This video is from The Mastery Course

The key to creating love

Have you ever had a relationship where the two of you loved each other, but your relationship was a disaster? What good is someone's love for you if the person treats you lousy? It's not much good at all. Love by itself is never enough to have a relationship work. The divorce courts are full of people who love each other.

The key to having a great relationship is to make sure the other person feels loved. If I treat you in a way that has you feel loved, our relationship will be great. If I treat you in a way that has you feel unloved, our relationship will be a mess. So, if I want our relationship to be great, it's up to me. I need to make sure you feel loved.

What creates the experience of love?

The experience of love is created by giving the gift of acceptance and appreciation. Notice how you feel when someone genuinely accepts and appreciates you. Doesn't this feel good? Of course it does. You feel better about yourself and better about life. You also feel better about the other person.

The same thing happens when you accept and appreciate someone else. That person feels empowered and automatically feels better about you. By giving acceptance and appreciation, you create the experience of love.

Now notice how you feel when someone is non-accepting, critical, or controlling towards you. Instantly, the experience of love disappears. You get hurt and upset. You put up your walls of protection and automatically become critical of the person who is non-accepting.

The same thing happens when you are non-accepting and critical of someone else. That person gets upset, puts up his or her walls of protection, and automatically becomes critical and resentful of you.

Then you get hurt. Your walls of protection get stronger and you become more judgmental and critical of the other person. Then the other person gets more upset and becomes more critical of you. Then you get more upset at the other person. Without knowing, you create a cycle of conflict, a cycle of hurting, attacking, and withdrawing from each other.

This cycle then goes on and on without either person ever noticing his or her role in the problem. It's this cycle of conflict that creates the suffering in relationships. To end the cycle of conflict, or to make sure it never starts, make sure the other person feels loved, accepted, and appreciated. This is the key to having any relationship work.

The key to accepting

Unfortunately, accepting is much easier said than done. Some people are very difficult to accept. Fortunately, acceptance is nothing more than surrendering to the truth. The people in your life are exactly the way they are whether you like it or not.

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Pick someone in your life that you can't accept. Now notice that this person has a very particular state of mind and a very particular way of seeing life. Notice that this person is exactly the way he or she is and that your feelings about it are totally irrelevant.

When you are at peace with the truth of the way someone is, you can see the truth. When you can see the truth, you can see what you need to do. You can then make decisions and take action based on facts instead of emotion.

You may discover that the person isn't for you. That's okay. Maybe you need to move on. Maybe you need to say "No," or maybe you need to empower the person, but whatever you do, you can do it with love. Effective action can handle a situation but not resisting. When you fight the truth of the way someone is, you destroy love, create conflict, and make your situation worse.

To have a relationship be great, surrender to the truth of the way the person is and empower the person as a human being. Then do whatever you need to do to have your life be great. Remember, every time you interact with another person, you will either create the experience of love or destroy it, and whatever you give will come right back. So make sure the people in your life feel loved, accepted, and appreciated.

To learn more about how to heal your relationships, take The Mastery Course and read the book, How To Heal A Painful Relationship. You can also schedule an appointment with Bill Ferguson.