Listen to Michael Sherman of Courageous Loving tell the story of Ben and Marta – a real-life couple whose true story was the inspiration of this blog post.

You know when you go to the movies and watch the previews —  within something like 10 seconds you can tell whether or not that flick will be a stud or a dud?  RELATIONSHIPS are like that.  You can tell everything you want to know about the destiny of a relationship right from the very first days of its infancy.  And this counts for professional relationships, too.

**Met an awesome guy, but I can’t stand his house? –Well, you’re always going to want to have dinner at your place.

**This girl is amazing, but she smokes? -Sorry, her mouth is going to taste like a Merit until she quits.

Think about a relationship you’re in or that you’ve been in.  Did it start with mysterious passion?  Or was it a casual rebound.  Did you promise yourself “I can make this work…” Or were you find yourself drowning right off the bat.

What about at work.  Remember when you were hired?  What did you think about your boss?  What about that new client?  Were they on time? Did they pay you? Try to remember your first interactions — see if they left clues for things to come.

The template for your RELATIONSHIP DESTINY is set within the infancy of your relationship.  Period.   If you met while you were high, that’s now your history.  If you took her to a rodeo and she hates you for it, that’s now sealed in memory.  If you marry the girl from math class, you will always be seen as the “high school sweetheart” couple.

Does that mean you can’t change the relationship?   Absolutely not.  In fact, that’s what’s fun and amazing about this work – witnessing people create incredible turnarounds.

Quick story: several years ago, we were settled in an office space doing our work.  A neighbor moved in to another office – bad energy right from the start.  Territorial, noisy, controlling – you get the picture.  We ended up moving out (not just because of the neighbor, but that was a factor).  Well, that neighbor and I had a chance meeting recently.  Now not only do we share some business together, we’re also becoming friends, and neither of us knew how much we deeply had in common.

See – if you play the wrong two notes together – they sound terrible.  But if you play those notes in an entirely different song – you’ve got brilliant music.  You’ve got to change the context in order to find the freedom.  So it is with any relationship.

That said – the original context is set and remains until changed.  It is set within days, sometimes minutes.  Are you willing to pay attention to the clues of your initial meetings with the partners in your life?  Are you willing to see the initial context in a totally new way, even flip it on its head?  Including the context of how you were born, and who brought you into this world?

Think about it.

If you are interested in learning more about the how your relationships shape your destiny, take a look at a powerful Courageous Loving  audio program, “Relationships are the Roadmap to Destiny.”

To learn more about this 3 Hour Audio Program – CLICK: HERE

Peace.

Michael

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What is the meaning of redemption?  And what is the connection to relationships?

I’m so grateful that we had an opportunity to take a vacation this month, and in sunny climes of Jamaica, no less.  For one day during this week of beachful bliss, Amy and I had the opportunity to take a day trip and visit the gravesite of Bob Marley (on his birthday). In the days since, we have found ourselves diving into the meaning of his music and his words, and how they connect to our work and our own relationship.

His “Redemption Song” is a quiet epic, one of his rare acoustic numbers.  In my listening, I resdiscovered a lyric that struck me as fascinating:  Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds.

It amazes me to think how many people come to us, complaining that their relationships are a form of “mental slavery.” All too often, the starting point for people coming to Courageous Loving sounds a little like: “If only she….”  or “I can’t handle it when he…”    As I continue to grow with this work and with my wife, I have come to understand that the opposite is true.  RELATIONSHIPS equal REDEMPTION. I searched a dictionary for the meaning of redemption and I came upon some interesting definitions, particularly how they connect to life in relationship with another.

TO REDEEM:

1) To buy back – To me, redemption comes in relationship when you realize that it is a way to buy back your innocence.

2)  To exchange for money or goods – There is an exchange of value in a committed relationship.  It works when you offer your true value, your gifts, your spirit.  When this happens in harmony, there are material rewards.

3) To make amends for – There is nothing like a committed relationship to help make you aware of the forgiveness you are called to offer the people in your life, including yourself.

4) To set free or save – For me, my relationship is all about releasing my lower self, my reactive, negative, emotionally immature and wounded self.  My relationship calls me to free myself from these mental bonds, and “redeem” my greatest self – a vision of a better me that becomes clear when I discover the cues my partner is offering me.  Her words and actions are like “coupons” for me to redeem my higher self.

Think about these things – and do some reflective writing.   How can you “redeem” your higher self from the relationships in your life?   Kindly leave comments above.

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How can you interpret your own future?

This Sunday, at our Center in Nyack, NY, we hosted a Wellness Day – a wondrous community

Michael Sherman of Courageous Loving

event with lots of healing practitioners and merchants.  As host, it was my job to make sure everyone felt welcome and comfortable, but I also took advantage of this orgy of blissful bodywork and spiritual dialogues.  I was particularly fascinated by a reading I received, and a realization came to me suddenly: RELATIONSHIPS ARE LIKE TAROT CARDS.

Here’s the deal: the other people in our lives are reflections of us.  Whoever shows up for us at different times and places are like the figures and designs of Tarot Cards – as if the people we interface with represent symbolic meanings beyond the everyday here and now.  There are people who sustain our health, people who are the bridge to wealth.  There are people who bring us trouble and crash us into a fiery suffering. And there are people whose presence keeps us from claiming the true nature of who we really are.

I see this in my clients.  It seems like the people who arrive to me for coaching offer me a mirror of what I am going through at the time.  Their work is my work, or an extension of my work.  I am attracting people whose destiny is shared with mine, and our journey together is linked by the resonance of an inner search. I am of service to them, a reflective guide as we cross over difficult terrain.  Even though I share a simple hour a week with them, and even though when the time is done, the boundary between my life and theirs seals up once again, I am still a presence with them traveling through their darkness into the light.  How could I be there for them and not see myself reflected in their courage?

TRY THIS: Take notice of the small, but powerful interactions you have with people over the coming days.  Ask yourself some questions and do some reflective writing.  Think about who showed up for you and why? What are they leading you to?  What are they asking you to think about?  Why would a person like that suddenly appear in your life at this moment in time?

One example: In the middle of a frustrating conversation with Amy, as I boarded a plane after a week long training, I pathetically dropped my bag of snacks in first class, right in front of James Arthur Ray, the “guru” whose recent actions at his personal transformation seminar led to the deaths of several people at a sweatlodge in Arizona.  At the time, this was like meeting a hero for me – but then only a few months later, he was in the news because of this devastating event.  Why would I experience a chance meeting with him, and not someone like him who was less controversial?  Why would my life be intertwined, even for a moment, with someone who shifted from a spiritual celebrity (a featured speaker in The Secret) to a public enemy in a matter of weeks.

Think about that.

And think about those small, but significant interactions you will have in the coming days.  Think about them like cards you have chosen for a Tarot Reading.  Relationships leave all the clues you need, if you allow yourself the open curiosity required to interpret the clues.

HOW CAN HYPNOSIS AFFECT YOUR RELATIONSHIPS? – FREE TELECLASS Thursday, January 28th, 9pm EST.  To register, CLICK: HERE

INDIAN LOVE SEDER – An Exotic and Delicious Valentine’s Event at the Courageous Loving Center in Nyack.  Sunday, Feb 14th, 2pm.  Learn more – CLICK: HERE

“Tramps like us, baby we were born to run…”

Bruce Sprinsteen wrote those words. But I have to change them for me – because I was born to write.

What’s tremendous about producing Courageous Loving and working with my wife – helping people to discover and live out their destinies through the clues that their relationships give them – is that it offers me a vehicle to do what I have always done: write! Only now, I can do so with a purpose, with a daily discipline and daily readers.  In helping people to awaken to their destinies, I have awakened to my own.

And maybe this sounds a little silly.  I mean, I have been writing all my life.  I’ve got stacks and stacks of notebooks.  I’ve got 8 drafts of 3 unpublished books.  I’ve got a crate full of articles, movie reviews and other work gathering dust in the basement. Lots of projects started, very few finished.  But I’m a writer…, right?  Of course I am.  Here is what’s different now:  I’m making a commitment to find an audience for my words.  The commitment is the difference.

Seth Godin, one of the foremost writers on social media in this new generation, says in his book Tribes, “A movement is waiting to happen, a group of people just waiting to be energized and transformed.” Let my words be the the beginning of this movement, of people who are looking to answer the question: “Who are my relationships calling me to become?“

It starts with me.  And my relationship.  See, what’s so cool about doing a Self-Appreciation Imago Dialogue (a twist Amy and I created from the Imago Appreciation Dialogue – for more on Imago, click: HERE) – is that I can connect with myself in the loving presence of my partner.  I can feel the memories of discovery roll through my body — the echoes of the “fanzines” I started, the undergound newspaper that nearly got me suspended, the spoken word pieces I gutted out on stage — these things flash through me like electric currents, all while my wife holds the space for a complete experience of myself.

Her receiving of me allows me to understand the natural progression of my own life.  Through engaging in dialogue, she allows me to claim my own unique destiny.  I can not only claim the writer within me, but through the courage my relationship provides me, I am ready to find readers…. everyday.

Let me know your thoughts.  Scroll up and leave a comment.

Warmly, Michael

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