Whatever we are in life, we bring to our relationships. When a relationship begins we may expect to get our needs met, feeling that everything will work out just the way we want it to. Nothing can be further from the truth.

We have been programmed to believe that if we get what we want, we are a success. We want excitement, change, pleasure, stimulation, good friends, praise and happy conversation. This is also what we want from relationships. But for relationships to be truly successful we must learn how to deal with not getting what we want at all.

In healthy, uplifting relationships individuals will not find themselves threatened by the challenges that arise. They won't wonder why love has vanished when they don't get what. In fact, they will grow to learn that fulfillment will not come from what they get, but from what they are able to give. The challenge is not learning how to be loved by your partner, but learning how to be loving.

Until you realize this, you are bound and chained to search for what you think you need in other people. You do this because your life long search for happiness, comfort, value and meaning has always been directed to the external world. That's why when you find someone, very often you hold on too tight, and inadvertently drive the person away. You do not stop to realize that the external world, including the people in it are always changing - so how can you hold on tight?

When you make your success or happiness dependent upon the people you find, you place yourself in a ready made trap. Sometimes this search yields exciting results, but inevitably, both the person and the feelings you have for them change - they have to. This change is then interpreted as failure. There is no such thing as failure in real love. Real love knows that which changes and that which remains forever.

As soon as you build an uplifting relationship, you start the process of taking back your scattered energies, discovering how to extricate yourself from traps, and truly learn to love. This process requires patience. But without patience we have nothing. Developing patience is at the very heart of our ability to love.

Developing Patience

Love without patience is like soup without liquid - impossible to drink. It can even be said that patience is love itself. In the frantic, demanding world we live in, patience has been relegated to a shadow of the past. We never allow time for love to develop. But patience is greatly needed for the flower of love to bloom. It takes time for a person to feel at home and reveal who they are. It takes patience to wait for another, to develop true caring and trust.

Most of us, however, have a difficult time with patience. Starving for love, we want it immediately and will often grab at anything just to satisfy ourselves. It's the hollow feeling within we can't tolerate that drives their lives. Some don't even know the difference between true nourishment and poison, they'll take anything, so long as they can quickly feel full.

As we build uplifting relationships, we learn how to wait and distinguish the false from the real. No one can tell us how to do this. There are no ready-made solutions, we have to grapple with the experiences of life directly, taste them, digest them and discover what they mean for us ourselves. Without the willingness to endure, wait and taste life for ourselves nothing real can happen. Life and love happen in a second, and yet it takes preparation to be ready to receive them and let what is true be revealed.

©2009

Show All Articles By Brenda Shoshanna, Ph.D.