Some years ago I had an amazing experience with ghosts of two family members.

I grew up in a strong Catholic family, number six of seven children. Our Dad was a devoted husband and father, and a hard-working lawyer. Like many men in his generation, he was authoritarian, demanding and perfectionist. Being quick-witted and proud of his intelligence, he loved a good argument.

My father and I were polar opposites. His confidence provoked my insecurity. His quick speech smothered my wish for deep thought and intimate conversation. His anger ignited my smoldering resentments. I countered his demandingness with my own consideration of others. I would tread carefully around his angry storms when he had been drinking. I fashioned my ideal around the opposite of who my father was.

My father’s younger sister, Ceal, was his secretary. She, like me, was somewhat insecure, and he would put her down impatiently when she didn’t have ready what he expected, or misconstrued his dictations. It seemed to me that her shakiness and uncertainty was directly related to his harsh treatment.

I was in my late 40s when my father died. Even in his old age, our tumultuous relationship felt always on the verge of explosion.

Aunt Ceal died about a year later after a severe heart attack. I heard of her death by noon, and kept checking to see when it would be okay for me to try to speak with her. Not until midnight was the right time. She was in great distress. She had gone through a life review, and was berating herself about how little she had accomplished in her life compared to my father. I listened to her sad wailing for a while. Eventually I grew impatient with her, catching myself saying something to her with irritation, just like my father did. Ashamed, I began to put myself down. When she saw this, she recognized what she herself was doing, and snapped out of it. We had been fairly close in life. Now our friendship became much closer. I spoke with her daily for about five years.

During this time I was fixing up a vacant house. On breaks, I would dialogue with my aunt, typing into my laptop computer. One time while I was speaking with her, my father walked into the room. I was truly surprised. I’d had no contact with him at all after he died. He sat down in the chair next to my aunt.

Dad told me he was working on three things in the afterlife. He was doing some lawyerly work. He was helping people make the transition to their new life after death. And he just beamed when he spoke of the third thing, making violins for an orchestra. I still find that touching. His grandfather had been an artisan with wood. Dad loved the violin, though he didn’t play himself. He was proud of my oldest brother playing violin in a youth orchestra. And I still vividly recall his favorite record in the ’50s, Fritz Kreisler’s beautiful violin melodies.

When Dad finished speaking, the conversation switched to me and Aunt Ceal. I chuckled to myself as I saw him shifting in his chair somewhat impatiently. Just like in life, he was restless when not the center of attention. He got up, saying that this dialogue with me was Ceal’s job now. He needed to get back to his own commitments. I rose to bid him goodbye. As he walked out of the room, our eyes met. I don’t know exactly how to describe this, for I had no clear vision of him, only a sense of where he was, and a vague image. But our eyes met, and in that instant, my whole lifetime of conflict with him was reframed and healed. Never again would I think of him with resentment or feel hurt at his treatment of me.

We had both been philosophy majors in college, 35 years apart. In the reframe, we were college students together studying philosophy, taking wildly divergent positions, arguing intensely about our different points of view, and enjoying every minute of it.

In a flash this ghostly encounter became for me a miraculous, instant healing.

I was raised to be very frugal, with the mantra of “waste not, want not” being drummed into me at a very young age. Frugality certainly has its place and, with the economy being the way it is right now, I am not suggesting anything different for people. Still, there comes a time when the ideas we are raised with no longer serve us.

I thought of this when I recently read a newsletter sent out by Feng Shui expert Carole Hyder.

In her article, Carole talks about people who save things just in case they might need them later. Whether it is your “skinny” clothes that you might fit into again one day or the tool in your basement you never use but might just need, Carole says the message you are giving the universe is the same. As Carole puts it: “If you keep something with the thought that later (next month, next year, after weight has been lost, after the kids leave, after you retire, next time you go to Hawaii, next time there’s a costume part, etc.) you may have a use for it, you’re making a proclamation and an affirmation that you will not have the money to buy what you need when you need it. If this is your mindset, this affirmation of ‘not having enough’ will surely program itself into your life.”

I think Carole is right. And, I think, this mindset goes way beyond possessions to many other areas of our lives. After I read her article, I thought about other things I have kept in my life “just in case.”

For years after I was positive I would never again practice law, I dutifully continued to keep my license up to date, taking continuing legal education courses that had absolutely no relevance or interest to me. Why? Because of my fear that I might someday need to return to the active practice of law.

I have been known to keep up relationships in the same fashion. Even though both the person and I know that we really have nothing in common, we continue to “have coffee” once a year or so. It is as if we are keeping a friend “in reserve” just in case we might need one. (Not a pretty thing to admit, but I suspect I am not alone in doing that.)

I have seen people stay in marriages or other more intense relationships in the same way. Fear of not being able to find another lover keeps a lot of bad relationships going.

As we enter into an era of massive change and new beginnings, it seems more important than ever to look at what we are clinging to out of a fear that we will not be able to replace it with something equal or better.

As a society, we are clinging to a lot of things that are no longer working. We are afraid to let go.  Many of our most treasured institutions (a job with benefits, a retirement plan, a single family home) may, in fact, not be the norm for people in the new age. We are, as a society, terrified of letting these things go from our lives, even though they are being yanked away from more and more people.

Why? Because we don’t know what is going to take their place. We are afraid that without them we will not have what we need. And, as Carole so aptly described it, “If this is your mindset, this affirmation of ‘not having enough’ will surely program itself into your life.”

I am not certain what the solution is, but I am positive that this mindset is keeping us from joyfully entering into the new era. We are beings who always have enough. We are born into a world that joyfully gives us what we need. Embracing and believing those truths is the challenge of 2012 and beyond.

The echo of a pleasant sound, like the echo of a single kindness, casts ambient rings of pleasure around the conscious recipient. With resonance thus defined, let’s consider empathy.

Empathy (feeling with) — unlike apathy (without feeling) or antipathy (contrary feeling) — is the most defining characteristic of the human species and the one “that separates us from all other animals. That is to say, while anatomy includes us in the animal kingdom, our uniquely spiritual endowment challenges us to rise above the mental/physiological abilities of our animal siblings. Thus, empathy is the human capacity to not only reflect, but experience with, another being. In other words, to have and hold the greatly intensified empathy, called compassion. This compassion, or “suffering together,” defines our individual standing among our peers.

Empathy is the only door to compassion. For most of us, empathy arises out of our own suffering. And it is suffering that divides the sheep from the wolves. The former — the sheep — begin to reflect on their own suffering, its meaning and possible reason. This results in the spiritual growth potential of the experience.

The wolves, on the other hand, grow into rage at their own suffering and, in every attempt to alleviate this untempered rage, sadistically inflict suffering on others.

It is the challenge of spiritual development first to recognize the challenge, and correspondingly, to embrace this challenge. In doing so, we begin to practice empathy, on a moment-to-moment basis. We reflect on every such moment, and find that, little-by-little, our empathy grows.

As our empathy with the human condition — of ourselves, our families, our neighbors, co-workers and even with politicians — grows, we find ourselves transcending the all too ubiquitous habituation of complaining about the unvarying, negative status quo.

Having arrived at a measure of habitual empathy, we are moved to compassion.
We can now feel with everyone, without accepting any negative conditions. Thus, rising above the negativity, we can now embrace all conditions and visualize how the most positively elevating outcome very positively and benevolently affects every tomorrow.

Empathy does not judge according to color, race, religion or human weaknesses or differences. Empathy begins with a nudge in consciousness, wherever and whenever we meet another being, even if that being is an alien to our experience. Benevolence by any name, casts an ever-widening spiral around all entities touched by its reach. Empathy is the echo of benevolence, like the reverberation from mountains around an alpine meadow.

First, believe in empathy. Next, practice empathy. Then, allow compassion to embrace you. Feel, respond, develop and evolve. Forget time passing, and do not look back. Believe. Practice. At the end of the rainbow, no storm, no tsunami, will disarray your golden robe of transcendent equanimity.

We are amidst alpha and omega. Yet, without a shadow of doubt, we shall each return to the origin of our being.

When resonant empathy rises to the intensity of love, we are confronted with the concept of “unconditional love.” It is well to remember that human love is rarely, if ever, unconditional. But another concept may come to mind. If love, beginning with empathy, is the ultimate cause of all that is, then it must be the only Reality, since only what is truly permanent has reality.

If this Reality, Love, is unconditional, and if It has created us among universes and all they contain, then Unconditional Love can only be the offering of Itself, the Uncreated, to the manifest Created.

It is this eternal and never-relenting offering Who pursues the human soul, until it resonates and responds. One might say that when the human heart resonates perfectly with the Eternal Offering, the individual has “transcended.” To put it into the vernacular: That individual has hit a home-run. No matter what roadblocks we manage to create for ourselves, the Offering never goes away. Empathy is the directive on the road to transcendence. With our cooperation, it increases, grows into love and finally, leads back to our Origin.

Allow the echo of the mountains surrounding the mountains of your personal universe. Reverberate with your growing empathy!

We all want more love in our lives. Often, we wait for love to find us, hoping that others will give us the kind of love we long for. We wish for the perfect partner to come along, a parent to change or a friend to treat us right. We need others to love, accept, and make us feel good. But, whether it is friendship, family, or intimate relationships, our capacity for real, loving experiences really depends more on us than on them.

If we desire healthy relationships with others, it is imperative to first create one with ourselves. We all want people in our lives who are understanding, committed and love us unconditionally, but if we do not act accordingly towards ourselves how can we expect others to do so? If we attract people who cannot accept us, it is likely we do not accept ourselves. As long as we treat ourselves unlovingly, we can expect others to do the same. If we don’t think we deserve any better, better will not come along.

Self-love is certainly not an easy task, because somewhere along the line we were led to believe we were not worthy or lovable enough. We allowed outside influences to shape our view of who we are and be in charge of our significance rather than going within for approval. By going within, we can access the true essence of who we really are — divine beings of love. If it is true that we are created in the image of the Divine and the Divine is Love, then what else could we possibly be? We are created in love; thus we are love and as worthy as the next person.

This is a hard concept for many of us to digest, because we were raised with the belief that we are sinners, not lovers. We were taught, and continue to be reminded of what is wrong with us instead of what is right. When we were labeled “bad boy” or “bad girl,” we developed the mistaken belief that we are our negative behaviors. Unconsciously, we became overly identified with our actions and began to not love ourselves. As adults, we still may engage in negative or hurtful behaviors, but we have a choice in how we let those behaviors define us. An addiction, for example, is a behavior that is harmful but it does not make someone any less of a person.

Until you have a foundation of love for yourself, you will continue to encounter difficult and unfulfilling relationships. Each time you feel unloved, step back and ask yourself: How can I love myself more? If you feel you are not getting your needs met in a relationship, use it as a place for practicing self love either by standing up for yourself or getting out. And, instead of putting the responsibility on others for making you happy, make yourself happy.

It all comes down to shifting the way you think. If loving yourself is a prerequisite for truly loving relationships, you need to change the illusion that you are unlovable, unworthy or not good enough. With the help of Love, you can change your mind about anything, including your self-worth. Love is the essence of the Greater Spirit/God/the Universe. When you allow yourself to listen to Love, you are listening to a Higher presence. The more you listen for Love, the more you see the truth about yourself and the deeper you resonate with your divine nature.

The best way to begin loving yourself is to allow the spirit of Love inside your heart. Love is there for the taking, each and every day, when you ask and then allow yourself to receive. This can be done easily through prayer or meditation. Simply imagine what love would say to you and start replacing your negative thoughts with loving ones. Love will always tell you that you are good enough, worthy and lovable, but it is up to you to believe it. Whatever you choose to believe about yourself, will come true for you.

You cannot afford to wait for something or someone to fill you up with love. Love already lives inside you; thus, it is up to you to call on its immense healing power. Access a higher Love, because the people you are waiting for to give you the kind of unconditional love you need will never be able to. And, once you learn to really love and accept yourself, you will attract the kinds of people who can love and accept you back. Remember the “law of attraction” — what you put out there, you get back!

Attracting love means being love.

I had just moved in the spring of 1990, and after experiencing disappointment in another new romance, I decided that morning upon awakening to swear off men. As I sat up in bed, I noticed that there was a word floating mid-air in front of me.

“OK,” I thought, “if you guys float a word mid-air for me, then I know something really big is coming, so I had better pay attention.”

“Look at the word,” I heard, so I proceeded to read it.

“Relationship.” I read aloud, from this illuminated word floating in front of me.

“Now read the first word contained within it.”

“Relation,” I noted.

“Now take off the first letter,” they requested.

“Elation! Through Relation comes Elation! I guess I am not to swear off men!” I laughed.

I then received a request to hurry and get ready and go to a place where I would meet the next person on my path. I attended the Sunday service where I was told I would meet my new romance, but didn’t. I began to deeply question how clearly I was tuned in, as the information had been so lucid and clear.

I decided to pacify myself with a book, and as I turned to go into the adjoining bookstore, I almost knocked the “new” person over. Guidance had been clear, and I needed to allow the process to unfold, with patience.

The journey with that individual was about love, of course, but also it was about seeing how much I had progressed since our lifetime together when he was in a spiritual position of knowing within society, which made me doubt myself. In the past life, I always asked him to tell me what God was saying in the Bible, not man’s interpretation of what was meant. Amazingly, I had that knowingness eons ago, and it was time to hold to that now, and continue to walk the way of Truth.

Interestingly, he was still parroting mass social consciousness and was threatened by my quest for Truth, a lucid path of Light I could clearly see before me, a path that was obscured to him by his earthly grounding.

It is only through relation that we find elation. Our relationships reflect our inner perspectives, acknowledged or denied, and often they are based upon misinformation we have acquired along the way by others, who are also living limited truths. All relationships must be embraced, for even the person who seems to be your worst enemy loves you on a Higher level, or they wouldn’t bother to engage. The gift is in discovering something that already resides within you, but previously was denied. Each situation was placed there for a Higher reason, so embrace it.

What is reflected to us in our relationships directly correlates to the relationship between our head/Id and our heart/soul. The essence of that directly reflects our relationship with God/Divine/Source, from which all comes through the Soul. Ultimately all issues are God issues, and the truth to everything resides within that connection between our Soul and Higher Selves to God/Divine/Source.

We have been conditioned to focus on external fulfillment, thinking that if those things are in place, we will be happy. It is quite the opposite. We fall in love with God and ourselves and link up — aligning our head/Id (tool) with our heart/soul (contractor/architect) to create enlightenment beyond expression. Life then becomes fulfilling beyond our wildest dreams, but pales in comparison to the elation in relation with the Divine.

“Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relationships with other people.” — Arthur Schopenhauer

What a dilemma for mankind! Since our very first breath, we are constantly seeking and experiencing relationships with other people on many levels — with different expectations. Each experience will be either pleasurable or painful, and that is said to be determined by our own attitude and response to each relationship that we have. Ouch! That can be very hard to admit and come face to face with as we strive to find the ultimate “one” whom we think will be our soul mate “forever.”

One of the greatest problems within any relationship is the fact that the human mind is very subjective and, therefore, we tend to see the other person as we “think they are” or “want them to be.” That means that we never really see the person as they are and they become a sort of “shadow person” that our inner mind has created. Like the sisters trying the shoe on in Cinderella to win the Prince, we very often try to force fit the person into our lives because of what we want subconsciously. The bottom line is that we don’t even really want the Prince or Princess. We want to unite with an energy field that is resonant deeply within us that wants to “live again” and seek an expression as a close relationship.

The question is: What is deeply resonant within us that we want to unite with — and is it harmonious or inharmonious?

Think of your most favorite, gorgeous film star and ask some friends what they think. Not everyone will have the same view of this person. This stems largely from the subjective viewpoint that we each have. Where are we in relationship to that person? In a room full of people all looking at the same person, each person will have their own unique vantage point, along with their inner symbol references from past experiences that resonate with them and causes them to either be attracted to, or repulsed by the person. Not only is their unique place relevant in time and space, but so too is the timing in terms of where they are emotionally.

The inner mind is a great place to start as we rewire how we see people, seeing them as they really are and not as we would like them to be. This, in turn, requires discernment to know what or whom it is wise to “want.” Breathwork and meditation are key techniques to help with this.

Expectation of what we want out of any relationship is so distorted these days by what the media portrays as the “perfect relationship.” On one hand, the film industry churns out unreal, shallow characters for people to hold up as the perfect example on how to relate, whilst on the other hand the tabloid press makes millions by reporting on the emotionally explosive side of the “dream couple.” Is it that we want to see other people fail in relationships, or that we know for ourselves through personal experience that nothing ever lasts?

The reality is that we want all things to stay the same if they are great and to change them or create something better if they are not. The problem is that it’s not just about us anymore. If we want to create and sustain something meaningful, we need to learn about the vantage point of the other person involved. As my guru would say, “Healthy relationships are about learning to put your Self in second place.”

I’ve often said I’d like to write a book and it would just contain one word: Love. That word says everything. In fact, it’s worth more than a thousand words, and that’s why it’s so easy to misunderstand.

For most people, it’s easy to give love, it is easy to take love, but so many people rarely allow themselves to receive love. To open your heart, to let someone — everyone — love you, and to accept it into your heart, mind, body and soul is to receive love. It’s especially hard for people to receive their own love.

Ultimately, our ability to receive love is tied to our ability to love ourselves.

My niece helped remind me about love. That I am love. It happened when we were visiting a museum. She was maybe 2 years old, and she was shining and smiling at everyone. And it wasn’t a random, vacant smile. When she smiled, you were the most special person in the world. You were the work of art and the pictures on the wall were your jewelry. She was giving unconditional love to everyone, and everyone was smiling in wonder back at her. It was then I realized I wanted to regain that state of grace. (Now, that doesn’t mean being naïve, but it’s about the ability to receive and give love effortlessly.)

Ironically, there should be one condition to unconditional love. That you should love yourself. Not the cursory “of course I love myself,” but complete self-acceptance and complete nurturing and forgiveness of oneself. We can’t do for others what we won’t do for ourselves. It is not sustainable. We cannot continue to give if we become depleted.

A quick way to determine if you’re on the road to depletion is to ask yourself: Are you nicer to others than you are to yourself? Do you put your needs last? Are you overweight or relatively inactive? Do you say things to yourself that you’d never say to others? If you say yes to one or several of these, then there is room for improvement.

First, you should decide what your love currency is. Second, you have to decide if it’s too stringent or whether it serves. Often, our love currency is challenging, vague or tricky. We create too many conditions. We think we must be worthy or they must be worthy. It must come from the right individual, at the right time, for the right reason. There’s varying intensities and qualities of love. Is this love from a mom, dad, brother, sister, boyfriend, girlfriend, best friend, a child, a stranger? Is it for them? Do they reciprocate?

Often love comes with a price. If I love you this way, then you will do this or that. If you love me, then I must be this or that. It becomes an obligation versus an inspiration. Unfortunately, when the cost of our love becomes too steep, people give up. We give up. We lose opportunities to create emotional intimacy. We send love packing.

But what kind of bank creates this emotionally-barren currency? The roots lie in our childhood, and they’re created by fear. When we’re little, we realize if we’re not loved, we won’t get the time, attention and food to survive. If we feel deprived, regardless of the why (perhaps mom is sick, or a sibling was born), we start creating an expectation of a lack of love. If we’ve been hurt, we believe we will be hurt again. We also learn our parents’ abilities and inabilities to give or receive love. We learn how to become them by absorbing their behaviors. Those fears and behaviors become the prism — and sometimes the prison through which we view the world.

So, are we doomed to be our parents? No. I have a favorite quote from a Parker Posey movie: She says to another character: “You’re just like your parents.” And he calmly says: “No, I choose to think I started where they left off.”

And that’s what we must do. Our brain must reconcile the fact from fiction — changing the context from our childhood to the reality of now. Whether we are an apple that lands right at the foot of the tree, or we’re an apple that rolls far away and down a hill, we have a choice about what we think and what we feel. But it’s not through denial or rejection. That would suppress the energy within us and create problems later. We have to understand intellectually and emotionally. We have to help our inner child grow, emerge and understand the greater context that our parents faced and what we faced, but do it in a loving, non-fearful way.

In fact, we are so interested in not being our parents that we subconsciously project onto others what we don’t like about our parents and ourselves. Those suppressed aspects become our “shadow self,” and since it still has energy and needs to be resolved, it acts like a black hole, drawing similar energy, people and situations to us. We do that because it’s familiar, or we’re still trying to win the argument, or still trying to be loved.

That’s why we date our mom and marry our dad. Or vice versa. (Eww, right? Well, at least it’s not the complete Oedipal phenomena. We don’t have to kill our dad and then marry our mother.) Go ahead and think about your relationships from the past. Who do they remind you of? Who did you act like? Did you allow yourself to be loved? How have you changed, how have you shifted?

A philosopher and writer, George Santayana, once wrote “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Even more importantly, those who cannot understand the past and reframe it in a more forgiving and enlightened way will repeat it.

In fact, the next time you don’t like someone or something, ask yourself:

1. What don’t I like about them?
2. Who do they remind me of from my past? (Hint: Mom, dad, brother, sister…)
3. How do I have those traits myself?
4. How do I use them against myself?
5. What is my fear?
6. How can I heal that fear with myself? (How can I reframe it in an enlightened, compassionate way, i.e, nurture that inner child.)
7. Why do I have that fear? Then keep asking why and answering why (trying to supply new insight) until that fear no longer has power.

We also project good traits and abilities that we don’t feel worthy of or capable of owning! In fact, the most devastating break-ups occur when people project wonderful abilities such as attractiveness, friendliness, creativity, musical abilities, etc., onto their partner. Then when the break-up happens, they feel less than what they were.

I teach my clients to identify those traits they are projecting and start recognizing them in themselves, deconstructing the limiting beliefs that stop them, and determine the ways they can bring those skills into their lives. They can bring that love and respect into their lives.

In fact, a couple of years ago, I was talking with my dad and he said, “How’s it going, monkey? Are you working pretty hard?” (I love it when my dad calls me monkey. And I had been working hard, or as I say now: diligently).

I suddenly smiled and felt real joy: “You know what, Daddy? I am working really hard. But I’m suddenly realizing that I really like being Susan.”

And he said, “Well, that’s good,” and he was proud of me.

And, he was right! It is good. I’d just realized how much love I’d developed for myself. I’m actually liking me. I’m no longer waiting for my life. I’m finally really enjoying being Susan. And, this is the only life that I get to be Susan and I want to make it the best, kindest Susan-life I can. When I walk the down the street, I feel the grass or snow smiling, the leaves are waving and the sky winking. I’m happy for all the people in my life. Thank you so much for even spending the smallest moment with me.

Luckily, all of our actions, emotions, thoughts, perceptions are choices. We should question our love currency and ask ourselves: Why do we need love a certain way? Why do we have to have a certain kind of love? Couldn’t we fill ourselves up with the love of our highest power? Couldn’t we give ourselves more love? Shouldn’t all love be equal?

Ultimately, before we marry anyone, we should marry ourselves. Before we enter into a relationship, we should have a relationship with ourselves that is based on love, not motivated by fear. Because we’re not just a work of art. We’re the whole museum, and this is the only life you get to be you.

Can you imagine what it would be like to have your sexuality be a source of joy and aliveness? To lovingly connect with a beloved with reverence, presence and delight? To have a vibrant sexual relationship with yourself that gives you more energy, vitality and zest for life?

For many, these ideas are far from their reality. Often sexuality is burdened with shame, embarrassment, guilt and even pain, rather than being a source of pleasure and joy. I saw a Matt Groenig cartoon once that summed it up rather well: “Sex is a nasty, repugnant piece of business that should be saved only for the one you love.”

How can we resolve this paradox?

The practices of sacred sexuality help to heal the damage done by living in a sex-negative culture. You can learn ways of connecting with another person that celebrate and honor who they are. Simple techniques of breathing and movement allow your passion to rise to higher levels than ever before, while seeds of new attitudes towards sexuality are gently planted, gradually take root and then blossom into a fullness of expression that brings you ecstasy beyond your wildest dreams.

Try this right now, right where you are. Take a breath all the way into your pelvis. Feel how the inhale swells open the perineum. Imagine that with each inhale you open to the abundant flow of sexual energy that is all around us, the life force of the universe. Let that energy fill up your pelvis. Rock your pelvis, or move it in little circles. Allow a movement that feels good.

After doing that for a few moments, notice how you feel. Are you more energized? Did emotions come up?

Often the practices of sacred sexuality bring up emotions, as our breath touches the memories stored in our bodies. This awareness is the first step in healing those attitudes, which then can be replaced with more positive thoughts.

This and much more is available to you. Take the step into your birthright — a sexuality that enlivens and sustains you.

All relationships can be pleasurable when we know how to generate happiness regardless of what others say and do. Love and prosperity are self-generated, because we are love and prosperity. Because we are love, we do not and cannot get love from anyone, but when we are around people who like us, it is easier to be ourselves (which is love).

Once we are Self-realized, we are in a constant state of love. We are being ourselves under any and all circumstances, even when others dislike or disapprove of us. The main problem in relationships is the belief that we must have the approval of others and their undying devotion and commitment before we can be happy and secure enough to be ourselves without the fear of rejection, loss or abandonment.

Love is not a thing or a commodity that we must pay for or be afraid of losing. It may appear that other people are the cause of our happiness or distress, but this is not true. We are the cause of our happiness or distress.

What we want are mutually supportive relationships where each person is a winner and can bring forth the greatness that is within her or him and not feel suppressed, coerced, bad or guilty for mistakes or successes. Souls want to have loving relationships with other souls. Most of what people experience in relationships has been based on concepts passed down from generation to generation from religion and cultural conditioning and has nothing to do with the real purpose of relationships, which is bliss.

Soul-to-soul relationships are real and deeply satisfying, because we can be ourselves without fear. Offering another the gift of unconditional love is the greatest gift we can give another.

There are seven actions that lead to our becoming a master in the art of rewarding relationships even if, in the past, some of our relationships have been troublesome. They are:

1. Accept that every soul, including our own, is pure goodness and perfect without flaws of any kind.
2. Assume responsibility for our own feelings and actions, as well as for the results we are getting.
3. Understand that others are the cause of their own emotions and actions, as well as the cause of the results they are getting.
4. Be willing for others to be happy, prosperous and successful in their endeavors and for us to be happy, prosperous and successful in our endeavors.
5. Treat all others with respect and honor their freedom to be, do and have what they choose as we also honor ourselves and our freedom to be, do and have what we choose.
6. Be kind to all living entities, speak sweet words and seek to be a beacon of inspiration, enthusiasm and encouragement to all.
7. Recognize that the way we are treating others is the way we are treating ourselves, because what we give out is what we will get back.

The heart of the matter when it comes to successful relationships is accepting that every soul — including us — is pure goodness and perfect without flaws of any kind. The common approach has been to find fault in others, because we believe that we ourselves are flawed and, thus, bad and wrong. No one likes to feel bad, or not good enough to be loved and accepted, so the habit of finding fault in others has made us feel at least better than others.

How can we be happy in our relationships when we harbor the thought that there is something wrong with us? We often judge a person’s actions toward us based on our expectations. An insecure person is in constant need of reassurance as to her worth to another and in constant anxiety over the possible loss of the relationship. Our minds will calculate the words and actions of others to mean that there is something wrong with us, and that they do not love us or else they would behave as we expect. When our self-worth is based on the opinion of another person, we set ourselves up for pain.

Even in relationships that start out well, familiarity can breed contempt when one or both of the people are not happy and then blame the other and find fault in the other person. What happened? Not even God can make us feel good all the time unless we seek out the cause of our distress, which is self-alienation. No one will ever be good enough in our minds until we know that we are good enough, that we are perfect just as we are. Once we really know this, then our actions are motivated by love and kindness.

The medicine that heals the disease of “not good enough” is to bypass everything that we have heard or been taught that gave us the idea that something is wrong with us and, therefore, we are not good enough to be loved by God, our parents, relatives, mates and others. This is all fear and lack-based conditioning and not true about anyone.

Once we stop judging others as not good enough and stop criticizing others in order to feel better about ourselves, the “not good enough” program running in our subconscious will fade and disappear for lack of faith. You do not need to prove anything to anyone for you to feel good; feel good because you are pure goodness.

We are not here on earth to seek the approval of others, and we already have God’s love and approval. Accept it and forget all the soap opera stories of who did what to you and when.

Every relationship is an echo of the soul’s relationship with Source, the foundation of existence and love. Existence as a finite being only happens in relationship to the Divine. Our relationships with each other reflect that reality.

When we see the Divine in ourselves and others, we affirm our own existence. When we see others as of significance only in relationship to our own needs or wants, then we ultimately affirm the conditionality of our own existence. Such a relationship is not tenable, not stable. It must change, through discovery and growth, or escape and avoidance.

The two of us have come together in alignment with our individual soul purposes. We came together 23 years ago with explicit, conscious angelic intervention, and were married within the year. The stability in our relationship arises from our own individual commitment to our spiritual purposes — individual and conjoint. We can break our relationship with each other only by breaking our relationship with our own souls.

Not all human relationships are so preordained. We each had been married twice previously. We know now that those relationships ended appropriately for our own personal benefit, and the benefit of the other persons, as well. A clear view of our own lives leads us to an understanding that judging others on the basis of the permanence of their own commitments to a particular relationship is not a fruitful exercise.

What we can say from our own experience is that each person’s relationship with their own soul is primary. Soul will never lead anyone to harm another. Soul, however, may lead a person to act in a way outside the normal expectations or standards of present human culture.

In a stable, committed relationship, the love each feels for the other comes from soul level. It transcends ego, selfish interests and societal norms. Unconditional love creates the union. Each person’s soul purpose sets the boundaries. No one is swallowed up or lost in the union.

Such a relationship usually happens in the later years of our lives, for it takes time to escape the enculturation from our families of origin. And it requires independence of thought and action to escape the expectations of the roles of adulthood.

We say, then, to younger folks who are seeking meaningful relationships: find your own soul, and act in accord with what you find. And to the mature: find your own soul, and act in accord with what you find.

We do not wish to denigrate the contributions of psychology, and the understandings of interrelationship, needs, projections, conflict resolution, communication, etc. These are very significant in every relationship, and relationships may play themselves out very differently, dependent upon each participant’s awareness of such principles. However, when a person is in touch with their own soul, the rich ground of a loving relationship will become a source of learning about self and other that is far more reliable than psychological knowledge transmitted through books.

And can a relationship itself become a path to soul awareness for each participant? Indeed, it is the primary path. Our relationships with our parents are certainly harbingers of our own relationship with the deeper aspects of ourselves. And, clearly, in our primary, adult, loving relationships, we can transcend our childhood wounds.

How, then, do we find our own souls with the help of our partners? When we can each see the Divine in each other, we can more easily find the Divine in ourselves. When we can find the Divine in ourselves, we can more easily find the Divine in our partners. Together, we pick ourselves up by our bootstraps.

How do we recognize that Divinity? When we can see unconditional love, in any of its stages of development. We can see it grow over time, in a deepening and broadening love, an awe-filled respect, an empathic caring and a soul-deepening commitment.

We know so many people without partners who are looking for that soulful relationship. For ourselves, we can claim it only as a gift. The answer is within your own soul. Use the longing to come closer to your soul, closer to the Divine. When we see with the eyes of our souls, gifts and abundance are never-ending.

There are three of us in my marriage — me, my wife and the “We.” My wife and I cherish the presence of this third entity, the “We,” which forms the triangle of our relationship. Its presence, as “our life,” requires that both of us attend to its health. I advocate the acquiring of this “We” for every person, in any type of relationship.

Relationships are wondrous and complex structures shaping human beings from womb to grave. Housing the challenges of life, relationships provide opportunities for layer upon layer of self-discovery.

“We” is synonymous with a relationship filled with the behaviors that promise self-discovery, rather than just any ordinary interaction between two individuals. Among a larger group of behaviors, there are three that are very important, and help make a quality relationship possible. They are: an environment of positive intent, trust and truthfulness.

I will speak to the environment of positive intent because it is the foundation upon which everything that comes later in a quality relationship is built. The affirming environment of positive intent provides a safe harbor of familiarity, and is the wharf where the stout ships of shared compelling experiences are moored. When it comes time to set sail out of the harbor, a presumption of goodwill will have been gained, giving reason to stay the course without swerving to defend oneself against the “We” or the “other.” Fortunate are the few who, in a lifetime, can have just one such unguarded relationship.

When the presumption of goodwill is coupled with each individual’s commitment to work at their own growth edges, each person is relieved from the trap of being “pinned down” by the other, being blamed for the other’s psychological development and being the one who blames. Ordinary relationships are rife with confusion in many matters of life, because there is no such relief from blame and entrapment. Personal and cultural permission to pin blame for one’s pain, love, happiness or confusion onto the relational “other” obscures oneself and the other behind veils of denial, deflection and distortion.

When blame and entrapment are taken off of the table however, living in the adventure of “We” gifts each person with unparalleled insight into themselves as individuals, and themselves as the third entity, “We.”

The “We” resides in the presumption of goodwill, and this solace is earned on the seas of life that are stirred by an interest to learn in each other’s presence. Over time, life becomes a shared history filled with quality experiences lived together in an excitement that exceeds expectation.

A quality relationship is not the “We” alone however, but a dynamic interaction of the two individuals, and the relationship itself as the third entity. We frequently consider only a one-on-one interaction to be a relationship, but a team, organization, nation, species and planet fall clearly within the same dynamic. With that said, this article has been limited to describing a one-on-one relationship because that relationship embodies the same dynamic of all relationships: the agreement two entities make to be in proximity to each other in a climate of goodwill. This is why it takes three to tango and not just two.

The beauty of being a member of a quality relationship is that the joint wisdom of the creation (“We”) reinvents its creators, the two original individuals of the relationship. This reinvention provides the creators with insights and courage that expand their capacity for relating and self-discovery.

Once awakened to the myriad gifts the presumption of goodwill provides in the environment of positive intent, the continued challenge will be for each person in the relationship to engage the “We” and each other with reverence and respect. In forging this crucible you will be ready for the elevated experiments of trust and truth.

My wish is that you grace yourself with an unguarded “We,” which will provide the opportunity for you to have an unguarded self.

Most of us long for a healthy, happy love relationship. After all, love is the most precious gift any of us can give or receive. Yet, half of marriages end in divorce and we all know couples who stay married but aren’t truly happy. The challenge to create and sustain a healthy, loving relationship is immense.

My journey to true love took 45 years. Through personal experience and the experience of hundreds of clients, I’ve learned a lot about the barriers to love that we unknowingly make.

How do we create and sustain a healthy, love-filled relationship? The following are some of the keys that have worked for my clients and for me:

• Love yourself — We’ve all heard it: “You can’t love someone else until you love yourself!” There was a time when I didn’t have a clue what that meant. Now, I understand that the people in our lives are mirrors to help us see ourselves more clearly. Over the years, as I grew in greater self-love, my romantic relationships got better and healthier. But I was still attracting unavailable men.
• Accept full responsibility for all that is in your life — When I stopped blaming the external world for the fact that I was chronically single, and began pointing the finger at myself, I realized that I was unavailable to love because of the fears and self-limiting beliefs I carried. With the help of my inner spiritual teacher, I cleaned house inside myself and was finally ready to welcome my beloved.
• Give your love relationship the time and attention it deserves — We are ecstatic in the early days of love. We can’t get enough of our mate. Then time passes, and we delude ourselves into thinking our relationship can run on auto-pilot. As a society, our lives are busier and fuller than ever before. We must creatively attend to the love in our lives. My husband and I literally schedule time with each other in our appointment books. When we neglect to do so, we notice the difference.

There’s a great little book called Spiritual Wisdom on Relationships by Harold Klemp. He writes: “If you love someone or something, nurture it. That means, at least once during the day, give the object of your attention or the person of your heart your full love. Even if just for a little while, listen to what they are saying. During this time, you are putting the little self aside.”

• Listen to your beloved with a desire to know what it’s like in their shoes — Being a good listener is challenging. Often when we think we’re listening to another, we’re really only listening to the thoughts in our own heads. There’s a great communication technique called “mirroring,” taught by marital therapist Harville Hendrix, Ph.D., that I teach clients and use in my own relationship. It involves reflecting back to the speaker the gist of what you heard them say until they feel you truly understand them. When I’m emotionally worked up about something and Dale mirrors me, it immediately settles me down. It’s not about agreeing with each other. It’s about understanding and feeling heard.
• Sing HU to open your heart to love and gain a higher viewpoint — We are here in this life to learn how to give and receive divine love. The challenges in our relationships can weigh us down and feel insurmountable. No matter what we face, singing HU can help. HU (pronounced hue) is a love song to God that can be used by people of all faiths. It can be sung silently or out loud. When I feel hopelessly stuck in old, habitual ways of thinking and feeling, HU is my way out. It calms and grounds me. It opens me to my intuition and creativity. It helps me to connect with the divine in me, and to see the divine in others. It’s the greatest relationship tool I have!

Our most intimate relationships give us the golden opportunity to learn about pure, unconditional love. It is a huge and humbling undertaking. The challenges are great. The rewards are far greater!

Our new President-Elect talks a lot about “bringing us together as a nation.” That implies that we know how to relate to one another in a unifying manner. However, most of us are not very skilled at creating enriching relationships.

Many of us take pride in our sense of independence. We believe ourselves to be separate from others. We often use our sense of "being different" as a protection against being disappointed, hurt or abandoned. We believe "my needs are different, so I don’t belong" in a group, community or network. Sometimes we feel we don’t belong even in our own families.

If we grew up in frightening, hostile or troubled families, we begin to withdraw from others in our family. We seek emotional safety by mentally dividing the human species into two different categories…me and everybody else. In our minds and in our behavior, we isolate ourselves from others. We decide we are special and everyone else is different, inferior or even dangerous. Herein lies the root of racism. We fear and fail to recognize we are of one species…human.

Buddha once said, "In separateness lies the world’s greatest misery." Theologian Paul Tillich wrote, "Sin is separateness." Therapist Wayne Muller writes, "As we close ourselves inward, we create a sphere of safety that becomes smaller and smaller until it has room enough only for ourselves, removed from anything or anyone who could ever love us, from anyone who would touch, caress, or heal us."

When we habitually isolate ourselves from others, our relationships become psychologically bankrupt, empty of any kind of emotional richness. Such relationships die, and their deaths seem to prove to the "loner" that he or she is indeed different, separate and alone.

How can we enrich our relationships? First, we need to recognize, whether we like it or not, that we are all interdependent. We are each individuals, yes. Nevertheless, we depend on others for food, shelter, transportation, clothing, music, entertainment, need fulfillment, even life and breath. Each of us is woven into a delicate fabric of interdependence.

After we realize our interconnectedness, we need to make what Stephen Covey calls "emotional deposits" into those relationships. We need to balance our relationship accounts by not withdrawing more than we deposit.

Covey, in his book, The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People, describes five types of emotional deposits and their counterparts, emotional withdrawals. The first is Kindness vs. Unkindness. Every act of kindness is a nourishment to a relationship. Every unkind act is a poison.

The second is: Keeping Promises vs. Breaking Promises. Trust is based upon promises kept. Relationships break when trust is violated through broken promises.

The third is: Honoring Expectations vs. Violating Expectations. Healthy relationships are based upon mutual expectations. We need to respect the expectations we have of ourselves, and honor the expectations others have of us. When we violate others’ expectations, the relationship becomes weakened.

The fourth emotional deposit is Loyalty. Its counterpart is Duplicity. Loyalty is exemplified when we speak well of others when they are not present. Duplicity (being "two-faced") for example, is when we speak well of others when they are present, and negatively about them when they are absent. Friendships thrive with loyalty, die with duplicity.

The final emotional deposit/withdrawal to relationships is Apologizing vs. Pride. Recognize we all make mistakes. When you or another makes mistakes, apologizing sincerely and forgiving completely is a huge emotional deposit. If we are so insecure and pride-full, we never apologize, we make an equally huge emotional withdrawal from the relationship.

Daily practice of making emotional deposits in all your relationships will make you one very rich person. Your life will become filled with emotional health, abundance and delight. And without fear, perhaps you will contribute to "unifying us as a nation."

It’s funny to be writing about reducing stress in the throes of the holidays, especially this year. I’m currently unemployed and holiday trees are exuding more light than the job market. The economy is causing more than its share of
stress for millions watching their retirement savings dwindle. Stress has this peculiar way of spreading its energy like wildfire, until everyone feels disconnected from the loving arms of Source. Our relationships, finances, careers, governments and nations are going through a forced system of checks and balances on a global scale.

How is it possible to stay centered when our support systems are to be falling apart right before our eyes?

Internalize very deeply…all is in divine order. Chances are we may have fallen out of line.

This is extremely difficult to digest delicately when the bills aren’t paid and there’s no money in the bank, or your business is on the verge of bankruptcy, or your significant other is calling it quits. Where’s the (divine) love in any of this?

Our first and most understandable reaction is to escape, to avoid the discomfort as much as we can, to find a diversion to allow us to feel good immediately. Unfortunately, the cause of the stress doesn’t go away. We may feel good for a while, but it doesn’t solve the problem.

Know that everything in our lives occurs for a reason. I’ve started to look at stress as the Divine’s way of gently nudging me back toward my alignment with Source. The degree to which I am stressed out is usually in exact proportion to how far I’m off my center. Have I not been paying attention to my finances or my relationships? Have I spent too much time in a career that no longer serves my passion, or never did?

Stress is just another way of the universe telling us that we’ve either forgotten how to play, or we have fallen out of alignment with our connection to our Source, our passion, our joy. When we begin to take on more than is our intention, be it (financial) obligations, too much time away from home, or simply stop paying attention to the greater human experience around us, we tend not to notice the simple pleasures, the little miracles, the beauty of God’s playground that we so desperately wanted to leave Home to come play in. The world becomes less joyful, less happy and child-like in wonder.

It makes God sad when this happens. God so wants us to laugh and play!

I’m grateful my children remind me daily of some snippet of pure innocence that can immediately shake sometimes the worst stress. My college freshman is emerging into her own world of adult stress: whether it’s an all-nighter before a paper is due, or going to work when she’s tired, or finding money’s tight after paying bills, and I gently encourage her to try to find joy or something she likes when she’s out and about, or find something funny, or go out of your way to be nice to someone who’s really having a tough day. Not out of guilt because "someone in the world has it much worse than you do," but out of Love, from the heart. And you’ll feel better.

Much of stress is our mind’s perception of the situation. Looking at the situation from another perspective (actually, someone does have it much worse than you do, sorry) – or how much of this did I bring on myself, and what can I empower myself to do to change it? – are gentle, loving (and inexpensive) ways that you can at least soften the blow.

Looking at stress as an opportunity to re-align your Self back with Source keeps you from getting stuck, and allows you to at least get your energy flowing back in the right direction. Take a small, quiet break and step out of your situation for a moment and look at it from a universal perspective, knowing that the situation will change. Don’t fear the change, because change is inevitably for the better. Trust that God wants it that way.

That is how I’m looking at my forced hiatus from the job market right now, a (well-deserved) break from happily throwing everything I had into my job during the election. God is taking care of me, just as God is taking care of the rest of what’s going on around the globe. Sort of takes the stress off one’s shoulders, doesn’t it?

I consider myself to be a fairly spiritual person. I had a strong religious upbringing both at home and in school. I was active in my church and had a regular prayer life. So when I became depressed after my retirement, I sought peace in prayer and meditation. But for the first time in my life, it didn’t seem to be working. Life wasn’t getting any better. Then fate, or maybe divine intervention, led me to a spiritual director at Sacred Ground Center for Spirituality where the experience of looking at my life with a spiritual director was life changing.

For me it is easier to say what spiritual direction is not than to describe exactly what it is. I learned first that spiritual direction has nothing to do with anyone telling me what to do or trying to fix me. It isn’t therapy or counseling. It’s more like having a mentor to help me discover what I really want out of life by listening with me and examining my goals, dreams and desires. It is up to me to decide where I need or want to go with my life. It isn’t just about religion, although it helped me clarify my beliefs. It is a process that involves a personal relationship with someone who sees God in you and is able to help you see the divine in yourself.

So how does it work? Together, we look at life, choices and personal relationships – whatever I need and feel comfortable talking about. I learn to see my experiences from a different perspective and to see myself as a valuable human being, rather than a human doing something. I learn to see how past events and memories, especially traumatic ones, influence who I am and limit my freedom of choice today. I discovered that my image of God affects the way I see myself and others, and my world view. All this is done through the director asking simple questions, rephrasing, noting patterns and most importantly, by listening without judgment. I’m helped to see myself as a child of God, and to be gentle with myself and, therefore, more understanding of others.

As I went through the direction process, I discovered I wanted to help others the way I had been helped. I went back to school and completed a program to become a spiritual director.

I had retired after 20 years in the military and was lucky to have a director who had some understanding of a military life. Because she did, the process was easier. As members of the Minnesota National Guard returned from Iraq, I realized how helpful spiritual direction could be for their reintegration. With a director who knew the military personally, who knew the language and culture, it would be easier to talk about deployment experiences. I could help them deal with painful memories, loss and grief. And because I was also a military spouse, I knew the challenges from both sides and can help families deal with reintegration issues as well.

So spiritual direction as a personal spiritual practice not only led to my own personal growth, but it led to my becoming a director myself.

When a relationship breaks down and the person you thought you would spend the rest of your life with suddenly departs, the pain can be quite excruciating. All the old stories – betrayal, humiliation, anger, blame, self-recrimination and simply being alone in a world full of loneliness – come rushing to the surface, all wrapped in a terrible sadness.

Unexpected life changes happen to thousands of people every day, very recently to a friend of mine. So how do you deal with it? How do you recover (if you actually do) – not just from a long-term partner walking out, but from all kinds of equally harrowing traumas?

Any major shattering presents huge challenges. How we respond to them will affect the rest of our lives. Some people sink into the morass of self-pity and resentment; others remain in grief for years and some come to understand this is a vital opportunity to look inwardly to themselves, not in a self-critical way but with compassion and tenderness and they see a way forward that is not dependent on anyone else.

These challenges focus on long-held self-images, such as "I am not enough," "I cannot trust anyone," "Life is unfair" or "I need to be taken care of." Each of these and other images have arisen from deep childhood wounds, and we use them to keep us going, to cope with the multiple pressures of life.

In our adult behavior, we live out the self-image in a defensive way, protecting ourselves from our primary fears by the avoidance of risk, or the inability to connect with people or a dependence on others to save us. There are many variations on this theme and they are all foundations for survival.

Some people constantly seek acknowledgement or approval, while others have a powerful need to be in control. In many cases, we use our talents to help make us feel good about ourselves.

So when a shattering or trauma occurs and a crippling emotional pain arises, the pain (and shame) presents itself right in the face, although its origin is deep inside the wound. My friend David said: "When my wife decided to leave in not the prettiest of circumstances, I was devastated and heart-broken. My whole world changed in an instant."

Although still in deep shock, David began an inward journey, examining his share of responsibility in the collapse of his marriage, realizing how complacency and lethargy had set in – along with anxiety and depression that grew from his early relationship with his mother who had frequently humiliated him and whom he had never been able to please.

"I had spent many years of the marriage trying to compensate for my issues by being over-generous and over-attentive, as if I was still trying to get my mother’s approval. I had been expecting my wife to save me. Even just looking at these and other areas of my life was extremely painful, sometimes terrifying. But I couldn’t turn away from them. I allowed myself to feel it all and go through layer after layer into the depths of the original wounds."

At the same time, David also focused on all his great qualities and gifts – his creativity, open-heartedness, humor, compassion for others and more. In this way he was able to hold both the negative and the positive in a non-dualistic and non-judgemental container, simply allowing it all to be present.

This willingness to surrender to whatever was there enabled him to be with and ride the wave of emotions when the enormity of his sadness and fear threatened to overwhelm. He was able to come back into his center and be in his essence.

"This gave me a different perspective on my life," he said. "I received some remarkable insights that included seeing how I had allowed many areas of my life to stagnate and die – the very basic will to live, to have fun and real pleasure."

A new enthusiasm emerged from all this, albeit tinged with a sadness that was a little more bearable. Only weeks on, David feels much more alive, confident and optimistic about a future without the woman he loves. The life force that had lain dormant, locked away for years in that deep early pain, began to stir again.

It may have been hard for him or anyone to appreciate initially, but there is a great and liberating gift in every trauma or shattering, one that few people are willing to grasp as they lose themselves in their pain. Sometimes we need our lives to be completely shaken before we can even begin to face the challenges that have always been there, but ignored. The key is in knowing how to focus inward into the pain, rather than run from it. This is one of the things we teach at The Barbara Brennan School of Healing.

In my own life, I have gone through surprising, sometimes frightening and painful experiences to come out the other end each time with deeper love and more understanding and acceptance of self and others.

None of us are victims. We are all on a path of self-actualization, a state in which Grace arises of its own accord from deep inside.

An excerpt from the book Loving Relationships II (Celestial Arts)

The soul draws toward itself the circumstances and people it needs for its highest development. In the same way, our karma and vibrational patterns draw us to the very person we need to help us grow.

In all our personal interactions, we must help each other develop love and kindness. A personal relationship is a sacred responsibility – it should not be based on physical, intellectual, or emotional attraction alone. Such a partnership must be based on a commitment to manifest the highest and best in one another.

The last 15 years have given birth to investigations that chart the origins of our attractions to, and relations with, other people. Among the startling findings: the way we meet, enter or begin a relationship may be related to our own conception in our mother’s womb. Having an understanding of the circumstances surrounding how you were conceived will help to make the conception of your relationships more conscious. The following example – seemingly far-fetched but actually quite commonplace – illustrates this phenomenon: A male baby is conceived accidentally, the pregnancy unwanted by his parents. As a young adult, the former unwanted child finds himself attracted to women who do not really want to commit to a relationship; he becomes very emotionally involved in them anyway. A woman may even overtly reject him, but he keeps trying to maintain a bond. Perhaps he finds himself with women who may even date him, but reject him sexually. Either way, he ends up feeling “unwanted.” These will be very unsatisfying relationships right from the start, yet he is “hooked” on unrequited love. Why? Because he has the unconscious need to recreate the feeling of being unwanted, since that is what he is accustomed to.

If your conception was an “accident,” you may just find yourself time and time again stumbling into relationships unconsciously, then suddenly waking up and wondering how you became entangled. This may occur because you are continually meeting partners under circumstances that not only mirror your own conception, they may also resemble your birth. I was able to identify this dynamic in my own life: I was born on the kitchen table, and for many years I would either meet men in restaurants or go out with restauranteurs!

The more we are conscious of these dynamics in our personal relationships, the more freedom we will have to pick and choose partnerships that will work in our favor. As you can see, unsolved conception trauma can cause pain both to ourselves and to other people with whom we mate. If we remain unaware of how the conception experience affects our decisions and actions, we give up a great deal of power over our lives.

Dismal as it may seem, “I don’t want to be here” is a sentiment felt by a substantial number of people. These individuals could have adopted such anti-life feelings early on – either just before or immediately after their own birth – if they did not like being taken from or being in the womb. If they had a rough time coming out into the world, they may have decided that they “don’t want to be here” during the birth trauma.

You would be well advised to keep this phenomenon in mind, especially if you find your new relationship taking the following course: You meet a person, and you’re very attracted to them. The attraction seems mutual, but before you know it, they are avoiding you and don’t want to be in the relationship. They may like you very much, and even flirt with you, but the relationship never gets off the ground. The only reason that they give is that they simply “don’t want to be here.” Though such people occasionally do make it through the initial meeting phase and actually enter into relationships, nine times out of ten, they are not totally “there.” They’re unable to be present for their partner or themselves: consciously or unconsciously, they are obsessed with the need to leave.

Patterns

When a couple survives the initial highs and lows of a budding relationship, they may consider making a commitment. If both want to be fully committed at the same time in the same degree of intensity, this stage can be very exciting. Often, however, a clumsy dance occurs in which one partner is more strongly committed, the other less so: the old story of “when I want you, you don’t want me. So I back off and don’t want you and then you want me.” Some people get through this and some don’t. It can be quite maddening, to say the least.

It is also important to understand that this is a pattern. A pattern is what we call “Repetitive Unconscious Behavior.” Patterns are often based on repetitive behaviors in our blood families or reactions to those behaviors. In the Loving Relationships Training (LRT) we discuss patterns in relationships; some of these are also described in my book, Loving Relationships I.

What motivates us to want someone obsessively when feelings of affection are not mutual – or vice versa? In examining cases like these, what we at LRT call the “incest taboo pattern” can usually be found. This frustrating pattern begins during childhood. If you are female, you could not have your father, the man you really wanted. The way in which you cope with this disappointment is decided very early – and its effects continue into adult life. As an adult, when you can’t have the one you really want because you have set him up as your father (or vice versa with the mother), that relationship then becomes “taboo” also.

This is a very deep and complex pattern. It often takes people many years to work it out. If we manage to suppress it enough in the beginning stages of the relationship, we may actually make a commitment, and move in with or even marry a partner. But the incest taboo pattern, based as it is on such a powerful impulse, usually surfaces sooner or later. The results can surprise and bewilder us. Some people actually find out that the minute they get married, sex no longer provides enjoyment or pleasure; others quickly disappear from the relationship altogether.

A relationship can generate a fantastic amount of energy when partners feel equal passion for one another. Yet maintaining an even balance is quite challenging. “Love brings up anything unlike itself,” and passionate love frequently stimulates too many unconscious negative thoughts at once. A couple may become very happy, high, and passionate for days – then something inexplicable happens between them and suddenly the feelings disappear or go away. Because of the negative subconscious thoughts that have surfaced, partners need to know that this loss of passion is natural and temporary. Whenever it occurs, it’s time to clear or process, and practice spiritual purification.

At LRT, we would say that the couple’s “case came up.” This means that the partners’ birth trauma got activated, their unconscious death urge was stimulated, and their negative thought structures or family patterns surfaced. The tremendous love energy then produced pushed all these latent impulses outward. It is important not to get angry and give up at this time if you want to stay in this relationship. However, at this point, people often get disillusioned with each other, blaming each other for a waning romance. Ironically, this is just the moment when it is so crucial to have faith in yourself and your partner. It is a time to fortify the relationship with an enlightened understanding of how the mind works and a knowledge of spiritual purification. If a couple gets rebirthed at this time, they can breathe out the subconscious material that has surfaced and then go back to the love quite easily.

A crisis in your relationship can also provide an opportunity to develop a deep and mature love. This kind of bond celebrates our humanity – including our imperfections. By contrast, an immature love requires constant novelty; when the novelty declines, a new attraction is sought. Immature love needs a perfect idol as a love object. Lacking integrity, this kind of bond is frail and often shallow. But in a mature love – a relationship between two spiritual beings – a couple has the ability to weather love’s unpredictable changes.

Though partners brought together by an immature love may, by some accident, make it through the initial phases of a relationship, they will have unconsciously established destructive methods of problem solving. Unfortunately, the practice of fighting or “stuffing it” figures prominently among them. This damaging behavior can be habit forming, dragging on for years and years until fighting leads to separation or “stuffing” the anger causes pain and disease.

I can’t emphasize how crucial it is for couples to develop spiritually enlightened methods of problem solving and clearing during these early stages of a relationship. Right from the beginning you’ll need to discuss basic questions such as your purpose in life, your purpose in the relationship, what techniques you use to clear yourself and how each of you can serve the other. Some people don’t talk about these things until it is too late; bad habits have already formed. That’s why honest discussion must begin immediately.

By talking about these things from the start, you can also determine whether this new person will blend with your life style and spiritual goals. If your partner cannot handle this kind of discussion at all, consider this behavior as a sort of “red flag” warning. You may not want to pursue a deep emotional relationship with that individual. Remember, there are people who not only tolerate, but require honest dialogue. Isn’t this what you deserve? Seek them out!

Overwhelm

When old patterns surface, you may feel out of control, incapacitated by confusion, as if you’ve had too much thrown at you at once. At LRT, we call this being in “overwhelm.” It’s a state you can easily fall into, particularly if you are new to processing and clearing. What some people do to cope with it, especially if they do not have a rebirther or consultant, is to withdraw or eat. Especially in couples, people often start gaining weight in an attempt to stuff the patterns back down so we can feel more “comfortable.” The trouble with this solution is that then you have this new problem – being overweight – which is no fun at all. Overeating “eats away” at our confidence and self-esteem, making our relationship even worse. Other unhealthy ways people deal with overwhelm are smoking, drinking, gambling or having affairs.

When overwhelm occurs, you definitely need to breathe it out. You may even need to take a break from each other. Taking time for yourself does not mean you’ve failed or that you are ending the relationship. It just means you are going to go and get recentered in yourself.

In the same way, if your mate needs to take time alone, you shouldn’t take that personally either. Think about it this way: in your relationship the two of you are “one” spiritually. Therefore, if your partner needs to take a break, you probably need a break, too. Look at it as an opportunity, not a threat. In fact, it would be a good idea to plan breaks from each other on a regular basis as a preventative measure instead of waiting until tensions overwhelm you both.

A healthy relationship is one in which the couple can go in and out freely without attachment or clinging. If partners cannot stand to be apart, they may be inordinately attached. Many partners maintain separate interests as a way of protecting their individual selves within the relationship. This solution is healthy as long as it is a way of having your own center, not an escape from intimacy.

Know yourself well enough to recognize when you are in overwhelm, otherwise, tension can take a toll on your body and your relationship. Each partner should have his or her own private space if possible. If your house is too small for that, consider other alternatives. Where can you go to meditate? Should you move to a more spacious home? Any ideas that occur to you ought to be explored.

Sondra Ray will lead her seminar, The Next Level, in Minneapolis August 30-31. For more information, visit www.sondraray.com, e-mail deannareiter@yahoo.com or call 651.238.7248.

“Relationships are work because they relate to creating a third entity and they are not about personal benefits.” – Bernie Siegel, M.D.

For more than 25 years, Pam and I have worked together on our relationship. From our first date, we seemed to share a deep connection. As the end of that date neared, we sat in my car, the street light illuminating our faces. We looked deeply into each other’s eyes…not kissing, not talking, and yet there was a language of the soul occurring – a recognition. This was both exciting and scary.

I was attracted to Pam on many levels. Over time, however, as often happens in relationships, some of those same things that attracted me to her started to drive me crazy. She was so sweet and nice and agreeable, which eventually became aggravating because she wouldn’t offer a strong opinion. I liked to make fast decisions and talk about things; she liked to keep her own council and mull things over, occasionally sharing her conclusions with me days later. Sometimes I could have shaken her to get those words to spill out! This was just the beginning of my education in learning patience and trust in another’s style of communication.

I came from a family that would fight about everything. Pam’s family, on the other hand, never fought. In fact, they were hesitant to express any strong feelings, even affection.

One of the first and most important things a couple needs to learn is how to fight. We carry with us what we learned from our parents, and this third entity, the relationship, needs to develop its own way of resolving conflict. Pam and I learned how to fight in a way that worked for both of us. I helped Pam to demonstrate her anger. Previously she would swallow her anger, and it would come out sideways.

As Pam learned to be passionate in her anger, I remember my shock and glee the first time she told me to “shove it.” I couldn’t help but smile, which made her even angrier. She was out of the closet! Conversely, she helped me learn to create a pause between an event and expressing my anger, to hold my tongue and let the thunder roll in the clouds of my mind instead of reactively striking out at the people around me, often out of proportion to the event itself. Most importantly, this helped me reduce the need to be right all the time.

Being young when we met, we each had natural strengths, as well as underdeveloped areas, and our pieces seemed to fit together well. Eventually, I focused more on my career and ran the financial part of our relationship, and Pam, especially once the girls came, focused more on the house and kids.

After our first daughter arrived, Pam attempted to go back to work full-time teaching German and being a housemaster at a boarding high school. Both our jobs required long days and carried a lot of stress, and it quickly became apparent that we were all miserable. One morning as I dropped our 4-month-old daughter off at day care, I saw the fear in her eyes as we headed inside. And my heart said, “This must end.” My brain’s concern about financial stability was overruled and we chose to leap into a new family dynamic. Pam resigned the next day, only staying until they could find a replacement. We even took the leap of buying our first house, a huge financial commitment, at the same time we would lose Pam’s income.

As often happens when we make tough decisions for the right reasons, Pam loved being a stay-at-home mom, our daughters thrived for having her home with them, and I quickly was promoted and made more money than we had ever made combined.

Yet, we were still not whole, in and of ourselves, because we depended on the other with attachment, expecting each other to fulfill our assigned societal roles in certain ways. Pam and I each took on responsibility for things that the other felt less inclined to do, or perhaps felt inadequate to do. So if the children were sick, Pam would be the one to stay up with them all night, because I had to head off to work the next morning, and frankly, I was glad for this excuse.

As our girls grew older, Pam became a life coach, and moved in new directions beyond home and family. A large part of my identity had been tied up in being a professional money manager, which I loved, and yet the time came when I knew it was time for me to leave that role. Despite the significant ramifications this had for our lifestyle, Pam wholeheartedly supported this life-change. As a life coach who advocated trusting one’s inner guidance and following one’s heart, she trusted that things would indeed work out, even though it wasn’t obvious just how at that point. Yet she also supported this, in part, because she no longer wanted to be married to “an empty suit” – even if it was hand-tailored and fit the societal norms.

From that point forward, our journey toward wholeness accelerated. We’ve reconsidered who does what from a pragmatic view, and have shifted what society might define as roles for husbands and wives. I do healing work, lead workshops and drive the children to school and on field trips, while doing more of the domestic chores. Pam is a business coach and earns the majority of the money that supports our family. She now handles all of our financial matters, from paying bills to doing taxes. This is what our relationship offered us, the opportunity to reclaim aspects of ourselves that had not previously been tapped. This greater access to expanded definitions of who we are and what is possible created more balance inside each of us and within the relationship – a richer expression of the potential in all three entities.

Ironically, as we become more whole, we need each other less, yet want each other more. Our relationship isn’t based on attachment or fear, but on co-creation. We are mirrors for each other, reflecting back what is inside of us.

Dave and Pam Nelson will present a couples workshop, “Better Together – Getting the Best Out of Your Relationship,” with Lynn Woodland on September 26-28 in Minneapolis. Its focus is to increase awareness of the strength of each individual in the relationship and the strengths and opportunities offered by the relationship. For details and to register, go to www.icoachlife.com.