{"id":24,"date":"2012-10-10T14:01:19","date_gmt":"2012-10-10T19:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/livingalldimensions.com\/blog\/?p=24"},"modified":"2012-10-10T14:01:19","modified_gmt":"2012-10-10T19:01:19","slug":"when-relationships-lead-to-suffering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/livingalldimensions.com\/blog\/?p=24","title":{"rendered":"When relationships lead to suffering…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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This Thanksgiving weekend, a time of gratitude, a time with family and friends made me seriously think about relationships.\u00a0 Both in my private practice and in conversations with friends, relationships seem to be a major focus and a main source of both joy and contention.\u00a0 We often struggle with someone because they are not acting in a way that we desire.\u00a0 Our imposition of our desires is what creates the suffering for us.\u00a0 It has nothing to do with who they are or what they do or do not do.\u00a0 Our angst is solely the result of our desire for the person to be different than who they are.<\/p>\n

I look at the relationships in my own life and when I have struggled most.\u00a0 My desire for someone to be different, to act in a way that makes it easier for me and makes me feel good is what I want.\u00a0 As if it\u2019s someone else\u2019s job, role, responsibility for me to feel good!!! \u00a0How does giving someone a job in my relationship with them foster a healthy relationship? It absolutely can\u2019t. \u00a0If I reflect on my own history, my frustrations in relationship have often come from thinking that people don\u2019t accept me for who I am.\u00a0 That may be true but more importantly is the reality that I don\u2019t accept others for who they are\u2026I want them to be different, sometimes to be more kind, more understanding, more compassionate.\u00a0 Really now!!\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t it make more sense for me to focus on me being more kind, more understanding, more compassionate, more tolerant and more accepting of who they are? Whether I like it, or understand it is irrelevant. I don\u2019t have to like what someone does but to not accept that they do something, whether I like it or not sets me up to suffer.<\/p>\n

We suffer because we wish what is real, what is right in front of us is different than what it is.\u00a0 Wishing something other than reality is painful.\u00a0 It is through this pain that we create our own suffering. \u00a0\u00a0Authentic relationships come from accepting one another, seeing one another as perfect in our imperfections\u2026and today that starts with me.\u00a0 As I examine important relationships in my life, to see where I can be totally accepting and let go of what I want to be different in the other person, I invite you to look at a relationship that has created suffering in your life and consider doing the same.\u00a0 I\u2019d love to hear if this exercise took you out of your misery\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Thanksgiving weekend, a time of gratitude, a time with family and friends made me seriously think about relationships.\u00a0 Both in my private practice and in conversations with friends, relationships seem to be a major focus and a main source of both joy and contention.\u00a0 We often struggle with someone because they are not acting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[11,10,8,9],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/livingalldimensions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/livingalldimensions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/livingalldimensions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/livingalldimensions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/livingalldimensions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/livingalldimensions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/livingalldimensions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/livingalldimensions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/livingalldimensions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}