This Is How You Know You’re In A Relationship That’s Right

When a relationship is right, there is no resistance. That’s what I see. I see two people falling into place with one another. They aren’t fighting for the relationship to happen, they are surrendering to the reality that they can’t keep it from happening. The reality that the next, most honest step to take is one with each other.

That’s what “right” means to me, it means honest.

How do we know? Well, we can feel honesty. And we can feel its opposite. I believe our bodies tell us. I believe they either cramp up or they let us go. They free us to come together. And that coming together is impulsive, not effortful. In a sense, it is mindless. It’s mindless thanks to the honesty of the connection, thanks to the rightness.

You see, when it comes to a relationship that doesn’t have to be made into more but rather grows into more naturally, there’s just not much to be in our head about. And that’s because we aren’t judging ourselves there any longer. We aren’t doubting our interest, our attraction, or the authenticity of our commitment. And you know what, we aren’t judging our partner either. We aren’t doubting him.

I think what makes this experience so beautiful is its extraordinary rareness. It’s beautiful because it doesn’t happen often. And maybe the reason it doesn’t happen more often is because what’s actually so extraordinarily rare is our honesty.

I’ve always loved deeply. I’ve always wanted to feel it all. But what I discovered after ending my own on-again, off-again three year relationship was that the love that I had been feeling, that I had been prioritizing during all my relationships, was for my ego and never for my soul.

No wonder I cried so much. A soul connection feels right, an ego connection feels wrong. No wonder I couldn’t hold us together. Deep down, I didn’t want to. Deep down, I knew I was weak. I knew my love was temporary.

The truth is, for three years, my body begged me to let go. Let go, let go, let go. But I ignored my body because all my life I had hated everything it had ever told me about myself.

And so, what I did for three years is ignore myself. I ignored myself because I needed the companionship more than I needed my own loyalty. Of course, this was not the way to go.

Three years later, and I discovered that I had lost twenty pounds. I didn’t even realize it was happening, it just became me. My own disappearance became me. That’s what the stress of my own dishonesty did to me. That’s what the breaking up and making up and breaking up again and again did to me. That’s how even when I rebelled against my body, my body ultimately got the final word.

You see, there comes a point in all our relationships, where the only thing left for us to do is listen. Listen to the very thing we know but have been too afraid to hear.

Sometimes what we are scared of the most are the questions themselves. Questions like, what’s wrong? I used to hear that one cry out to be answered all the time.

What’s wrong with this? Something’s wrong with this.

What’s wrong with him? Something’s wrong with him.

What’s wrong with me? Something has to be wrong with me.

Something has to be wrong with me because this doesn’t feel like enough and I am not leaving and I either have forgotten or can’t be honest about what the more is that I need.

I don’t know what more means for you. I don’t know what “right” means for you. It may mean conveniently timed. But what I do know is if you are hurting and sticking around for something—something like a feeling that at last confirms that this is right—you are waiting, not because you are in love, but because you so badly want to believe.

You want to believe that what’s not there can be there.

You want to believe that it actually is there, just below the surface waiting to be unearthed and brought glowingly into life.

You want to believe love can be brought about in time. But that’s not what a person needs, that’s not what love takes. What it takes is a feeling. And without it, there is no vision. There is no future. There is only resistance. There is you fighting to make love happen for your ego, when deep in your heart you already know the love you crave is a matter of soul.