The Reflective Principle of Relationships

Conscious Life: How to turn relationship conflict into personal growth.

My wife Shirley and I have been married for almost 27 years and, like most married couples, we’ve had our fair share of disagreements during our journey together. However, it wasn’t until we were more than 10 years into our marriage that I noticed a characteristic of relationships that I’ve since used to grow more loving in my marriage and all my other relationships.

In the early 2000s, I started to experience what some call a spiritual awakening, when a business challenge arose that seemed beyond my control, forcing me to become open to outside (or actually “inside”) help. I had been working with a non-US client for more than 2 years to get their product into the US market and our distributor had landed a sale to a 400 unit big box retail chain. However, my client got cold feet and decided to increase prices by 50%, cancelling the deal, and set his attorneys onto my business to force cancellation of our contract.
I was stunned by this turn of events, realized I was in a “no win” situation, but still had to try to minimize the financial and reputational costs of my client’s lawsuit. I was reminded by Shirley that this was the third time something like this had happened to me, each with different counter-parties, different circumstances, but in each case I had done valuable work yet did not receives the fruits of my work. I realized that the only common factor in these situations was me, and decided to accept that somehow I might be attracting this relationship pattern.
Within 24-48 hours of accepting this, another client of mine called me to tell me about an exciting new development in his life. He had come across what seemed to be a breakthrough personal growth technique he described as energy healing. This technique worked with the energy meridians, being a blend of acupressure and psychology, and could be used by anyone to reduce or overcome emotional problems and limiting beliefs. Having just realized that I could have one or more limiting beliefs, his revelation piqued my interest. It turned out there was a workshop that weekend in Los Angeles, and Shirley and I decided to go and learn this technique.

When we returned from this event, I decided to experiment with my new skill by applying it to my relationship with my soon to be ex-client. After some trial and error, I discovered that his emotions towards me were present in my energy field and could be transformed using this process. As I focused on our relationship, I could feel the intensity of my client’s feelings and, as I applied this technique, I felt that intensity drain away. After having done so, this situation, that had been burning a hole in my bank account through legal fees, suddenly became less and less heated, and I didn’t need to spend another dime on it to make it go away.
As I turned my attention to studying human energy, I eventually realized that all relationships have a reflective quality, and that this can be used as a tool for improving one’s self and one’s relationships. There is no more important relationship than the one we have with our self, as our other relationships reflect back to us how we feel about our self, none more so than our marriage.
From the day I realized that, I have viewed relationship conflict through a different lens than previously, as an opportunity for growth, rather than as vulnerabilities and weaknesses to be defended. When viewed this way, all relationship challenges can be welcomed with gratitude, which has the effect of transforming the pain of trapped emotional energy into new awareness to learn and grow from. I learned that all feelings are valuable, none more so than the painful ones, for those reveal what we most need to learn in order to grow into a more loving man or woman as the case may be.
Indeed, feelings can be used by men and women as a feedback mechanism, to reveal where we are out of alignment with what is most loving for us. One of the most debilitating societal teachings that young boys are often taught is to “be a man” by denying our feelings. This has created a planet filled with emotional cripples who are completely out of touch with their emotional guidance system. It is time for men to be awakened to this powerful recognition, so we can start using our inner guidance in ways that are loving for us and those with whom we have both personal and business relationships.
I consider it a great privilege to have gone through this sometimes painful journey and to witness the difference it makes when I help my clients into emotional freedom, both in their personal and business lives. At a personal level, my relationship with Shirley has never been better, and continues to improve as I transform what remains in my consciousness that is not loving for me. I have also become a more loving father to my boys, and been able to show them an example of loving male energy, which they have adopted as their core nature.
When we see life as a reflection of our consciousness, it becomes clear that we are only limited by our beliefs. As we recognize and release beliefs that don’t serve us, life automatically changes our life experience to align with our next most deeply held beliefs. What we eventually find underneath all our beliefs is a simple truth…we are Love, here to share our gifts and talents in the ways that bring us joy.