Here are some quick links to articles that have appeared in the Amazing Relationships eZine:

Vol 1. No 10 (June 2, 2005): Neptune Retrograde: Reconnecting With the Dream

Vol 1. No 9 (May 23, 2005): How to Never Worry About Money Again

Vol 1. No 8 (May 4, 2005): The Attitude of Gratitude

Vol 1. No 7 (April 23, 2005): Judgments About Judgment

Vol 1. No 6 (April 5, 2005): Smokey Mirrors: Seeing the True Reflection Through a Fog of Emotions

Vol 1. No 5 (March 24, 2005): Why Most People Don't Really Want to Heal (Part 2)

Vol 1. No 4 (March 9, 2005): Why Most People Don't Really Want to Heal (Part 1)

Vol 1. No 3 (February 24, 2005): Why Anger is Essential to Healthy Relationships

Vol 1. No 2 (February 9, 2005): Being Someone's Valentine (Even if it's Your Own)

Vol 1. No. 1 (January 28, 2005): Typecasting, Candice Bergen and Family Relationships

Strategies for Surviving Holiday Dinners, Family Events and Other War Zones

While most people assume that General Sherman was referring to the Civil War when he stated, “War is hell,” in fact, he was referring to a particularly memorable Thanksgiving dinner with his family. This also explains why he could send his troops into battle without a second thought, but that the very mention of cranberry sauce would reduce him to tears.

Bearing this in mind, here are some essential tips for surviving your next family gathering.

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Being Someone's Valentine (Even if it's Your Own)

Each of us has certain expectations and obligations we must fulfill in our lives. As a person who claims to be an expert in human relationships, one of the expectations that I must meet is that every February I am obligated to write something about Valentine’s Day.

I find this task rather challenging. When I write articles, I always try to include everyone. Valentine’s Day, however, is not an inclusive event. How we feel about (and experience) Valentine’s Day depends entirely on whether or not we happen to be in a romantic relationship at the time.

When couples read articles about Valentine’s Day, they expect to learn about how to spice up their love life or where to find unique and memorable gift. I can only guess about what singles expect when they read articles about Valentine’s Day, because I can’t think of a single article about Valentine’s Day that even acknowledges the possibility that everyone in the world isn’t happily partnered.

If you’re single, please keep reading: This may be the first article ever written on Valentine’s Day that actually speaks to you. If you’re in a romantic relationship, keep reading, as well: You’re covered here, too.

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Can We Still Be Friends?

Even when we know it’s time to end a romantic relationship, we’re often reluctant to let go of our partners completely. We’ve shared so much of our lives with our partner, it seems almost callous to simply cut them out of our lives—especially if we’re ending the relationship on good terms. It’s natural that we want to hold onto the loving and supportive part of the romantic relationship, and simply let go of the parts that aren’t serving us. This is entirely possible: we can remain friends with our former lovers. We both need to want to build a friendship, however.
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Balancing Mars and Venus in Each of Us

When we think of ourselves first and foremost as human, we’ve taken the first step towards regaining our balance. Gender does not define who we are. Gender is nothing more than a biological point of view. Once we take 2,500 years of ego- and fear-based conditioning out of the picture, the main difference between men and women is whether we have indoor or outdoor plumbing. We are not our bodies. Our bodies are nothing more than a suit of clothes worn by our spirit. The main differences are that our spirits wear our bodies for longer than our bodies wear our clothes, and our bodies are harder to dry clean. Men and women do have different points of view, but what matters is that we are all human. And every human has equal amounts of masculine and feminine energy.
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Extended Family Relationships: Staying Friends with Former Lovers and Spouses

It’s natural to want to maintain a relationship with our former romantic partners (assuming that the relationship ended on reasonably good terms, of course). We shared a special bond with them, and they touched our lives and contributed to our sense of self in ways that we cannot even begin to describe. Just because the romantic and/or sexual aspects of the relationship have ended, why shouldn’t we include our former partners in our lives in other roles? If we have mutual friends, or shared custody of children, we will be spending time with our former partners whether we want to or not. Since we had a positive connection with them on so many levels, it should be easy to simply become friends, right? Not necessarily.
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Sex Without Intimacy and Intimacy Without Sex

We no longer feel the social pressure to confine sex to committed relationships. In fact, we’re free to explore our sexuality with just about anyone we like. Sex is now an accepted recreational activity. What we often don’t realize, however, is that even casual, recreational sex still involves intimacy. We may have overcome our fear and shame about sex, but many of us still have issues regarding intimacy. If we experience more intimacy than we can handle, we will feel threatened; our safety checklist will be triggered. No matter how “safe” we make sex, sex may not be safe to us.
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Neptune Retrograde: Reconnecting With the Dream

In the Vedic traditions, there are three fundamental forces in the Universe, known as the Gunas: Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas. Sattva is the infinite, ultimate creative potential, Tamas is the ultimate destructive force, and Rajas is the tension between the two, where all activity occurs. The three Gunas relate to the three outer planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Neptune is Sattva, the energy of infinite potential; Pluto is Tamas, the ultimate destructive force; and Uranus is Rajas, creating change and manifestation by connecting the energies of Neptune and Pluto.

Now, I should be very clear that the links between the outer planets and the Gunas are entirely my own; I’ve never encountered anyone else who has made these connections. However, once I associated the outer planets with the Gunas, I found I had a much broader and richer appreciation for the energy and functions of the outer planets than I had before.

For example, this association forever changed my understanding of Pluto. If Pluto is the energy of Tamas, it is the ultimate destructive force in the Universe. However, the ultimate destructive force in the Universe is unconditional love. Unconditional love will eventually destroy everything that is not true, obliterating all illusion, and leaving only what is true and eternal. This is the real function of Pluto. We don’t experience Pluto in this way, of course, because we experience the outer planets through the filter of our ego, which is neither true nor eternal, which means it can and will be obliterated by Pluto. Pluto scares the crap out of our egos.

Humanity is only just reaching the stage of our evolution where we can understand the energy of Uranus. Our average life span is now around 80 years: approximately the time it takes for Uranus to complete one orbit around the Sun. As a species, we’re waking up to the truth that there’s infinitely more to the Universe than what we perceive and experience in the third dimension.

And then, there’s Neptune.

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How to Never Worry About Money Again

Last year, I attended a metaphysical study group on Wednesday nights. One month, the topic was abundance and prosperity. The main book we were studying was Catherine Ponders, The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity, but we also addressed several other books, including Lynne Twist’s, The Soul of Money.

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The Attitude of Gratitude

I’m currently reading Dr. Wayne Dyer’s book, The Power of Intention. In it, Dr. Dyer talks about another book, by Dr. David Hawkins, Power vs. Force (which is the nextbook on my list to read). Dr. Hawkins’ book is the result of 29 years of research, and concludes that “We all float on the collective level of consciousness of mankind, so that any increment we add comes back to us…It is a scientific fact that what is good for you is good for me.”

Dr. Hawkins asserts that 87 percent of humanity operates at the lower energetic frequencies of fear, pain, anger, and other “negative” emotions. However, this is offset by the fact that the rest of humanity operates at much higher frequencies of love and gratitude. Since the higher frequencies are far more powerful than the lower frequencies, one person operating at higher frequency counterbalances a great number of individuals operating at lower frequencies. The amazing thing is that the higher frequency individuals don’t have to do anything but operate at those higher frequencies. Simply living their lives in love and gratitude raises the collective vibration of humanity.

In fact, according to Dr. Hawkins, one person who chooses to live with optimism and non-judgment of others offsets the energy of 90,000 individuals vibrating at lower energetic frequencies. The numbers get even more impressive the more we integrate love, peace and gratitude into our vibration and our lives.

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Judgments About Judgment

I’ve noticed that many of us who embrace the power of positive thinking have very strong feelings about judgment. Judgment is bad. Judgment is wrong. Judgment should be avoided at all costs. The irony is that we are in judgment about judgment.

Why is judgment so powerful? Because judgment is one of the most essential ways that we can meet our Safety Needs. Judgments allow us to make the choices that will protect us and keep us safe. Judgment is how we know when it’s safe to cross the street, how we know not to eat green meat or brown vegetables, and that it’s probably not a good idea to invest in ocean-front property in Kansas. Each day, we make thousands of judgments that support our health, safety, happiness, and general well being. Since this is the case, how can we judge judgment to be bad?

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Smokey Mirrors: Seeing the True Reflection Through a Fog of Emotions

When stage magicians perform an illusion, it’s often accomplished with the use of mirrors. The mirrors (and often the accompanying smoke) fool us by making us think that we’re seeing something other than what we’re actually seeing. We get caught up in the moment, we buy into the illusion, and we don’t notice that what we’re really looking at is our reflection.

Of course, the same thing happens to us on a daily basis. We get caught up in the illusions of our relationships and we forget that everything that we see in other people is simply our own reflection. This is the Universal Law of Relationships: Our partners in relationship are our mirrors; they reflect our own issues back to us. It’s often hard to accept this truth, because when we relate to other people, our reflection is often hidden through a smoke screen of our emotions.

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Why Most People Don't Really Want to Heal (Part 1)

I recently attended a metaphysical lecture facilitated by Guy Williams, a friend of mine who also happens to be a minister of Religious Science. After the lecture, Guy opened the floor for prayer requests, and one of the attendees asked for healing for a family member who was experiencing a significant health crisis.

In the course of the discussion, Guy asked if the attendee was certain that her family member actually wanted to heal, observing, “Most people don’t really want to heal. Most people just want to stop hurting.”

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Why Most People Don't Really Want to Heal (Part 2)

For most of us, healing is a big, scary, and uncomfortable prospect. Healing requires that we do two very simple, yet incredibly unappealing tasks. First, we must accept that we are responsible for creating our own illness: Our thoughts, beliefs, choices and actions are directly responsible for the imbalance and dis-ease we are experiencing in our physical bodies. Second, we must be willing to change our lives and eliminate the thoughts, beliefs, choices and actions that created and supported the imbalance and dis-ease, replacing them with new choices that support balance and health.

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Why Anger is Essential to Healthy Relationships

Many of us have some very definite ideas about anger. We see anger as destructive and hurtful. We consider it to be an inappropriate response. We equate anger with violence. In short, we feel that anger is simply wrong, and that when we experience anger, there’s something wrong with us. Anger isn’t nice. Anger isn’t polite. And anger certainly isn’t our friend.

Anger can be all of these things. But anger is also useful, necessary and even healing. We need our anger. We simply need to learn how to express our anger in appropriate, conscious, supportive ways. On its own, anger is neither good nor bad. It can be used to hurt, or it can be used to heal. It may not be a particularly pleasant emotion, but it’s an important one. And anger—or rather the skillful use and understanding of anger—is essential to creating healthy relationships.

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Change the Words and Change the World

If we want to change our lives in any way, all we need to do is to change our words, thoughts and beliefs. When we change the words, we change the world.

Over the course of this handbook, you may discover a number of beliefs that no longer support you. By following this simple, three-step process, you can change your beliefs. By consciously creating beliefs that support us, we can change our reality and enhance our lives.

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The Nature of Anger

Many of us have some very definite ideas about anger. We see anger as destructive and hurtful. We consider it to be an inappropriate response. We equate anger with violence. In short, we feel that anger is simply wrong, and that when we experience anger, there’s something wrong with us. Anger isn’t nice. Anger isn’t polite. And anger certainly isn’t our friend.

Anger can be all of these things. But anger is also useful, necessary and even healing. We need our anger. We simply need to learn how to express our anger in appropriate, conscious, supportive ways. On its own, anger is neither good nor bad. It can be used to hurt, or it can be used to heal. It may not be a particularly pleasant emotion, but it’s an important one. We can all benefit from exploring the nature of anger.

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The “F-Word”

I’d like to invite you to consider a powerful concept. This concept is essential—we must learn how to master it if we want to experience the levels of joy, happiness, love and prosperity that are our birthright. Many of us, however, resist this concept. We use it sparingly, if at all, and occasionally, we won’t even consider it as an option. In fact, for many of us, this concept is so emotionally charged that I hesitate to even name it, because if I call it anything other than the “f-word” it could put our egos on high alert.

You see, in many cases, avoiding this concept is the ego’s front line defense—an effort to protect us from experiencing pain. The ego believes that if we embraced the “f-word” we would be defenseless at best, and at worst, we would be destroyed completely. Of course, it doesn’t help that most of us have a somewhat ego- and fear-based understanding of the “f-word” that makes it less than appealing. The truth is that embracing the “f-word” is the secret to experiencing genuine freedom in our lives.

So, what is the “f-word”? Forgiveness.

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Meeting Safety Needs

One of the most valuable life skills we can learn is how to meet our safety needs. We are responsible for maintaining the minimum balance in our safety accounts. When we learn to meet our own safety needs, every area of our lives—including our relationships—improves dramatically. Meeting our own safety needs is relatively simple. Meeting other people’s safety needs, however, is a bit more complicated.

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Professional Relationship Blueprints

Our professional relationships draw on two sets of relationship blueprints. The Authority Blueprint governs our relationships to authority figures, as well as our relationships to our subordinates when we are in a position of authority. The Sibling Blueprint governs our relationships to our co-workers.

Many companies today try to foster a sense of community (and employee loyalty) by claiming to be one big happy family. The irony is that even without the company’s efforts to create a sense of family in the workplace, we do experience our professional environment as a family. Of course, the family our company resembles is our family, complete with the same dysfunctional dynamics we experienced growing up.

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Typecasting, Candice Bergen and Family Relationships

In Hollywood, actors are, often arbitrarily, assigned a “type.” We see an actor in a certain role, and identify her with that role. The stronger the identification, the harder it is for us to accept her in different roles. Actors constantly struggle against “typecasting,” because once they’re seen as a certain “type,” they find it more difficult to be cast in roles that differ from this “type.”

Jim Carrey, for example, is a fine dramatic actor; however, it’s taken him many years (and a number of baby steps) to be able to be accepted in more serious roles, and audiences still relate to him best when he’s being a clown.

But typecasting doesn’t just happen in Hollywood. We also encounter typecasting in our family relationships.

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