Tag: love

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Flashback Friday: Choosing a Running Mate

This week, we’re flashing back to 2016. With this not only being another election year, but also a week when many people will become engaged, it seems appropriate to revisit this topic …

With all the talk lately about who Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will pick to be their vice-presidential running mates, it’s had me thinking about choosing a spouse.

Trump said he wanted to pick someone who was strong in areas where he was weak. I believe that should be one of the top priorities when picking a life mate, as well. Dr. Wayne Dyer often said, “You shouldn’t marry a mirror.” What he meant was, you shouldn’t marry someone who is exactly like you and likes all the things in life that you do. Yes, it’s important to have big things in common like religious beliefs, common goals for you as a couple and as a family, but in my opinion and observation throughout more than four decades on this planet, the true strength of a couple is only realized when trouble strikes (and it always does). It’s important to have at least one person in the relationship who is strong in that area to cover for the both of them and show the weaker one how to rise up and become stronger.

The Princess Guide Senee Seale

I learned while studying Social Psychology and working as a Research Assistant studying couples in relationships that opposites do not, in fact, attract. Their differences are so great that they appear to be all an outsider can see, but they actually have many things in common which bring them together and keep them together.

So, how do you know if you’re choosing a good “running mate?”

In their book Safe People: How to Find Relationships That Are Good for You and Avoid Those That Aren’t, Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend recommend looking for these traits in your relationships:

  • Are they living up to their commitments to me?
  • Are they here for me only when I’m here?
  • Do they tell me “no” when they don’t have time?
  • Do they make promises they can’t keep?
  • Am I the last in a string of broken relationships?
  • Do others warn me about their patterns of relating?

It takes time to find out most of these things about a person. That is why I like the advice of being with someone for four seasons or about nine months to a year. I will further refine that by saying, you should date someone for four seasons, not be engaged for four seasons (nor living together). Once you enter the engagement phase, it can feel harder to get out of the relationship after you’ve announced the wedding date, paid deposits and promised to marry someone. It is also harder to process and accept negative information about someone after you have already fallen in love with them. In this phase, it can also be harder to accept negative information about your person and then make an informed decision of what is best for you in the situation. This is where having close family and friends to vet your perspective “running mates” is crucial.

Every single person up for serious consideration of that job for presidential candidates must fill out a long, involved background form, go through a background check, have their friends, family and coworkers interviewed and interview with multiple people. If the process is this important for a four-year job, why shouldn’t it apply to a lifetime position? I was telling a girlfriend going through a serious breakup the other day that I really understand why it was so important for a man to get a girl’s parents permission to date and marry her — having people outside the relationship with her best interests at heart is critical to making an informed decision. Consider getting some of your closest friends and family on your advisory team to start vetting the next people who come into your life.

You can find these Flashback Friday blogs posted every Friday Senée Seale is a book author, mental health professional and life guide passionate about helping people create positive changes in their lives and relationships. Are you ready to start attracting positive things into your life through practicing daily affirmations? Get your free copy of The Princes Guide to Gratitude Affirmations.

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Virtue and coming back to life

I’ve been working on writing the second edition of The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart, and I’ve been thinking a lot lately about royalty. This #FlashbackFriday post explains how our character is what makes us righteous (and in my opinion, royal) …

I was walking down an aisle in a store the other day, and next to the As Seen on TV products jumped out the words on a box BACK TO LIFE … My first thought was, “I wish I could slather on a product to bring ME back to life!”

Virtue and coming back to life

We all go through seasons in life where our faith is tried, but how we react to the negative things happening to us determines who we really are. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about character and virtue.

Several years ago when I was working as an editor of a weakly publication for “The Dallas Morning News,” I was going through a really difficult time in my personal life. The only guy on our team walked up as I was talking about my situation with another girl on our team. He said something to me that has never left me. He had only been working with me for a couple of months but said I was the most virtuous person he’s ever known.

Michael Tyrrell, musician and creator of the Wholetones music project, put it like this in a recent e-mail, “Virtue is the cornerstone of character. It is the manifestation of moral principles or ethics that define one’s statue. In other words,it’s the ‘you’ in you! It’s who you are when nobody’s around to impress.”

My grandfather always told us, “A man is only as good as his word.” I took that to heart and always try not to commit to something unless I know I can do it and keep my promises. I’ve found out in my lifetime that very few people keep their promises — even really important ones like wedding vows or governmental oaths.

One of my friends in graduate school calls me her ”Little Southern Belle.” One night during a break in class as the professor was walking back in the room, my friend was telling everyone out loud, “Senée is the epitome of a Southern Belle. She can tell you to go to hell and make you look forward to the journey!” To that, our professor turned around and shook her head. (She wasn’t from Texas and had told us she didn’t understand our hospitality or etiquette.)

I have never viewed myself as a Southern Belle. I just know deep down inside me that I am called to live to a higher standard in which I keep my promises, tell the truth at all costs and do my best to do things in love.

Being a follower of Christ sets this standard for me, but I’m amazed at how many people who say they are Christians live just like the rest of the world doing things to please themselves. It shouldn’t be surprising to see the conduct of people today because it was written about hundreds of years ago, and we were told exactly what to do.

“BUT UNDERSTAND this, that in the last days will come (set in) perilous times of great stress and trouble [hard to deal with and hard to bear]. For people will be lovers of self and [utterly] self-centered, lovers of money and aroused by an inordinate [greedy] desire for wealth, proud and arrogant and contemptuous boasters. They will be abusive (blasphemous, scoffing), disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy and profane. [They will be] without natural [human] affection (callous and inhuman), relentless (admitting of no truce or appeasement); [they will be] slanderers (false accusers, troublemakers), intemperate and loose in morals and conduct, uncontrolled and fierce, haters of good. [They will be] treacherous [betrayers], rash, [and] inflated with self-conceit. [They will be] lovers of sensual pleasures and vain amusements more than and rather than lovers of God. For [although] they hold a form of piety (true religion), they deny and reject and are strangers to the power of it [their conduct belies the genuineness of their profession]. Avoid [all] such people [turn away from them],” 2 Timothy 3:1-5 AMP

One reason I choose to live to a higher standard is because of the great promise associated with it. “Let your character or moral disposition be free from love of money [including greed, avarice, lust, and craving for earthly possessions] and be satisfied with your present [circumstances and with what you have]; for He [God] Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. [I will] not, [I will] not, [I will] not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let [you] down (relax My hold on you)! [Assuredly not!],” Hebrews 13:5 AMP.

In his book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, Steve Harvey said men like standards, so get some. So how can we start to raise our standards? Jesus told us the greatest commandment is to love one another. The Apostle Paul broke it down even further in Philippians 2:3-4 GNT:

  • Don’t do anything from selfish ambition or from a cheap desire to boast;
  • Be humble toward one another;
  • Always considering others better than yourselves;
  • And look out for one another’s interests, not just for your own.

How do you live life to a higher standard, or how do you plan to raise your standards?

You can find these Flashback Friday blogs posted every Friday. If you want to know more how to have successful relationships and peace of mind, you can get a free PDF sample chapter of “The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart” by filling out the form in the sidebar on this page.

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How to show your love for someone

As I wrote about last week, I haven’t really been in the mood for Valentine’s Day this year, but I’m always thinking (and writing) about love and relationships.

We show our love to people by the words we speak and gifts we give. These things are very important and shouldn’t be neglected or avoided — when we refuse to give people gifts they like or affirm them by our words, we tell them by our actions that they don’t matter to us.

Just as important are the things we DO. Our actions are what will be remembered most.

My best friend’s dad passed away unexpectedly recently. When I told her I would do anything she needed, I meant it. When she asked if I would read his favorite poem at his funeral, I immediately said yes, even though I have vision issues and haven’t read anything out loud to another person (much less a chapel full of people) in years.

I would have felt more comfortable singing or speaking than reading, but that’s what I was asked to do. Where there’s a will, there’s always a way! The family was pleased and said it made them cry. I just wanted to show my love by honoring them and not embarrassing them.

How do we know the difference between real love and the fake stuff? Real love is selfless and unconditional … It doesn’t look for something in return.

My grandpa was really great at modeling real love daily. I was riding my bike one day when I was about 12. I was standing up on the peddles, and my back wheel hit a pothole. The seat hit me in the behind, and I was instantly in pain and bruised. (I later found out I had broken my tail bone.) The next thing I knew, my Pa-Paw was down the street in 105 degrees filling up that pothole. He said he didn’t want me to be hurt again–Now, that’s real love!

“Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.” -Ephesians 5:1-2 MSG

How can you step out of your comfort zone this week to show your love to someone?

Catch these first-run Write About It Wednesday blogs every Wednesday. If you want to know more about the healing and transformation process, you can get a free PDF sample chapter of “The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart” by filling out the form in the sidebar on this page.

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You want to know what love’s about?

In 2014, I spent much of February writing about love. Here’s one of those Flashback Friday posts …

* * *

There’s a line in the song Spotlight by the band Leagues that says, “Romantic love’s a fickle friend. You want to know what love’s about? Give it when you feel none.”

This reminds me of the advice my Addicted Family Therapy professor would often give me when I was having a meltdown. After asking me when was the last time I had been to an Al-Anon meeting she would say, “You sure have some high class problems living in that high rise in the nice part of town, Senée. You need to go find someone you can help.”

Dr. Wayne Dyer often says that we have to want IT more for others than we want it for ourselves. That IT could be a happy marriage, a baby, a new job, healing, financial security or anything. More often than not, that IT is typically peace of mind …

About four years ago, shortly after I started studying Substance Abuse Counseling, I woke up one day with total and complete peace about not having children at that time in my life. It was the most amazing feeling I’ve ever experienced which allowed me to be in a relationship with a man who had a vasectomy during the time we were dating without me totally freaking out. (I now realize that was because I knew deep down that he wasn’t the one for me.) But it also alarmed me because I thought if I didn’t want it bad enough I wouldn’t get it …

I’m realizing the same 12 Steps that help us cope with being in relationships with substance users can also help restore our sanity when we want things that are out of our control.

Step study teaches us that when we admit we’re powerless over the situation and our lives have become unmanageable (Step 1), and we come to believe that God [the power greater than ourselves] can restore us to sanity (Step 2), then we’re ready to make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand Him (Step 3). There’s obviously more to it, but this is the start.

And don’t get me wrong … It isn’t as easy as it sounds, especially if you have great attachments to those things you’re trying to turn over to God. Even the most religious people will admit to taking things back they have previously given to God in an attempt to speed up the process, but that never works.

So while you’re waiting for God to change you, you can want it more for others than you want it for yourself and go look for someone to help. I’ve been crocheting baby blankets for all my close friends who were recently blessed with little ones (and I’m praying for those babies with every stitch).

What are you dealing with, and how are you “wanting it more for others than you want it for yourself?”

You can find these Flashback Friday blogs posted every Friday. If you want to know more about the healing and transformation process, you can get a free PDF sample chapter of “The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart” by filling out the form in the sidebar on this page.