3 Traits of great relationships – Attraction, Alignment and Authenticity are the three essential ingredients for wonderful relationships, friendships and collaborations. Remove one of these ingredients and it just doesn’t quite work.

An energetic pull that draws you together

1. Attraction is central to all our relationships. There is sexual attraction with our intimate partners, the spark of masculine and feminine opposites. In friendships we like someone, we are drawn to them. At work, we have colleagues we prefer to be with, teams we want to be part of, a culture or creativity that attract us. Here we thrive. Even our pets are likable, lovable or just quirkily attractive to us.

Trying to be in an intimate relationship without attraction is a forced affair. It is a struggle that never fully goes away. There may be a huge amount of love, but if attraction is absent, it devolves more into companionship.

And I’m not just talking about physical attraction, but an energetic pull that draws you together, often in spite of physical preferences. ‘He’s not my usual type but I just want to be around him…’

Attraction in intimacy will ebb and flow over time, but how much depends on your commitment to keeping passion and love alive. As one of the 3 Traits of great relationships it is important!

Sharing core values and dreams

2. Alignment is also a major key to great relationships. If we are not sharing core values and dreams it is difficult to sustain an attraction. For example, if you are a man in your early forties and you really want to have a family, you may be extremely attracted to your girlfriend, but if she does not want children it’s not going to work. Or if you need monogamy and your partner needs an open relationship, your opposing desires for safety and freedom are not aligned.

You are pulling in opposite directions.

Or if your dream is to live and work in a cosmopolitan city, and your partner is miserable unless they are in the bush, the attraction will likely lessen under the strain of the non-alignment. Compromises can be made, but it’s not easy when they are big ones. But the plus is that you can discover new things through your partner.

In a work team, it is often more invigorating to have different points of view. But only when you are all aligned in service to a common goal or project.

Friendships can drift apart when not bound by a common interest, location, political leanings, shared sports, life-styles. Sometimes though, the heart alignment is stronger than these factors and the friendship endures all kinds of changes.

In intimate relationships an alignment of your sexual flavours and preferences makes it easier to flow together in love making. If one partner is very light and romantic and the other is more kinky and darker this can be fearful for one and boring for the other.

When we are authentic others can trust us

3. Authenticity creates trust, an essential for all good and strong relationships, intimate or otherwise. Being real and essentially yourself is being authentic. When we are authentic others can trust us because we do not have secrets or hidden motives. We are not projecting false identities over our true essence, or manipulating to get love and attention. We are vulnerable in the best kind of way.

If we commit to another from our authentic selves we will naturally keep our commitments and follow through. This builds the trust, which creates a container for attraction and love to grow and flourish. Authenticity is not about forcing our ‘truth’ onto another or being ‘honest’ in a way that hurts others unnecessarily. It is being true to ourselves and living love to others.

Authenticity is exciting, an aphrodisiac. It can bring back lost attraction or make it very clear if its not going to work.

If you are not able to be your authentic self in a relationship that is not healthy and needs to change.

Small amounts of awareness can go a long way

And there is a 4th A, the overarching aspect of Awareness. Connecting to lightness, humour, sacredness and ease. Small amounts of awareness can go a long way in our human stumbling towards love. No one is perfect, much less ourselves.

How are you doing with the 3 Traits of great relationships?

Are you showing and relishing your own attractiveness, or hiding it away? Are you trying to be attractive on the outside as a compensation to feeling not so attractive inside? Are you trusting and following your true attractions and desires in all your relationships? If not, why not?

Are you in acting in alignment with your own values and dreams? Do you recognise that getting involved with someone without enough alignment will lead to suffering? What will you compromise to be loved? Why?

Is authenticity something you welcome or fear? Are you a trustable person to be with because you are in touch with yourself and willing to risk being authentic with others? Do you let love in by being vulnerable? If not, are you working on it?

……And for the 4^{th  –} Awareness – we can keep evolving and doing our own work in growth and consciousness.

Appreciating you with love and trust,

Cynthia