Awareness + Look for the New + Forgiveness = a Start to Wonderful Relationship

WONDERFUL RELATIONSHIP
This month, on April 29, Sunday, from 12 to 6, with an hour off for lunch at 2, I'll be hosting a workshop on how to have or move toward (if you are single) a Wonder-Full relationship.(See Current Offerings) To build background for this workshop, the Monday essays in Slow Sonoma will be on relationship this month. .

(The blog essays will now be once a week, on Mondays in here, on Wednesdays at WakeUp Feldenkrais, and on Fridays at The Health Blog).

So, let's start with three fine ingredients in having or attracting a Wonderful Relationship.

BE PRESENT.
This sounds so simple, and is the key to a wonderful life as well as a wonderful relationship, and yet we forget this so often.

When we are present, we actually listen to, look at, enjoy and pay attention to the person with whom we are spending time. If this is our partner, then we will be allowing them to be themselves, and will be giving ourselves a chance to enjoy the miracle of their being alive and in our life.

If we are single, to pay real attention to others is to allow them to show themselves at their best, and who knows, one of these people might show themselves to be someone we could really enjoy.

Notice how in speaking we so often lose the present by talking inside our heads the words we want to say next even while the other person is still talking. So we aren't in the moment, we aren't with them, we are stuck on ourselves and don't know them, and can't really learn about them. By not being present, we lose the ability to listen, and when we can't listen, we can't really connect.

No listening = no love.

Also, and this is HUGE:
if we are present, we can be giving ourselves attention, attention to our breathing, attention to being in our bones and skin and shape and connections, attention to the sights and sounds and delights of now. And, when we are giving ourselves real attention, especially when we are sensing ourselves, we aren't going to be in the oh so pitifully normal state of humanity
of striving to get attention from others outside us.

If we can have our attention on ourselves, then we can love another, or enjoy another, instead of just wanting, waiting, scheming and demanding of their attention for us.

So, be present.


BE EXCITED ABOUT NEWNESS
Now, in an old marriage or relationship, this can be greatly underappreciated. We can take the other for granted, or even worse, only be looking at them to do the same old wrong thing again. We have them pegged, and all we do is look for proof that they are going to show their rotten colors again. This obviously is a recipe for hell on earth, but taking each other for granted is a recipe for a dull and lifeless life.

What is new?

What haven't we noticed?

What is unique and alive and excited in the person with whom we are spending time?

Again, if we are single and this is a "new person," this search for the new and unexpected and the fresh could pay wonderful dividends.


LEARN A WAY OF FORGIVENESS
OR: LEARN TO LEAVE BEHIND THE STORY.
This is the Work of Byron Katie, or any other system you know of forgiving, and that forgiving can't be of the snobby, I'm right and you're wrong and I'm going to deign to let up a little on my barrage of hatred and criticism. Forgiveness to be real has to come almost to a smile or a laugh of joy that the so called "bad" thing, wasn't the thing, but was our own inner reaction to this.

In other words, someone says some harsh thing about us. If they are bad, evil, on our poop list for this, then we are carrying a burden in our heart. If we have phony forgiveness and decide to like them even if they are bad, we are still separated from and feeling superior to them. If we do the Work, and see that those were just words, and our reactions inside to the words is what is causing the pain, then we can laugh and be free.

And love again.

This could be theoretical, but isn't if we doing the Katie work. See the many essays herein, or go to thework.com.

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PLEASE BE WELL:


Pleasure
Ease
Awareness
Sensitive Strength
Enlightenment

BE

Waking up to now.
Embracing Change.
Learning to learn.
Loving to move, improve and transform.