Relationships are complicated. What do the people in your life, whom you love and who love you, want from you? How do you accommodate or deny the demands of your significant others? What would happen if you didn’t call your mother back or remember your partner’s birthday? For most of us, these examples would be the highest form of disrespect and would be unthinkable. Why is that? Why can’t we love and be loved without expectation? We can’t because we are human beings who are programmed to be in reciprocal relationship societies for survival. We help each other out in our communities, families and so on as has been done for thousands of years to survive. We are hard-wired to call our mothers back and to treat those we love with special attention and favor. If we get out of line we will be shamed and may have guilt over our actions. Societies have used guilt and shame to maintain order and thrive for eons.
Guilt and shame can serve a purpose. For emotionally healthy people it is rare to have those feelings or worry about being shamed by someone you love. For those raised in dysfunctional environments shame and guilt are used by abusers as tools to control the victim this causes an underlying programming that is unhealthy and creates more unhealthy relationships in adulthood. The avoidance of guilt and shame become the main motivators for relationship behavior in dysfunctional relationships.
We have so many types of relationships in our lives parents, siblings, friends, extended family, co-workers and each one can be different. To know how a relationship stands think about the last time you called someone back; did you call them because you would love to talk to them or did you call them because you would feel guilty if you didn’t?
Think about the unconscious ways in which you relate to people. Even if we have loving and balanced relationships there are reciprocal expectations and we live within these expectations so easily that our role in the relationship is second nature. We don’t even notice how we cater to the demands in a relationship or how we live under a threat of guilt and shame by not fulfilling our role in the name of love.
Our relationship with Spirit is different, but for those beginning on their path to working with the heavenly realms, it may not seem so. As we start our work with Spirit we transfer our usual expectations and behaviors in human relationships to our Guides. We automatically think of it as a reciprocal relationship, because that is what we are hard-wired for. We can feel guilty if we don’t follow the advice of our guides, we can worry that we are not communicating with them enough, we can even believe that they need our attention or else they will stop communicating with us and punish us.
The first time I channeled my Guide the power of unconditional, pure, divine love filled me so completely I cried in big sobs. This gave me an understanding that reprogrammed me to know the power of this love as not being demanding or reciprocal, it just is. No matter what I do, no matter if I follow Spirit’s advice or never speak to them again – it is always there for me no matter what. I need do nothing to be there for them, I need not do anything they ask of me, and they don’t need my love in return. They don’t need me to be sin-free, they do not need me to try harder, to do better, or to be anything but what I want to be. I do what I choose because I want to, I listen when I want to, and I ignore them when I want to, and they are totally fine with that.
You do not have to be special or do anything for them to get the help, love, guidance, wisdom, and miracles you desire. All you need to do is ask. This is not a complicated relationship. This is joyfully easy.
Janet Kadow 