Hi guys, a very warm welcome once again to this week’s episode of how to heal your relationship.

If you haven’t tuned in before, my name is Ayesha Jane Walker and I’m a relationship coach. I work with couples and individuals sharing with them tips, tools and techniques on ways that you can improve or heal your relationship.

Last week, we were talking about what you do when you get a no to a request that you might make of your partner.

What To Do When You Get A No Response

It’s always quite hard to get a no, something that you really want or that you really don’t want from your partner and you get a no to it, even though you’ve worked hard, perhaps, to request it in a really conscious and mindful way.

What to do? What to do when you get those no’s? Well, of course, we were talking about reflecting back the no that you hear and to stay in listening mode so that your partner knows that they are being acknowledged that you have listened to their reason of why they might not be able to meet their requests, so you’re not in conflict with them.

However, you’re still in this place of a no, you’re still in this place of will you want something and they want something and what do you do?

Well, one of the reasons where I was sharing with you last week about why it’s so important, A, on how you make a request and B, on how you respond to getting a no to your request, is because it’s so important to stay in that energy of alignment when you get a no. Not in conflict, so that you stay in alignment, that you stay in communication listening to each other and not in conflict or in judgement of each other.

Why? Because when your goal is alignment, when your goal is alignment, then you are in that energy of creativity where both of you now are aligned together on the goal of finding a way to meet your needs and to meet their needs.

The Goal Is Creativity Not Compromise

So I’m going to say something now that you might be surprised to hear me say and that is the goal in this situation is not compromise.

That’s not what I mean by finding alignment. Compromise for me is both of you not really getting much of what you want. Both of you having to give up fairly important things to get what you need.

Remember when we’re making a request it’s often about something that’s very much what we need that’s important to us and getting a sort of watered down version of what you need is not very inspiring for either of you.

So my advice is don’t go for compromise.

Relationships aren’t about compromise. Relationships should be about creatively finding what meets your needs and meets at your partner’s needs without compromise.

So let me give you a little example from my own life that I’m hoping will illustrate what I mean by staying in that energy of creativity and not going for compromise.

A Story About My Relationship

Some years ago my husband and I lived in the states we’d gone there because he’s a filmmaker and when we got there we were living in Los Angeles I discovered that LA was not just about the film industry but it was also about my industry, the industry of coaching, of consciousness, mindfulness and growth.

So I was in clover. So you could say that when my husband and I, my husband’s called Alan, when we went to Los Angeles to live that city met both our needs big time in so many ways.

I also loved the adventure of going to Los Angeles. One of my high needs is variety. I love experiencing things that are different. So it really met that need as well and we had a great community of friends out there.

So my need for community was really met because a lot of the people we hung out there and the hung out with were in the film industry were in my industry so I was very happy.

My Husband’s Needs

My husband was very happy except for one big thing and that big thing was his family back here. My husband has three children from his first marriage. While we were out in America he began to really miss his sons. He began to really miss hanging out with them.

They were all grown up but some of them had started to have children of their own. So not only now did he start to miss his sons more and more but he began to really miss his grandchildren. More grandchildren were coming and he wasn’t having that opportunity to see them grow and this was becoming more and more painful for him.

Then there came a day when the visa that we were on came to an end and we were in this interesting time of needing to renew our visa which would have allowed us to stay at least another three years in America. At this point my husband said to me I don’t know if I want to do this. I think I’m ready to go home.

My heart sank like a stone because everything that I needed was in the States. All my needs were already being met but I could see that a deeply important need of his was not being made.

So we had a challenge. What were we going to do? Did we stay and not meet his needs or did we go back to the UK and not meet my needs?

So we delved deep into those creative conversations. We didn’t get into conflict. We stayed in the conversation with each other really listening to each other’s needs and really checking in with ourselves listening for our own needs.

My husband’s needs in some ways were very easy to identify. He needed to be with his family. He needed to have that joy of connection with them.

My Own Needs

My needs were a little bit less specific I would say. As I looked into my own needs I realised that what I really loved about Los Angeles was being in the industry of growth and consciousness and coaching and I knew I could absolutely do that in the UK.

In fact as I began to think about things I realised that I’d learn all this new stuff, this new way of looking at couples therapy and I actually felt rather excited to start to share some of those ideas with a UK audience who maybe hadn’t heard them before.

So actually that really would meet my needs, the need for growth being back in the UK because I could actually start to be the inspirational force back here rather than learning about those things where I was in Los Angeles.

Then I began to think about my need for variety, the delight that I felt living in another country and living an adventurous lifestyle and I began to think well do I have to be in Los Angeles for that?

Is that something that I could have back in the UK? Well interestingly at the time I had a friend who lived on a boat and on one of my trips back to the UK she took me on one of her boat trips and explained to me that she was able to live on the canals of London cruising through some of the most wonderful areas of London while living this exciting life on a boat.

All her friends were in the boat in community and that the whole community was quite interested in living off-grid, living ecologically, living consciously and were quite aligned with the lot of the values that I had coming out of Los Angeles.

So I began to think oh this could be quite an exciting lifestyle for me. I don’t have to be in LA for either my job or for a life of variety and adventure.

So I sat down with my husband one day and said look if we’re going to live in the UK how would you feel about us living on a boat?

Well I won’t say it was a straight up yep that’s fine from him he certainly had to have a lot of conversations about such a very big change lifestyle change but he was very very willing to meet my needs and could hear that I was very very willing to meet his needs.

A Creative Solution

We both decided after many conversations many many conversations that we would give it a go and that my friends is how we ended up living on a boat.

So those of you who are regular listeners will know that’s exactly where I broadcast these coaching sessions from and that today my friends is the why of why I ended up broadcasting from my boat and living on a boat.

This came out of one of those conversations of creatively exploring how a really left-field way of how I could meet my husband’s needs and he could meet mine and I’m very happy to say that seven years on of being back and living on a boat I am if anything even more happy than I was living in the States and I’m very happy to say my husband got to be back living it being with his sons and now has three grandchildren that he gets to see at the drop of a hat because we are now back on British shores.

Now that was a very creative way and a very unusual way. It wasn’t something that was immediately obvious for meeting both of our needs so I hope you can get from that little story that I’ve shared today that energy of creativity to find a path through.

What you want and your partner wants is not always simple it does need a high degree of creativity and it does need a big awareness of what your needs are and a clarity of what your needs are and an awareness and clarity of what your partners needs are and that’s why I do emphasise really putting time into understanding those things.

So I hope you enjoyed this week’s episode and also hearing a little bit about my own history and how that links in with what I do again those of you interested in learning a little bit more and I about needs and identifying what your own needs are.

You can download a copy of a FREE needs checklist by clicking here. 

On a similar point something I wanted to mention this week was that if any of you interested in trying out couples coaching, something that’s perhaps a little different from couples counselling that most people are perhaps more familiar with, it anybody interested in dipping your toe into those waters and exploring what it would be like to have couples coaching whether you’re in a couple them a relationship or not you can have coaching without coming with your partner.

I offer a 30 minute complimentary coaching session for those of you who’d like to try it out and give it a go and see if it’s for you.

I look forward to speaking with you once again in seven days time for more tips tools and techniques on how you can grow and evolve your own relationships take care until we speak again bye bye.