Relationship Issues

The most important relationship you will ever have is the relationship with yourself. If that’s not right then none of your relationships will be in harmony.

We have relationships issues with everyone we come into contact with, every moment of every day. It’s not only the big ones which we tend to focus on, but the lesser significant ones too, and of course those passing chance encounters.

For example, there’s the postman who delivers your mail every morning, the person you buy the paper from at your corner shop, the man who cuts your hair and brings you all the local gossip, the lady who brings you your coffee in the afternoon. Our whole lives revolve around a series of interconnecting relationships. Very often though, so many of them pass without our knowing, and an opportunity for intimacy is lost.

How do you interact with people? Are you numb much of the time? Or do you find yourself locked in speculation as to what other people think of you? So much time and energy is wasted in that.

Learn to deepen the relationship when you’re in someone’s presence. This can be done simply by acknowledging them, their light, their energy. Something as fleeting as a smile.

A funny thing happened . . .

Recently I was going to a restaurant I frequently visit when for some reason I missed it. Next thing I saw two people with white canes struggling to get across the road. I went over and helped them safely to the other footpath. Retracing my steps I began thinking how glad I was that I missed the restaurant in the first place, as it gave me the opportunity to do a kindness to someone.

I was glad I was ‘blind’ to it.

When we do a kindness we do it for the Light. There is a benefit for us too, of course. We give help and receive help in return. But when we think in terms of a "helper" or "helpee", we are simply ascribing roles to people. At another time these roles will be reversed.

Do you find you carry people around in your head after you’ve met them? We do this, ironically, both with people we’re fond of and those we’ve a problem with. In both cases it’s usually because there is attachment. And that means we have some unfinished business with that person, or with the topic that has us engaged.

Hold each person in honour when you’re in their company. Then when they leave allow them to go.

Attitude of attachment

Sometimes we hone in on one particular person over all the others we know. We decide they’re the most trustworthy person in the world, smart too. And we’re so compatible. No way could we do without them. We even think they’re better looking than our other friends! (Sounds funny, I know, but tests have shown that people ascribe physically beauty to those they look up to).

Then one day this person is not there for us and we realise our whole construction of them was wrong. It turned out to be false. You see it was our own projections we were looking up to all the time, and not the real person.

Maybe we go from seeing this person with good qualities only to seeing them with none.

It can be easier to put it in perspective if it’s happening to someone else.

For example: there are two people you know who seem inseparable, next thing they’ve had a falling out. Over coffee they can’t wait to tell you how rotten the other one behaved:

‘He said things, awful things, behind my back, and now he’s not speaking to me'.

'You know how much I did for her, remember when she was sick and I looked after her’.

But you could see it coming.

Just not when it happened to you!

This is process. It is a clearing. It is not about condemning yourself for how you form relationships. Too many people talk to themselves in a depreciating way. I’ve had people say to me, ‘I have such an addictive personality’, or, ‘I always attract the wrong kind of relationship.’ But that’s missing the point. Simply by thinking like that they’re creating or reinforcing those very situations. You see how tricky relationship issues can be?

Your own stuff will come up in every relationship.

Show me the whatsit . . .

We have a relationship with money too. People forget that. When you engage in any financial transaction, no matter how small, remember to silently bless the person you’re dealing with, and in your mind’s eye see them prosper. Even if it’s only paying for a cup of coffee. So many times we give money with resentment. If you give money and think you'll be short before the week's out, trust me you will! Give with love. Remember you are always giving to God.

At night before going to sleep (if I’m not too tired!) I scan the day and see what I learned, what I can be grateful for, and how can I improve relationships. 

 

The most important relationship you will ever have is the relationship with yourself. This is a relationship that has to last you your whole life. If that’s not right then none of your relationships will be in harmony.

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