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I notice that I can love myself and that I become more lovable too.
I appreciate that whatever love or wisdom I may have or show comes not from me but through me. I give thanks for these encouraging graces and say yes to the stirring call to live up to them.

How afraid i am to receive:
1. I avoid eye contact, for you might look too deeply.
2. If you give me something, i have to be sure to give you something of equal value in return.
3. I can never reveal my needs to you, only my drives.
4. I keep myself self-sufficient
5. I never allow myself to need your help; i have to be the one who takes care of you, never putting myself at the mercy of your love.

An adult combines unconditional love with conditional commitment.
This is a sane embrace instead of the addictive clutch. A parent has unconditional love for and makes an unconditional commitment to a child. An adult has unconditional love for and makes a conditional commitment to a partner.

An adult makes a commitment to a person with whom things are working or workable. She withdraws this commitment when things are no longer workable. Unlike a commitment, a vow is a promise to remain attached to a relationship whether or not it works, whether or not it is workable.

How to give and receive?
1. ask for what you want and listen to your partner.
Asking for what you want combines the most crucial elements of intimacy. It gives the other the gift of knowing you, your needs, and your vulnerability. It also means receiving the other's free response. You learn to let go of your insistence on a yes, to be vulnerable to a no, and to accept a no without feeling the need to punish.

Sometimes, conflicts are necessary in relationships.

CONFESSING | Mindful, loving justice in a relationship is not retributive but restorative. It moves us from alienation to reunion in an atmosphere of mended failures. It fosters healthy vulnerability and diminishment of ego, which reduces unskillful behavior in the future.

pride gives way to humility. Envy gives way to joy at others' good fortune.
Desire for more gives way to satisfaction with what we have. Greed gives way to generosity. Ignorance gives way to a commitment to inform ourselves. Aggression gives way to nonviolent compassion.
This is how the poisoned ego realm becomes a space wherein we can awaken.

Thus, to react defensively to feedback means losing out on useful input. To defend how we are is to stay as we are, and it ruins our chances at personal development and intimacy too. Instead, listen to feedback in such a way as to find a useful truth in it. Nothing is so disarming as receptivity. Receiving feedback willingly soon reveals itself to be a way of receiving more love.

The reason we fear self-disclosure is directly related to one of the five A's: We fear not being accepted if we show anything about ourselves that others might consider unsavory or inadequate. We may have decided early on that to keep those A's coming means hiding what raises eyebrows and showing what brings a smile of approbation.

Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
—Luke 6:27-28

When we simply hold in our hearts and minds the opposites that face us, when we let them coexist in us without choosing one over the other, we befriend the ambiguity of our pre-dicament. This is a form of mindful trusting. To be caught in the polarities devised by the arrogant ego is to live in fear. Egolessness, by contrast, means letting an all-inclusive love come through.

Carl Jung proposes that suffering and a shadow side are inescapable givens. They don't go away, but we can meet them with courage, and we can act with integrity no matter what others do.
We might then cheerfully say: "There will never be only love or only peace in the world but there can be more love than before I got here and more peace because I stayed here."

By showing the five A's mindfully. As witnesses of what is, we give our attention to the changes and end-ings, the failed plans, the unfairness, the suffering, the occasional disloyalty in our life story. We accept all that as part of the mix of a human life. We appreciate it all as somehow valuable to our de-velopment. We look with affection on what is and what has been.
We allow events and people to be themselves.

People are not loving and loyal all the time — yet we do not have to retaliate but can act with love and loyalty while never giving up on others.

Everything changes and ends — yet cant be renewed.
Sufferrijg is part of growth — yet we keep finding ways to bring good from evil.
Things do not always go according to plan — yet we can find the equanimity to say yes to what is and thanks for what has been.
Life is not always fair — yet we can be fair and even generous.