Love The One You're With

Have you ever wanted to change someone? A parent, spouse, child, lover, co-worker, or friend? If they just behaved a little differently, or responded to you more lovingly, you could be happier. Their shortcomings are so obvious, you think, there must be a way to change them.

What may be less obvious is that your loved ones are mirrors for you - what you don't like in them is a direct reflection of what you reject or deny in yourself. By trying to change them, you are actually running away from yourself.

Unfortunately, when you reject a part of yourself and push away what "is", you lose the capacity to experience fully. You begin creating compensatory strategies (perhaps subtle or unconscious) to screen, filter, judge, or edit parts of your story line to avoid the things you don't like. In an effort to protect yourself from facing the distasteful parts, you keep your heart closed and your feelings muted. You don't fully embrace the moment, you don't fully smell the rose, you don't fully taste your food, you miss the essence and nuance of your experience.

So how can you keep your heart open? The answer is simple but not easy. Accept yourself no matter who you are. Accept your shortcomings rather than running away from your experience. Accept that you are the wretched, jealous, control freak you despised in your last relationship. Accept that you are the shy, meek person who is always getting used, or you are the cruel bully who manipulates people to get what you want. Accept that you are the greedy, hoarding miser that helps yourself before helping others, and you are desperate, destitute bum who has nothing.

Now take a deep breath and sit with this for a moment. I know many of you will be rejecting this notion outright, but others will find immense freedom in this place. Move your attention into the heart and see if you can expand it wide enough to hold it all. Move into the fullness of experience as-is, without analysis or filtering - there is nothing good or bad that cannot be included. You are the infinite. You are That.

A huge sigh of relief comes when you no longer need to resist all the self-perceived flaws you've been holding at bay. It takes tremendous energy to keep all our imperfections hidden. But let me share a little secret: your flaws are no secret. Despite the Herculean efforts you exert to feign perfection by hiding your flaws, it is actually in accepting imperfection that perfection is ultimately recognized. The Divine created every virtue and every vice. Nothing exists without the complicity of the Divine Will. By humbly acknowledging this, and by accepting ourselves with great love and an open heart, we can merge our individual will with the Divine Will without conflict.

"How you are" is the divine plan. You are part of the supreme consciousness. If you tune into this higher consciousnesses within you, you will recognize yourself as the whole. You become infinite.

With acceptance comes the ability to relate to others with compassion. Everyone you pass by on the street - you are that. Everyone you love and everyone you disdain - you are that. The infinite has differentiated itself into the many forms of this world, but is non-different from them. God is infused in every person, place and thing. You are the infinite.

When your heart can hold it all, then you have merged with the ONE heart...and you can truly love the ONE you're with.

Comments

[Jonahson]

There is an old saying of the Malays in South East Asia that you can bend a bamboo when it is young. Once grown even strong wind cannot change its direction.
There is another saying in chinese that you can change a mountain but you cannot change a person's character.
You can guide a person when he is young. Once he absorb all those experiences and influences around him his ego is formed and he has his own view and perception of things . Only you can change your own character. When the child grows up, you can only hope he will be alright, parents will always show compassion to their child. No matter how old a person grows up to be, a mother will always see him/her as her child.

[djwfutbol]

You lost me. If my kid leaves his crap everywhere, how is it a reflection of me? I pick my stuff up.

If my wife can only manage to work six hours a day towards the general welfare of the family, how does it stem somehow from me when I put in fourteen hours? How come I'm always the one who has to do all the work only to discover that they can't be bothered to lift a hand?

If I come home full of affection and compliments, gifts in hand, with the hope of a little reciprocal lovin', how am I to blame if I meet a cold shoulder and a cold bed? Is menopause my fault?

Why should it always be me to find enlightment? Why am I always the one who must change?

[Riverwolf]

Stacey is completely on target (as usual)! I know there are some naysayers, but I have experienced this opening of my consciousness over the last year. It"s been a very difficult one for me and my partner. However, what has made it wonderful has been those moments when I stop denying my faults and stop trying to change him. He experienced a stroke, and things have changed forever. They will never be the same, so I"m confronted with the hard reality of my inability to change anything about the situation except my response. And that"s what Stacey is talking about. It isn"t really my partner that"s the problem, but it"s my flaws, if you will, in how I cope and express myself in all parts of life. His stroke is my mirror.

As Stacey says, we are all flawed. When you accept that, surprisingly, you begin to see everyone as beautiful. Each person you pass on the street, in the office, in the store"all beautiful, all worthy. And it opens up your heart to compassion, not only for others but also yourself.

This doesn"t excuse abusive behavior in relationships. However, I think it exposes how people can feed off one another"s flaws. We often blame the other person without realizing that we make our own choices every day, choices that allow the relationship to continue or which can potentially end it. There is always a way out of any relationship, if we are simply willing to take that step.

[belikejeanvaljean]

""How you are" is the divine plan. You are part of the supreme consciousness. If you tune into this higher consciousnesses within you, you will recognize yourself as the whole. You become infinite. "

How does she know this is true? What is her basis for saying this? Is this simply her thought or feeling at this moment or is this based upon some very specific age-old wisdom? What if someone else believes something different? Who is right?

[True]

Another great article.

Thank you for your commitment to articulating "your" message.

[ordinaryguy]

NO NO NO NO!!

sometimes it actually IS the other person. pop psycho-babble BS.

[Crowhaul]

Agreed. And what's with this 'Divine Will' nonsense? It's a little embarrassing to see this kind of drivel still being bantered about...