Relationship Change: It's easier than you think
By Mary Anne Thomas

"You cannot get someone to change." How many times have we heard those words? Hundreds of times...from friends and self-help experts...and yet our hearts still hunger for change. Who's right? The experts or our hearts?

Our hearts are right! You can experience change in a relationship, and it can be a change that impacts both partners. "So, why haven't I been able to get the changes I need in my relationship?" It's not because it's wrong to want change. It's not because you are controlling and manipulative. It's not because you need to learn to accept other people as they are.

And, it's not because the other person doesn't want to change. It's because of something our friends and self-help experts couldn't possibly have known . . . a discovery only recently made by quantum scientists.

Change, scientists have learned, is almost impossible to achieve when you have to alter the form of something that has already been created. Anyone who has ever tried to change a relationship knows exactly what these scientists are talking about! "Matter cannot be created nor destroyed." It's a basic law of physics,  and self-help experts deserve everyone's appreciation for finding ways to work around it. As a result of their efforts, we now have couples communication, fair fighting techniques and assertiveness training. Still, as wonderful as these tools are, they tinker with matter that has already been created, and thus are limited by laws of physics. They don't show us how to use the laws of physics to our advantage, and that's where the exciting new discoveries from quantum scientists come in.

To view these discoveries, let's go back a level, to the invisible, atomic level. There, scientists have learned, atoms can be redirected to travel in any direction, and create new forms. Many scientists, including the preeminent physicist Stephen Hawking, refer to this subatomic plane in spiritual terms,  believing that it provides a glimpse of God's ability to create the universe.

What about your universe? The one that encompasses your relationships? Can you go onto the subatomic level, the spiritual plane, to create change in them? Yes, you can, and from there you can make the changes you want, and be able to experience them in real life.

In scientific terms, all you have to do is:

1) Decide the direction you'd like the new atoms (the change) to take

2) Animate the atoms

How? With a spiritual exercise designed to accomplish these two steps in real life.

For this exercise, buy a journal or notebook. Draw a line down the middle of the first page. At the top of the page, identify the change you'd like to have. It will most likely be something you have already asked for, like more attention, or help with finances and household chores. On the left-hand side of the page, write down all your feelings about that subject. You'll write about anger, resentment and frustration. That's okay! Feelings of anger, resentment and frustration are normal when your needs have been denied. You may need several pages before you're finished with this part of the exercise.

Next, on the right-hand side of the first page, start writing down what you'd like to experience instead. Let your heart guide you! All of your frustrated needs, wishes and desires will come tumbling out. For this portion of the exercise, you may also need several pages.

Then, ask yourself this question: "How will I feel when I get it?" On a fresh page, write down the words and phrases that describe the happiness you'll feel when you get the changes you need.

Lastly, grab a dictionary and look up the words and phrases you just wrote down. Any dictionary will do, but an online dictionary is best because it will hold your attention longer. As you complete this part of the exercise, you'll feel a shift, a change, in your feelings. That's because you'll be animating the atoms behind the words you're looking up, and making them come alive.

Does this exercise really work? Yes! It combines spiritual techniques with the latest discoveries in science. The first part of the exercise allows you to break down your old thought patterns to make room for change, in exactly the same way the earth breaks down matter. On our earth, matter is broken down with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. In your body, matter is broken down with something similar to an earthquake or a volcanic eruption - with anger. The second part of the exercise employs the main principle behind prayer, words to make a request, and it does it with an updated, modern tool called the Dictionary Game.

Can you get a relationship change most of the time with this exercise? Yes! I'll show you with an example from my own relationship.

My husband Bob is a man who doesn't change easily. When we first met, he thought his inability to change might become a problem for us. Bob didn't change as quickly as I did, but after a few years of marriage he did embrace change and he even led me down a few roads to change. Then, a series of tragedies hit our lives, and Bob was no longer able to keep up. No one could have! In one year, we lost our son in an auto accident and we also lost a marketing business that we had put fifteen years of effort into.

Bob wasn't ready to give up, however, and he tried his best to make the changes he needed. Rather than start a new marketing business, he decided to do something with his golf talent. He had played golf as a child. He had grown up in the game first as a caddy and then as a high school champion. Golf had been his whole life; it had rescued him from a childhood of rejection and emotional badgering. Would it rescue him again? He believed that it would, and he decided to use the writing talents he had picked up in our marketing business to write a book about golf.

He wrote about his hero, Ben Hogan. It turned out to be a better book than anyone expected it to be, and he easily got a book contract from a major publisher. Fan letters poured in, as did wonderful reviews. He seemed to be on his way, and then another tragedy hit. The media conglomerate that owned Bob's publishing house decided to sell some of its publishing holdings. Bob's imprint was cancelled, his royalties were recomputed, and any hope he had of publishing a second book was destroyed. Other publishers wondered why Bob's first publisher didn't want to continue with him, and even though Bob told them the truth - they didn't believe him.

Bob had to institute a legal proceeding to get his copyright and past-due royalties back. He won his legal proceeding - but his pain did not end with the victory. He chewed on his bad luck, he agonized over it, he raged over his hurt, and he fought for reform of an industry that allowed big publishers to exploit authors. I was proud of him for taking a stand, but I was also upset about the time he spent seeking reform rather than publishing a second book. His reform efforts put a heavier burden on me than my work could support, and I wasn't able to pick up the financial shortfall. Eventually, we had to face a period of financial pain, on top of the financial pain we went through when we lost our business. I needed a change from Bob.

"How can you ask a man in pain to change?" It's a fair question, one that I asked myself daily but didn't have an answer to it. I wanted to be understanding and patient, but I just couldn't. I needed a change.

I chose a day when Bob seemed calm, open-minded and affectionate. I asked him to give up reform and publish a second book. He bit my head off. I tried again, on another day when things seemed to be going well for him. I got the same result. One of his best friends, independently of me, came to the same conclusion - that Bob needed to change - and he asked Bob to go back into publishing. Bob bit his head off too. No one, it seemed, could get through to Bob. He had a one-track mind. "I have to reform publishing before I can publish again."

At this point, most people in a relationship give up. They try to force themselves to accept the things they dislike, and when that fails, they either end the relationship or adjust to living a life full of pain. After being rebuffed by Bob, I wanted to give up - but not on Bob and not on change. Where did that leave me? With no alternative but to seek out fresh answers, and I sought them out in new scientific discoveries.

Eventually, I developed the exercises in this lesson, and I did them exactly as I explained them to you. I bought a journal. I drew lines down the middle of several pages. I started writing, and I wrote every day or two for three weeks. I poured out my feelings. I wrote detailed descriptions about the changes I needed. I asked myself how I'd feel when I got them. I wrote down the words and phrases that described how I'd feel. I looked up those words and phrases in my online dictionary.

One morning, about three months later, Bob said, "Hon, I've got to get off this publishing thing. It's killing me." Tears formed in the corners of my eyes. "I need to finish this thing off and find something to love," he added. "Will you help me?" 

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