Priceless Relationship Advice
Hello everyone.
This week I've been asked to talk about relationships.
And people asked me
what I thought the best piece of advice
for having a good relationship is.
So today I'm gonna share that with you.
We are all potential energy.
So it's a good thing
to recognize the potential
that's inherent with anything or anyone.
The problem comes when we base our relationships
off of potential,
instead of off of what really is.
It's been drilled into your head by our human society,
that the heroes and heroines are the partners and spouses
that see the potential in someone,
even when they don't see it in themselves.
Society would have you believe that those partners and spouses
are the very reason that they make it to their goals.
This is not an accurate portrayal.
These spouses are not in love with what their lovers could be,
they are actually in love with what the person is.
Here's an example;
You may have watched the movie "Time Traveler's Wife",
it made me cry so hard I couldn't see straight.
Society would have you believe
that Claire is a heroin because she sticks by Henry side
despite how difficult it is
to be married to someone who disappears,
sometimes for weeks at a time,
before your very eyes
and mostly at inopportune moments.
Society would have you believe
that she stays by his side for the promise or the potential
that someone can cure this genetic disorder
that causes him to spontaneously time travel.
But, this is not the case.
The only reason Claire did not end up divorcing Henry,
is because despite the difficulty
of being left alone with no notice whatsoever,
she fell in love with Henry as a time traveler.
She fell in love with who he is and what he is.
We all see these stories during the Olympics,
of an athlete who is surrounded by a spouse, or by a partner,
or by a family member who stuck by them,
regardless of how hard it was to struggle
and now they have a gold medal.
Society would have you believe
that the reason that these relationships worked,
is because that spouse or partner, family member
believed in them.
And believed in the potential for the gold medal,
even when they didn't have the gold medal.
But this is also not the case.
The truth is the spouse, partner or family member
may have had faith in the athletes ability,
but what they were actually in love with,
was who the athlete was right then and there.
So sticking with the example of the athlete,
the spouse of the athlete, that is a happy spouse,
is not in love with them because of the potential
of them being a gold medalist one day.
They are in love with them because of their drive
and ambition and how tight they hold to a dream.
With or without a gold medal this is who they are.
So the spouse can be happy right here and now,
regardless of whether the promise of a gold medal
comes true or never comes true.
The only way that a relationship will ever be enjoyable,
is if the love who somebody is right here and now
outweighs the promise of who they could be.
The only way a relationship will work out long term,
is if you have fallen in love
with who they are right now.
if you were to freeze them in time
and nothing ever changed about them,
instead of who they told you they could be.
or who you think they could be, or would be.
Our problem is that we start out our relationships
banking on futures.
We bank on the potential of someone
instead of the actuality.
So in the beginning we feel a lot of promise
relative to our future.
We're excited for it.
And the promise of a happy future,
makes our current reality easier to live with.
The problem is sooner or later
we all own up to where we are.
And when we're looking at where we are,
we feel the lack of the person that we actually want to be with.
Instead we're stuck with the person we don't want to be with.
Who we were thinking we wanted to be with based on the potential
that they could be, who we wanted to be with one day.
In other words,
our illusion is shattered.
This is especially true when we've fallen for somebody
who happens to be a rainbow seller personality type.
To explain a rainbow seller personality type,
i'm going to give you a scenario which is rich with metaphor.
A rainbow seller personality type,
is a type of person who can not love themselves
for who they are.
They only love themselves for what they could be
or will be one day.
It is as if their merit and worth
is on the other side of the rainbow.
They don't really believe in themselves
and after years of chasing that pot
at the end of the rainbow to no avail,
they no longer believe
that they can reach that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
So they asked you to believe that they can reach it,
for them.
They sell you on the idea that there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
They promised you all kinds of things,
that even they don't truely think they can achieve.
Because they become convinced that maybe with your support
and your belief in them,
they might actually be able to reach the pot at the end of the rainbow.
and enjoy that part of gold awaiting them.
And for a while you get to share in the excitement of the chase.
for a while you believe there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow also.
in fact you're in a relationship with them
for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
And when you begin to notice that the end of the rainbow
just keeps moving and receding and receding,
and you finally notice that you don't like where you are very much.
you start to doubt that there is in fact
a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
And then a funny thing happens,
you blame them for it.
Not only do you blame them for it,
you punish them for it.
Not only do you punish them for it,
they punish you for it.
They get really really angry
and usually self-destructive.
And try to make you think you have betrayed them.
They will shame you and guilt you
into thinking that you are a bad person
for losing faith in the endeavor.
Eventually we're left calling ourselves stupid.
we feel like we are in fact, a bad person
for abandoning the dream and abandoning them.
And the relationship ends all the same.
Or worse, we stay in a miserable relationship
of mutual punishment and dissatisfaction,
for the rest of our lives, and die some disease
that our body has manifested because of it.
This is what we do when the illusion starts to crumble.
first, we blame them for illusion,
then we blame them for the fact that the illusion is crumbling.
And then, we have resentment
and we punish them for the fact that they aren't living up to
what we want them to be.
This is especially true
because we live in a society that teaches us
that some desires that we have
especially relative to relationships aren't appropriate.
When I say that society has convinced you
that wanting certain things in a partner is inappropriate,
what I mean is,
society tells you it's inappropriate
to want something like physical beauty,
or want something like money and support financially
from a partner.
So I'm going to give you some very stereotypical
examples of how this goes.
Scenario 1. Is a woman who wants to be with a man
that has lots of money.
She loves the feeling of being provided for
and being with someone who is successful.
But society tells her that this is a shallow
and therefore inappropriate desire.
Society calls her a gold digger.
So she does not hold out for a wealthy man,
instead she settles for men with no money.
But whom promised her that they will have money
and will financially support her.
She settles for men that sell her rainbows.
She does not realize that these men
would not actually prioritize money
if they were left to their own devices.
Instead they're trying to gain money for her.
Eventually she will realize that they are getting nowhere,
because the motivation doesn't come organically
from within this men.
It comes entirely from her.
She starts to feel duped.
She begins to vent her frustrations about them,
and lose faith in them.
And the men begin to feel resentful
because they realize that she does not love them.
for who they are right here and now.
she "only wants them for money",
which isn't the case.
It's just that she's fallen in love with the potential
of what they could be one day, instead of what they are.
And she still wants the kind of man that she wants,
which just so happens to be a wealthy man.
Scenario 2. Is a man that wants to be with a woman
who is physically gorgeous.
He loves the feeling of getting butterflies in the stomach
when he's near her.
He loves the feeling of other men giving him props
for being with such a beautiful woman.
But society says that this is an inappropriate desire.
Society calls him a dick or a misogynist.
So he does not hold out for physically attractive woman.
Instead he settles.
He settles for women
who have some attractive qualities about them,
But he spends his time trying to get her to join exercise programs,
or trying to get her to get her hair done.
He finds himself watching other women
who he finds beautiful when his partners is there,
and in turn she feels unappreciated and ugly.
He subscribes to pornography websites,
because he has no sex drive relative to the woman
he's supposed to be in a long-term relationship with.
He is dissatisfied.
He begins to vent his frustrations about her,
and she becomes resentful.
She believes that she is worthless because she isn't pretty enough.
Which is not the case.
It's just that he has fallen in love with the potential
of what she could look like one day.
And not what she really looks like right now.
And he still wants what he wants.
Which just so happens to be a drop-dead gorgeous woman.
But perhaps the most prominent way
that we exhibit this tendency,
is relative to people who have "problems".
We like to get into relationships
or stay in relationships with people,
because of the potential that one day they might stop beating us.
We like to get into relationships
or stay in relationships based on the potential
that one day they might get off drugs.
We like to get into relationships
and stay in relationships based on the potential
that one day they might be happy.
But we haven't really owned up to the fact
that we don't want to be in a relationship right now
with a person that has those problems.
The only reason we're staying in this relationship
or getting into it, is because of the promise
that this person could be different.
Because of the promise that their problems could be solved one day.
We're in love with an illusion,
not with what is.
Because you can't force yourself
to not want something that you want,
it is impossible for you to convince yourself
not to want what you want in another partner.
To do this is to buck the current of your own expansion.
It is our desires which are fueling the expansion
of this universe.
And that's the purpose of life itself.
But it just so happens that those of us
who have a difficulty
with getting into relationships based on what is,
those of us who instead get into relationships based on potential,
is that most of us
think it's either inappropriate to want what we truly want,
or we feel like we don't deserve
what we really want.
The person who you want to be with,
is the person who is already
what you want before you came into their life.
That's how to know that the desire to be that thing
comes organically from within them,
instead of a desire to be what you want them to be.
We fall into this trap easily
when we have insecurities relative to ourselves.
When we have self-worth issues.
Those of us with self-worth issues,
will knock ourselves over to become
what someone else wants us to be.
Instead of really being ourselves
and allowing ourselves
to end up in a relationship with someone who actually
would love us for exactly who we are.
Instead of trying to bend and cater ourselves
to what someone else wants us to be.
Take a good look at your partner.
If you froze them in time and space,
and for the rest of your relationship they were exactly like this.
This temperament, these looks,
this much money,
would you want to be with them?
Or would you not want to be with them?
If not, you cannot be in a relationship with that person,
and be happy at the same time long-term.
You cannot get them to be responsible
for your happiness, by trying to change them
into what you want them to be.
Now take a good look at yourself.
If you were to freeze yourself
in space and time,
and to be right where you are for the rest of your life,
with exactly these looks,
with exactly these talents,
with this job,
with this amount of money,
would you still love yourself?
If not, we have to learn how to love ourself.
And we run the very real risk
of selling people on rainbows,
instead of presenting ourselves the way we actually are.
Fall in love with what is, not what could be.
This doesn't make you a person of little faith.
You can still have faith in someone.
Just don't base your decision
to be in a relationship with someone off of faith.
Because if you do,
you aren't really loving them.
Your loving only what they could be.
And don't expect yourself
to have an enjoyable relationship with anyone,
if you dislike who they are right now.
You have fallen in love with an illusion.
You have fallen in love with something that does not exist.
All there is, is now.
The past does not exist,
and the future does not exist.
And eventually you will find yourself owning up to the now,
and all you will see relative to your partner,
is the lack of what you want them to be.
You can't get yourself to not want what you want.
like I said earlier in this program,
it is to buck the current of your own expansion.
The best that you can do,
is to try to figure out why
you want the things that you want.
Because doing that brings you closer to your truest desires.
Doing that brings you closer
to the very desire which you have expressed.
And no matter what society says,
you can want whatever it is that you want.
It is appropriate to want anything
that you want in a partner.
And if anyone tells you otherwise,
it's because they have an insecurity
relative to what you want.
Either they don't think they are those things.
Or they don't want you to want those things
so you can be with them, instead.
Most people in society
would rather tell you that you shouldn't desire what you desire.
So that they don't feel bad about themselves and invalidated.
And take it from me,
falling in love with the potential of what somebody could be,
is a recipe for relationship disaster.
And think of it this way,
you don't want someone to love you
for what you could be,
any more than they want to be loved for what they could be.
have a good week.
Subtitles by: Bodhi Shin & Tanya Duarte