Relationships are Opportunities
Relationships are opportunities to express yourself physically,
and gratitude is acknowledgement of an opportunity taken.
How do you see yourself in relationship to all others and your
environment? Do you see yourself, as kind/cruel, loving/hateful,
generous/stingy, peaceful/restless or something else?
If you know yourself as one of these, then you will have a
desire to express yourself in some way.
Relationships are opportunities to express these aspects of
self. An opportunity is nothing more than a time and place to
demonstrate that you are a kind person or a cruel person or
whatever. All of life needs to express itself, and getting
involved with another is that opportunity that you have drawn to
yourself to say "here I am," "I am kind," "I am cruel," or
anything else that you wish to express.
This is the purpose of the relative world. It is the forum, the
time and place to experience what you believe that you are and
to declare it.
Personal relationships with lovers, partners, family,
relatives, friends and strangers facilitate expression of your
being. Without relationships you would be nothing because you
could not express yourself and you could not declare that you
are one thing or the other.
You cannot demonstrate love unless you have the opportunity to
experience love, and you cannot say that you are loving unless
you have the opportunity to be loving.
With the opportunity to express oneself in a relationship comes
the responsibility to express gratitude for the opportunity.
Gratitude is merely an acknowledgement of having a thing. It is
a declaration of ownership.
If you have received a thing, then you must acknowledge it
before it becomes yours. "I am grateful," merely says that I
have received what I desired.
All relationships work, because they are opportunities to
express yourself positively or negatively. They may be accepted
or rejected, but nevertheless they are opportunities and they
must be acknowledged through gratitude. It is the human
condition to say that a relationship worked or it didn't, but at
a different perspective all relationships work. With this higher
thought, one begins to see all of life as a giant buffet. One
begins to see abundance and opportunity in an endless sea of
choices. And because this new awareness sets one free to choose,
you will always see opportunity and welcome relationships, good
or bad!
Marriage and divorce are such opportunities. They are perfect
times to express your higher self and your darkest side. Close
partnerships bring the best opportunities because they are the
closest and most difficult to turn away from. There is urgency
to react to the issues at hand because they are in your face.
They are wonderful opportunities to act or react in your own
best interest. The person in you life that you are at odds with
the most, offers you the greatest opportunity to demonstrate who
you are.
"Good or bad," "right or wrong," are poor ways to describe
relationships. All relationships are good, and all relationships
work for you, even if it is an opportunity to walk away from
them. And all of these opportunities are drawn to you by
yourself because of your desire to express yourself.
The driver that cuts you off in traffic brings opportunity for
you to react. At that moment at some level of your consciousness
you need to experience, anger, pity, tolerance or understanding.
This careless driver is an Angel (opportunity) that you asked
for, whether you can fully appreciate it in the moment or not.
In a higher state of awareness you would bless him/her for their
gift (opportunity) to you.
Even in so called failing relationships there are just as many
opportunities to express or experience yourself because there
really is no such thing as a failing relationship. There is only
an opportunity for you to see that the relationship as failing
or not. There are new opportunities here to restore the
relationship, walk away from it or turn it into something even
better or worse. There is a chance to suffer in it or rise above
it.
Physical love is a poor reason to enter into a relationship
blindly. Love is life, and life moves. Unless the partners are
prepared to grow in a relationship it is doomed to fail in
physical terms. Relationships must always be a declaration of
self growth and opportunity.
Over time, physical love may no longer be experienced but the
opportunities for growth never dies and one may still be able to
express gratitude for the opportunity that the partner has
brought them. If relationships are seen as opportunities then it
is always a win/win experience for all persons involved.
Relationships are also opportunities for one to reflect on
self. If you can put yourself into the position of the silent
observer, you can reflect on your experience and make
adjustments to your thoughts about all the issues that came up.
You can choose to see the relationship as only positive and
beneficial to you.
Relationships that are seen as only good or bad, right or wrong
are doomed to only those choices. Seen as opportunities, they
all become beneficial and good. Relationships cannot be
experienced as good or beneficial until they are acknowledged
through an expression of gratitude.