Landmark Forum Leader Insights

Relationships—a stand we take for another

By Nancy Zapolski, PhD

The profound love that’s possible in our relationships comes from a deep sense of alignment—an alignment of vision, of our most fundamental intentions and purpose(s) in life, in which each person knows there’s a space for the other to be, to exist, to grow, to flourish. Relationships are a creative act, a commitment that lives in action—a stand we take for someone.

When doubts, considerations or disagreements occur, they aren’t in opposition, or contrary to that stand—but an invitation to dance with what’s in front of us. It’s not the content (the circumstances or the “what happened”) in our relationships that determines their quality and power or keeps them from being great—it’s the way we “hold” that content. If, however, we find ourselves just complaining (about what’s missing in our relationship or what’s there that we don’t want there) as if not being satisfied “is” our stand, that’s a pretty useful thing to recognize about ourselves. How powerful are a person’s actions when those actions are the product of complaint? To promise to provide what’s missing leaves us at risk; to complain we have no risk at all. It’s in risking ourselves—in revealing ourselves to one another—that we become ourselves.

There are no facts that limit the possibility of our relationships, there are only conversations that limit or conversations that create possibility. We have a choice about what’s at play. Relationships are something we bring forth as a declaration—a stand we take for another.