Have you ever wanted to earn a black belt?  In relationships, this requires emotional intelligence.  When it comes to interactions with our partners, we may be tempted to agree with the aphorism, “All is fair in love and war,” but it turns out that those who are masters in relationships cultivate a different attitude than this, especially when it comes to disagreements.

I briefly took karate classes, and while I was still a beginner white belt, someone else started training at our dojo.  I noticed that although she was a yellow belt, she was always carefully paired with only black belts for sparing.  It turned out that she had started her training in a form of martial arts that embraced Aikido principles.  Aikido is often translated as, “the way of unifying spirit” and was originally developed to provide folks with self-defense without causing injury to others.  One signature of Aikido is moving with an opponent while staying balanced – yielding to win.  This is a powerful concept for relationships!

Research has shown that one does not win an argument by countering everything your partner says.  If you’ve ever found yourself talking to someone whose only response is a perpetual “No,” what happens?  They become like a rock in a river, someone who after a time is no longer consulted and is instead worked around.  They lose their influence. So, what do we have to do to “win” with our partners? The only way is to encourage our partners to say yes, and the only way to do that is to yield to those parts of our partners point of view that seem reasonable to us.  When we both start yielding and saying yes, the problem starts to become something both of us are working on together.  This is accepting influence and is a key part of compromise, a black belt move for relationships. This is emotional intelligence at its best!

For more black belt moves in relationships, check out our upcoming couple’s workshops at… https://therapy2thrive.com/couples-workshop/