Just as the wind moves through a tree and carries its pollen to the blossoms of another tree, our relationships are intended to help “pollinate” the soul so that true understanding of why we are here on Earth can flower within it. We grow through our relationships with life, which means that through them we are shown possibilities about ourselves we never knew existed. To exclude any of these discoveries is to deny ourselves the truth of ourselves, something the Truth within us would never do.

We need a new intention in all of our relationships, something like this: “I will not suffer you; instead I will work to be increasingly conscious of us, suffering what I must for the sake of both of us. I will not cast you out as being something inferior to myself; I will not do that because it’s impossible to recognize any ‘inferior’ condition in you unless something of it exists in myself as well.”

Our work, if we’re willing, is to catch that surging separation called “You are different from me.” And then, in that same moment, to apply our new understanding that cancels this unconscious act of resistance. Instead, we embrace the realization that “you” and “I” are both exposed in this God-given moment that God meant for the purpose of transcending ourselves.