Q: With softness and gentleness I’m going deep in connection with you, but as deep as I go my pattern of self-importance is coming up. With all that comes so much control, bigness.

John: Instead of relating to your feeling of your self, relate to a quiet dearness. That settles you down into your humanness, which has no relationship to self-importance.

Q: In the deep it’s some kind of belief system, mostly spiritual. It’s coming up one by one.

John: When you’re in any kind of emotional self-importance, an emotional positivity or an emotional negativity, you can’t see. When you’re in the dearness you’re coming into the beginning of your humanness where you begin to see.

Q: It all shows in my relationship with my husband. Sometimes, I don’t tell him, but I feel so controlling: he should act the way I act.

John: In your relationship with him, everything that you feel of what you want from him and don’t want from him – all of that is a hardness. It has no connectivity in it; there is no dearness in it and there’s no end to it. The more that you move in it the stronger that it gets. What you’re projecting onto him is the dissatisfaction that you have from within the lack in your self; you’re putting your dissatisfaction onto him. The lack in your self is the lens through which you see him.

Q: And the love; I lack love, gentle love.

John: You don’t need to love him if you focus on loving him you’ll register the lack in your self. As soon as you focus on trying to love him you’re on performance. Instead of loving him just be within a quiet dearness. There’s no performance in it. It doesn’t register the lack in your self. It registers a very light touch in your heart. It registers a nurture. When you say things to him, if it isn’t dearness that says it, it isn’t worth saying.

Q: Yes, sometimes I become more a teacher to him than a wife.

John: All the really little things that he does or doesn’t do that bothers you, don’t say it. Don’t say any of it. Let that annoyance end in you instead of you putting it on him which will never satisfy your self; you won’t see the end of it. He doesn’t need to do all of the right things in the way that you see it. All of the right things that you see has in it an emotional charge. As soon as you say it you’re charging up your emotional body. When you see him, all you see then is a problem to you.

Q: Although I don’t say, I see him talking loudly, making noise and it bothers me a lot.

John: Say nothing. His loudness doesn’t break down your relationship. You being annoyed with it, right there, breaks down your relationship.

Q: Our relationship is very dear. We love each other dearly; it’s just the surface things sometimes.

John: Say nothing about the surface things. If you say nothing and there are little bits that are falling apart on the surface – little bits here and there that are not quite holding together – all of that is fine. But if you say something to address those little bits because they annoy you, you’re covering up all of the delicacies. While you say nothing, just because there’s a charge in you, instead of suppressing saying something, the not saying something gives room for the quiet dearness within. Use that space of not speaking to see him differently, to see your relationship differently, to see a touch of dearness – any little bit.

When you see a practical thing that needs addressing, what you could do instead of saying something, is give a little touch of your finger – a soft touch. He’ll either understand what that touch means because his attention is brought to it and he sees what you see. If he’s not understanding, then give another light touch with a little bit of a smile. This all takes a little more time.

When you say something to him it isn’t even the words; it’s your tone in the words. The tone is the destructive part: a tone of annoyance, a tone of frustration, a tone of superiority. Instead of saying something concerning practical details that mean almost nothing, when you are in just a touch of dearness there’s a tone of heart to that dearness. It shows subtly in your body language, in your face. It’s a subtle difference in your eyes because you’re not seeing from a frustration, you’re seeing from a touch of dearness. As you begin to embody that difference of tone, that that tone of heart becomes your flow, then you can slowly, little bit by little bit, start to say things to him concerning those little things that hardly even matter. Then when you say them you’re giving a little goodness to him.

It’s a different kind of life. In this shift all of the little things that used to frustrate you and annoy you, all of those little things become occurrences of dearness. When you see that he’s being a little loud it touches you inside; it touches a dearness in what he’s not seeing. Instead of it bothering you it touches into a small smile inside. In this shift you find that you’re starting to adore him. All of these little things that used to bother you have you adoring him. You find it adorable – all these little ways that he’s not perfect. When there’s a little thing that bothers you about him, instead of saying something go and sort out his socks.

Q: Yes.

John: Let it touch you that these are the socks he wears.

Q: If I can do that it’d be lovely.

John: He may even ask you at some point why his socks always look so perfect.

Q: Thank you very much John, thank you. I appreciate so much.