How to Be an Adult in Relationships

When we tolerate not having our needs met fully, fear turns to vulnerability and a more generous love awakens in us.

We access the gift dimension—grace—when we look with friendliness upon ourselves.

Our ego searches for love, but we are meant to find love within ourselves first.

Effort is important, but so is grace, the assistance of forces beyond you.

spiritual practice together deepens their bond at the level of the soul. Soul mates, after all, are those whose spiritual paths have met.

From that position a unique meaning is allowed to ripen over time, in its own time. This is an alternative to the ego’s frenzy to impose a makeshift meaning from its lexicon of standard mindsets.

The task is not to disown the mindsets but to redirect their energies so they can serve us and others. Thus, fear can be mined for wise caution. Desire makes it possible to reach out. Judgment includes intelligent assessment. Control is necessary in most daily activities. Fantasy is the springboard to the imagination and creativity. When we find the useful kernel of these mindsets, the trespassers can become our bosom buddies.

unconditional “yes” to reality.

the special person who “loves the pilgrim soul in you.” Mirroring freedom means encouraging the liveliness and passion in others rather than squelching it for our own good or safety. The “pilgrim soul” also implies going. True allowing also means letting someone go.

Affection looks different in the romantic phase of a relationship than it does in the conflict stage. In the former it may have more of a sexual dimension; in conflict it may mean patient working through of mutual concerns.