’re contending with and who you’re co-working, co-creating with.

It is in the times that we’re pissed off, upset, angry, jealous, the times that we are triggered when something happens and our trauma comes to the surface, our reactions, our intolerance.

It’s in these times that all the spiritual work, all the self-development, all the quotes you’ve posted on Instagram better have a practical use, better have a tangible application.

It’s in these times that your love and light narrative must be used, because to be all happy, joyful… “I love nature, i love my boyfriend/girlfriend.” Is great…

But it’s very easy when they’re agreeing with you, when passion is through the roof, when they’re behaving in the way that you want them to behave, however, we’re all human and we’re bound. The question is not if but when.

We’re all bound to behave in ways that go clashing against somebody’s expectation of us, especially our lover.

Number one skill is knowing how to navigate conflict artfully, gracefully, with elegance, willingness.

Understanding that there must be a mutual desire to always want to solve conflict, to always want to sit with it, to always want to understand and process it.

If you’re with a partner that puts up stone walls and creates barries around their heart, that turns their back onto you and leaves you alone..,

Shuts the door or just leaves every time that a heavy emotion is triggered, then it’s going to be very challenging and painful to be in a relationship with them.

Because maybe youre willing to see what you did wrong, you’re willing to understand why they did what they did, but if they’re not, if there’s no openness on one side…

Then it’s like trying to go through a door that is locked, you may open it but you may hurt your hand in the process, you will stress yourself, you will harm the door.

Ensure that the person you are dating is as willing and comitted to you, to sit with the conflict, to try and navigate it, doesn’t mean that solving it means that you’re always lovey-dovey or you always come to a very clear agreement.

It means that you’re willing to sit through the discomfort together, to think about ideas, to understand that it’s not you against her/him, to understand that the conflict that you experience is a third entity in the relationship.

Because it’s you and your partner on the same team and the conflict in front of you, you have an opportunity to co-create and to understand how we can get through this together.

Problems arise the moment that you think it’s you against her, your perspective against theirs.

Remember you’re a team and every conflict is something for both of you to address, you have to have a partner that; is willing and is honest.

If you cannot trust what they say, no clear communication. Then nothing’s gonna work for you.

Because even if you feel that you resolve the conflict, if you’re hesitant, if they say something but act in a different way, they dont follow through on the agreements, if they make a commitment and the next day they break it, you’re in a lot of chaos.

Part of your capacity to have a good relationship and to respect yourself is ensuring that you’re dating someone that is honest and being yourself perfectly honest.

An honest person is not a person that says and does things that you like, in fact, it’s somebody who is not afraid to “rock the boat” If it means that they’re gonna express their truth.

You want somebody who is not attached to you in a toxic way, you want somebody who’s gonna prioritize speaking the truth over pleasing you, because this means that no resentment is gonna be brute and built underneath that.

You yourself want to make sure that if you don’t like something, you say it, that you’re honest about how you feel, that you don’t keep it in, especially not to keep the other person.

You’re both willing to connect, to handle conflict.

You’re both honest, you trust what the other says and you act on the word that you give to each other.

Finally, you communicate in a healthy way, all conflicts can be resolved with a lot of drama, a lot of passion, a lot of swearing, attacks.

They can also be resolved with elegance, it doesn’t mean that the emotions are not heavy, but it means that it takes a lot of consciousness and conscious effort for you in the midst of your storm/hurrican/chaos to find that center point where you are in the moment.

Feeling what you’re feeling, never bypassing it, but also never drowning in it, you remain a witness ot the emotions that inform you that something must be addressed and from that place you can speak, articulate what it is that you like or dislike.

Owning your point, your perspective, opening up your heart, sharing how you feel, not pointing fingers, acknowleding that your experience of life and reality is yours, but also understanding that you are a couple.

You are co-creating and in the same way you are very impactful on the life of the other person, since you’re teammates and you’re co-creators, it’s important that you learn to arrive to the same page and you do so without destroying or burning much of what brough you together.

It’s important that what you communicate is not charged with violence, passive aggression.

Know how to say it firmly, but lovingly, it’s important that you know how to honor your emotions and you express them but you never vomit them into the other.

These are the 3 secrets to know.

1. Find somebody who is as willing as you, to sit through the discomfort.
2. Ensure that the person is somebody whos honesty you don’t even question.
3. You communicate openly, fully, lovingly, in a healthy way.

If you have these 3 then no matter what happens in your relationship, a lot of crazy, wild situations may come but you will find your way to feel that the boat in which you’re standing is able to resist any storm and go through it, however…

If you dont feel confident or comfortable in your relationships ability to navigate through conflict, then it’s like going to the storm with a boat that is leaking, you might make it, but chances are that you won’t, even if you make it, it’s going to be scary and rough.

You’re not going to be the same, you’re going to be a little hurt and scarred from the process and relationships do not have to be that way.

Develop a healthy relationship with conflict and find somebody who also has development