To keep our commitment to our partner, and to weather the most difficult storms, we need strong roots. If we wait until there is trouble with our partner to try and solve it, we won’t have built strong enough roots to withstand the assault. Often we think we’re balanced when, in reality, that balance is… Continue reading THREE STRONG ROOTS

There are three kinds of intimacy: physical, emotional, and spiritual. These three should go together. Every one of us is seeking emotional intimacy. We want to have real communication, mutual understanding, and communion. We want to be in harmony with someone. When an intimate relationship contains all three elements, then physical intimacy is more meaningful… Continue reading THREE KINDS OF INTIMACY

Loving someone doesn’t mean saying “yes” to whatever the other person wants. The basis of loving someone else is to know yourself and to know what you need. I know a woman who suffered very much because she couldn’t say “no.” From the time she was young, whenever a man asked her for something, she… Continue reading SAYING “NO”

As long as we’re rejecting ourselves and causing harm to our bodies and minds, there’s no point in talking about loving and accepting others. With mindfulness, we can recognize our habitual ways of thinking and the contents of our thoughts. Sometimes our thoughts run around in circles and we’re engulfed in distrust, pessimism, conflict, sorrow,… Continue reading ATTENTION

Learn to nourish yourself and the other person with joy. Are you able to make the other person smile? Are you able to increase her confidence and enthusiasm? If you’re not able to do these small things for her, how can you say you love her? Sometimes a kind word is enough to help someone… Continue reading NOURISHED BY JOY

If a relationship can’t provide joy, then it’s not true love. If you keep making the other person cry all day, that’s not true love. Offer only the things that can make the other person happy. You should know the real needs of that person. Practice and learn how to generate a feeling of joy,… Continue reading JOY IS HEALING

We tend to wonder if we have enough to offer in a relationship. We’re thirsty for truth, goodness, compassion, spiritual beauty, so we go looking outside. Sometimes we think we’ve found a partner who embodies all that is good, beautiful, and true. After a time, we usually discover that we’ve had a wrong perception of… Continue reading A TRUE PARTNER

Often we can’t love ourselves or others fully when we’re stuck in our own complexes. When you have an inferiority complex, you have low self-esteem, and this is a kind of sickness. High self-esteem is also a sickness, because you consider yourself to be above others and that causes suffering as well. Although equality is… Continue reading LIBERATION FROM COMPLEXES

When your loved one is talking, practice listening deeply. Sometimes the other person will say something that surprises us, that is the opposite of the way we see things. Allow the other person to speak freely. Don’t cut your loved one off or criticize their words. When we listen deeply with all our heart—for ten… Continue reading LISTENING WITH PATIENCE

Everyone knows that blaming and arguing never help; but we forget. Conscious breathing helps us develop the ability to stop at that crucial moment, to keep ourselves from saying or doing something we regret later. Practice conscious breathing when things are going well with your partner, then it will be there for you when things… Continue reading BREATHING TO AVOID AN ARGUMENT