The Power of Relationships

The Power of Relationships

Every relationship you develop, from the most casual to the most intimate, serves to help you become more conscious.

We are taught to honour others, yet often this is one of the most difficult acts we can perform. For not only does it require us, first and foremost, to honour ourselves, it also requires us to come to know our Self. In a larger sense, your relationships are spiritual messengers, they bring into your life revelations about your own strengths and weaknesses.

Some of your relationships may be particularly painful (and necessarily so) as they’re here to help you to learn about yourself and your limitations. You may not be so enthusiastic to explore these “less attractive” aspects of self, yet recognizing your power to make choices and how they affect your world is the power of relationships. Your painful relationships help you to understand that every choice you make contributes to what you create. Choice is the process of creation itself.

Every choice you make is a creative act of spiritual power for which you are held responsible. Managing this power of choice, with all its spiritual and creative implications, is the essence of human experience. Yet you can’t know the full outcome of any choice you make, and so you may find yourself trying to control your life, and the life of others. Disappointment inevitably ensues since, try as you might, the physical world (and the people you are in relationship with) cannot be controlled. Your desires and whims are not for life to serve you on a silver platter.

Which returns you to the place where the greatest power you have is how you choose to behave in your relationships. Your relationships (especially the painful ones) help you to master your inner responses to the external world. They teach that you get to choose your thoughts and emotions.

The power and challenge of your relationships is to learn what motivates you to make the choices you do. In learning about what motivates you, you learn about the essence of your Self. Sex, power, and money are the currencies of relationships and your fear and/or faith is the energy you put behind this currency. This dynamic of choice, of fear and faith, guarantees you cannot run away from yourself or your decisions. For every outcome in some extent reflects this faith and/or fear.

To discover your personal motivations and your “false gods,” how you use and misuse the currencies of the physical world, you need relationships. So much of the way you respond to external challenges is how you respond to yourself. To guide you in developing a healthy and loving relationship with yourself, you have your relationships as a mirror. They are awakening you to your true personal power.

photo credit: Toa Heftiba

Criticize, Condemn, and Complain

Criticize, Condemn, and Complain

No matter what you do or don’t do, I always have a choice in how I communicate with you. You can’t make me do or feel anything.

If I choose to not consciously communicate, I am choosing to give away my power. Whether I am attempting to feel small or big in front of you, my unconscious words are reducing me to less than I am.

If you can stay steady in you, I can’t claim your power. Despite my anger-filled desire, my words can’t possibly do this. Nothing external can.

Only you can allow something external to reduce or deflate you. Even my careless words.

If I am not being anything but respectful and loving towards you, know it’s not about you, it’s about me. It just happens to appear to be directed at you.

It’s an optical illusion I like to perform. It helps the weight of my responsibility to magically disappear for a moment and appear on you.

photo credit: Chris Devers