The real underlying limitation in our relationships is rooted in how we look at and think about others who are in our life. But, perhaps more accurately stated: the real problem we have with others is what we don't yet see and understand about ourselves!
All of our relationships are a kind of mirror; they serve us somewhat in the same way as does the bedroom mirror before which we dress when getting ready to leave the house. Its reflection lets us see how we look, and decide if we like how we feel about what we've put on that day.
Standing before the mirror of our relationships -- a ceaseless reflection of that relationship as it unfolds -- we are given to see something about who we are in that same moment. In this way each relationship serves to reveal to us something we may have not yet realized as being true about our present nature. In other words, whenever I'm around "you" there's the prospect of being introduced to a "me" -- parts of myself -- that I may have not yet met! Here's an example of this powerful idea, and how it works its magic in us.
Maybe we're on a nature hike where we round a bend, suddenly finding ourselves standing at the foot of a towering waterfall. It's majestic. A delicate mist covers everything, catching the sunlight, creating a million tiny prisms of colored light.
There's never been such a moment for us because we have never been who we are in that same instant. In such moments we are filled with an incomparable sensation that is one and the same as meeting a whole new level of our own being.
Or, perhaps we look up to see an unending night sky, and in our relationship with that dark expanse we experience the feeling of something deep and vast within us; we sense the presence of something eternal. In that moment, we are given a glimpse of something we would never see otherwise: the timelessness we feel stirring in us... has always lived in us.
Much as in the fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty is awakened from her deep sleep by the "kiss" of Prince Charming, so can all of our relationships -- with everyone, with anyone -- serve to stir us awake, not only that we might experience some deeper, truer, sense of self, but so that through that same awakening we may touch and be touched by a higher order of love that can be realized in no other way.
