Jenny and Erin

In love we all desire similar things - to be cared for, to be understood and to find safety and companionship. The lens through which we view our experiences, or Center, determines the means to meet these needs. Different Centers provide dramatically different views of how life should be lived and love expressed. This does not only apply only to romantic relationships, in fact it can be translated to all of one’s relationships.

Our Centers provide the basis for how we view the world. Through them we interpret our experiences, find motivation and determine our goals and dreams. Personal Centers are explained in more detail in a previous article, Girls Just Want to Have Fun. Understanding your Center provides clarity to all aspects of your life ranging from why you react the way you do to the frustration of feeling compelled to behave in a certain manner that causes you pain over and over ad nauseum. If you can learn to see and understand your center it is easier to see and understand other’s centers as well. It’s humbling to realize just how driven we are by oftentimes deeply buried motivations and beliefs.

Oftentimes it comes as a bit of shock when you realize that you are not the only person with a Center driving their thoughts, beliefs and actions. When the realization hits that everyone around you including your mate has a Center driving his or her choices it is an ah-ha moment. You can begin to play detective and through observation learn quite a bit about just what is driving the people around you, and the person you love. How do they view the world? Figuring this out will help you deeply understand their motivations.

Let’s look at two people, one who is Pleasure-Centered and the other Relationship-Centered. A Pleasure-Centered individual:

• Becomes bored over time by things that used to bring them happiness and excitement
• Is happiest when doing something fun and exciting and easily frustrated when denied fun and excitement
• Views their partner as either part of the fun or as holding them back from what they want to do and boooring!
• Has many friends and spend a lot of time seeking fun with these friends
• Finds serious discussions about the relationship or your alternative views as distasteful and frustrating, as there are better things they could be doing with their time

Likely this individual feels loved through a partner who is fun and supports their pleasure seeking desires - financially, emotionally and physically. Someone who understands the importance of dinners out with friends, Sunday game days, parties or shopping trips. Their life is near perfection when their partner wants to partake in all of these activities with them.

A Relationship-Centered individual:

• Happiness is dependent upon how their partner is treating them or the mood their love is in
• Expends much energy trying to appease or gratify their love
• When their partner is unhappy with them there is a great deal of fear and sadness and concern that they will withdraw their love for good and you will do nearly anything to stop this from happening
• All other things in their life from family to job take second place to their love or are done excessively in an attempt to take care of their mate

Just being with their partner is happiness for a Relationship-Centered individual. When the relationship is good so are they. It doesn’t much matter if they are spending time together out with friends or at home doing yard-work as long as they are with the person they love and this person is happy.

Do you see how these two can either compliment one another - or worse, complicate things for one another? For a Pleasure-Centered person the “good” life is through fun and a mate who supports their pleasure seeking desires - financially, emotionally and physically. For a Relationship-Centered person this is through a mate who longs to spend time with them, puts the relationship at the top of their priorities and considers the impact of the relationship first and foremost on any and all decisions from financial to family. Oh, oh! With these two very different drivers a collision is ahead!

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all it took to have both a successful personal life as well as relationship was to see and understand both your and your partner’s Center? You could plan around it or adjust for it – maybe just explain what’s going on and things would change, right? Unfortunately not as much as one would expect. When you are entrenched in a Center it is difficult to see the negative consequences that are heading your way even when they are blindingly obvious to others around you (or at least those with a different Center!) and quite easy to overestimate the control you do have over both yourself and your partner’s behaviors.

The reason that understanding your and even your partners center doesn’t create a healthy relationship or at least a relationship in which the both of you can happily exist with both of your needs being completely met is because the centers we have been looking at so far are based on weakness. They don’t provide solid foundations. Strength doesn’t come from adding together two different sets of weaknesses and problems which you no doubt understand if you’ve ever personally experienced the collision of two Centers for the worst. The resulting confusion, pain and misunderstandings are painful to watch and you might begin to wonder if there just isn’t a better way to approach life – and there is – that of living a principle centered life.

Related Posts:
Girls Just Want to Have Fun
How to Hold On To Success
Challenging Our Mental Maps

This entry was posted in Stephen Covey's 7 Habits on Monday, October 29th, 2007 by Jenny. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.