Reason, season and lifetime relationships

Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith

Relationships are at the core of everything we experience in life. From our relationships with intimate partners, family, friends, colleagues, employers and employees, to Nature and the environment, and most importantly, our relationship with our Self and Spirit, how we relate influences and shapes our lives more than we imagine. In a series of eight articles on relationship, master teacher, creator of the Life Visioning™ process, and founder and Spiritual Director of the Agape International Spiritual Center Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith provides clarity and insight into the true nature of relationships, and how to create and experience them from a place of unconditional love, wholeness, and well-being.

The relationships we enter into get to mirror back to us our unresolved issues and our very high choices as well. When you look at somebody, you might think, “Oh my God, they’re so beautiful.” You don’t see anything else and for a while, that person lives up to that idea of perfection, beauty, and the like. When we view the other from this perspective, it brings up the highest and best within us, too. It brings up the highest and best for both people. With time and as the relationship grows, we remember the statement that people come into our lives for a reason, season, or lifetime. Let’s take a closer look at each of these.

Sometimes you're in a particular season of your own development, and you notice that a certain kind of person is in your life during that particular season. They're representing some information, knowledge, and some places within you that need to be healed based on your development in that season. Take a moment to look back over your life. Notice if there was a season of your life where you were very close to a certain kind of person.  That person may no longer be in your life right now, or, they may still be in your life right now, but you might not be as close as you were in that particular season. And as you reflect, you may come to realize that when it comes to relationships, maybe you don’t run away from them like you used to. You then come to realize that individual helped you to grow that aspect of yourself. There was a particular season of existence. Nothing was wrong and nothing bad happened. It’s just that season is over and it’s all good.

Then there are particular reasons people come into your life. Sometimes people come into your life because there is a specific thing you’re working on. There’s a specific area of your life that you’re healing. And this person comes in either as a mentor, or as an individual that pushes the button for you to heal. No matter how hard you try, you can't seem to get rid of them. They’re always pushing that button. You try to get away and they just keep showing up. Eventually, you begin to realize that God sent them. They came into your life to help you complete the task you’re working on. When they disappear, you know that whatever you were working on has been fulfilled.

Sometimes people come into your life for a reason and it's not to push a button. Sometimes a person comes into your life and they see the good in you better than anybody can. However, they’re only in your life for a while. You might be at a place of employment temporarily or you're working on some task temporarily, and that person just seems to get you. It’s a particular reason they’re there. Sometimes people are in your life to push the button and sometimes they’re there to open you up to something great within you. In either scenario, it’s for a specific reason.

And then there are the lifetime relationships. These relationships are a part of your soulmate families. This person can also be someone you want to “settle down” with or as I like to say, “rise up” with. When you see this person, you realize that you can rise up with this person, allowing what no longer serves you to fall away. You're both about the same thing. Underneath, there is a connection to eternity together. There is a lifetime bond of such richness, love, beauty, and joy. You’re both in it for the long haul.

So there are seasons, reasons, and lifetimes to relationships. And when we look at life that way, then we don’t try to clutch and hold on because everything’s fluid. Everything’s temporary. And each relationship – whether it is for a season, reason, or lifetime – is designed to help each person bloom and blossom into her greatest expression.