We can only know who we are through our relationship with other people and things and how we relate to ourselves is how we also relate to others.

The generally accepted standard model for relationships seems to be all about control and causes power struggles fuelled by the need to feel more secure within the egoic frameworks we have constructed for ourselves.

The whole idea that by marrying someone or entering into a long term committed relationship with them you can feel secure through making  that other person your personal possession and seeking to keep that person imprisoned by your definition of who they are is a nonsense and contrary to what true love and life is all about.

True love is about acceptance and freedom. It is about giving rather than receiving. It is about allowing the other to grow and to evolve into the next best version of themselves. True love is not about imprisoning another in a contracted version of themselves just because that suits you. It is not about hanging onto a relationship when only one party to it is served by it. It is not about making you right and them wrong. It is not about the numbers – while traditional personal relationships focus on 2 individuals there is a growing trend for there to be multiple parties to a relationship – tripartite relationships, communes, community groups and the like. In fact the furture of this planet will require greater interdependence than ever before, collaberation rather than competition and sharing rather than hoarding.

Being part of a loving personal relationship based on mutual respect, trust and tolerance can be one of the most liberating and expansive things we can do in lives. If we are not growing we are stagnating and dying.

The old ways of relating no longer serve us. The fairy stories that we are encouraged to believe in when we are young are just that – stories which reflect outdated ideas. Relationships are much much more than vehicles for biological procreation or tools for allowing us to feel more secure.

Real love manifests when we give and express ourselves fully and allow others to do the same. A relationship comes to full bloom when we are allowed to just BE ourselves and we allow others to BE themselves.

Life can become problematic when we are so busy just DOING that we forget to stop and just BE. BEING precedes doing. What we do is always a consequence of who we are BEING. Can you relate to this?