SPIRITUAL PARTNERSHIP (Part Two of Three)
by Gary Zukav

Emotional awareness provides a kaleidoscopic view of your loves and fears. Interactions turn the kaleidoscope, constantly changing what is visible. Five sensory humans are afraid emotions will rock the boat but multisensory humans know it will sink if they continually react instead of respond. Relationships reveal the path to authentic power – the alignment of your personality with your soul – one upset at a time, so that you can create it one choice at a time.

Relationships of substance and depth continually present opportunities to find and heal the sources of your pain. They put people directly and intimately in your life, demand the most difficult choices, require the most sensitive responses, and offer the most rewarding experiences the Earth school provides.

Since Friday morning my friends and I have rotated to intensive care to be with our friend and her husband who is in critical condition. As he waited for surgery, his condition took a turn for the worse. We have coordinated our schedules so that she will have someone with her at all times, but how I am with her is the change. In the past I would have been looking for ways to entertain her and keep her mind off the difficulty. Now when she needs to talk, I sit quietly with her. I do not give her advice about how to cope with death. I do not judge whether or not what she is going through is fair. I have spent hours at the hospital since Friday but I am not tired. Facing someone’s death is very different for me now, and that difference allows me to be with my friend in whatever way she needs. It is freeing to finally understand how much my helping others in the past was about my own needs and now joyfully it is about theirs.

I found another physician I really liked to work in my office. We decided that she would start in a month. Last week she told me she is moving to another city. I just put out additional funds to buy equipment she wanted. I felt a lot of emotional pain while she was sharing her new plan. She said that she wanted us to be friends. I could have left it at this because “friends” can mean simply colleagues, and I could be OK with that definition, but I plan to meet with her next week. I am going to share that even though I understand she is doing what she feels is in her best interest, it is hard for me to understand how she could have been in integrity with what she told me so recently and then change her mind in three weeks. I do understand that it may have all been truthful when she talked to me initially, but I will have doubt that will separate me from her if I don’t express it. I want to be honest with her about what friendship means to me. It involves trust for me. If we can’t actually be friends, then I will try to maintain good terms, free from judgment of her. What did feel good to me was that I didn’t let the pain I was feeling lead me into distancing myself from her without trying to explore the possibility of a deeper relationship, even when I most wanted to express how betrayed I felt in an angry way.

Only you can create authentic power, and your relationships continually offer you opportunities.

Love,

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