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Today’s guest is someone with a mission – a life mission. Mr. Guy Finley is an author, teacher, relationship guru and spiritual guide. All his talents are focused on fixing ourselves, instead of trying to fix the other person. In his numerous books he explains, teaches and directs the reader to look away from the other and to examine the hidden parts of him/herself.
As a deep thinker I often experience difficulty in my relationships. I analyze and examine everything that someone says. After reading Guy’s book, Relationship Magic, I view relationships in a remarkably different way.
At the crux of the idea embedded in Mr. Finley’s many books, is the revelation that relationships are not about the other person, but totally about you. What another person says or does, that bothers, hurts, insults, (fill in the blank), you, is telling you about yourself – not about the other person. They only shine a light on a hidden aspect of yourself that you wanted to remain totally unaware of.
Guy gave an example from his own life. “When I was 18 I fell in love so hard; crazy in love. Nine months later I had incontrovertible evidence that she had not been faithful to me. There I was living with my parents, it was 3 a.m. and my mother came down and saw me banging my head on the living room wall.
My mother asked, “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to live anymore.”
“Why?”
“Because she broke my heart!’
My mother’s response was, “Don’t worry, honey. There are lots of fish in the sea.”
Guy was broken. “I vowed that I would never fall in love again. Who hasn’t had that reaction? Well, a year later I fell in love again. But I was unaware that I had something that was formed in me as a result of my first failed experience in falling in love.
“This hidden souvenir can bring forward a reaction which will produce the actual situation that I don’t want. The partner will react to my suspiciousness, saying, ‘I don’t want a relationship with someone who doesn’t trust me.’ The limitation produces the situation that I want to avoid.
“That model holds true at all levels, with all things, psychological and spiritual. In truth the situation is an opportunity to see what was hidden within me – my limitation from my first experience in love. To deal with it honestly and grow from it. Not to try and take my insecurity and place it on my partner and shift blame on her.
“Here is an exercise that demonstrates what I mean. Take a piece of paper and crumple it up and hold it in your hand, palm up. Then turn your hand over and open your hand. What happens? It falls out of your hand. That is what we need to do with our own hidden issues. Examine them and let go of them. When something triggers a response in us, we should shine a light inside, examine what it is that either bothered, angered, shamed, or annoyed us. The answer is never within the other person, it lies within ourselves. We need to face it, deal with it and then we can heal. We leave that moment, with a better understanding of ourselves and the purpose of the relationship. It is the opportunity to heal something within that we were unaware even existed and let go of it.”
I asked Guy how we take the ego out of the relationship and he said you can’t. Instead we need to put the ego in the right place. The original meaning of the word ‘Patience’ is to suffer yourself. It does not mean to suffer someone else. When we learn patience with our partner, we can look within and find the point of pain and let go of it.
I asked Guy how we take the ego out of the relationship and he said you can’t. Instead we need to put the ego in the right place. The original meaning of the word ‘Patience’ is to suffer yourself. It does not mean to suffer someone else. When we learn patience with our partner, we can look within and find the point of pain and let go of it.
Instead of saying the cause to this reaction is in me, the reaction points the cause to someone else to blame.”
It is not an easy task to be conscious and to practice it. It’s a muscle that needs to be exercised. But it is doable and the end result is that we are wiser, happier and healthier humans in our own lives and in our relationships.
“It is all important for us to understand that there are two sides to love. There is the one which is unifying, gratifying, uplifting and enhances. This is the side we think of when we mention the word love. But then there is the other side. The side we don’t understand. We can’t see that it is also a purifying agent. One that directs us to healing and self awareness. The problem is that we relate to that second side as punishing.
“We don’t want to go down the road of self discovery because we are afraid of what we don’t know. What we might uncover and can’t be blamed on someone else. We need to learn to trust this second side of love to lead us to a healthier us instead of staying in a disbled relationship and distorted state of oneself.
“Love brings us into a relationship to release us from these limiting factors in our lives. That’s the purpose of love and relationships. If love hasn’t been destroyed or damaged, we can trust that love will bring us to reveal those aspects we didn’t know existed. Love never betrays those that are true to it.”
“Our hope must be in things unseen, not in the seen. Love is unseen. Those who dare to put love first, love will put them first. It is the third partner in any relationship between two human beings.”
Self love is the ultimate love and everything else is a bonus. Accepting ourselves, knowing ourselves and growing. Everything unfolds from there.
Mr. Finley points out a Talmudic quote: “If I am not for myself, who will be; if I’m just for myself, what good am I; and If not now, when?”
Now is the time to come to terms with who we are, examine our triggers and dig into the subconscious for our roots and work through them. Don’t shift blame on others.
Guy Finley can be found on guyfinley.org, on Instagram and Facebook. He also has a site, Relationshipmagicbook.com and there is a free audible book.