I am just back from the third weekend of The Mystery of Relationships. It was a deep, rigorous, and poignant event.

During the workshop, Angeles Arrien and I outlined the five qualities of intimacy: openness, trust, respect, honesty and vulnerability.

Relationships, without intimacy, remain superficial and never deepen, strengthen or open. They remain static and never live up to the potential that they hold.

As a result, the bonds of relationship are unable to hold in difficult conditions such as change, challenges and conflict. They remain superficial and unsatisfying at best or become toxic and inflamed.

Openness is the willingness to disarm, drop our defensiveness, and be present and available to another person. So many of our relationships are fear based. Where fear is the dominant energy, relationships cannot find enough space to open naturally. Instead, they become rife with dynamics designed to test or manipulate the other person.

Trust is a firm belief in our own reliability and the reliability of another person. When trust is present, relationships find the right medium to bloom. Angeles Arrien reminds us that “trust is an inside job.” To trust others and the circumstances first requires self trust.

Respect is the willingness to look again– past fixed perspectives, projections, the unfinished business of the past, and unresolved personal issues–to see another person truly. It is the ability to enter relationship from a place of confidence and recognize that every relationship is a mystery to be explored not a problem to be solved.

Honesty is the straight, simple and direct language of the heart. It knows no artifice and seeks no advantage. It is the ability to stand in the flow of your own unfoldment and testify to the mystery of living. When disclosure of thoughts, feelings, and needs are made clear relationships can advance. Witholding the truth tangles relationship in misunderstandings that lead to hurt feelings and power struggles.

Vulnerability is the quality associated with being undefended. We have given up our fears and have made a commitment to being ourselves, warts and all. We don’t need to look good, have it all together or live up to the expectations of others. Rather, we are fine with who we are and have the courage and character to simply be ourselves.

The five qualities associated with intimacy are the requirements and the product of healthy relationships. Just these five practices alone are a pathway to enlightenment.

© Patrick O’Neill 2011. All rights reserved.

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Angeles Arrien has a new book out. It’s called Living In Gratitude: A Journey That Will Change Your Life.

As with all of her books, Angeles Arrien take spiritual principles and grounds them with practical tools and actions. This book is filled with insight and information.

The book is particularly important now. The dominant culture is filled with images and stories depicting what’s missing, wrong or lacking in the world. Of course, those dark conditions are present today and always have been.

With that backdrop, it’s easy to lose sight of all that is right with our lives and all that is working in the world!

Living In Gratitude provides a balance point for vision by reminding us of the abundant gifts that present themselves daily.

Angeles writes:

“Living in Gratitude is designed to carry you through a full calendar year, month by month. It approaches the topic of gratitude from a cross-cultural perspective, offering varied tools, maps, and practices based on perennial wisdoms that human beings have explored for centuries. This book is written to be a dependable guide and touchstone to gratitude–available to you any time, no matter what may be happening in your life at the present moment. By creating the opportunity for repeated and sustained gratitude practice, it will help you establish a solid foundation as you shift and begin to embody the true essence of gratitide.”

I strongly recommend this book. It is published by Sounds True and available on Amazon.

© Patrick O’Neill 2011. All rights reserved.

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