Old is Gold – About Honest Relationships
Because we have my mother-in-law here for a couple of weeks, this impression comes to my mind. When I look back 9 or 10 years ago, I always thought, my husband and his mother were constantly fighting judging from the tone and volume of their conversation. But no way! Now I know that they have no formalities with each other and simply live! It’s beautiful to watch. I’ve written about it before. When I asked amma (amma is the common word for Mother and the oldest woman in the family is called so) a few weeks at what time she would want to leave to return to her house, she replied in a relaxed voice: “I don’t know, let Hari decide”. It’s not like a son decides for her. But in this case, she can let go and rely on her son. How many old people can do this with confidence in my country? My wish is to be able to take care of my parents, when they get old. And besides, I just love old people!
The following text about relationship is of course a lot more elaborate by Jeff Foster (www.lifewithoutacentre.com)
The healthiest relationships and friendships are not necessarily the ones that look happiest to the naked eye.
They aren’t necessarily the ones where two people are always found holding hands, giggling, dancing and singing with the butterflies on Instagram, where nothing ever goes wrong and love is beautiful and blissful and perfect.
External ‘perfection’ can easily mask internal devastation, disconnection and that awful, unspoken desperation to be free.
The healthiest relationships are the honest ones. And they might not look so ‘happy’ or ‘carefree’ from the outside. They might not fit the image of what a relationship ‘should’ or ‘must’ look or feel like.
Here, two people tell the honest, painful truth about today, and continually let go of all their preconceived ideas about each other. The relationship is forever renewed in the furnace of authenticity. There may be ruptures, misunderstandings, even intense feelings of doubt and disconnection, but there is a mutual willingness to face this seeming mess head-on! To look – with open eyes – at the present rupture, and not turn away or cling to the past. To sit together in the midst of mutual shattered dreams and expectations, and work to find a place of reconnection, here, now, today.
Here, relationship is seen as the ultimate yoga – an ongoing and ever-deepening adventure and rediscovery of each other, a constant letting-go and a constant meeting! Love is not a future destination, conclusion, point of arrival, or a convenient story to tell others. Love is alive.
As Eckhart Tolle says, relationships aren’t here to make us happy – for true happiness lies within. They’re here to make us profoundly conscious.
To break us, to humble us, to make us whole again.
