When we’re learning to come from love rather than fear, which is the work of a lifetime, the lessons keep getting tougher. When I feel negative emotion, like anger, judgment, or exasperation, I know that’s fear. When I’m free of negative emotion, I’m feeling love. Straightforward enough, right?

But what happens when somebody, particularly close to you, blames you for their negative emotion? Let them try, without resorting to fear. Rest in the truth. Not everybody will understand you. Not everybody will want to.

When you shine a light into darkness, some people won’t like it. They won’t like you. They were more comfortable in the dark. It was familiar and convenient. They could pretend that everything was okay, or at least that they were okay. And they could have another glass of wine.

When we acknowledge the light, we have to align with it, deny it (often by fabricating a lie), or use a “Band-Aid.” Otherwise, we have the stress of dissonance, an internal conflict: I should do this, but I’m doing something else, instead.

Be you. Be love. When you mess up, own it. And when somebody else has a self-serving agenda to make you wrong, so that they don’t have to be, remember that love doesn’t have one of those.… More

Without fear, our excuses fall away. We no longer feel a need for them. We’re free to move forward in love. And everything good is a byproduct of THAT.… More

Your response in the most trying moments of an intimate relationship predicts your future.

She’s doing it again — why can’t she just shut up long enough for you to want to be in the same room with her? Or why can’t he just once give you his attention for a few minutes, without the remote or the book or the food?

A study by researchers at the University of Michigan (U-M) tells us that if you find your partner irritating, you’re likely to find him or her more irritating as time goes by. Further, the results suggest that as couples get older, they are more apt to avoid confrontation than discuss problems, and that negativity is a normal part of close relationships.

Intimate relationships challenge us on a deeper level than any other relationships. It’s easier to play and talk nice from a distance. It’s when somebody gets in your face — and your heart — that they’re close enough to abrade you.

And if all that rubbing you the wrong way really polished you — gem that you are — you wouldn’t find your partner more irritating as time passed.

In the face of irritation, you can: 1) fight, 2) flee, 3) lose hope, or 4) love.… More