Below, David talks about how our relationships often grow into tangled messes where issues can quickly take over and start causing real harm.

He also gets into how just like a vineyard needs a strong support system, our relationships also need the proper support to ensure they grow to their fullest.

Transcript:

The work relationships need to grow

So I’m out here putting a couple new rows of grapes into the vineyard and I was thinking about how the amount of work and the kinds of work you have to do to make a Vineyard work and grow and produce something good, is a lot like the same kinds of work and the things you have to do in a relationship to make it grow and produce something real.

You have to plant them in the ground you have to give them the right soil the nutrients you have to put that initial energy in to actually get them off the ground.

Otherwise, they’ll never even sprout.

They’ll never do anything. But they need a lot more than that.

Grapes if you just plant them if you give them that initial energy the nutrients they need but that’s all you give them they never actually get off the ground.

They’ll never actually do anything. They’ll just kind of flounder around till they eventually die.

Relationships and grapes need support to achieve anything

But if you give them that support system they need to start growing on their own, then once they realize they have that support structure beneath them, they’ll grow into huge vines that take over entire trees.

In fact, they can grow uncontrollably which is why you got to trim them, you have to look at the things that you don’t want that are growing within it and be willing to cut it out.

To direct it where you need it to actually grow.

I think our relationships are a lot like that if we don’t give them the support they need, if we don’t give our partners the support they need to grow, will they?

Or will they do nothing?

If we don’t give that relationship the support it needs and the effort continuously that it needs to actually grow and latch on to something and become something better, will it?

And just the same like that we have to give our grapes a goal to climb too you can’t just put a post in the ground and tell them climb high and expect to do much because they will for a year or so, but then all that old growth will die and rot and will produce funguses that kill the entire plant.

Without goals, there’s nothing to reach for

And just like our relationships they need a goal to grow up too.

Our goals in life with our partner have to be visible from the start or they have to develop into something visible from the start so that we can actually see where we’re going.

So we have any idea of what we’re actually trying to achieve as a couple and without those goals you each end up doing what you each want instead of what the relationship needs.

And you go nowhere just like the grapes growing wild instead of where you need them to grow to produce.

And just like in the grape Vines we have to trim out the bad growth, the places where it’s going into unwanted areas, we have to look at ourselves our own actions and our relationship and our partner.

We have to be willing to trim out the bad things that are going on and we have to be able to look at our own attitudes and our own behaviors and our own wants and needs and our partners wants and needs and behaviors, and cut out those things that are leading us somewhere unwanted, so that we can promote the support system that leads us to where we actually want to be.

To where our relationship can actually bear real fruit.

I think it’s time we take a little lesson from the plants start growing your relationship like you grow a grape vine

David N. Brace

David N. Brace is a relationship expert that lives what he preaches having built a 20-year happy marriage. Relationships take work and effort but if we are willing to do so and to keep growing as individuals, we can build something amazing that lasts a lifetime.

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