We bring a story into nearly every moment, and that affects how we experience that moment and how we respond. If the story is “I hate washing the dishes” and we are washing the dishes, then our experience of washing the dishes is affected by that. The same is true for relationships. We have stories about our loved ones, such as: “You don’t care about me.” “You’re not attractive enough for me.” “I can’t live without you.” “I need someone more exciting.” “I’m not rich enough for you.” “I can’t see myself with you.” You know what these stories are because they are what you might share with a friend or someone else you’re close to. These stories, the more they are repeated and reinforced, interfere with being present to the people we love, and they are never the whole truth. Rather than responding to our loved ones purely, we let our view of them or our relationship—our story—affect how we react to them. This is going on most of the time unconsciously. We aren’t naturally aware of our stories or examine them until, perhaps, they cause so much trouble that we are forced to.

This moment is simple—uncomplicated. It’s just an experience of being, or existing, taking in whatever is going on, and responding naturally and spontaneously to that. This can all happen with very little thought. If what you’re doing requires thinking (e.g. reading, analyzing numbers, using a computer, designing, editing, planning), then the mind is part of the moment, and you use it as you need it. This is what life is like when you awaken out of the egoic mind and it’s no longer intervening in the moment. It’s very simple. No drama. No problems. No confusion. No dissatisfaction.

Here are some principles to ease relationships:

1. Judgments and criticism harm relationships and don’t serve them in any way. It is a misunderstanding to think that judgments are useful. There is no innate wisdom in them. They kill love and distance people from each other. They also make it likely that the one you are judging will judge you back, and that creates a vicious cycle of negativity between two people.
 
2. Judgments are a strategy to try to change people, but judging others to change them doesn't work. Judgments are more likely to create resistance and bad feelings, especially anger. Judgment is an ineffective strategy and leaves everyone feeling bad. It's not our business to change others, and trying to do so only hurts relationships. People change when they're ready to change.

3. Judgments are a way we try to get rid of the negative feelings we have toward someone. We try to change that person so that we stop feeling negatively toward him or her. What we may not be recognizing is that the negative feelings originated in us—the judgment, itself, created the negative feeling: “He shouldn’t do that. That’s wrong. He doesn’t care. If he loved me, he wouldn’t do that. I hate it when he does that.” What we say to ourselves about other people and circumstances creates feelings. Then, we try to change other people or circumstances to fix our feelings instead of taking responsibility for having created them. If you are having a feeling, you created it by something you said to yourself. The good news is that you can stop creating negative feelings just by seeing this, by seeing how believing a particular thought was responsible for a feeling. Ignore the thoughts that create negative feelings. When you refuse to buy into those thoughts, they can’t snowball into a feeling.
 
4. Negative feelings are your responsibility, not someone else's. Don't dump them on others or expect others to change so that you don't feel that way anymore. It’s not other people's responsibility to make you feel good. But if you act lovingly and nonjudgmentally toward them, they are likely to act in ways that will make you feel good. If you act judgmentally toward them, you're likely to get negativity back.

5. You are entitled to your feelings, but that doesn't mean you are entitled to express them any way you want.

If you found this interesting and helpful, you might enjoy Loving in the Moment: Moving from Ego to Essence in Relationships by Gina Lake, available on Amazon.

The ego is never content with the present and always looking to the future for an improvement. “Hope springs eternal” is true of the ego, which needs hope to cope with the negative perspective it has on the present. Because the way things are is never good enough for the ego, it fantasizes about a better future and spends the present waiting for that to come to pass.