May 2014 Publisher’s Letter
Is there any emotion greater than love? The simple answer is yes, there is—gratitude. To have gratitude for someone means to have no judgment of them or yourself. With gratitude, you can be grateful for someone whether or not they are being kind, happy, sad, angry or anything else they’re choosing. With love, there is always judgment. There are expectations of what you must be and do to show you love someone: “If you love me, you would do this for me.” Love has many definitions. Do you love your family the same way you love your cat? Or your friends the same way you do your lovers? Even with unconditional love, you still have to judge whether or not it’s something you can be unconditional about.
Gratitude is one of the five elements of creating true intimacy. The others are honoring, trust, allowance and vulnerability. The key to becoming intimate with your partner always begins with becoming intimate with yourself. To have a relationship that truly contributes to expanding your life, you must be willing to create these elements for yourself and with your partner.
In an intimate relationship, each individual honors him or herself and is willing to do what is right for them. You honor the other person and treat them with regard. You are willing to allow your partner to do what is right for them without judgment and without requiring them to be anything other than who they are. This means that you also trust the other person to be exactly who they are, and not what you wish or want them to be.
Along with trust and honoring of yourself and your partner, you want to be in allowance of the other person and not judge their choices, thoughts or beliefs as right or wrong. Allowance is where everything is just an interesting point of view. You allow the other person to have their point of view and you don’t feel the need to criticize. Criticism is based on judgment. In allowance, you do not try to stop your partner from being different than you are, and you do not stop yourself from being different than them. You have a life and you let your partner have a life.
Vulnerability is also present in intimate relationships. Vulnerability is when you are totally present with you and whoever is in front of you, with no barriers. An example of using barriers would be when your partner is angry. How often do people automatically put their barriers up, or “harden up” for a fight? If you are willing to recognize that is what you are doing, and say, “You know what? I am not going to have my barriers up here, I am going to push them down and receive all of this without a point of view,” it is amazing how the other person will run out of steam very quickly. That is because there is no wall for them to bang up against anymore. Being willing to be vulnerable is to not go to your defense systems or fend off real communication with upset, judgment or withdrawal.
Happy Mother’s Day to all,
Jay and Pat
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