Regardless of our certainty as to whether we or our partner starts or rekindles a quarrel, the real cause of the continuing conflict between us lies elsewhere. Which is why, as strange as the following insight may seem at first, the importance of working to see the truth of it simply can’t be overstated:

Despite any appearance to the contrary, it’s not our partner, nor is it we who strikes the first blow in any dispute: it’s pain that picks the fight.

No doubt this last idea challenges most of our familiar notions, especially when we’re sure we’ve been wronged and feel that it’s our right to seek whatever “justice” we might. But, putting all this aside for a moment, as we quietly study the secret cause of our struggles rather than being caught up in them, we should also be able to see, and agree to the following:

I can remember it as if it was yesterday, although more time than I can account for has passed since that telling moment. My voice had been persistently hoarse, a feature I’d made peace with due to my rigorous teaching schedule. However, given that it seemed a little worse than usual, I made an appointment to see an ear, nose, and throat specialist.

The doctor’s office had the same smell as every doctor’s office I’d ever visited, and walking in to it made me want to walk out of it at first whiff. But, at this point, I knew that wasn’t an option. So, after waiting the usual thirty to forty minutes, I was led to another, smaller room, where I waited again for the doctor who, as it turned out, was very kind.

After he used some special equipment to capture detailed images of my vocal cords, my wife and I waited for him to review the results. It was one of those moments when you know – just by looking at him – that he would rather not have to tell you what comes next. Sure enough: I was diagnosed with an early stage of cancer. Shock gave way to devastation.

A middle-aged man had recently moved into a new city and, soon after, decided that he wanted to explore his immediate area, maybe meet some of his neighbors, as well as visit some of the interesting shops that lined the streets all around his apartment.

Less than half-an-hour later, not knowing the lay of the land, he accidentally walked into an adjacent neighborhood whose streets had been long since “claimed” by an infamous gang. As he realized his situation, and tried to find the fastest way back to relative safety, he made another mistake: looking for the quickest way home, he cut through an alley where a heartless band of thugs beat and robbed him. Summoning all his strength, he dragged himself out from behind a dumpster where they had left him, and crawled just to the entrance of the alleyway where his faint cries for help were all but drowned out by the roar of passing traffic.

This talk looks at three ways of awakening our hearts—seeing goodness, feeling appreciation as a bodily experience, and expressing our care. We are then guided in developing each of these capacities by focusing our attention on someone we care about, with whom we’d like to experience our full potential for loving.  

It was a little before 7 AM on Saturday morning when Alex sat down in his living room with his first cup of coffee. He was up a little bit earlier than usual because a strange noise had awakened him from his sleep. So, when he looked out of his bedroom, he wasn't too surprised to discover the source of the disturbance was his neighbor Sam, who lived just across the street. Sam was dragging several folding tables out of his garage, and arranging them on the front lawn. From the look of things, including a couple of stacks of cardboard boxes, it appeared that Sam was setting the stage for a household rummage sale.

Partly out of curiosity, and partly out of irritation – wanting to see why on earth Sam felt the need to get such an early start – Alex threw his robe over his PJs and walked over to where Sam was arranging the things he intended to sell. As he made his way across the street, he could see his breath forming mini-clouds in the air. It was late spring, but there was a chill still rolling off the snow-capped mountains that surrounded their valley homes.

“Good morning, Sam,” said Alex. “My, but aren’t you out here bright and early!”

Apparently Sam didn’t hear the hint of sarcasm in Alex's voice; either that, or he just didn't care…which irritated Alex a little bit more.

Encourage love in all its forms to flow through you.

What's carrying you?

The Practice:
Guided by love.

Why?

Feeling both the world and myself these days, one phrase keeps calling: lived by love.

Explicitly, this means coming from love in a broad sense, from compassion, good intentions, self-control, warmth, finding what’s to like, caring, connecting, and kindness.

Implicitly, and more fundamentally, this practice means a relaxed opening into the love – in a very very broad sense – that is the actual nature of everything. Moment by moment, the world and the mind reliably carry you along. This isn’t airy-fairy, it’s real. Our physical selves are woven in the tapestry of materiality, whose particles and energies never fail. The supplies – the light and air, the furniture and flowers – that are present this instant are here, available, whatever the future may hold. So too is the caring and goodwill that others have for you, and the momentum of your own accomplishments, and the healthy workings of your body. Meanwhile, your mind goes on being, while dependably weaving this thought, this sound, this moment of consciousness.

Last week, as I was sitting in the back of the room at the World Dementia Council Summit in London, a woman about my age stood up to speak. She had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and wanted the world leaders to hear what it’s like to live with the condition first-hand.

“We don’t want your pity,” she told them firmly. “We also don’t want your fear. All we want is for you to ask us, ‘What it’s like to be you right now?’”

The room fell silent.

This woman’s words really struck me. I’ve been thinking a lot about them ever since.

If we want to help our partner change, we must change. There is no other way. And more: unless we’re exceptionally blessed, it’s unlikely our partner has the same wish that we do: to keep growing and exploring a love that, at the start, was filled with surprising changes, but that has lost some of that sparkle because one, or both of us has stopped changing.

All this is to say: odds favor you’re the one who will have to initiate the work needed to refresh your relationship. No problem. You’ll find everything you need to get started in the three special relationship exercises that follow. They are designed to work in a two-fold way.

Part one unfolds as you initiate the first action and receive the revelation that will help make changes in you. The second part of the exercise happens as your partner sees and experiences this change in you. When you no longer act toward them in the old way, they can’t help but see their own mechanical nature that only knows the “old way” to react to you.

YES, you guessed it - LOVE is the cure for loneliness.

There is so much loneliness in our world today.  Not only within our lives but on a global level, loneliness is fueled by fear, hatred and mis-trust.

Do not underestimate the impact of a small deed. 

What can I do?

The Practice:
Be of Help to Others.

Why?

I'm doing a series on my personal top five practices (all tied for first place), and have so far named three: meditate (including mindfulness, self-awareness, and, if you like, prayer), take in the good, and bless (including compassion, generosity, and love).

I saw one way to bless on a trip to Haiti, in the efforts of many dedicated people: be helpful. As you probably know, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, with roughly 80 percent unemployment. The national government seemed like a tattered sheet in the wind. A public middle and high school I visited was missing half its schoolbooks as well as the funds for the last two grades. Imagine your own child in such a school . . . and that the $30 it takes to buy the books she needs is a month's wages, as out of reach as the moon.

In this day and age of digital dating and limitless options to meet people, it can feel impossible to stand out from the crowd.

YOU are a unique, amazing individual and when you own this fact and learn how to radiate your best qualities, you are sure to separate yourself from the rest.

Many women don’t realize that it’s not the surface-level things that make a man incredibly attracted to you, but rather the beliefs you possess about life, your attitude about yourself, and the fun, authentic self-confidence that comes from a place of true self-love.

There are three beliefs in particular that men find irresistible and are sure to not only set you apart from other women but will aid you in attracting a genuine, connected relationship.

Perhaps you’ve read the classic story of The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas, or hopefully you've had a chance to see one of the film versions made over the last fifty years or so.

Very briefly, it's a powerful story that unfolds in an early 19^th century coastal city in France, where love takes its three central characters on a long journey of revelation, and the eventual realization of what matters most in their lives.

The hero, Edmond Dantes, is accused of a murder that he didn't commit, by Fernand, a lifelong friend, who is the one who actually committed the crime. Fernand is so jealous that Edmond has the love of Mercedes, the heroine, that he ensures Edmond is thrown into a hellacious, inescapable prison, and left there to die. But when, after many torturous years in captivity, Edmond manages to escape by a series of almost impossible coincidences, he plots an elaborate scheme of revenge against those who betrayed him.

As the story nears its climactic end, Mercedes, whom Edmond never stopped loving – and who never stopped loving him – sees through his elaborate charade (as the Count of Monte Christo), and learns of his plan to take revenge on Fernand.

We’re about to look at the facts we need to release ourselves from any kind of painful relationship pattern before we have to go through it again.

Never mind whatever may be telling you that such a power doesn’t exist. It does, and of this you may be assured: love is not limited to our present view of what it can...or can’t do!

As contradictory as it may seem, our almost inescapable sense of being unable to rise above problem patterns with our partner resides in the last place any of us would ever think to look for it: a false belief that we already understand the true nature of love. A few simple examples will help prove this last point.

If our understanding of love includes the belief that loving someone means agreeing to live with a mounting resentment towards him or her, then what else can happen as a result of that idea other than always coming to another tipping point? A fight ensues, and the pattern starts over.

I was raised like our backyard,

only tended with a sigh

When two people go on a first date, they’re behaving in a way that will facilitate their future together. They want to be lovers, to have joy, to offer support and pleasure to their partner, and they want to have fun.

During the courting and honeymoon period, our behaviors primarily come from our conscious minds, putting us on our best behavior. As long as we don’t revert to thinking during this time, we will be operating with our hands on the wheel. Unfortunately, in the world in which we live, there’s so much demand on us that thinking is inevitable. Later in a relationship, downloaded negative programming in the subconscious begins to manifest, and it alters the character of the relationship. The joy dims as each partner compromises in order to accommodate the negative behavior that their partner never revealed during the honeymoon phase. As you start compromising, you ask yourself where your limit lies. In many cases, the compromises are too many and the relationship disintegrates. The more you come from the subconscious, the faster the beautiful honeymoon will vanish. 

Suddenly, but too late, it’s obvious: we didn't see any of the familiar signs that usually indicate a conflict is about to erupt. Perhaps they say something overtly cruel, or make some passive aggressive comment to remind us where we went wrong earlier that evening, or maybe even five years ago.

Almost instantly, from out of our mouth comes pouring a host of tried and true things we tend to say in similar situations; words with edges to cut, some smooth enough to defuse the situation, others more forceful, and all designed to turn the tide of battle and push our partner back onto their heels.

But then, a shift; something within us remembers that we’ve been where this fight is about to take us at least a hundred times, and that there’s nothing new or good about getting there; just more of the same.

In that same revelation, in fact as a part of its remembrance, we now see what we couldn’t before: we’re about to wade into a “war” with our partner that can’t be won no matter which of us seems to come out on top! And so, given what this new level of higher awareness shows us as being true, there’s the only logical, and ultimately loving action left for us to do: we refuse the call to combat.

We hear the term unconditional love a lot these days, especially in spiritual circles. But what does it mean exactly? At first glance, it seems to mean loving without conditions. Yes, it is that. Yet it is more than that. As I live my life, I begin to see other levels to it. Something that involves seeing clearly someone’s human vulnerabilities and seeming faults as well as their divinely sweet magnificence–and loving them for all of that. Holding it all in my heart at the same time, seeing it as part of this particular individual’s soul journey. And seeing myself that way too. I’ve found that viewing everything as perfectly lovable in just one other person unlocks the ability to do the same for everyone in my life—and then for everyone on the planet.

Love often appears at our door as a beggar in disguise. There are countless ancient myths that tell how the gods would show up at the door of someone’s home, appearing to be in dire straits. On the surface of things, they seem to be seeking food and shelter; but, in truth, they’ve come to ask if the ones they have chosen to visit will make room for them in their lives. And, as these stories go, whoever agrees to make this kind of sacrifice – for the sake of their unexpected visitors – is rewarded by them beyond their wildest dreams.

In much the same way, love is always knocking on our door. But it never does so more stridently than when our heart closes itself off to our partner in the name of some unconscious pain that we blame on them.

In unhappy moments like these, not only do we slam the door shut in the face of the one we love but, without ever knowing it, we also deny ourselves the precious, timeless gifts that only love can offer us: a full partnership with all of its powers. These gifts include the unfailing presence of an unconditional compassion for all that it embraces. This level of higher self-understanding can never be pulled into a fight with our partner because it can’t be deceived into identifying with one side or another of some unconscious opposing force.