How To Have Great Relationships

“Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.”
Jalal ad-din Rumi

This post is based on a LOT of self-reflection and study psychology, neuroscience and philosophy. It synthesises this information and puts it into one big framework for how to have great relationships.

However, before I get to those details, I must explain what spurred the article.

You see, today is my 28th birthday, and if someone told me last year that 2023 would go this way, I would have been seriously scared.

In the last 11 months, I:

Moved to a new country
Broke up with my girlfriend of 9 years
Am navigating one of the toughest job markets in the last 15 years, right as I graduate business school
Felt lonelier than ever before.

In short-this year removed all trappings of ‘achievement’ I had generated for myself in the past few years.

It made me reflect a lot on who I am, my life goals, but most importantly- on my relationships.

Which is why, I am writing this.

I must also explain what this post is NOT.

This post is not about the standard advice around friendship and relationships- of communication, honesty, respect for others, etc- I feel like most of us have heard that enough times. You all get it.

No, this post is about something much, much deeper.

It’s about understanding ourselves.

You see, in the aftermath of the relationship ending, I was terrified about what was going to happen to me. I have so many friends who even months and years after breaking up with someone, haven’t been able to move on, and are ‘stuck’.

So, even when I was in the fog of grief, I promised myself one thing:

I will not be stuck.

I asked them- “what did you do in the months after you broke up?” and whatever their answers were, I did the exact opposite.

Things like:

I sat in the pain, by myself. I accepted the suffering. Didn’t distract myself by making my social life more active or going out more often than I normally would.
Started journaling and meditating daily.
Went to a few sessions of therapy (which I intend to continue once I get a job).
I started going on walks and the gym every single day (still continuing that till date).

After a month and a half of that, once the dust settled – my big takeaway was.

That love is not everything. You need chemistry AND compatibility, along with shared values for a good, long lasting relationship.

Most of you might say that is obvious- but this was NOT obvious to me. I’ve realised it’s always like this- our blind spots are things that others find painfully obvious.

Anyway, I still was left asking myself what that meant and how could I translate it into a philosophy for myself.

At the core of all this, was a burning question:

How can I have great relationships?

This led me down multiple rabbit holes, which I have synthesised together to build a framework.

And this isn’t just applicable to romantic relationships. I believe this applies to ANY relationship- professional or personal.

You can use this to deepen your friendships, or your family ties- if you want.

Honestly, this has helped me in the short time I started learning these concepts- just to form the initial version of a belief system for myself. To not be bitter- rather be positive despite the painful past year.

This is going to be a long post, but I’ll also give you the the Tl;dr version:

Know yourself, and know the people you enter into relationships with. Get curious- most people aren’t. The constant effort must be to have a high fidelity view of what you and the other person is like and understand this at a fundamental level- as best as you can.

Here’s what I’m going to talk about in this post:

The Neuroscience of Love and Grief
How Your Personality Is Built: The Concept of 3 Ego States
Why You Attract Certain People In Your Life: Attachment theory
The Unlock To Understanding Your Emotional States: Polyvagal Theory
How Attachment Theory and Polyvagal Theory Interrelate.
How To Regulate Your Emotions (Nervous System)
The Final Step: Building Self Awareness

Are you ready?

Ok – let’s dive in.

The Neuroscience of Love And Grief

To understand the way my mind worked, I started from first principles- I started reading about the brain and it’s working. That helped me form a model of how humans develop feelings- such as love and grief.

Without getting too academic- the most important thing I learned was that the brain is divided into 3 major regions, which evolved in the following order:

The reptilian brain (brain stem)
Limbic brain
Frontal brain

The brain stem is basically responsible for survival activities, like controlling heart rate, breathing etc. The most primal drives of pain and pleasure are driven from the brain stem. These two drives are essentially at the core of every feeling that we have.

The limbic brain is responsible for muscle control, movement, spatial recognition, emotions. This is newer than the reptilian brain, but older than the frontal brain. For the context of this article- the limbic brain is the part of our brain where feelings originate.

The frontal brain is the rational, thinking part. It is also the youngest part of of our brain, and like in any family- it’s elder siblings like to over-rule it from time to time.

Essentially, this is why so many people have trouble maintaining rationality in the face of emotional highs and lows. The rational, thinking part of the brain goes offline and is overpowered by it’s older siblings.

This was a big, big realisation for me. This explained why, for about 1.5 months post break-up, I struggled to get out of bed and have a routine. My frontal brain checked out and was overpowered by the limbic brain.

That explained my behavior during grief.

But when it came to love- I learnt something really strange:

The way our brains react to addictive substances is the same way our brains react to people we love- at least in the initial stages. This is why couples go through the honeymoon phase of being infatuated with each other- which is again, when they tend to make the most stupid decisions.

Why? Because again- the limbic brain has taken over from the frontal brain.

This tells us one thing- humans evolved to optimise for chemistry but not compatibility. Back in the days of the caveman (and cavewoman) this was fine, but as monogamy became the rule, rather than the exception- we started to struggle.

By the way- I recommend watching the video below for an in-depth explanation of what I’m writing in this heading:

Our brains have still not evolved to naturally factor in compatibility- in fact, from a purely survivalistic standpoint, that is still not needed. The only thing needed is chemistry- which is the only thing our primal brain cares about.

The frontal brain (the logical, rational younger one) will try to tell it’s elder siblings to think about things like the other person’s personality type, values, way of thinking, etc.

The elder siblings of course, tend to ignore it. They are like the bike riding, leather jacket wearing cool guys who just want to date the hottest women around. Their issues be damned.

This isn’t doom and gloom though. You can train your brain to a large extent to listen to the frontal brain. You can also learn to recognise times when you may not be able to make good decisions (like the initial stages of a new relationship) and give yourself time to let the dust settle.

This is called experience- something most people tend to get too late, regardless of when they get it.

Another funny takeaway:

We have more negative emotions than positive. It is literally harder to be happy than sad- and we can thank Darwin for this.

From a survival standpoint, pain is more useful than pleasure- which is why our brain overweights that. Which is why we must consciously re-train ourselves not to fall into what is the default, factory mode setting of our brain.

So- this explains how the brain works. Now, we’re ready to start learning about some actual tools that we can use for having great relationships.

Let’s go one level up- to the field of psychology.

How Your Personality Is Built: The Concept of 3 Ego States

This is a popular psychological theory that was developed in 1958 by Eric Berne. He said that each person has 3 psychological states:

The parent state- these are behaviours and beliefs we learn from our parents, elder siblings or really anyone in our life that we view as authority figures.
The child state- these are our default behaviours that we exhibited as little children. You know how some toddlers are very shy, whereas others rambunctious and outgoing? That’s their default setting- the child state.
The adult state- this is a synthesis of the parent, and child state. It responds to the present day ongoings.

Understanding the 3 ego states helped me see that everyone really has so many personalities inside of them.

There are so many things we internalise from the time we’re born (our subconscious records everything) which then inform our personalities as we become older. This theory just helped me think about what are the things that are really me, that I did as a 3 year old, and that I still do now, versus what are the things that I’ve picked up in my ‘parent state’.

Remember what I said about getting to know ourselves and other people better?

This is the first tool to use for having great relationships- understand your own and your partner’s ego states.

If you haven’t heard of this concept before, I encourage you to spend some time thinking about this today.

When doing this with a friend/partner- you’ll probably learn so much new information about them.

Why You Attract Certain People In Your Life: Attachment Theory

Another popular psychological theory that forms the basis of most modern relationships and dating advice- and something I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard of until …3 months ago!

This explained SO much, about myself, and when I related to them- my friends, and the kind of women I was attracted towards.

Basically, attachment theory states that all adults exhibit 4 types of ‘attachment’ traits in relationships:

Secure attachment
Anxious attachment
Avoidant attachment
Disorganised attachment

Think of these as 4 corners of a quadrant. East, West, North and South. Just like you could travel North-East, you can also have a combination of two different attachment types.

In fact- the main takeaway is that it’s all a spectrum. At different stages of your life, or even at the same stage, but in different relationships- you may exhibit varying attachment types.

According to the theory- we start to develop our attachment styles as early as 6 weeks after birth, and all through childhood. In fact, even events in our adult life can influence our attachment styles.

Here’s what the attachment styles mean:

#1 Secure Attachment

You are securely attached in your relationships- meaning you trust your friends, partners implicitly and completely. You’re open, honest, communicative about your feelings, needs and wants in a relationship.

Most securely attached people had their needs consistently met during childhood, which is why they develop the (correct) expectation that if they properly communicate their wants and needs in important relationships (like close friends or their partners), other people will fulfil them.

Needs here means things like- when a child cries, do the parents soothe him or let him cry it out? Did he receive the appropriate amount of affection from caregivers growing up? Did he get fed on a regular schedule, or whenever he said he was hungry… and many more.

For a complete breakdown- read about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Children may not have all those needs as listed by Maslow- rather basic ones like shelter, safety, nourishment need to be taken care of consistently- when they aren’t, that’s when they start to develop one of the other attachment styles.

Securely attached people aren’t afraid to walk away. They value what they bring to the table as well as their needs, and know at a core level, what healthy relationships feel like- which is why they attract similar minded people in their life.

Keep in mind- secure attachment is the goal, but definitely not the destination.

It’s something you aspire towards, but given that we’re human- even if someone is overall securely attached, they also tend to lean slightly towards one or the other styles.

#2 Avoidant Attachment

Avoidants tend to disengage from those around them in order to protect themselves.

They did not have their needs met as children by their parents, and tended to withdraw into themselves as a response.

If you were a kid who was generally quiet, wasn’t too bothered by the comings and goings of your parents, chances are- those were the first signs of being avoidant.

Avoidants get into relationships with their guard up, and have a tough time being vulnerable, which is essential to developing close bonds. They have an aversion towards getting hurt, and would rather stay with their guard up where it’s ‘safe’, instead of get really close to someone.

Men typically exhibit avoidant tendencies more- think of the guy who just won’t commit in a relationship, no matter how great the girl he’s dating is. That’s avoidance. This isn’t to say women don’t exhibit avoidant tendencies- I know plenty that do.

#3 Anxious Attachment

Again, this is due to needs being unmet in childhood- but the results swing in the opposite direction as avoidance.

Anxiously attached people have an intense need to feel connected with others.

In the extreme case- think of the stereotype of the clingy guy/girl who always wants to be around his friends/partner and doesn’t allow them any space.

Not everyone fits that extreme though- so as a rule of thumb- anxious attachment simply means that you tend to consistently overlook your needs in relationships in order to maintain them.

Anxiously attachment in children gets exhibited when they get visibly uncomfortable, and continue to stay upset for a long time when their primary caregivers aren’t around them. These kids don’t explore ‘play’ with other kids or adults easily, and prefer to remain close to either caregiver at all times.

Stereotypically- women on average exhibit anxious attachment more often than men. But I know plenty of men who lean anxious.

For me as well- I feel I am somewhere on the secure-anxious spectrum.

#4 Disorganised Attachment

This is generally the result of some deep trauma and neglect in childhood years. Think abusive parents, children of drug addicts, kind of trauma.

Disorganised attached people don’t develop healthy responses to most social situations and display a mix of aggression towards others and tendency to withdraw unto themselves. They see others as more of a threat.

If you know someone/think you might fit this category- please see a licensed therapist who can help.

Applying The Attachment Styles To Relationships

First of all, you can exhibit different attachment styles. No one is completely secure or completely avoidant/anxious.

In fact, many people tend to display anxious-avoidance or anxious-dismissive attachment styles as well.

Anxious-avoidants- they crave connection, yet cannot bring themselves to get their guard down. They want to be close but cannot bring themselves to take help from anyone, and would rather rely only on themselves.

Anxious-dismissive people generally exhibit heightened emotional responses, will stay aloof from most people and are may be regarded as anti-social.

So what does this mean for you?

Ask yourself- what kind of attachment do you think you exhibit? Think about your childhood and try to relate your behaviours then, and now.

You’ll probably have some new realisations about yourself. I sure did.

Think- what kind of people are you attracted to and what attachment styles do they exhibit- is there a pattern?

All of us crave psychological safety- the only thing is, ‘safety’ means different things to different people.

A little boy who grew up around an overbearing mother who was anxious and didn’t let him out of her sight, might grow up to see that as ‘safety’ and end up with women who exhibit the same type of anxious attachment.

A little girl who grew up around an avoidant father, may grow up to be attracted to bad guys who blow hot and cold, just because that is what she has internalised as ‘normal’.

We like to laugh off the fact that so many people end up with partners that act, or in some cases even look like one of their parents – but there is a psychological need behind it. That of safety.

In some cases your ‘conception’ of safety may be healthy, and in other cases- you may need to rewire it.

You can also do this exploration with your close friends or partner. Ask them to think about this and talk it over with them.

The Unlock To Understanding Your Emotional States: Polyvagal Theory

This really ties in all of the above information I shared above. Once you read this bit- EVERYTHING will start to make sense.

You see, as per the Polyvagal Theory- each of us flits between these 3 nervous system states:

Ventral (you feel calm, relaxed- safe).
Sympathetic (fight or flight- you’re on high alert, and need to mobilise, move about).
Dorsal (you’re paralysed, almost catatonic- you essentially shutdown).

The best way to explain this is- imagine you’re a caveman thousands of years ago. You’re walking around one evening, in relative safety (ventral) when all of a sudden you spot a lion prowling about 500 m away.

You immediately get into fight or flight mode (sympathetic).

If you manage to escape- you eventually return to ventral state.

But if the lion grabs a hold of you, you might just lie motionless and act dead (dorsal). This is a pain avoidance response of the nervous system in the face of overwhelming threat.

You see how evolution has made us like this? The thing is- in the modern world- there aren’t as many life endangering threats, yet our nervous system tends to react to them in the same way (thanks to evolution).

When I relate these states back to my life:

Ventral: I’m mostly in ventral in the mornings once I get up, meditate and journal.
Sympathetic: I believe I spent most of my last couple months in a prolonged sympathetic state, post-breakup. That explains why I started hitting the gym 5-6x/wk AND going on hour long walks everyday. The intense need to do so has reduced somewhat now, but was REALLY helpful in the first few months.
Dorsal: I worked with a tough as nails boss (ex-military) for 4 years. I’m usually a super early riser, 4.30-5 am types, yet somedays…the stress of the job would get to me. I’d wake up with zero motivation, and go to sleep again. That’s the closest to a Dorsal nervous system state I can ever think of being in.

Correlations Between Attachment Theory and Polyvagal Theory

This is a broad generalisation, but broadly speaking people with avoidant attachment style will tend to hang out more in the dorsal nervous system state (detached, guard up, aloof) and people with an anxious attachment will spend more of their time in the sympathetic nervous system state.

People with a secure attachment style are able to regulate themselves and mostly able to stay in ventral.

But how do they regulate themselves?

Have you ever noticed how a dog, if startled, will shake it’s body for a few seconds before moving on? That’s it’s way of releasing the excess energy from it’s fight or flight response. Animals are highly attuned to their nervous system states, and learn to regulate them.

So can we.

How To Regulate Your Emotions (Nervous System)

#1 Observe Your Nervous System States. Start observing your nervous system states throughout the day. Do this for the next 2 weeks. Notice what triggers you to go from ventral to sympathetic or even Dorsal.

#2 Start Figuring Out How To Change Your States. Once you have a good idea and become aware of your nervous system states at any point- you can do simple stuff to change that.

If in dorsal- doing a bit of movement, going for a walk, a few pushups or a workout can really help.
If in sympathetic- you need to find ways to calm down. Journaling and meditation really helped me. Just taking a few deep breaths and centering yourself can help too.

These are just guidelines- find what works best for you. It could be that what helps get you out of the sympathetic state is a good cup of your favorite tea- but that may not work for others.

Experiment.

Regulating the nervous system is a lot like going to the gym. You start with 5 kg dumbbells, then progress to 7, 9 kg and onwards. You DO NOT lift 40 kgs at the start and expect to do anything other than hurt yourself.

Similarly, start with small steps and then progress to the bigger ones.

For me, it meant feeling like crap everyday, and focusing on getting through the day feeling just slightly better than the previous day.

I figured out that walking and exercising soothed me, so I dived into that.

Journaling and meditation helped me to stop my thoughts from spiraling out, so I did a lot of that as well.

Things that didn’t help me as much– going out for social events, meeting friends or new people a whole lot more than I normally would, and trying to ‘distract’ myself.

Here’s a rough flowchart of what I used to do when disregulated:

Uncomfortable situation arises that makes you feel disregulated (fight/flight or dorsal)
You try to ‘think’ through the situation and intellectualise(sympathetic response) OR completely ignore it (dorsal response)
You feel shit.

Nowadays, here’s what I do (which I think will help you, the reader, too):

Uncomfortable situation arises -> I recognise that I am disregulated. For me personally- it’s mostly anxiety.
I do not try and ‘think’ through the situation – rather I do something to get the anxious energy out of me. That could mean going for a walk or a workout- just changing my environment basically.
I may still feel shit, but less so.

The Final Step: Building Self Awareness

Everything I’ve written so far, has been leading to this point.

The main reason for wanting to learn any of the above tools, is to be self aware, and completely understand yourself- also as an extension- your partner, your friends, etc.

Being observant of yourself is step one. Step two is learning to regulate yourself. Finally, step three is to get to the root cause of the issue.

Anytime I am triggered, once I calm down and am slightly more regulated, I ask myself- what triggered me about the situation and why I reacted like that.

Getting to the root cause is where you start unpacking the layers of your own self, but most of us do it at the wrong times, when we aren’t regulated.

Journaling helped me a lot, in this regard. Something about putting pen to paper helps suss out what’s hidden in the recesses of your mind and bring it to the forefront.

The second thing that helped me was learning about inner-child therapy and re-parenting yourself.

A Note on Inner Child Therapy- Perhaps The Best Tool For Building Self Awareness?

This is a big one- and something I’m still learning about, so I won’t go into a lot of detail in this post yet.

The basic concept though, is that every child faces some trauma that manifests in certain ways as they grow up.

Here, trauma doesn’t refer to abusive parents or any sort of horrible neglect- just that in some way or the other, the child’s needs weren’t met, which caused him/her to build some sort of a coping mechanism around that.

For instance- for me, personally, while I am mostly secure, I do have a slight anxious leaning, because (I believe) my dad wasn’t around much as a kid, and I always sought after his attention, but never received it as much.

Just like me, I’m sure everyone reading can relate some part of their childhood that has shaped them into who they are, their core beliefs (which may/may not be serving them currently).

The point is simply- it’s nearly impossible to grow up without facing some sort of trauma(again- the word is used in a clinical sense to suggest unmet needs) and every adult should be able to healthily process this.

That’s where inner child therapy comes in.

Simple exercises like meditating on my younger self, thinking about what he would say if he could talk to me, has helped me tremendously.

My phone screensaver has a set of photos of me aged 6-9 yrs. It helps me connect with the younger me, in a strange way. After about a month of doing my own ‘hacky’ version of inner child therapy, I feel highly protective of that kid.

I feel like I’ll be the parent to him, that he deserved.

It’s also helped me practise self-love and self-compassion, which was pretty much a very foreign concept for me, until recently.

As a result, it’s also helped me view others around me much more compassionately than I used to- to be completely honest, I am amazed at just how much it’s helped in how short a time period.

It helped me start on the path of being deeply okay with my life, regardless of what external events happen.

My 3 Big Takeaways

1. Trauma doesn’t have to be big. Everybody’s childhood affects them in some way- and most people never unpack that. It affects everything from the partner you choose, to your personality, likes, dislikes and the fundamental beliefs.

2. Learn to re-parent yourself. If the above part about trauma is true, then everybody should learn how to re-parent themselves.

3. Get curious. Rather than get triggered and flail about- you now (hopefully) have learnt the right tools to regulate yourself emotionally. Ask yourself- why am I doing this? Journaling and learning about inner child therapy, attachment styles etc helped me.

Conclusion

Everything I said applies to yourself- but you can also apply it to your partner, your friends, your parents. ANYONE.

This isn’t a call to therapize or psychoanalyse people. Rather – to develop genuine empathy and compassion. That’s the end goal.

Now that I understand so much, I know at a fundamental level where my last relationship went wrong. I don’t need to look for closure.

In fact, my sense of compassion and empathy for myself and her has only increased manifold- that is closure in and of itself.

We both tried our level best, just that our combined best was not enough. That’s it.

Tony Robbins’ speaks about the 4 stages of love (I heard it on a podcast):

Baby love- you take,take, take all the time, and cry when your wants aren’t met
Tit for Tat- you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours (probably where a lot of adult relationships exist)
Giving love- you give because you want to. That’s who you are.
Spiritual love- you love with zero expectations, without perhaps even meeting them ever.

I’m someone who likes to always be in stage 3, but these days, I am particularly interested in what stage 4 looks like. This situation presented an opportunity for me to try what that looks like.

I don’t think that me even saying this would have been possible without doing all of the work I’ve outlined in this article.

I also don’t think that without all the work, it would have been possible to start the journey towards a state of feeling deeply okay.

Hence the quote at the start of this post: