How to Improve Difficult Relationships by Ronald Tomanio

A "Food for the Spirit" Project


[Note: Ronnie has given a workshop which covered one of these steps each day for five days. You may wish to read only one step at a time and think about only that step for at least one entire day before reading the next step.--Laurie]

This should be in the category of "if it helps me great, if not throw it away." It is also important for you to individualize the exercise -- make it your own.

Step One:

Keep a journal of your perceptions of this individual throughout the exercise. I advise keeping this totally private. Sincerely pray for the person, their well-being, their happiness.

Step Two:

Step Two begins when you are able to do Step One. Some of these difficult relationships have lasted 30 or 40 years. It's going to take time. See yourself as a servant of God, a soul progressing towards God for all eternity. Now, once again, pray for the well-being and happiness of the person.

Step Three:

Again, no rush, take your time. If you are a servant of God, a soul progressing towards God for all eternity, that is also true of the other person. So now we have one servant of God praying for another servant of God in a sincere, pure-hearted manner for their well-being and happiness.

In the classroom, I built this exercise day by day, remember this is at its roots, a spiritual exercise that flowers in the outer material world. Do not be concerned about time.

Step Four:

You must perform acts of pure-hearted servitude or at least that is your desire for this person. Do not tell anyone especially the person. They do not have to be monumental acts only monumental in their purity. Remember this is where the power lies. If a servant of God is fulfilling his or her purpose then the power of God can enter this world through those acts of servitude. They are doorways so to speak.

Step Five:

Remember, only you can decide when to pause or continue on in this journey. You are almost at the stage when you are ready to let the healing process emerge into the intellectual world where you would want to verbalize. BUT you must pay what I call "'Abdu'l-Bahá's* price." You must not see an enemy and treat him as a friend for that would be mere tolerance which is hypocrisy. You must genuinely love this person on the level of soul to soul. If you can do that, and that's a big IF, open your mouth but be prepared for what comes out. It will shock you as well as the other person.

Let's look at what brought you to the point of needing this exercise: You could not deal with even the physical sighting of this person without negative emotions. Their personality drives you nuts. Therefore, you were forced, like a flood victim, to seek higher ground to survive. You found that you could, with the aid of God, relate to that person as a fellow servant of God and a new relationship was formed based on the oneness of mankind and the universal servitude that implies.

Wouldn't it be so much better if we started out relating to people on the highest level of soul to soul rather than on the lowest mechanical level of personality to personality. If, recognizing that we will naturally clash with each other's personalities might we not find that "clashing" is an opportunity for us to understand that we need to relate to each other as soul to soul. This avoids a lot of trouble and grief. Of course, if you happen to hit it off with someone's personality, you are free to enjoy this as well, but our first response to anyone must be as a servant of god to another servant of God.

One of the by-products of this exercise is that you will develop deeper friendships because a friendship without spiritual roots gets blown away with the first gust of wind. *'Abdu'l-Bahá was the son of the Prophet-Founder of the Bahá'í Faith, Bahá'u'lláh.

"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed." --C.G. Jung

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