What causes relationships to degenerate over time?

Relationships of any kind can start out so great. Why do they degenerate over time? Most of the time it can be because of feeling hurt in some way. Accumulated hurt can begin with something like a slight difference of opinion, a sense of lack of importance, a feeling of unease or discord. Your mind may form images of those kinds of situations, where you put them in a box and assume this is who that person is becoming. Whatever you give a lot of energy to, grows. It can create a distance between two people. Those images become like strong judgments…which cause you to start to doubt the intensions of that person. Well, you know where this is going….when you start to doubt their intensions….when you start to not trust them….you will then start to become indifferent to each other. You mute any sense of pain within yourself and any sense of feelings in the relationship….which virtually brings it to an end.

Inability to be with hurt, whether it’s the other persons or your own….the emotions, the charges, the fears, may cause you to not stay in your relationship….which means you will more likely leave sooner than stay to work it out. The totality of your emotions, come to the fore front in a committed relationship of any kind.

In those relationships, can you move toward lesser conflict and more towards greater consciousness? Can you start to see a bigger purpose in all of what is happening? Going from the everyday life stuff of ‘they did me wrong’….to a bigger purpose where ‘what are they showing me on a day to day basis about myself?’ You see, the bigger purpose of relationships….as you grow together…those great qualities that you found so wonderful in the beginning, you may find hard to deal with now. Is it the other person that is getting hard to deal with or are those qualities the issue?

I’ll give you an example. You love how your partner is so gentle and kind with you. You haven’t been treated like that in any other relationship before. Over time, you start to feel agitated when he is gentle with you. You start to get jealous when he is so gentle and kind to other women. It becomes a bother and now an issue within your relationship. What changed? Was it your partner who seems to be the same wonderful kind and gentle partner you know……or did something change in you? You see….as you both grow together in your relationship, your heart starts to soften with the kindness, with the gentleness, and you start to open up to that great wonderful quality in you as well. If you aren’t used to that part of you, it may cause some discomfort. The feeling of jealousy may come from fear…when you start to feel that kindness and gentleness within your own heart, you may then feel the fear of losing it to someone else. Can you clear that within yourself, so jealousy is never an issue again? You bet you can! You only need to find someone like me.

Here's another example. One of the things you love about your partner is how she flows with money. She doesn’t seem to be bogged down with any financial issues at all. You think….wow, someone who doesn’t have a care in the world about money! In the beginning it’s fun to start to flow with money, like you are learning from her! Then along comes one big financial challenge in the marriage and you both have to walk through it. She wants to flow with it like she always does, but for you, now in front of your face are the financial issues, bothers, challenges that seemed to have held you back most of your life. Think of the pain in that. You start to get agitated and frustrated with her because now she’s not being responsible in your eyes….she’s not thinking things through as much as you feel you both need to do…..the list goes on. You start to feel your marriage isn’t working because she’s not listening to anything you say and she’s not this and she’s not that. Who has the issue in your relationship?

If you are both committed to grow together like in a marriage for example, each person has a responsibility to the marriage. If you were going to put it in a triangle, one point is you, one point is your partner and one point of the triad is your marriage. Each point influences the strength of the whole triangle. From my very educated experience…..energetically speaking – the person who has the issue, the bother, the problem with something that is being or not being done……they are the one who has something to clear.

Can You Make Them Do Anything?

My mother-in-law is in the hospital right now after having her knee replacement done. I went to do reflexology on her feet and asked her to lift her leg up so I could put a pillow under her ankle. She couldn't lift her leg by herself. I noticed right away I was bothered by that. She had her knee replacement done 2 weeks ago and she still couldn't lift her leg. We did help her lift her leg so I could work on her feet. This brought about a huge revelation for me. You see, every day when we go in to visit her, I work on her feet and I also do energy work on her. What I came to see was I can do the reflexology and the energy work for her....but I can't do everything for her.

In life, you can help your family and friends and whoever, but you can't do it for them. Energetcially speaking, you can walk beside them, but you can't walk for them. You can help them breath, but you can't breath for them. You can lead them but you can't make them follow. You can only do so much to support the people around you and they have to still take the necessary steps to do for themself. If you find you are the kind of person who is bothered by this....there may be a number of things going on. It can be anything from the need to control the people around you, all the way to you having trouble trusting the process other people have to go through for themself. Those are only a few things this may be showing you.

Even if you make them do 'it' once, you can't make them do it all the time. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. You can show it how, but you can't convince it's the best thing for it. Sometimes in the process, the horse has to try something else before it knows the real value of drinking the water.

They're in my life to show me what?

I got to thinking about growing up! When I was in school, I was on the honor roll and did very well. I was ‘highly recommended’ they called it – which meant I graduated without having to write a final exam. I didn’t have to worry about my smarts. That’s what helped me get to where I wanted to go in life.

What I didn’t have to worry about was my weight! I was ‘chubby’…you know one of those ‘so not like barbie types!’ I remember my weight issues being a real bothersome thing for me growing up. Coming from a family of 6 children, at times I only had one pair of ‘stretchy’ pants. Made me think about wearing out the middle of the legs in my pants and getting teased, wasn’t the greatest feeling.

My sisters were skinny and it used to bother me that I wasn’t. As well, my mom was very heavy and has been most of her life. They were some of the people around me reflecting back to me how I wasn’t happy with my body (you know that part of me that goes everywhere I go).

When I look at my life now, I see something interesting showing up. I am coming to be more at peace with my body and all its wonderment. Along with that peacefulness, comes acceptance of my self. I know I’m less and less judgmental of the size of people and I see that reflected in those around me. I attract more people who are okay with them selves, whether they are skinny or fat. I knew something had changed when I went over to my mom’s and I didn’t even notice what she was wearing (a sign that I didn’t even pay any attention to her body).

When you can be okay with being fat or being skinny, being smart or being dumb, you will not react to things related to them. Regardless of who is around you, you will be okay, which is a sign of being neutral….and that’s the place where you will find peace. The people around you reflect back to you where you are at with anything that is going on in your life. They love and support you enough to show you if there is something there for you to work through. If something bothers you, you can lovingly clear through it.

Relating to others around you...relating to your Self

Let’s look at the relationships around you today. In the relationship with your partner/spouse, how do you relate with each other? In the relationship between you and each one of your children, how do you relate with each other? With every relationship that is important to you, how do you relate with each other? If you are ‘strong’ in relating with each other, your ‘internal dynamics’ will be strong between the two of you. It will mean you will not be affected by the ‘external world’ around you!

If you and your partner/spouse relate strongly with each other, you won’t be affected by for example, the in-laws or friends who may try to influence some part of the relationship between the two of you. The same goes with each one of your children. There will be a ‘strong’ feeling between the two of you. When you come to feel that strength, you can move onto the family unit as a whole. Everyone in the family can relate coming from a place of strength with each other.

Let’s keep moving forward…what about your relationship with God? Are you strong in relating with God? If there is a weakness there, you will feel it. Now, what about your Self? Are you strong in relating with/to your Self? That may sound odd, but I assure you, if you have a weakness with your Self, you will feel it when you think about relating to your Self. By clearing your weaknesses, you will be in a stronger place within your Self….and you will feel it!