Everything in life begins with connection. In each moment, we are choosing to join or separate - to connect or disconnect - and the person to whom we're speaking feels what we have chosen regardless of our words.
What makes relationships challenging often comes down to one factor - we build the relationship from the outside in, believing something we want is not happening because of someone else who is outside of us. We must learn to connect first with ourselves and create a relationship from the inside out. The first rule of building heart-to-heart connections is that even though it takes two people to create a relationship, the responsibility for connecting starts with you. The second rule is that everything depends on your level of awareness.
Relationships begin with being at peace with yourself - having a connection with yourself that nothing can break from the outside. Other people become a reflection of the loving, kind, peaceful relationship you have with yourself. You cannot receive what you cannot give. The scenery out there reflects the situation in here. Working from the outside in will fall short of the ideal, and leads to frustration, conflict and lack of fulfilment in the end.
We can choose to connect with another person or not, but we cannot choose to disconnect with ourselves. Many people are uncomfortable with this truth - they spend vast amounts of time trying to escape themselves, with all kinds of activities, work and distractions.
For many, their sense of self is ego-based. Individual egos have self-centred aims, tastes, desires, opinions, likes or dislikes. The very construct of the ego brings with it a built in conflict with other egos. If you think about it, it's surprising that separate egos, each with their own set of rules and agendas, ever get together in the first place. When they do, their connections always risk unravelling because each ego is primarily tied with what it wants. Deepak Chopra teaches that the path to an ideal relationship therefore must get past the ego - its insecurities, demands and constant focus on 'I, me and mine'.
Being unbounded, the true self has no stake in the external world - just to be at peace with love. Doubt and confusion stand far away from us. The true self is a state of awareness, not a thing, mood, sensation or feeling. All it takes is a shift in awareness to discover that love, peace and lack of conflict exist inside of us, and have the power to change any situation. Indeed, the values you most cherish are not something to seek out and find. They are something that have always belonged to you. The only thing you need to do is recognise them.