“With you, I see me. A me I only see with you,” he says to her.

She says nothing. Her green eyes meet his hazel.

“Are you happy to hear that? Or is it a burden to you?” he says.

Still, she says nothing. Merely holds his gaze.

He likes that she does not respond.

Do I say this because it’s true? Or what I think you want to hear? He wonders to himself.

In her silence, he feels a sweet tension. She feels no need to validate or invalidate him. It gives him space to consider why he asks these questions.

“You make me a bigger me,” he says.

“I am just a mirror,” she says.

“And you see me so fully,” he adds.

“As you see me,” she says.

They smile at one another.

To be seen completely by one’s beloved is the greatest gift of relationship. In being seen, we are expanded. We are a bigger self. We are richer, fuller, happier. Making for a bigger us.

But to see one another so fully, we must first see ourselves.  And yet often we outsource this to our beloved in the spell of “in-loveness.”

The resultant script is — If he does not see me fully, I don’t know who I am. This is a big problem.

A couple can see one another fully when each person knows who they are. Each lives in their sovereignty — which means to be connected, in integrity, with one’s own authentic identity, needs, and desires.

And yes, this takes work, growth, and life experience.

From this foundation of self-trust and self-knowing, two individuals can grow bigger together.

But often this does not happen in western culture. Without sovereign teachings as a society, we typically must first feel the consequences of the sovereign’s opposite.

This opposite looks like a parent-child dynamic. Love and fill me so that I don’t have to deal with what I don’t like in myself.

And this is an impossible task — to fill another. A cruel unconscious burden on any relationship.  A neurotic clinging to the other.

The minute we cling to us, attach too much to we, it disappears, as if it never existed. As if we are alone. It seems cruel. But biology has us wired this way.

I believe it is a defense against narcissism, a bulwark in service to humility, an invitation into mature self-knowing. We must see ourselves fully, flaws and strengths, to see our beloved.

And in this way, we avoid the trap of — Fill me and I can hate you when you fail.

The key to mastery in relationship begins with two people who are in healthy sovereign self-relationship.

When this happens, we no longer, as a couple, seek to validate or invalidate the other. We are merely with one another – bigger, fuller, wiser. Together or apart, in any moment.  We may feel validation or we may not, but we don’t hold onto it as our whole self.

I love you means I love who I am with you. And with or without you, I am still me. And you are still you.

With you, I am bigger, fuller, more expanded than I am alone. But without you, I will be ok, even though I may “feel like I am going to die.” But I will live.

I can feel heartbreak. In fact, it is a great friend that brings me closer to me. But I don’t seek it.

And so my teachings begin with self-mastery. “From Self Mastery to Relationship Mastery” is my first new offering in over a year.

Starting this September, four weeks of powerful intensive training to master self-relationship from which to create fulfilling partnership.

To be the first to learn more, say “master-relationship.”

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