Developing restful relationships can seem difficult, but don’t give up. Relationships have a life cycle, they grow and develop. Everything that grows and develops must rest in order to maintain life. The goal in developing restful relationships is to extend and improve the quality of the periods of restfulness within a relationship to the point that the relationship becomes a constant source of peace and safety within the chaos of living.
Remember, having a goal and achieving a goal are different, and there are no constants in life. “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1, Holy Bible, KJV). There will be times when some steps will be easier than others. That is because the 7-Steps are methods of increasing the restful quality of relationships through active awareness and control over responses to challenges within the relationship.
What???
Simply put, every relationship already has moments when the 7-Steps are occurring, just pay attention. When you notice that you are doing a step, try to maintain that attitude. When you notice that you are not, try to discover which step would be most beneficial to the situation, then allow yourself to relax into that response.