April 17, 2014- To Be in a Relationship or Not To Be

Recently I was in the market when I was approached by a woman.  Yes, it does happen once every blue moon.   However as it turned out it was not due to my unmistakable charm.  I had recently been given a key ring that shows my practice name given to me by my wife ( the irony).  She has noticed it dangling from one hand and a basket of groceries in another.  She asked me an off the wall question about  relationships which I had to admit I had not heard at least in this manner.  She asked me if relationships in themselves were signs of people learning to deal more about themselves than actually learning to deal with others.  She explained that she had recently gotten out of a relationship and was told she needed to work on herself and less on the relationship.  While it would be difficult to provide her with an encapsulated answer in the cereal section,  I provided her with a brief answer.  I explained to her that in order to be truly " successful" at being in a committed relationship, one would essentially want to be in a good place with themselves.  What I meant was that someone would have hopefully worked  on themselves and not engage in a relationship in order to get fixed by someone.   True intimacy starts with open and  honest communication.  Being honest with each other requires not only a strong foundation but requires that person to be vulnerable.  If they are not willing to be vulnerable, they will never experience an open and honest relationship.  Although she did not agree with how her relationship had stopped, she understood that personal growth needed to be completed by both parties in order for the relationship to evolve.