Page 389 - The Truth Landscape Format 2020 with next section introductions-compressed

care of them, they may lose them emotionally or even physically.

Ask yourself if this scene seems familiar to you. You arrive home tired from work, and your partner wants to tell you all about her day. The kids are
chattering, keen for you to know what happened in their eight hours too. Maybe you’re not aware of it, but you are not “there in the moment”, you’re
off somewhere mentally, still thinking about what happened in a meeting, or when you can get some time to yourself. Your partner can’t quite put
her finger on it, but something tells her instinctively, that you seem a little distant.

Then suddenly, the phone rings, it’s your colleague from work. You answer it and you switch to focused alert attentiveness. Laughing and animated,
focused entirely on the caller and what they have to tell you, your partner looks on. How does she feel right now? She is probably wondering why
she doesn’t get the same degree of conscious attentiveness to what she wants to share with you. She feels unimportant and hurt, not worthy of your
quality attention, resentful that others are allowed precious moments of “you” but she is not.

If we are honest, we’ve all been there. We all need to feel we are worthy of being listened to, being appreciated, accepted and understood. The
greatest measure of respect we can show to the ones we love, is being there in the moment for them when they need us, paying sincere conscious
attention to what they have to tell us. When we get this, we feel worthy, valued and loved.

Nothing that happens between you and your partner is insignificant. Everything that you say and do can create joy or pain. It is your job to identify
what words and actions you use that will either strengthen your connection or weaken it.

You become a lover when you understand all of this, waking up each day filled with gratitude that you have another twenty four hours in which
to love and enjoy each other. Should you or your partner forget that your relationship is a gift, when you no longer remember to cherish
one another, that's when you cease being lovers.

There is little worse than being in a relationship and no longer feeling like lovers. There is little more sorrowful than realising that you
love someone but you don’t feel “in love” anymore. What once was a blissful joyful experience now feels empty. You may sleep
together, share a home and family together, but that bond of ecstasy you once revelled in, may have faded or even disappeared. Falling
out of love happens gradually over time as a result of one or both of you taking the other for granted, when either or both of you
stopped thinking and acting like the lovers you once were.

In order to remain lovers, you need to create and preserve the precious moments in your relationship. Couples that fall apart, often take for
granted the true beauty that exists with their partner, overlooking the conscious need to express kindness and most importantly, because they
don’t make time to experience the precious moments that love is all about.

Contrary to popular mythology, love is made, it doesn’t just happen. The expression “making love” doesn’t just apply to sex. It has a more
significant meaning, in the sharing of precious moments. Paying conscious attention, showing affection and appreciation, displaying
understanding, respect and true friendship and keeping passion alive, are essential elements in the making of love and the ongoing
maintenance of a loving relationship. Page389