“In the beginning of a relationship, you see what you want to see. You fall in love with qualities you want in partner, not necessarily qualities your partner actually has. Then, over time, you begin to realise that no, the man in front of you is not the same person you felt in love with, because the person you felt in love with was a spectre, something of your own invention. Now you're left with a real flesh-and-blood human, and he isn't perfect, and now you have to deal with that. It's a stark time. It's not easy to come to grips with these things, but you can't go your whole life pretending this man is everything you built him up to be in your mind.”
“...Nothing that your partner does is personal. Your partner is dealing with her own garbage. If you don't take it personally, it will be so easy for you to have a wonderful relationship with your partner”
“When you see that a person's defects and bad qualities are so obvious, try to feel immediately that his defects and bad qualities do not represent him totally. His real self is infinitely better than what you see now. On the other hand, if you really want to love humanity, then you have to love humanity as it stands now and not expect it to come to a specific standard. If humanity has to become perfect before it can be accepted by you, then it would not need your love affection and concern. Right now, in its imperfect state of consciousness, humanity needs your help. Give humanity unreservedly even the most insignificant and limited help that you have at your disposal. This is the golden opportunity.”
“Often when you go into a relationship with someone you like, you have to justify why you like that person. You only see what you want to see and you deny there are things you don't like about that person. You lie to yourself just to make yourself right. Then you make assumptions, and one of the assumptions is "My love will change this person." But this is not true. Your love will not change anybody. If others change, it's because they want to change, not because you can change them. Then something happens between the two of you, and you get hurt. Suddenly you see what you didn't want to see before, only now it is amplified by your emotional poison. Now you have to justify your emotional pain and blame them for your choices.”
“We can, and must, develop dialogue and relatedness with our body because it’s talking to us all the time. And please remember, your body loves you. It does everything it can to keep you alive and functioning. You can feed it garbage, and it will take it and digest it for you. You can deprive it of sleep, but still it gets you up and running next morning. You can drink too much alcohol, and it will eliminate it from your system. It loves you unconditionally and does its best to allow you to live the life you came here for. The real issue in this relationship is not whether your body loves you, but whether you love your body. In any relationship, if one partner is loving, faithful and supportive, it’s easy for the other to take that person for granted. That’s what most of us do with our bodies. It is time for you to shift this, and working to understand your cravings is one of the best places to begin. Then you can build a mutually loving relationship with your own body.”
“What a relationship looks like on the outside isn't the same as what it's like on the inside. You can be more in love with someone in your mind than with the person you see every day.”