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Best-selling self-realization author
Being renewed by love, and beginning your life all over again, are one and the same interior action. It starts with becoming aware of, and then bringing a conscious end to all lingering relationships you may have with old thoughts and feelings that want you to keep seeing your life through their eyes. Ending these connections with wrong parts of yourself is key to starting over in your relationships with those you love.
A student once wrote to me that she felt as if she was stuck in a kind of purgatory. She explained, “I’ve just entered into a relationship with a wonderful new man, and I want to embrace this opportunity – love him – as fully as I know I'm capable of doing. But, I'd have never met this man if it weren’t for a real jerk crushing my heart less than a few months ago. I can see I’m afraid to let go and trust my new partner, but I know that if I don't, then our love will have no way to grow.”
This is a perfect example of why we must have a new set of eyes to help us see through the lie behind these kinds of fears, as well as the way they mislead us into the very situation we hope to avoid.
When it comes to any form of (psychological) fear...the “feel” is real, but the “why” is a lie. In the case of this woman’s question, whatever fear she feels now – telling her of dark hours to come – doesn’t exist without some part of her imagining, revisiting the very past that she hopes not to relive. And then, the same unconscious mind, the one responsible for projecting this pain, goes on to tell her how to escape the very fear that it’s created!
There’s no way we can change this kind of painful dream by trying to protect ourselves from it, or by trying to control the unwanted moment that it projects. There’s only one way to end this kind of nightmare, and that’s to shake ourselves awake and out of the dream that’s causing it.
In the same vein, I received a letter from a man who realized he was hanging on to thoughts that were ruining his relationship. He wrote, “I've always known I’m hardheaded, and that I’m as responsible for bumping heads with my wife as I want to blame her for running into me. I’m also unable to drop any argument with her until she admits that it was her fault for getting it started. Even though I’m beginning to suspect that my view of these things may be mistaken, I seem helpless to do otherwise.”
This kind of self-insight is crucial for better relationships. It's impossible to change conditions we don’t want until we begin to recognize the unconscious parts of ourselves responsible for their continuation.
So, with that in mind, if you really want to understand and end the real cause of conflict with your partner, here's a three word solution guaranteed to change these contentious moments between you:
The next time you start to find something to blame, just think to yourself: “Maybe I'm wrong.” And then really consider that you might be. Deliberately taking time to see your own state of mind in these moments is the same as choosing to see that – regardless of how you want to justify it – negativity never knows what’s right.
Adapted from Relationship Magic: Waking Up Together by Guy Finley.
©2018 Guy Finley
Used by permission from Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd.
Guy Finley is an internationally renowned spiritual teacher and bestselling self-help author. He is the Founder and Director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for transcendent self-study located in Merlin, Oregon. He also hosts the Foundation’s Wisdom School — an on-line self-discovery program for seekers of higher self-knowledge. He is the best-selling author of The Secret of Letting Go and 45 other books and audio programs that have sold over 2 million copies, in 26 languages, worldwide. Guy’s latest book Relationship Magic: Waking Up Together applies decades of spiritual wisdom to practical relationship challenges, transforming any relationship from mundane to magical! www.guyfinley.org
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