Meditations 9 and 10 of Relationship Book

Meditation 9 from relationship advice book I´m Sorry

Look to the Good of Others

This reflection asks you to assess the conditions that you are placing on another person each day. Your irrationality is directly correlated to the expectations that you place on others. The higher your expectations, the more negative your outlook will become when the person falls short of the mark. This is not to suggest that you should not place expectations on your relationship. However, the expectation must match the type of closeness of the relationship and be based on the virtues of love, honesty, and respect. You may first need to learn about trust and boundaries as outlined in the previous chapter. Do you tend to raise your expectations of everyone you have a relationship with, resulting in your general negativity toward people? You will need to meditate on the good that you see in people you deal with. Do not let your irrational thoughts cloud your ability to see the good in others.

On days when you feel that another person is less than worthy of any praise, you may need to force yourself to meditate on the good in that person. Your ability to do this will help you to regain some rationality regarding the actual truth about this person and gain a positive perspective on the problem. For example, someone may have wrecked your car, ruined your shirt in the laundry, or spilled a staining beverage on the carpet. Does this make the other person bad? If you cannot find any good in a certain person, you may need to break ties with him or minimize your contact; otherwise, your response to this person will be only negative and hurtful. You must leave room for people to fall short of your expectations from time to time, and allow the atonement process to be a vehicle to "right a wrong." Making up is such a wonderful experience and speaks volumes for the effectiveness of the acts of atonement and forgiveness.

Meditation 10 from book about relationships entitled I´m Sorry

What Will Others Say about You When You Are Gone?

It is never too late to write a better script for your relationship. This last reflection is to be used once you have developed a better understanding of the virtues/atonement process and have demonstrated the ability to recognize the hurt that you are causing in your relationship. You may be afraid to ask the other person in your relationship the above question. You may not be afforded the chance to change the perceptions of some of the people you have hurt in your life; maybe they refuse to forgive your actions. This does not mean that you cannot use your unique qualities to benefit other people.

What abilities and attributes do you possess that would provide a benefit to another person? Picture yourself giving a part of you to another person and the reaction of the other person. In your meditation, visualize that you gave to this other person without condition - other than your seeing his positive response. Imagine how this person would interact with others in your absence. Visualize that he was uplifted by your contact and is now able to use his own attributes to benefit someone else. Many people who lack spirituality do not believe that they can make a difference in another person´s life; they do not understand how this can spread out to positively impact many other people. Your negative or positive actions toward another person can stay embedded in that person´s memory for the rest of his life. Do you remember who picked on you as a child? Do you remember an act of kindness by someone when you were a child? Are you beginning to see how important your actions are to the other people in your life?

As you utilize your talents in ways that demonstrate love, respect, and honesty toward another person, you will begin to rewrite your life´s script. As you demonstrate these virtues in each of your relationships, you will touch the hearts of many and may never really come to understand the impact that you made in each of their lives. Once you begin to focus on your ability to give back to society, you will find meaning in your relationships.

Copyright 2002 Jay Krunszyinsky

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