56/365 Refuse to Take Her/Him for Granted, EVER

THE QUOTE

"The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost."
—G. K. Chesterton

THE LOVE NOTE
K—
We live in a changing and uncertain world. Our kids keep growing and I as I embrace each new stage of their development I also grieve the one past. Because of that I try to be with them as much as I can. I refuse to be the father who looks back on his relationship with his kids and utters, "If only...".

Further,  I try to be a loving and appreciative husband to you because I know too well how easily people can be hurt, marriages can be damaged and relationships lost. I refuse to let that happen to us. I know you do, too, which is why you are so very good to me. I do realize that all the good I have can be lost through ignorance, carelessness and stupidity. As Chesterton said, I belive it is because of this awareness that I do not take you or them for granted and that I am fully able to love you and the children as we all deserve.
—J

THE GREAT RELATIONSHIP PRINCIPLE
Refuse to Take Her/Him for Granted, EVER. There's a STUPID old saying that says, "You always hurt the ones you love." While I understand how that happens, it seems like a cop-out and a lame one at that. Seems to me that if anyone on the planet deserves your best it is those you have sworn to honor, love and protect: Spouse and children.

We give our best to our customers, the store clerk, the neighbor, the friend, the stranger. That is good and right. Those people all deserve to be treated with respect, civility, kindness, and good manners. Of course, it's easier with those people because we don't live with those people day after day, year after year. Naturally, when we live so closely we get on each others nerves, get stressed, and snap at each other. However, rather than seeing that as an excuse for bad behavior it should provide us with all the more reason to be even on our better behaivor, to watch ourselves, to learn and practice the skills to master strong emotions and to discipline our behaviors.

What skills, what practices? Oh, man, there are so many great things available to us. Some of my personal and professional favorites have become the ones I teach the most: Mindfulness practices, Building Strong Families with ACCCTS principles and skills, Marketing the GREAT Relationship Brand in Your Relationships, and so many more (seminars and articles) Come learn them in private coaching or invite me to speak to your group or event.
 
The phrase "You always hurt the ones you love" is the pre-cursor to "You don't know what you've got til it's gone." Two tragic, and wholly avoidable, cliches that can be, and should be, stricken from our relationship lexicon.  Thus, Chesterton's quote is a simple key to preventing both of these lame cliches.

51/365 True Love Is Sacred

THE QUOTE

"I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love."—Henry Ward Beecher

THE LOVE NOTE
K—
I have been a "hopeless romantic" for as long as I can remember. However, I've never fully known love until I've paid the price to know it. That price has been commitment, dedication, devotion, sacrifice, forgiveness, compassion. Those are divine traits that this mortal son of God has tried to practice for your sake, for our children's sake and for my sake. Thus, it is only since I've learned to love that I've learned to fully worship my God—not in prayers and worship meetings alone but most importantly in daily practice of loving well His children according to their birthright: That you and the children deserve to be loved well. I hope that I love you well, baby. You deserve nothing less than the very best I can give.
—J

THE GREAT RELATIONSHIP PRINCIPLE
True love is sacred as it requires sacrifice. True sacrifice isn't easy, however, it is sacrfice that gives up the good for the greater. False, or empty sacrifice is when we give up the good and then only note that the good was given up. That is when we "count the cost" of our sacrifice. That sacrfice is not sacred.

That which is sacred is protected and reverenced. A temple is honored and treated with respect. It is considered holy. Treat your partner and your marriage the same. However, truth is it is much easier to reverence a sacred structure than it is a relationship. A structure is constant; people fluctuate. A structure is easily identifiable as sacred; an upset, impatient and imperfect partner is not. All the more reason why I believe that our greatest opportunities for spiritual growth are in our relationships. It is in our relationships that the things we say we believe are tested to their core. It is easy for me to be pious, high-minded and reverent in my place of worship. It is not easy for me to always be so in my relationships with my spouse and children. Thus it is in those relationships that my belief is fully tested and it is there where my true character shows itself—for good or ill. Thus, when I learn to love fully and well the people who are not always easy to love fully and well, then I have fully learned to worship the Divine.

Loving another, as imperfect as you are and as imperfect as the other is, allows us to taste perfection and to get in touch with the sacred, with the Divine. Sacred love requires that I sacrifice the hardest thing to sacrifice: Ego. Pay the price that sacred love requires: The price of commitment, dedication, devotion, sacrifice, forgiveness, and compassion. These are the traits of the Divine. We can only develop transcendent love when we transcend our ego that keeps us anchored to pride and self-centeredness. Instead we must willingly trade ego for other-centeredness, which frees us into true connection with the divine nature in self and others. It is through connecting with the Divine within us and in others that we are then connected with the Divine.