Everything is Relationship
Many people want better relationships.
The trouble is, they're trying to improve their relationships with specific people, using doomed strategies that attempt to fairly distribute resources and responsibility.
"Working on relationships" might be the single largest factor in most people's relational misery.
I tell people I'm a relationship coach, and they immediately think partnership, then immediately imagine me doing couple's work.
And I have done couple's work, but for me couple's work can be quite murky.
I love to have people 1:1 because that's when we can actually work RELATIONSHIP itself, rather than a particular circumstance.
Of course, any circumstance we work, we actually work relationship (that's why my clients can never predict what I'm going to say, even though they try).
That's what the confusion all boils down to--people thinking they're doing relationship work when they've actually only been equipped to process and adjust circumstances, never relationship itself.
Relationship with another offers us many many circumstances, and that means that we can "do the work" relationships are said to take forever and ever and never be done.
Circumstance is what shows us fairness and unfairness, until we are in right relationship with reality. Circumstance gives us the delusion that we might share the responsibility, and when that works for you, I love it. When it works for me, I love it. Yay for circumstances working out!
But responsibility and relationship were never meant to be equal or fair. Responsibility is something the wise crave and fools avoid.
Working relationship itself is an inside job.
Relationship work means working how you show up in relationship.
Yes, that means working how you show up in relationships to your partner, your friends, your family.
And also to the other drivers on the road.
To your bills
to your business
to the sticker on the bottom of the delightful new bowl you bought, and to its relationship to the bowl.
Relationship is EVERYTHING.
That's why relationship coaching with me changes every part of your life. You can come to me with or without a partnership conundrum, with or without any particular circumstance that seems to be the problem. Our work teaches you to see rightly, and this accurate sight shifts how you show up.
Before you know it, you're coming in to every circumstance upright, empowered, and joyfully responsible for the experience you're crafting.
Your burdens drop away. Your problems reveal themselves to be the process of life itself. All that is wrong may be grieved and released. All that is here may be welcomed.
All of you.
All of these circumstances.
All of these feelings.
They are all welcome in, more and more, because you learn you are the alchemical force of relationship itself. You learn that it is safe for you to welcome reality, because you are now exquisitely responsible for the highest standard of what you turn back out on the world.
Others see the way you metabolize life and feel safer and safer in any reality with you, knowing that your respect for them does not hinge on any circumstance going a particular way.
This safety is what draws in the partner of your dreams, or reveals they've been hiding in your bed with you the whole time.
The safety that others feel in your presence is the most valuable resource you could possibly cultivate. Partnerships, friendships, community, family, and especially business relationships thrive in safety and trust.
Trust facilitates vulnerability, courageous action, investment, claim, and commitment. Do we want these in partnership? (I sure do.) Do we want these in business? (Ummm yes please.) Is there anywhere we don't want these values informing our connections with others? (Take your time, I'll wait.)