We have learned that when it comes to waking up together in our relationships, we are all in training, and that our attempts to be patient and kind with those we love will inevitably go through the natural growing pains of \u201ctrial and error.\u201d You could almost say that getting \u201cknocked down\u201d is how we learn to give up parts of us that \u201clead with their chin!\u201d<\/p>\n
Not only are we going to find ourselves set back on our heels when we run into some of the unseen limitations in our partner, but this will happen even more so…when we encounter similar blockages in ourselves. But we can learn to see these unwanted moments for what they have always been in reality: \u201con the job\u201d training. The more evident becomes this truth \u2013 that our relationships are the way love works to \u201cexercise\u201d us \u2013 the more we are inwardly strengthened by our discoveries, and gradually empowered to love one another more perfectly.<\/p>\n
As just one example, if we know that our partner is \u201cin training,\u201d then we are a lot less likely to blame them for falling down on the job of caring for us. So not only are we able to forgive our partner for failing to meet our expectations, but at the same time, we\u2019re also empowered to forgive ourselves whenever we see ourselves come up short, having missed some intended mark.<\/p>\n
Such moments \u2013\u00a0of realizing that neither we, nor our partner are as we\u2019ve imagined ourselves to be \u2013\u00a0are shocking, at best. But let\u2019s be perfectly clear: love can no more be discouraged by what it serves to reveal in us…than can the sun be shamed into not shining!<\/p>\n
This last idea can\u2019t be stated strongly enough: when it comes to our wish \u2013 and work \u2013 to learn how to love unconditionally, all forms of discouragement are a lie; they are a misbegotten creation of an unconscious level of self whose intent \u2013 as expressed by the disheartened way it wants us to feel \u2013 is to make us believe that meeting these limitations in ourselves is the same as the end of love\u2019s possibilities. Use the following example to prove to yourself why this, and any such form of discouragement is utter nonsense!<\/p>\n
Can you remember the first time you ever tried to run a mile, or to work out with a set of weights heavier than what you may have used before? Let me refresh your memory, as needed.<\/p>\n
The moment you pressed your body to go beyond its present level of conditioning, it started \u201cscreaming\u201d at you; a \u201csound\u201d we all know in one way or another: lungs gasping for air, heart pounding out of our chest, weary arms aching with fatigue. But why would we deliberately take our body up to and through such a threshold, especially one that brings this kind of suffering, as it always seems to do?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s by design: we understand there\u2019s only one way to make ourselves physically stronger: we must pay the \u201cprice\u201d for each new level of endurance and strength that we would make our own. That\u2019s the whole purpose of working to train our body: to rise above whatever its present limitation, in order to realize the next higher level of our potential at that point in time. And then, to do it all over again, should that be our wish.<\/p>\n
And so it is …when it comes to the \u201cexercise\u201d of waking up together.<\/p>\n
Nothing in the universe can stop us from letting go and loving our partner unconditionally, because the higher love we seek has \u201cgone before us\u201d to prepare the way. But what love has prepared for us doesn\u2019t mean that we don\u2019t have to prepare to receive its power to perfect us, and our relationships.<\/p>\n
We have work to do.<\/p>\n
And right now is always the right time to get started.<\/p>\n