Do You Give Enough Time and Attention to Your Close Relationships?

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I’m coming up on a big birthday, and it has invoked lots of thoughts of what I want to emphasize this coming year of my life. And, no surprise for those of you who know me and follow us, I find the issue most important to me is finding and creating peace within me and within my deepest relationships. The word for this year is relationships, and so I’ve created a project to run this thread throughout my year.

I have begun talking with the people with whom I have my deepest relationships: friends, relatives, extended family, and my beloved, Phil. I am proposing to each person that we take some time during this next year, from now through my birthday next year, to spend some quality one-on-one time with each other. How, what and where are not important to me. What is important is that we spend the time, attention and awareness of experiencing our relationship together. No matter where we are or what we are doing, what we will be doing is stepping out of daily life just a bit to concentrate on the immediate and present experience of being together.

I share this plan to make clear one of the things I have found most important in any truly deep and peaceful relationship. The key component is that you take the time to just revel in being together, in whatever form, as long as conscious presence and awareness are part of that sharing.

Setting aside special time helps to achieve this. We are all so involved in projects and life’s challenges, plus the pressures in today’s fractured world, that if you don’t make a decision to set aside time for the simple pleasure of relating, it will be relegated to those quick moments in passing. Those incidental moments are often filled with hurry, impatience, lack of presence.

Placing an emphasis on the value that relationships have in your life helps you shift them from passing encounters to a central position of importance. When you acknowledge the value you place on a particular relationship by your actions and the sharing of your time and attention, it creates a deep ease between you and the other person. It is in this awareness of the meaning of each other in your life that peace becomes a partner in that relationship; defenses come down, openness abides and a sweet pleasure of seeing and being seen warms the heart.

You will find that you get more done and experience more fully when you spend that bit of time learning to be fully present and open in your interactions with others. You can discover so much about yourself when you relate in this way with each other. In being fully available to another person, you come out of the busyness of thoughts and personal stories into the world of unique personalities, each seeking to grow and find peace. This is a path to peaceful relationships. It is so simple.

Photo credit: Lois Luger
Photo note: Jenny and Maude in mullet days

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