Relationships! Relationships! Relationships!

Our lives are full of relationships. There are familial relationships: mother, father, siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins. Then there are our friends: best friends, good friends, acquaintances. Then on to co-workers, store clerks, the mail person. The list could go on and on. In other words, everyone else we come in contact with forms a relationship with us whether it’s of the briefest nature or long term.

The thing about relationships is that they are never static; they are always changing. Sometimes it seems for the better and sometimes not. It seems to me that the trick to relationships with others is the challenge of a positive, healthy relationship with one’s self. When I don’t like me very much, it sure is hard to like someone else. Even if we admire and respect another, if we don’t like ourselves very much, then that relationship is going to put pressure on us—pressure on us to change. And that’s hard—or at least we think it’s hard and what we think usually manifests its self. Then when we change, whether willingly or not, that causes all of our other relationships to change. It’s the nature of living on this earth.

However, if my relationship to myself is in pretty good shape, then I am able to handle my other relationships from a place of love and security. I can step back and observe and decide from a better perspective how best to handle the changes that are inevitable in any relationship.

Even the relationship to self/Self is two relationships because it involves not only the relationship to our ego self, the one who thinks, acts, and encounters others, it also includes the relationship to Self, which I define as that part of me that is connected to God, the Source, Spirit—whatever term you choose. It’s the part of me that I interpret as my Soul.

So my point here, is to do the work, take the steps, find the help to create and nurture a warm and loving relationship with your self/Self. Of course, you’re probably already doing that, or at least contemplating it, or you wouldn’t be reading this.

Let me tell you a story from my life that illustrates what I’m saying about relationships and change. I became a grandmother a little over seven years ago—a pretty wonderful thing, all in all. Here’s this neat little bundle to love and cuddle and I can buy her clothes and toys. Wow, this is great. Then just when I was settling into the grandmother role, life presented me with a challenge.

Suddenly, I went from grandmother of this precious child to "mother" of this precious child. Now that was not something I wanted. (There’s that change thing again.) And, let me tell you, God and I had some serious conversations about it. What was God thinking, I’d done that before and was pretty sure I didn’t want to do it again. But, as a friend of mine said to me, "God gives you a blessing, and you take it!"

So my relationship to my granddaughter changed and she changed and I changed—and we keep on changing. I come to this second round of parenting with more confidence and understanding and that makes parts of it easier. Naturally, there are parts of it that are harder, namely the physical stamina of keeping up with a young child now that I’m in my 50’s rather than my 20’s. But, this time around, I have a better understanding of who I am and a knowledge of my value and gifts to my world. Thus, I am not so fraught with doubts about my ability to parent. It’s still challenging—raising a child is always challenging—but the work that I’ve done on me has given me the courage and wisdom to acknowledge when I need help and to ask for that help. It has enabled me to take time for myself to do the things that nurture me. I am more able to give because I don’t feel diminished since I am giving from the overflow of the abundance of love in my life.

What I get a glimpse of some five years latter, is that my ego self didn’t want the change in this relationship. However, my Soul recognized that this was something I needed to do. Not just for my granddaughter, but for me as well. I can’t pretend to understand it all. But I know that at the Soul level, all of us involved participated in this change willingly. That is sometimes hard to accept because we’re not always aware enough to see the drama from the level of the Soul. Yet I have come far enough to accept that it is true. It’s not always easy and sometimes I seemingly forget the lessons I’ve learned. It’s okay to struggle, have doubts, and even fail. But with each struggle, a little more knowledge is gained and the repatterning is strengthened and I am a little closer to knowing with both my head and my heart that this life I live is just perfect—perfectly imperfect.

Relationships come and go. Those relationships that stay, of necessity, change for we all are changing too. Day by day, we learn and grow and evolve. And that is just plain wonderful.