I'm totally fascinated with the ups and downs of interpersonal relationships.  Mine and everybody else's. 

Tony Robbins says that the reason that relationships are so important, is because they magnify the human experience.  I think that's it exactly. Think about it.  Relationships are the areas of our lives in which we feel our highest highs and our lowest lows.  They bring us our greatest joy and bring up all of our craziness.

I think Marianne Williamsons' stuff is great for giving you some perspective on why relationships can be so challenging - - and how to make them more peaceful. 

She talks a lot about the idea that ultimately there are only two human emotions: "love" and "fear".  She says that all of the negative emotions that we (or people around us) experience, are ultimately (at their core) really about fear. 

Tony Robbins takes this idea a bit further and says that all human fears ultimately boil down to fear of two things:

• That we are not enough (and/or)
• That we will lose someone's love

Williamson operates from the framework that all people are essentially good (I believe that).  In her view basic human nature is about being kind and loving to one another, but all too often it gets covered up by our fear. 

When fear dominates a person's perceptions they tend to act in ways that may hurt or disappoint us.  In other words, whenever someone behaves "badly" (as we perceive it) -- it is because their fear has been kicked up and they've forgotten who they "really" are.  In other words, they have lost touch with the love that is within them.   For some people this "forgetting" is just acute, for others it is chronic

She also says, that the places where we fall short of being our best are not the areas in which we're "bad", but where we're wounded.   Fear is the what is underneath the emotional scabs that have been knocked off someone causing them to react to people (and situations) in ways that aren't their highest and most compassionate.

But here is the most interesting thing...she says that all relationships (short term or long, intimate or otherwise) are "learning assignments".  Some of the people that you meet just bring up your love and some people you meet bring up your fear.  But the people who bring up your fear are really your best teachers.  They provide opportunities for growth.  They stretch your comfort zones and challenge your perceptions. Essentially, they hold a mirror up to you showing you the areas in which you are not healed of old wounds. 

The very fact that they can bring up your bad behavior shows you that there is an area where you are not a peace with some aspect of yourself.  An area that you probably have to do some work on so that you won't be in reaction to them or anyone else.   Usually this work involves some serious introspection and some pain that you need to work though.  These are the growing pains of personal development.

Williamson uses an analogy that I love.  She compares the personal growth through human relationships to how rough gem stones are polished into gems. 

Rough gem stones have sharp, jagged edges...and the way that they are made smooth and turned into beautiful gems is by putting them in close proximity (in a bag or machine) with other rough gems and having them rub up against each other until they are smooth. 

That's human relationships...rubbing your edges against someone else's...hopefully, so that all that rubbing will scrap off the roughness and make you smoother.

Once your "edges are smoother", you are a lot less likely to get caught up against someone else jagged edges.   Sure, there might still be some small "surface scratches"...but its a far less dramatic (and painful) process.

Well, you may be thinking...that sounds all well and good, but what specifically are you supposed to do to get to the place where you have "fewer rough edges"  So, here is my paraphrasing (with some poetic license) of some of her suggestions for what to do when some of the "learning assignments" in your life are providing more "educational opportunities" than you might want.

• Open your mind to the very real possibility that your perceptions may be wrong.  Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our need to be right and our own hurt and outrage --that we aren't open to other ways of seeing the situation.  Be open to alternate points of view, mull them around in your mind.  In fact, if possible take the opposite view point and argue FOR it in your mind. 
• Keep in mind that a person is NOT their behavior. Which is not to suggest that you should ignore bad behavior -- particularly if its directed at you.  Of course, you don't have to stick around someone who is treating you in disrespectful ways.  But DO try view the behavior as separate from the individual. It's the whole, "hate the sin, not the sinner" thing.
• Don't take things personally.  People are rarely doing things to hurt you intentionally.  They are doing things often because they are hurting, their fear was kicked up and in that moment they didn't know what else to do, so they attacked or acted in less than loving ways.
• Don't judge.  Everybody has the right to live their own life.  We may not like it.  We may not even want stick around to be a part of it.  We have every right to let them know in no uncertain terms that it doesn't work for us.  But we should try not to impose the values that we use to live our own lives on another.
• Don't try to change another person.  A lot of what we think of as love (of any type) often involves trying to control another person's behavior.  Often we try to manipulate them (either consciously or subconsciously) through guilt (usually) to get them to behave the way we want them to, -- because (naturally) we know what is best for them.  That is not really love...that is probably closer to hate.  You aren't accepting them as they are, you are making value judgements -- and worst of all, you have a personal agenda for how they are "supposed' to be. 
• Try to love the best and highest in the other person (regardless of their behavior) and be a "safe space" for them.  We get tripped up more when we are in the presence of people who are expecting us to trip up.  Conversely, when we see our value and beauty reflected back in the eyes of people who love us unconditionally (regardless of our behavior) it makes us want to "step up" and be the best we can be.  Hopefully, not just to please the other person, but rather because it reminds us of our own untapped potential for greatness.

I love reading this stuff, I listen to it in my car, I think about it alot.  I guess I understand it pretty well.  However, like all of us when things come up in my personal relationships that knock me for a bit of a loop...I forget all of that stuff for a second (okay, sometimes more than a second) and I have to go back over all of it to remind myself not to react from my own fear. 

It's not always easy for sure...but I'm learning.

Home    My Blog    My Bio   My Articles    Reader Reviews  The Best Me Ever! 


My Book   Fit Foods   Check Out My New DVD!

Contact Me