It's Valentine's Day, so let's take a quick look at why relationships seem so hard.
(We like to keep it real, here at the Daily Reminders 😉)
I came across this, online. Don't ask me whence it came, nor even if it's ‘real’ but it certainly got me pondering the nature of relationships, so I don't really care one way or the other:
Extra marks for being able to name any of the cultural references. I think I scored 3.
The person you love most
Is also the one who triggers you most.
That's not a coincidence
It's how love actually works.
Your partner isn't there
Just to make you happy.
They're there to show you
The parts of yourself you've been avoiding
The wounds that haven't healed
The patterns that keep repeating.
The way they challenge you
The way they make you feel
Exposed and vulnerable
That's not a problem with your relationship
That's love doing its job.
Real love doesn't just comfort you
It forces you to grow
It holds up a mirror
To your worst habits and deepest fears
It makes you confront
The version of yourself you'd rather ignore.
That's why relationships are so hard:
You're not just dealing with another person
You're dealing with everything they bring up in you
That you thought you had handled.
Love isn't supposed to be easy.
It's supposed to change you.
All of which kind of makes sense when we slow down and realise, once more, that all we ever really experience is not that ‘other person’ but our own Thought System, being reflected outwards into the world.
We meet a different version of them every time, because we're meeting a picture of them, brought to life by the immense power of thought, as it is spun through the prism of our own state of mind, our beliefs and our conditioning.
A relationship is a mirror.
Without the reactions and behaviours of others—especially those we love most—how would we even know anything of ourselves in the first place?
💖
Giles
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Giles P Croft