"A relationship is something that is finished. It is a noun. 
Relating is an ongoing phenomena. It is a verb not a noun" 

Do you want relationship, defined, done and dusted or do you want to experience relating ever moment you live....?

"A relationship is something that is finished. It is a noun. 
Relating is an ongoing phenomena. It is a verb not a noun"

DIVING IN

I'm wondering whether you are willing to stop for a spell and try an easy little relating experiment on yourself?

Think of anyone you have interacted with recently.  It could be a driver who overtook you on the highway this morning, the person you made love with or wanted to last night or it could be the mother who gave birth to you...  and it could be any interaction that comes to mind now..

First off each of those statements will have made you go inside and form words, images and feeling, even a smell or a taste in relation to driving, making love, wanting to make love, not to mention all the stuff that goes with mothers... ;-)

And you may also notice what shifts mentally, emotionally and in your physical feelings when you think of yourself relating with that person as opposed to thinking about the 'relationship' you have or think you don't have with them?  

Do you stop relating because they are not physically present at this moment or are they always in some way affecting the very course of your life by words spoken,  gestures made and feelings generated in that moment or lifetime of interaction? 

Did you recall something from the past or did you imagine something yet to come?    And what's happening right now as you read this.... as I relate to you through these words and you relate to me by reading them? 

As an explorer of what makes people tick, I am fascinated by  how we humans relate and the effect we have on each other. As a writer, relationship coach [or should that be 'relating coach'] and body language researcher, I am endlessly experiencing how people, myself included, use thoughts, words and gestures and how they affect us and those around us. 

WORDS - MAGIC WAND OR WICKED WEAPON ?

Take words.    One of my mentors, Joseph Riggio, once said -  'words are semantically loaded neurotransmitters'.  

Every time you use heavily loaded phrases  like 'I love you' or 'I want a relationship' and words like 'marriage' 'sex' or 'kissing' you are imbuing your communication not just with the standard 'dictionary meaning' but with every emotional experience you've ever experienced in relation to that word.    

And every word, voice tone and accompanying gestures you use when relating with another generates a neurological  response in them as they go inside, experience their emotional reaction and translate it into their own unique meaning and react accordingly... 

Sticks and stones can build homes or hurt your bones and words can affect you just as powerfully.  

And how we choose to be affected or not is the topic of another blog...

YOU'RE NEVER NOT RELATING...

Each sip of water you drink has been through someone else's body.  Every breath you take contains elements produced by the plant world and molecules of air breathed out at one time by another human being.

Every time you swallow a contraceptive pill hormones meander their way back into the water supply and into the bodies of other people.   Every time you drink a glass of water, those hormones are entering your body.  And, according to the Law of Attraction,  every deed you do and thought you have, sets something in motion in you and the universe.  

When I was a kid we used to say grace before our meals.  To my brother and I they were just words to be gotten through in order to eat.  They had no meaning for us.   

I was in a restaurant, a few years back, with a friend of mine, who is also a writer, and, as the food was placed before him, he put his hands palm down over the plate and held them there for a good 30 seconds.  I assumed he was blessing the food, but being mindful that assumptions are dangerous I asked him 'What was that about?'

His reply was profound.

'Every time I eat I look at the food and imagine it growing in a field [not grazing...he was a veggie!] and I thank the farmers who planted, harvested and packed it.  I appreciate the skill of the pilot who flew the plane to get it to the supermarket [that was before carbon offset consciousness].  

I honour person who placed it on the shelf and the check out assistant who took my money for it and I say thank you to all of them for being part of the chain that is facilitated the bringing of this delicious sustenance to my mouth'  '

And then' he continued, 'I think of how eating this food is nourishing me to do the work I do and maybe one day that farmer's child or the check out assistant's friend will speak to someone who knows someone who read something I wrote and learn something about themselves'

and so the world flows..'.

You are never not relating!

I had no idea what I would write about when I began this but I did have a sense of how it feels to me when I connect to the universe of which I am a part and not apart and let it flow...

until we meet again...

with love

peta

PS The quote is adapted from Love, Freedom, Aloneness by Osho

Recommended Reading: Love Freedom Aloneness by Osho; Love is Letting Go of Fear by Gerald Jampolsky