[The preview below is a partial view of the full chapter available in Personal Semiotics -- Discover the Secret Success Codes to Your Ideal Life Path. To get the full content, please use the link at the bottom of the page to purchase the book.]

P

erhaps nothing in life defines you as much as your relationships. These include ones with your family, friends, spouse or life partner, lover, coworkers and people in your neighborhood. Even your pets. How you relate to other beings, treat them and seek to be treated by them are often more profound than decisions like career choices. …

Personal Semiotics can help you see where you stand in your relationships, where the relationships are headed and what path you’d like to choose for those relationships. And it can help identify the success codes that represent mutual fulfillment and growth with others.

Let’s take one set of relationships at a time. If you are married or with a life partner, focus on that connection first. If you’re still hoping to find someone special, this exercise can help you define the type of relationship you want to have. The following template is to create your criteria. …

In the example shown, “high intimacy” vs. “low intimacy” and “committed” vs. “day-to-day” were the criteria chosen to build the first Paradox Map. Here’s what you’d expect to see.

In Q1, the relationship has high intimacy plus high commitment. This is the ideal state for most people – having a life partner who is fully committed to you and someone with whom you can share your most intimate thoughts, feelings and actions. If we’re talking about your life partner, there is commitment, passion and sharing. It’s as if you’re soul mates destined to be together.

These criteria could also apply to a friendship in a slightly different way. It might be a lifelong friend or sibling who has been with you through your ups and downs and with whom you share intimate details. This would not include romantic passion as in a married or life-partner situation, but it could still feel like a soul mate connection.

In Q4, you are probably not surprised to see that low intimacy between two people coincides with low commitment (or a day-to-day relationship). This could be a relationship on the rocks where either person would not be surprised to see the other leave. In friendships, it could be a new acquaintance that you met once; you “friend” each other on Facebook, and then six months later you’re wondering why they’re still in your friends list.

What is more interesting is what occurs within the tension points of Q2 and Q3. In Q2, you have people who have high intimacy but a day-to-day commitment. This is common for a new romance or a new friendship. People are taking big risks in their willingness to share intimate details or parts of themselves while not knowing if the relationship will last beyond today or this week.

This causes tremendous tension, and it is hard for people to live in this highly charged state for long periods of time. Relationships in this quadrant need to move to a more committed state due to the high level of intimacy or people start sharing less as a protection against getting hurt if the other person pulls away from the relationship.

[... To read the remainder of this chapter, please click below to order the book.]

Order the paperback for $22.95 on Amazon.com, or the eBook on PayPal for $12.95.

Click here to order the paperback via Amazon.com.