“If they can’t handle you at your worst, they don’t deserve you at your best.”
“If you don’t like something about your partner, fix it. Ask them to change.”
These are just some of the dating advice we receive from social media, pop culture, and people around us. And we take these pieces of advice as holy grails and follow them. Frustration builds as we keep looking for the ‘one’ and for that much-talked-about chemistry and we grieve whenever our dates or relationships don’t work out.
But does it really exist? Are these pieces of advice truly helpful? How do we manage conflicts in our relationships?
The answers to these and many other questions are what I sought when I talked to Prachi S Vaish, a mindful dating expert, Co-founder of The Emotional Wellness Initiatives, and a Psychologist with 17 years of experience in dating, relationships, intimacy, and couples therapy on The MyndStories Podcast. And she answered them all and left me with some thought-provoking truths and advice.
Managing fear
“No one pays attention to the fact that to be able to fall into healthy love you should also be able to receive healthy love.”
I started off by asking Prachi about a fear we all have: of never finding ‘our person,’ or as Prachi says, ‘a lifetime of emotional safety.’ And in this fear, we treat every date as that one date. We don’t understand our emotional needs and values.
“Which is where we make the mistake. Instead of learning our needs and values, we run after what we think we need,” says Prachi.
Mindful dating
“Chemistry is not compatibility.”
I had always thought that great love has to have great chemistry too. But it’s something I have not entirely been convinced about. So, I asked Prachi if chemistry is as big a deal as it’s made out to be.
“Chemistry is the pull that you feel towards familiar energy but it may not be healthy energy. And familiarity is not necessarily healthy.”
Which is why she teaches clients about mindful dating. “It’s a general perception that we need to find someone who can fill our void. What we need to find is someone who can complement our needs. In mindful dating, I help clients learn their core needs so they can first heal themselves and understand what complements those needs.”
Healing and relationships
The perfectionist in me believes that we should be fully healed before getting into a relationship. Prachi gently untangled some of those thoughts.
“You don’t need to be fully healed to be in a relationship. You just need to be aware of your unhealed parts and take responsibility for your own baggage,” is what Prachi advises.
Handling conflict and friction
Fights are inevitable in a relationship, right? But resolving conflicts with friction leads us nowhere. Prachi believes that instead of reacting to your partner’s reaction during a fight, respond to their feelings. She points out three pillars of handling conflict and friction.
- Start looking at conflict as an opportunity to foster deeper intimacy instead of a wedge that drives you apart.
- Most of the time, we end up reacting to the reaction coming our way rather than responding to our partner’s feelings. Learn to take a pause and respond, not react, to the feeling instead.
- Aim to resolve and not to win.
Healthy and unhealthy compromises
I was always told that compromising is the key to handling relationships. But at what point do compromises make you lose yourself? Where do you stop compromising?
Prachi thinks of compromises as alignment and realignment. We think of instant gratification in a relationship instead of long-term. Healthy alignment in relationships is when you create a balance of micro and macro goals. Relationships are give-and-take, and while it cannot be 50-50 all the time, reinforcement is necessary, she says.
The attraction of opposites
Prachi explains the age-old adage of ‘opposites attract’ with a simple example: Let’s say you like Chinese cuisine, and your partner likes Mexican. As long as you two have the same love for food, you enjoy eating what your partner likes. For a relationship to survive, some aspects need to be in place. As long as they are in place, then these fundamentals stop mattering.
Prachi describes healthy relationships, navigating the scary yet exciting dating life, understanding our core values, and much more on The MyndStories Podcast. Catch the rest of what we spoke about here.
Till then, I leave you with these nuggets of wisdom from Prachi:
“If you don’t heal from what hurt you, you bleed on people who didn’t hurt you.”
“We give our partners the worst of us while saving the best of us for other people. Learn the difference between being your authentic self and emotional dumping.”
“Be aware of your unhealed parts and continue healing. You don’t have to be fully healed to love someone else.”
“Our partners are not faulty projects for us to fix and repair. They are our fellow travelers with whom we build our common journey with love and compassion. Be curious about your partner.”
If you would like to be a guest on the show, please get in touch with us, and let me know what you liked or hated on this show!
