Experts Say These 7 Life-Altering Relationship Choices Can Shape Your Entire Future
Love isn't just about the heart; it's about the choices you make that can shape your destiny.
Manuel Figueroa | Unsplash Love has everything to do with it! Acting from a center of love allows you to lead interactions with empathy, which facilitates better understanding and cooperation. A 2022 study suggested that shifting your perspective of others to a mindset that emanates love, while standing firm in your boundaries, allows a higher probability for acceptance and positive change.
In times of rapid change when quick decisions are required, leading with love while making choices under stress can be the catalyst for self-growth that nurtures relational growth and resonates socially to revolutionize the way you view your interpersonal interactions.
Experts say these seven life-altering relationship choices can shape your entire future:
1. Prioritizing the needs of your children
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The most life-altering decision I've ever made is to prioritize my child's well-being above all else. Becoming a parent is a profound journey of love, and every decision I make for my child is infused with that love.
It's in the late-night cuddles, the sacrifices, and the endless support given with an open heart. This love-filled decision has not only enriched my life but has also allowed me to experience the purest form of love, one that transcends words and boundaries, flowing freely between a parent and a child.
— Clare Waismann, Counselor and Treatment Specialist
2. Putting your oxygen mask on first
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As women, we have thousands of years of history and culture that tell us to love someone, commit to someone, nurture someone, and ignore our own needs. For the last 50 years, women have become aware of the need for self-care and self-love, which is still so difficult for us to do when someone we love needs attention.
Deciding to take care of yourself by putting your own needs first is the most courageous choice you can make, and sometimes you need to remember that only by caring for yourself can you survive and thrive long enough to help “them”! When you love yourself enough to take care of yourself, your example inspires women everywhere.
— Susan Allan, Relationship Coach
3. Pouring the love sauce on yourself
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"Healer, heal thyself" is the most life-altering decision you can make, for if you do not have balance and harmony within yourself, you will continue to emit a vibration that will be of no help to anyone.
— Loulou Palmer, Coach/Mentor
4. Reigniting your love for your spouse
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If you are married and still in love, renewing your vows can be a deeply moving, love-filled decision that further consecrates the marriage. It will fill your heart spiritually to reaffirm your permanent commitment to your partnership.
Whether you write new vows that reflect your evolution as a couple or recommit to your original vows, reaffirming your vows will be a joyfully enveloping experience for you, your partner, your kids/grandkids, and everyone who cherishes you.
— Dr. Gloria Brame, Therapist, Author
5. Choosing grace
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You can choose to respond to adversity with grace. When you're filled with rage, resentment, and desire to harm others, actively challenge yourself to respond with love.
With understanding, empathy, compassion, and endurance. Strive to represent the best of what we can be as humans, thinking beings who are capable of choosing our responses, and stop indulging in the most dangerous, animalistic aspects of us that can tear ourselves and others to shreds.
— Dr. Cortney Warren, Board Certified Clinical Psychologist
6. Deleting the downers from your life
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Seven or ten years in, having faced the reality check of his overweightness, failing health, and lagging career, Belle was disappointed. Her husband was not the Adonis-like football star she met at the gym so many years ago.
She fantasized about moving on and knew she would have lots of takers. For a few weeks, Belle was half in and half out but never there. Not present, just going through the motions, and then she made the love-filled decision to re-engage and re-invent their relationship from a glass-half-full perspective.
Only Belle could make the choice and she gave the gift of love. She deleted criticism and complaints from her vocabulary and replaced them with encouragement, humor, and fun.
— Reta Faye Walker, PhD Relationship Therapist
7. Finding the courage to forgive
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Forgiveness is a powerful act that can have a positive impact on both the person who forgives and the person who is forgiven. Choosing to forgive and move forward can be a powerful act of love.
When we choose to forgive, we open ourselves to healing by releasing anger and bitterness. We reduce stress, which improves our physical and mental health. Forgiveness improves the relationships we want to strengthen and the connections we want to maintain by improving communication and building or rebuilding trust. Forgiveness frees us from the past.
Choosing to forgive doesn't mean condoning or excusing harmful behavior. It means letting go of negative emotions that can keep us trapped in a cycle of suffering. Forgiveness can be challenging. It may not always be appropriate or possible in every situation, but it is a choice that transforms our present and future.
— Dona C. Murphy, Spiritual Coach
Will Curtis is YourTango's expert editor. Will has over 14 years of experience as an editor covering relationships, spirituality, and human interest topics.
