Suppose to post something pessimistic. Well think about it. I delete the p* post and update this which is much more beneficial for everyone. Enjoy

The crucible of relationship

Every moment of our life is relationship
There is nothing except relationship

Few situations in life are as conducive to soul-making as that of a deep, committed relationship. Generally, we choose as intimate partners people with whom we can continue our life process of finishing our unfinished selves. If our personal issues are unconscious, our choice of a partner will be ruled by these pressing unconscious needs and drives.

Unfortunately, we are rarely aware of this aspect of relationship. When we reach a place in ourselves that is too painful to look at, we see our relationship as the cause of our pain rather than own our personal issues. When the pain becomes too great, we may decide that leaving the relationship through an affair, a preoccupation with work or children, or even a divorce is a good way to solve our pain.

Sometimes leaving a relationship is truly is the only solution, but there are countless other times when leaving the relationship means leaving the relationship our own deep personal issues untouched and unresolved. Intimacy and commitment act as triggers to bring up all of our fears of vulnerability, dependency, exposure and abandonment. Moving through these fears, experiencing them for what they are and integrating them into our total being, allows us to center ourselves within our own soul natures. Painful as they are to face, our unresolved issues help us move down the path toward soul experience.

In a society that has added two or three decades to the lifespan, the vow "till death do us part" has changed in meaning and length. Today, if we are choosing a life partner; we are choosing someone with whim we will raise children and grandchildren, and then possibly go on to spend another two or three decades of life. Because the needs and demands on the couple will change radically from one period of life to another relationship must be extremely flexible. All relationships are hard work. A deep, committed relationship will call on us to do more soul searching than probably any single area of our lives. This is precisely why it is so useful in the development of the soul nature and the removing of obstacles that are in the way of soul nature: because it reaches into our unconscious in a way that few experiences of life do, demanding all of us. And when we feel we are tired and cannot go on any longer, it asks for more.

In our society we have come to see relationships as something from which we should expect a great deal, and when we dont get what we want, we may feel we have compromised ourselves that we are "settling for less," being weak or lacking in self- respect. But if this is our attitude, we missing an important function of relationship.

The continuity and history of a long term relationship is the crucible in which we can melt down the lead we carry in our psyches and transform it into the gold of the soul.

The relationship that triggers unfinished issues gives us the opportunity to resolve them and move on. Living with another person day in and day out gives us the opportunity to learn the value of give and take. Perhaps most important, we may learn the lesson of compassion: that treating the other well is treating ourselves well, and treating ourselves well is treating the other well.

Only in relationships can you know yourself, not in abstraction and certainly not in isolation. The movement of behaviour is the sure guide to yourself, it's the mirror of your consciousness, and this mirror will reveal its content, the images, the attachments, the fears, the loneliness, the joy and sorrow. Poverty lies in running away from this, either in its sublimations or its identities.

The good enough relationship

Seldom, or perhaps never, does a marriage develop into an individual relationship smoothly and without crises; there is no coming to consciousness without pain

When we can bring our full being to a relationship without feeling that we have to hide a part of ourselves, we have a real chance to use relationship as a pathway to soul. Sometimes, however, we ask more of relationship than it can give and thus doom ourselves to disappointment. A relationship cannot be all things. If it successfully enough provides what we need to go on in our life process of personal development - feeling loved and a sense of basic security - it is good enough.

Life is long, if we are lucky, and any long term relationship will have its up and downs. If we are perfectionistic and see every down as a complete failure of the relationship, we will not have the perspective necessary to stay with the relationship and work through that period into another, more satisfying one. If we see all life problems as relationship problems, we will see the solution to life problems as leaving one relationship and finding another. When we do this, we don’t necessarily simplify our lives; often, we make more sense to see if the problem can be resolved within the self and within the relationship.

We enter relationships with many myths: we will not feel lonely when we have a relationship; we will always have someone to count on; we will have fulfilled inside all the time when we have a relationship; a good relationship does not have problems. These seductive myths can send us into despair whenever we encounter the difficulties, strains and pains that are so natural in a partnership. They can also make us demand things from a relationship before it has a chance to grow into all that it can be. No one person can be all things to another person. We have enough work to do sorting out ourselves. When we allow ourselves to be with the flow we are able to stay with the relationship. If something is wrong, we will sense it and go about correcting it and if not, we will leave it alone.

Relationships are not static. When we make them conform to a perception rather than just be, in a sense we leave the relationship and enter an image. Then we feel empty and set about looking for the relationship in all the wrong places. It didnt go anywhere, we did. Good, bad or indifferent, the relationship is only what is happening in the moment. When we divide ourselves from the moment, we divide ourselves from the soul of the relationship.

Shall continue another day... tired... imagine 3 days going out from 8am and reach home 12am.