If we can find the courage

I remember Steve Allen, the comedian, once say about relationships, "Look out, you're in for some tough times ahead...really tough times". Thanks Steve!...but, he is right, relationships are tough and sometimes you just want to throw in the towel or least throw the towel at your partner. This morning while reading John Weldon's book Journey of the Heart: The Path of Conscious Love I came across something he said that I found interesting and would like to pass it along. What he has to say kind of put things in perspective a bit for me because when I lose perspective I tend to drift towards the abyss of losing hope. Here is what Weldon had to say: "Intimate relationships can help free us from our conditioning by allowing us to see exactly how and where we are stuck. They continually bring us up against things in ourselves that we cannot stand. They stir up all our worst fears and neuroses--in living technicolor. When we live alone, we are often unaware of our habitual patterns because we live inside them. A relationship, on the other hand, heightens our awareness of all our rough edges. When someone we love reacts to our neurotic patterns they bounce back on us and we can no longer ignore them. As we see and feel the ways we are stuck, a desire to move in a new direction begins to stir in us"...Of course the hard part is getting past the temptation to see our relationship struggles in terms of our partners problems or to understand the potential sociological factors which also come into play which have nothing to do with the personal behavior of ourselves or our partners....Weldon goes on to say, "In my experience, the greatest obstacle to growth in a relationship is a couple's belief that it shouldn't be this hard. Yet the reason it often is hard is that we are set in our ways, and it takes great energy and dedication to break free of them. Love helps us to do so, by inspiring us to open our heart. The honeymoon phase in a relationship is a pure experience of open heart. It gives us a sense of what is possible, which we can draw on for inspiration when we bog down. Trying to maintain that state, however, only prevents us from moving forward". Weldon completes his thoughts on this matter by explaining that because our hearts are, at least initially, are open to our partners because we love them, it allows us to confront our greatest fears in a way that is often not possible when challenged or pointed out by others. The challenge we all equally face is getting past wanting to bypass or avoid our greatest fears and dark side because of the emotional pain that is a natural part of the struggle with our demons...but...if we can find the courage within to rise above avoiding emotional pain at all cost then there is hope to be found even if our partners are not able to join us in the most difficult aspect of the relationship dance...because...even if our relationships cannot be salvaged the individual healing to be experienced in such an endeavor is worth the time and effort.