In the previous draft, I wrote about how our thoughts shape our destiny much more so than our words or actions. In this draft, let’s look at how we can use the power of our thoughts to heal our relationships — whether it’s the relationship with our partners, our friends, or our children — by taking care of our own mind.
Earlier, I wrote about a particular situation with my partner. For some reason, I thought it was my words or actions/behavior from the past that led to my partner questioning our relationship. While that was true to an extent, I later realized the real reason was that I was responsible for our situation (unwittingly) by having mixed thoughts in my mind about our relationship at certain times due to my own insecurities, and the events that took place later were merely incidental to the issue. She was not wrong in saying that she didn’t feel the same about us. I thought she felt that way from the few instances during that time, and while that was somewhat true, I later realized those were only on the outside and were a secondary cause at best, as our everyday situations alone can’t affect our relationships.
Here’s the thing, in order to resolve a situation in a relationship, we usually tend to say, “let’s talk”. However, talking about these things face-to-face usually makes matters worse, even with the best of intentions. Our relationship is not made in our words or actions, which are on the outside, as much as it is made in our thinking and feeling that the other person is unable to see physically. While our actions do matter (as in, what we do for our partners/family members/children), they are secondary to the thoughts we create for our relationships. In fact, it’s possible to do fewer actions and still have fulfilling relationships, as long as our thinking remains pure.
The problem occurs when our thinking is inconsistent with our words or actions, even if slightly and/or inadvertently. Then, it’s only a matter of time (as it was in our case) until we have a situation where it comes and bites us. It wasn’t that I had negative intentions for our relationship — far from it — I love my partner very much (and I know she feels the same). It’s just that I let my own fears and insecurities from my past (little to do with my partner) get in our way, which inadvertently kept me from giving 100 percent to our relationship (even if at the thought level). While I have resolved these uncertainties for myself since then, I will be doubly mindful about my thoughts going forward in our relationship, so it doesn’t impact things moving forward. The thing is, when we have these doubts or fears, we end up creating (and sending) negative energy to others, whether we want it or not. In retrospect, all of those thoughts collectively created this negative energy, which later manifested in a few instances leading up to our situation; hence those difficult conversations, for example, were purely incidental to our situation. The negative energy my partner received from me over those handful of instances is why she didn’t feel the same about us. In other words, I was responsible for creating the negative karma in our relationship through my thoughts (which later manifested through my words and behavior), and what I received in return was my destiny. The law of karma states that whatever we send is what we receive. It’s cause and effect. We are always writing our destiny with our thoughts.
You see, relationships happen first in the mind. Our thoughts, words, and actions (in that order) are the three energies that flow to others. We cannot stop any of these energies. We might think others may not be aware of our thinking (much less us), but we cannot stop energy from flowing to others. Our energy is always going from our mind into our relationships. This is why when we meet someone, even though they seem fine from their words and behavior, something about them feels off and we find it hard to explain to ourselves why we feel that way; that something is the negative energy we receive from them.
As it turns out, we might do things for our partners, but when we are not radiating the right energy to them, we end up creating not-so-perfect vibrations. We need to look at our relationship in a detached way by seeing the soul in the body that’s in the relationship with us. Sure, I did loving actions for my partner (as she did for me), but while doing that, I also had some tension, worry, irritation, impatience, and maybe even criticism on my mind, which were unrelated to those actions per se, but nevertheless ended up creating negative energy in our relationship; all of these vibrations radiated from me and reached her, whether I wanted it or not. It went to her 24/7. When these vibrations reached her, her soul received the negative energy. So, while my loving actions might have been otherwise close to perfect (barring a handful of instances), the vibrations I was sending were less than ideal. I didn’t pay enough attention to my state of mind, which was responsible for creating that negative vibe to begin with. It didn’t matter what I was doing for my partner because I wasn’t radiating the right energy to her. It turns out relationships are not based on what we do for each other as much as it’s based on how we think and feel about it. That foundation needs to be strong.
If our relationships were based only on our actions today, they would have been really strong and stable, but that isn’t the case. Come to think of it, everything we do in life is for the relationships we have at home, work, etc. But, because we focus so much of our attention on the doing and not enough on the being, we have not been able to create a strong relationship.
What is a relationship? A relationship is an exchange of energy between two souls. It has nothing to do with labels we use such as parent-child, husband-wife, partners, friends, etc. In fact, those labels usually get in our way.
Relationships are not about give and take. Relationship means giving (not wanting), and while we are giving, we receive that energy first. Meaning we, the creator of our energy, will get it first, so we don’t need it from others. Ergo, the more we give in a relationship, the less we need. So relationships can (and should) exist without any expectations.
The foundation of a relationship is in the mind and not outside. What matters is how we think and feel about others. Relationships are not about what we’re doing for the other people as much as what we are thinking about them. It consists of our thoughts, feelings, words, and behaviors. What matters is our perspective about other people, situations, and the world.
What happened in the recent past with my partner was a result of my negative thoughts, unknowingly doubting our relationship over time. What will change in the near future will also be a result of my thoughts about us. Our thoughts are more powerful than our words or actions.
Here’s the thing, any relationship can be healed and only one person is needed to heal it. We believe two people caused a conflict, so both need to bring a change. Truth is, if one person radiates the right thoughts to the relationship, conflict starts dissolving. Conflicts cannot survive if even one of the two people stops participating. Moreover, conflict can never be resolved through words and actions; it has to be resolved from the mind, but more on this below.
First, we need to stop calling it a problem/conflict. Call it a situation in your life, if you will. How we think about our situation will affect it (not vice-versa). The next step towards healing our relationship is acceptance of the situation for what it is in the present. We’ll know we will have fully accepted our situation when we stop thinking about the past and wishing things were different (which is harder than it sounds, but doable), which nevertheless is counter-productive in the present and only depletes our soul power. Thinking about what we could/would/should have done earlier will only drain us of our energy now. It’s only when we accept our situation for what it is that we can do something about it. We can either focus on the problem or the solution, but not both. Once we have accepted the situation, then we can focus on the solution.
At any given point of time, our thoughts can either intensify our problem or finish it. We need to stop talking and thinking about the existing problem, so that energy is removed from the vibration. Thinking about the problem will cause our mind to aggravate it. We only want to think and talk about what we want to happen. We need to keep radiating that vibration. That will protect us and start influencing them.
Once we have made peace with our situation, we need to forgive ourselves for it without which we won’t be able to help ourselves, and thereby bring about a positive change in our situation.
In order to heal our relationship, we need to have an unshakeable optimism about it, that we will be able to do this without the other person’s participation. We need to replace our fear with faith, believing that things will work out for us. We trust the process regardless of how arduous it may seem right now, while staying detached to the outcome, but more on this below.
Once we have decided to heal our relationship, we need to focus on making it happen and ignore everything else (including our inner negative chitchat).
We say to ourselves:
“I will not create a thought of what this situation is. I will create a thought of what I wish and want this situation to be. The thought I create will radiate and manifest. I will think and say only what I want my destiny to be.”
We will create (and send) positive thoughts to our relationship every day. But, in order to give anything to others, we need to create that energy first. That means we spend some time every day to create a loving relationship with ourselves. Remember, we can only radiate love to others when we learn to love ourselves first.
If we want to heal our relationships, we need to learn to take care of our mind, which means we need to take control of our thoughts. There are no shortcuts to get there.
One way to do that is through daily affirmations. We can bless ourselves every day. We remind ourselves that we are peaceful souls. We need to counsel our mind. Fear shouldn’t exist in our (healer’s) energy field. Replace it with faith. We can either send fear or faith to the other person. It’s our choice. Whatever we send, we will experience it first.
We say to ourselves, for example, “My intention is pure. That my every karma is right. Nothing wrong can happen with me. I radiate peace, love, and happiness to everyone. I accept others the way they are. I need nothing from anyone. Every soul who meets me will get happiness and contentment from me. I am an angel of God. I always think right no matter what. I influence others without being affected by the energy of people or situations”.
We need to have high-energy thoughts, which should be consistent with our words and actions. So the affirmation isn’t just for the morning, but something we repeat throughout the day. The idea is for it to become our normal way of thinking, speaking, and behaving. It’s only then that affirmation will manifest and become reality. Take a minute every hour to say it throughout the day.
Besides practicing affirmation, we need to check our every thought throughout the day. Our every thought needs to be beautiful and perfect. At the minimum, when we can’t think positive about someone, we choose not to think negative about them. We are not concerned with what others are thinking or doing or what they have said/done in the past. We are only concerned with our response by virtue of writing our own script as in what we think, say, and do.
While we are practicing self-love through affirmations and being mindful of our thoughts, we can start giving in our relationship. Whatever we give to others is what we receive. The energy (peace or anger) which we give to people is what we get in return. The more we give, the less we need, because every time we give, we are the first ones to receive it ourselves. For instance, when we are thinking nice thoughts (or anger) toward others, we experience it first. We accept others the way they are rather than expecting from them. For instance, when someone’s habit does not create any negativity in our mind, when we are peaceful, we are radiating love and peace to them.
We need to create perfect vibrations in our head. The one who sustains the relationship is the soul, which means the mind that creates the thoughts. We raise the frequency of our thoughts. The quality of our thoughts have to be best. Love, respect, acceptance, and trust should radiate in our every thought and feeling for them. These vibrations will radiate from us to the other person.
We need to bring up the person in the screen of our mind (or look at their picture) for a minute in the morning after our meditation and talk to their soul. We need to create one single thought for our relationship; we consciously sit down and send it to them every day. This thought has to be about what we want our relationship to be in the present. It could be a few lines or a single sentence. For instance, saying, “My partner and I share a beautiful relationship”. We can do this once in the morning, once in the evening, plus any other time we think of them during the day.
When we have one thought continuously for others over a period of time, positive change is bound to happen in that relationship (provided there is no competing karma created). Our thoughts will reach the other person, but it won’t happen overnight. Our relationship is getting created in our thinking. Be careful about thinking one thing and speaking another thing (and vice-versa); our thoughts have to be consistent with our words and actions (and vice-versa) or it won’t work. We need to have faith in ourselves (and in the other person). When we send them thoughts with 100 percent purity, it’s only a matter of time before we start receiving the same from them.
We need to have compassion for our relationship, which leads to understanding and accepting them for who they are. It is essential for our peace, mental stability, and most importantly, for our own survival. There are a couple of ways to have compassion in our relationship. No expectations and total acceptance (which is the opposite of rejection).
We need to apologize internally to others who are being wrong to us today: We can look at them with compassion and say to them in our mind: “I’m sorry for what I’ve done to you in the past, because of which you are doing this to me today”. Remember, nobody can do anything wrong to us unless we’ve sent that energy to them before.
When someone is mad at us, for instance, we create only one thought for them in our mind: They are a peaceful soul. What’s more important is not only that we are sending pure thoughts to others, but also who we are becoming in the process, which is a more peaceful and loving being. What we think about others becomes a part of our character. What we absorb from the world is what we will become. One thought can either shift us (and the other person) towards healing OR it can shift us both towards holding onto that hurt for a long time.
There should be a harmony and beautiful energy flow between two people, but which is not flowing for some reason. We are trying hard and making lots of efforts, but for some reason there comes a misunderstanding, some difference, anger, or hurt comes up. We need to think of that person in our mind, then we need to think about our state of mind whilst we were doing things for them. Our intention towards them was beautiful, but how was our state of mind?
When two people meet, one has to overpower the other. Because when they meet, their energy fields meet. We need to take our energy to a higher level. The question is, do we get influenced by those with negative energy or do we influence them with our positive energy? If we want to do the latter, first and foremost, we’ll need to elevate ourselves in the way we think. We’ll need to reprogram our thinking. That is only possible when we keep our state of mind high.
When we learn to take care of our mind, we radiate peace, love, and happiness to everyone we meet. Then, we don’t have to make any external efforts in our relationships to improve it. By staying in our natural state of peace and happiness, we don’t have to give it to others, it will naturally radiate and will be felt by others.
It’s only when we change, does our world change. It’s only when we learn to love ourselves fully, can we love others and accept them the way they are.
As I wrote earlier, it takes only one thought and decision to create a shift in perspective.
Our situations cannot be resolved through words or actions. They can only be resolved through the power of thoughts. One person can create a situation in a relationship and only one person is needed to heal it. Situations cannot survive without one person’s participation.
Our thoughts make or break our relationships more than our words or actions. We can use the power of thoughts to heal ourselves, and by extension, our relationships. The thing is, we stopped taking care of the mind. Energy was going into the relationship; not just because of what we were doing, but also because of what was being projected from our mind. We got so focused on the doing that we forgot about the being, which is vastly more fundamental to a relationship.
It’s only when we learn to take care of our mind do we see a direct positive impact on our relationships. Because relationships are about giving (not wanting), to make our relationships beautiful, we need not put any “efforts” in the relationship, rather we need to bring our attention to our mind.
Once we decide to do something about our relationship, we just need to create a thought and start working on it. Any relationship where our energy is uncomfortable, I the soul, have the power to finish the conflict and create harmony. We keep working on ourselves until our thoughts, words, and actions are in harmony. And it’s all inner work. What we see outside is simply a manifestation of what’s been created inside. Any transformation we see on the outside is a result of our thoughts. It is not a situation that should influence our state of mind. It is our state of mind which will manifest into the situation.
P.S. This draft is based on insights from the teachings at Brahma Kumaris; a spiritual organization that teaches us how to be a better human and inspire others through our actions, so that together, we can create a beautiful world.
