Out with the "highs and lows" of relationships

Life can certainly seem like a swirl of emotions, especially when it comes to relationships. Whether it’s looking for friendship in a new school or city, hoping that things go the way you want with a crush, or dealing with hurt feelings when a friend disappoints you, what others think of you and how you feel about them can appear to play a major role in making life joyful and fun—or not.

I’ve found that the hard times in my relationships have often led to huge steps of spiritual growth. Not that it necessarily feels that way at the time! At one point several years ago, a guy whom I really liked disappointed me; I felt like his actions betrayed my trust. At first, I felt caught up in a whirlpool of disappointment and self-condemnation. But after I’d spent a few days feeling this way, moping around and having tearful conversations with sympathetic friends, a simple idea snapped me out of it.

The idea came to me as a metaphor. I imagined a girl at a beautiful, tropical ocean beach, lying on her back in about two feet of water. She was completely covered in the water, and was terrified and screaming as the waves rushed around her. The image made me laugh out loud. Why would she lie on her back and be frightened by the rushing water, when she could easily sit up and enjoy her beautiful surroundings? I realized that the depressing, disappointed emotions that I felt were controlling me were no more powerful than the two feet of water on the beach I was imagining. Like the girl in my metaphor, I had the power to sit up and enjoy the beautiful truth of my surroundings.

And so I did! The situation with my friend quickly cleared up as well. It turned out that my disappointment was largely based on a misunderstanding, and we were able to have a wonderful, loving relationship that I initially had thought would be impossible. We continue to be friends to this day.

I would love to say that this experience was the end to my struggles with the emotional highs and lows that can seem to define relationships. But sometimes I’ve needed to learn the same lessons again and again. Over the years, I have often found myself allowing the “waves” to push me around and frighten me, instead of enjoying the beautiful “beach” where God has put me. But I know that as the reflection of divine Mind, or divine intelligence, I can’t be forced to give up control of my thinking to these emotions.

The fact is, God, Love, is always surrounding each and every one of us, and we don’t have to live in extreme highs and lows. As Mary Baker Eddy wrote in Science and Health, “Man is not a pendulum, swinging between evil and good, joy and sorrow, sickness and health, life and death” (p. 246 ). As I’ve progressed in my understanding of this truth, I’ve found that I spend shorter amounts of time indulging the negative, sad emotions that result from a disappointing or confusing relationship situation before I get my head above water and remember how beautiful the spiritual truth about my life and surroundings really is.

As the reflection of divine Mind, I can’t be forced to give up control of my thinking to these emotions.

I’ve also often found that the fear of losing an important source of love can make it hard to trust God’s goodness when it comes to relationships. About a year after the experience with my friend, I was sitting in church one day, once again preoccupied with relationship issues, when a second metaphor came to mind that addressed this fear specifically. I had recently been the stage manager for a theater production at my school, and had learned that the light the audience sees surrounding the actors during a play is actually made up of dozens of spotlights with different characteristics, mounted all around the theater. As the play progresses, these individual spotlights are turned on and off to create different effects. Many different combinations of individual lights can create a fully lit stage.

It occurred to me that if an actor were to focus all her attention on one individual spotlight, thinking that the fully lit stage was due to that one alone, she could be alarmed when it turned off. She’d frantically search the rafters of the theater with her eyes until she found another spotlight that was lit, then search frantically again when that one turned off, and so on. But it’s silly for her to spend her energy chasing spotlights; the stage is always being perfectly lit to meet her needs. She may as well just enjoy the light.

Love, I realized, works in the same way. When we focus our attention on one or several individuals as personal sources for the love we enjoy, it can feel painful when they are no longer able or willing to play this role. Maybe this happens through a breakup, or the passing of a family member. But the Love that is surrounding us is never reliant on changeable sources. Although it may seem that the sources of love in our lives are always changing, much like spotlights turning off and on, the amount of Love itself is always solid, constant, unchangeable – and infinite! It’s natural for us to understand this, and live a life free of relationship drama.

As Jesus promises in the Gospel of John, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32 ). How comforting that we can know this truth, and enjoy our freedom!