The Rules on How to be in a Relationship

The Rules.... they may seem harsh... you may read this and say WTF...... this is what I have learned from experience.... sometimes by fire, sometimes by water... and it may be hard to digest.... but this... is what I have gotten so far....

1. Nobody here gets out alive.  It is VERY simple. You, and everyone else, at some point, will die.  I know of nobody with infinite time and immortality. How you live your life is your choice. How you treat others and how people think of you IS your legacy. Either way, being too serious or too frivolous and living with regret will give you no extra time.

1. No matter how intelligent you are, you do NOT know everything. Accept that. Accept that some people have been exactly where you are. Find those people. Talk to those people. Do not shun what they have to say to you. It may be painful, it may sound silly, but if they are now where you hope to one day be…. They got out of where they were and you currently are. Be open to new ideas. Be open to the idea that you may have been wrong. Be open to the idea that EVERYTHING you know, may actually be wrong. Who cares? What is the big deal? It is ONLY a big deal if you refuse to learn. You are only an idiot if you choose to remain wrong and hold onto things that serve no purpose including errors in judgment, anger, and behaviors that destroy as opposed to build up.

1. You will not attract what you want until you know who you are and accept who you are. And to do that, you have to KNOW who you are. You have to love yourself enough to forgive yourself of anything that went wrong in your life. You have to forgive the people that wronged you.  There is no caveat on this. Accept it. NOBODY can complete you until you are in a place to make two become one. It is NOT the same thing as being broken inside, it is not the same thing as not knowing yourself. A real connection be it with friends, or lovers, is an awakening of a part of you that is dormant UNTIL that place can be reached. That place cannot be reached, until you are truly caring for yourself inside. Until you are accepting that people are different and that they are in places that you may not be. Until you can accept you do NOT understand everything or WHY things happen, but they simply do. And it is truly okay with you.

1. NOBODY can validate you except you. You must define yourself. You can be scared, confused, etc but you must KNOW inside…. Your uniqueness. You must accept yourself. Until you can talk to the screaming inside, you cannot be in a place to validate yourself. NOBODY can calm that screaming inside except for you.

1. Openness includes doing things for other that are of no benefit to you what so ever.  Sitting on the phone with someone til 3am because their heart is breaking. Doing things for people that have no reward other than to know you helped someone or did something kind for no reason. These are the things that exercise your heart and soul in a way far different than the stairmaster.

1. The heart is not just a muscle. If you keep it too tight, it will beat, but not the way you want it to. Anger, fear, hate… they tighten it. Be HONEST with yourself, and with people. Do not expect what you cannot give from that heart. Be careful what you are truly putting out there.  Do not play games and be HONEST about what a game is. It is very simple… ask yourself “if I found out my friend, lover, etc were doing this to me, would I be okay with this?”. BE HONEST in that answer. If the answer is no, immediately stop what you are doing. Immediately assess why you are doing it and get it real and right. If you play with other people’s hearts, I promise you…. You will have to pay for it at some point. It is a universal law in EVERY belief system. You will question why this is happening to you. You will question why you have to feel pain. I promise you, that unfortunately there was a path you walked that was dishonest or hurt someone knowingly or unknowingly. VERY hard to accept. Very much a fact. It sucks.  But when it comes to love, and acceptance, and understanding….. until you understand and see and go through what you caused…. You will be forced to until you get it. I suggest you stop fighting it and get it.

1. Lose judgment. You do not have to sleep with one eye open all the time. If that is the caliber of person you have surrounded yourself with, examine that. WHY are you self punishing? WHO are the people that truly do not do that to you? I will tell you why. Because we all have “negative tapes” we play in our heads. And often times, our harshest judgments are upon ourselves and then we project that onto those around us. We put that negativity out there and attract the people that will CONSTANTLY hit play on those negative tapes. It goes back to knowing yourself and forgiving yourself. So until you stop judging other people and questioning every motive they have, until you stop WANTING to have those types of people in your life that will in fact cause you to feel mistrust, you are judging. Lose it.

1. Accept where you are. Are you REALLY ready to be a good friend, or lover? You may not be. And if you are not, do not offer the pretence that you are. It is OKAY to be in a bad place working your way through it. It is OKAY to need people to help you and to be there and to hold your hand. It is NEVER okay to step on those people.

1. Learn to be a good friend. Learn what that means.

1. If you are the center of your universe, and your motives are always with YOURSELF, how can you expect to have people treat you differently than an arrogant person who cannot be trusted? If your advice, your love, or your time are given consistently with strings that benefit the self, expect someone to reject the string and to cut it.  

1. Hate has no place. You are NOT going to understand everything. You are NOT going to be able to accept everything. You are going to be angry. I suggest you calm yourself and seek why. Is it that you don’t get it and therefore reject it? That is fine. You WONT like everything but there are things you have no right to condemn simply because you don’t LIKE it. Learn patience and understanding.  Learn temperament. Learn that just because it is NOT right for you does not make it NOT right for your neighbor. So long as a belief or practice is not hurting someone’s physical existence, it is NOT your place to determine right or wrong and definitely not your place to condemn. Again, really difficult. Again, really necessary.

1. Offering advice that is not accepted and then being angry at the person who did not accept it, is egotistical. Remember that someone may not be in a place that they can practice what you are saying. Sewing the seed is what is important. It will bloom, in THEIR time, not yours. Accept that and do not look to be righteous. That is self validation at the expense of someone else.

1. Know when it is time to let go of something. Regardless of how much you may WANT to be there for someone, if they are doing something that is harmful or hurtful to the people around you, or to you…. Let go. It is that simple.

1. Knock gently, do not kick down a door. The truth is, sometimes the answer is no. The truth is sometimes there is pain. The truth is that if you are pining for or lamenting a former relationship be it a friendship, lover, etc…. you are closing yourself to what CAN be at some point. You are blocking what you actually want to receive because you have filled it with something or someone else. And you are putting a weight on the other person that is not fair. You are damaging their own path by constantly make them swerve around you. It is NOT their burden to carry or sort out. It is yours. And yours alone. If you have to kick down a door, or fight for the existence of something…. When you know it is not something the other person wants….. examine that. YOUR EGO is what is motivating you. And you are probably addicted to pain and rejection as well. And you DO NOT want that person to be happy without you in their life be it friendship or lovers. THAT… is unbalanced, and unhealthy and has no place in anything.

1. Conversely, KNOW what is worth fighting for. If you are IN a friendship or relationship that has at its core love, respect, admiration… fight for it. BUT KNOW that first. Do you respect the person? Do you LOVE the person? Do you ADMIRE the person? If the answer is no… if the answer is obsession, or that you are convinced that you are the right one, or have the right answers for that person,  you got it wrong. But if you can honestly say, I love this person, I value this person, I respect and admire this person… AND this person has the same feelings for me…. Then an issue is just an obstacle to be worked out. A difference is just an obstacle to be clarified and moved out of the way.

1. HONESTY. Tell the TRUTH. Examine yourself for the truth and then offer it. Sugar coating IS sometimes necessary. There is no need for the truth to actually hurt.

1. You don’t have to WIN an argument. You have to FEEL the other person. You have to be open to correcting, not winning.

1. Explain, do not chastise. Talk, do not scream. Discuss the topic, do not go off on every flaw you feel for the person. Do not cope with what you cannot on your own. ASK for clarification, do not demand.  DO NOT defend yourself unless the person is your enemy. DO NOT seek vengeance unless the person is your enemy. See these are the ones that I sometimes seriously fuck up with.  I guarantee this is the cause of extended disputes and carrying unnecessary anger in my life and in yours.

1. LAUGH. Do something to make someone smile and laugh. Allow yourself to respond to that when someone is doing that for you. If you wrap your anger and fear around you like a blanket, you will experience only that. If you allow yourself to be and receive the clown… you would be amazed to find out how thin that fear and anger blanket you so desperately cling to is really a very thin piece of crap.

1. The flipside to loving big is hurting big. You are giving people the power to hurt you.  You may not be ready for that. That takes trust. And trust, is the foundation of ANY relationship. If it is NOT, it will crumble. You can be scared. You can be unsure. But you cannot love without trust and you cannot trust without love. Which comes first is up to you. If you tell someone “I LOVE YOU” you are ASKING them to trust that at the same time. So before you say those words, you better trust that YOURSELF. I do not care if it is your mother, brother, sister, child, friend, husband, wife, etc. If you do NOT trust that love yourself, do NOT say it. DO NOT LOOK FOR LOVE UNTIL YOU CAN TRUST LOVE. Or you will end up, in pain. And so will the other person.

1. You cannot make it work. It works or it doesn’t. What you WANT is not always what you can have.  But this, from experience, I guarantee…. If you open yourself up to 1-20…. What you will have, is FAR greater… than what your imagination could ever forge. What you will have is bigger than you can comprehend. What you will have, is not definable by any words, any stories, anything that can be explained. It is something, the heart and soul explain to the brain in their own language. It is given, it is received. It is a bond that is stronger than anything tangible and it cannot be broken. Trust me on that.