If you want to go fast go alone; If you want to go far go together. African saying

Our relationships are a constant source of learning. They offer us everything of value in this life. They take success and make it treble; happiness is given a permanent foundation; giving becomes the ethos of our lives and therefore so does receiving. Love in its many forms becomes manifest and we find our purpose and destiny in this world. The world becomes a realm full of meaning and joy. Can anything else offer you such rewards!

Considering this cornucopia of outcomes, why is it that so many of us shun relationships, or even totally give up on them? So many of us have adjusted and adjusted until we no longer remember why we even started down this road. It is as if we have lost faith, lost faith that any of these great outcomes could be ours. Even last week Susie had a participant in her workshop who claimed to have given up on relationships and others echoed that feeling.

There are 3 foundation stones we need to learn about relationships:

• The first is how consistent this world is, and what consistency does is to make the world safe. Consistency says when we do it right it works out right. It would be very unsafe if we could do it wrong and have it work out well. That level of inconsistency would lead us down a dangerous road. This is what Karma is based on which is to say we get away with nothing. We also need to remember that when things don’t work out it is not the universe punishing us, but instead life is offering us another lesson and our willingness to learn will lead us down the road of happy and successful relationships.

• This brings up the second big lesson in relationships and that is even to start a relationship or develop a relationship we have to surrender our control. Naturally, if we had the courage to give up control then anything could happen, even love! If we choose to maintain control then we will walk a path of boredom, fear and conflict. Many of us believe control will keep us safe but it does not so why do we maintain a strategy that does not deliver? There is no good outcome and if we are willing to give up control we can start to learn, to grow and to build our confidence in ourselves and our ability to handle whatever is dealt to us every day.

• Thirdly, we need to remember that there is nothing that will not heal. Anything can change if we are willing to be a good student. All of us want a great partner but the path to having a great partner means we need to become that great partner first! The first step is to become willing to value our partners, to value our relationships instead of seeing them as the source of our unhappiness.

Of course, there is a lot more to learn as we set off on the path of relationships, but these 3 basics are the starting point. Without them, we lose heart and deprive ourselves of so many rewards. Now would be a great time to give up our god of independence, our god of going alone, and turn towards our true nature, which is love, sharing, generosity, kindness, tenderness and compassion.

With love,