Seeing The Perfection In Every Relationship

Since it is often very difficult to detect our own cracks or hidden agendas, our Higher Selves arrange for us to meet others who hold up mirrors so that we have a better chance of experiencing and understanding what isn’t complete within us yet. Our friends and foes are all willing to play their respective roles for our benefit. We learn that we are all the things that we don’t like in others, but we also discover that we are all the things we like in others. Both are challenging because they require acceptance on our part. How many times do we feel we are not worthy to receive, not beautiful enough to please, not intelligent enough to be of use, or not skilled or competent enough to make a difference? When we meet people who personify all those qualities that we deny we have, we may feel very attracted to them. We may love those qualities so much in the other person that we want to experience them all the time. We feel at a loss if they are not there, as if part of us was missing.

Many new relationships are formed on this basis. You may have had at least one such experience. Whatever you feel you do not have in yourself, you desire to get from another. However, as soon as your friend or partner stops holding up the mirror that reflects this expectation or need, the love bond seems to dwindle and the relationship begins to fade. If it is a romantic relationship, you may feel that the other person has changed so much you no longer feel the same excitement and joy you did before. You may decide that you can no longer stay with him/her.

On the other hand, a fading romance might reveal a true, lasting love that remained hidden until then but now has the chance to blossom and grow. Once expectations of how the other person is ‘supposed’ to be, begin dwindling away, our hidden agendas that had been hidden re-transmute into pearls of wisdom. They reveal our true identity. We begin to love the oneness we are and the oneness we see in the other; we begin to know from within that my oneness is also your oneness, and whatever you or I do or say does not disturb, stop or destroy this bond of pure love. There are no strings attached to this love, and no expectations that need fulfilling because we recognize that whatever the other represents to us is also in us. In fact, you are only able to resonate with these special qualities because you have them in yourself. By not fulfilling your expectations, your partner or friend helps you to become more complete. You no longer have this desperate need for someone else to ‘make’ you feel this way.

This kind of independence or self-sufficiency forms the basis of a relationship bonded by unconditional love. (Unconditional love is actually a redundant phrase. There is no conditional love because a condition arises out of fear, not love.) This is not to say that romantic relationships or faded relationships are not based on unconditional love; in reality they are, but this is not apparent.

Some relationships are only formed to clear some of the heavier, hidden agendas in our life and they may not last very long. Nevertheless, they occur because of a prior agreement the Higher Selves have made with each other to move forward in greater learning and integration. This agreement is made out of unconditional love for each other. One offers to be a mirror for the other, and vice versa. The mirror reflects all the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ personality features one is able to project to that person. Each exchange, verbal, physical or otherwise is yet another opportunity for both sides to become a little more aware of withholding these good and bad things from ourselves. You dislike in your partner only what you do not like in yourself. This may be hard to grasp, but with a little self-honesty, we conclude that there is no other reason to be anti anything other than our own inability for accepting our undisclosed weaknesses.

Conversely, your partner may be fascinated or turned on by certain personality features of yours, because they represent something that they haven’t yet been able to find within. You may think nothing of these qualities that they so much adore in you. The infatuation that occurs on both sides at the beginning of a romantic relationship must subside at some stage, if unconditional love is to take over.

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This is an excerpt from my book LIFTING THE VEIL OF DUALITY