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All relationships are contractual. Often these contracts are unwritten and unsaid- yet they control most of the experiences of the relationship. We are typically not consciously aware of what we have agreed to with this person. During this wintertime of introspection, we may become aware that a relationship that is not working for us and may seek to change the relationship. When we change the way that we act in a relationship, we break the existing contracts that we had with

All things affect. Continuing with the seasonal theme of introspection and reevaluating our lives, it is essential to consider how the environments we expose ourselves to affect us. Environments include our home, neighborhood, workplace, relationship, friendships, and social arenas. One of the stories that we tell ourselves is that we live in a vacuum and the environments we experience do not affect much. We can handle it. We are tough and resilient. We have good boundaries.

Choosing and understanding the nature of your forthcoming interactions is essential. Once you have set up your interaction properly, it is vitally important to let go and surrender to the experience. I picture this as pushing your boat in the right direction before you let go and experience where the river takes you. Most of us are good at one or the other. Some of us are good at planning our interactions. These "planners" set up everything just right, but often do not get ou

One of my all-time favorite metaphors is that of the rose. It has beauty and delicateness, but also thorns. My interpretation is that with beauty comes pain. With the love and the unfoldment of beauty with another human comes inevitable pain. They are a package deal. We can't care that deeply with another and expect to not get hurt. Most of us have been hurt or betrayed by loving someone. We seek the love and beauty that comes from exposing our hearts and becoming vulnerable,

What is sacred to us are the things that are most important to us. When we share these parts of ourselves we become exposed and vulnerable. We have an emotional and spiritual need to share these sacred things with people. This is what intimacy and closeness are. I refer to this as allowing them into our "sacred space." It seems that something so important and vulnerable as allowing someone into your sacred space ought to have some ground rules. The number one parameter for so

Up until a couple of hundred years ago, Native American tribes of the plains were dependent on the Buffalo for food and survival. They used every part of the buffalo for sustenance. If a person were to see a herd of buffalo on the plains, the first thing that he or she would do is go back and tell the whole clan of the herd so that all could eat. They would get a hunting party together much like depicted in the hunt scene in Dances with Wolves. They would hunt together and ki

Most of us have experienced a power struggle in a relationship. No fun. But what is it really about? Many power struggles with couples are about each trying to get the other to come into their world. The stronger or more determined of the two usually wins. The loser resents the winner; the winner loses respect for the loser. How about a choice c.? What if a couple created a new world together. The new world would be different than either of your individual worlds. It would be

Wherever we spend our holidays says which family is most important to us. Whichever family gets the most priority during the holidays is our primary family. What is the important part of my holiday and with whom I spend that? Do we go to their house, or do they come to ours? Where is Thanksgiving dinner? Where do we open our presents? Our primary family is what we see ourselves to be most a part of. It is where we feel that we most belong. What we are most strongly a part of

We want people to be who we need them to be. It doesn't seem to matter to us if it is something that they want to be. It doesn't even seem to matter if it is something they are able to be. Yet when they turn out to not be who we needed them to be, we feel hurt and betrayed. We are disappointed over and over again. What if we trusted people to be who they are? We if we discovered who they are? If we went beyond our preconceptions and who we needed them to be, and honestly look

The Grateful Dead song, Foolish Heart, written by Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia, came into my head to help me understand a vital lesson. The main lyrics are, "But never give your heart my friend unto a foolish heart." I had been sharing tender, vulnerable things about myself to critical people. Spiritual teacher, Bart Anderson, shocked me one day by saying, "They don't deserve your heart." This seemed to go against everything that I had learned from him. He continued, "Well,

Most of our relationships have become casual. We allow them to evolve without thinking about how we want them to be. We do not take the time to maintain them or keep them on track. What if... we invested some time to define our relationships by thinking about and deciding what we want them to be. We could ask ourselves: What am I looking for in this relationship? Then, we could set "parameters" (like limits) to keep that definition intact. Whenever one of us starts to deviate

"You only allow as much love as you feel like you deserve." This is a quote by Bart Anderson, a spiritual teacher that I studied with for many years. So what happens when we experience more love than we are comfortable with? We push it away. In other words, we push people away when they are trying to love us. When someone is getting closer than we are comfortable with, we push them away. We all do it. Relationships naturally build love and intimacy if we do not obstruct them.