Relation-Ships

​If someone asks you, “Are you in a relationship?” What is the first thing you think of? I’m going to venture a guess that most all of us automatically think that question is asking if we are in a direct, committed, intimate relationship with one other person.
 
If I see an advertisement for a Relationship Workshop, I tend to think it will be delivering couples counseling and not consider going because “I’m not in a relationship.”  However, I did recently participate in a Relationship Workshop because I had advance warning that it was not designed for couples. It was being presented for any one of any age because, in fact, we are all in relationship all of the time.  I knew this wouldn’t be standard relationship counseling and I wouldn’t be getting relationship advice. 

Lets start by acknowledging that there is a spectrum that has a varying range of Relationships within it. On one end of the spectrum is LOVE (real love, the unconditional kind, not the emotional, infatuation kind) and on the other end is the Lack of Love, which some might call hate.
 
                 Love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lack of Love
  
 
Anything falling anywhere on this spectrum is a relationship. Now to broaden the concept even further, we need to consider that it includes everything, people, plants, animals, food, weather, your house, your neighbourhood, your country, the car, exercise. Anything you can think of, you have some sort of relationship with.
 
In my little on-line dictionary, the definition given for Relation is this:

 1 the way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected; a thing's effect on or relevance to another;
• the way in which two or more people, countries, or organizations feel about and behave toward each other;
• sexual intercourse;
 
2 a person who is connected by blood or marriage; a kinsman or kinswoman;
 
3 the action of telling a story.
 
According to the third definition above, you are even in relationship with this article.
 
Now lets find a common denominator. What could possibly be the same whether you are relating to another person or the washing machine or the local community centre?
 
Here is what I learned at the Relationship Workshop*. The common denominators are Decency and Respect. These two ingredients lead to an outcome of Connection – with whatever you are in relationship with.
 
                                      Decency + Respect = Connection
 
You can see how this holds true if the other party in the relationship with you is a person, an animal, a building or an organization.
 
Within each one of us, we have to choose to hold the other with a certain level of decency. We need to behave in a way that conforms to accepted standards of morality. In many instances in today’s world, that is not being reflected to us. Bullying is rife, as is outrageous political sparring. There are very few role models for our children, or even for us as adults. Yet through our free will we can choose to become the role models that we want in our world. Our actions can come from kindness, whether it is how we treat our child, our neighbour or our car.
 
How is respect different from being decent towards the other? When it comes to relationships with other people, respect means that you can observe them without judging them. We all have different life experiences and therefore different perspectives. Life becomes so much more interesting and enjoyable once we can remove ourselves from the terrible task of judging others. We may want someone to understand a situation the same way we do – AND we want them to understand it now! But respect means that they will have their own understanding in their own time, and I need to be okay with that, you need to be okay with that.  
 
So here we are, each of us sailing around in the big blue sea. It’s like we are each in our own little ship, seeing what we are seeing, feeling what we are feeling, all the while relating to the other ships at sea, relating to the weather, relating to whatever food we have in the galley, relating to the stars, relating to the fish in the water. If we bring decency and respect to all of these relationships we will establish a connection that is the foundation for true Relation–Ships. 

*The Relationship Workshop was presented by Serge Benhayon at Universal Medicine. 

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