Modern partnerships prioritize holistic wellbeing, mutual growth, and mindfulness—redefining intimacy and love.
Esteemed spiritual teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti said, “Life is Relationship.” A great truth this, where we circulate in these orbits of devotion— aka relationships—and are called to love and commit to ourselves, partners, family, friends, pets, neighbors, colleagues, and the whole of life.
Love is in everything and everyone. When we miss that, we miss the point of life. Really. Social connections and community wellness are elemental here—especially for assuaging the present day “loneliness epidemic.”
Relationships contribute to our greatest joys as well as some of our most difficult challenges. To put it simply, relationships can be damn hard! They can be the source of so much emotional upheaval and stress, but they can also be our most powerful teachers and catalysts for growth.
No one has the perfect marriage or stress-free relationship with parents or kids, neighbors or colleagues. Relationship struggles take different forms, but we all have them. Yet when we offer trust, kindness, respect, and compassionate communication to others, and receive the same in return, our hearts crack wide open and we experience deep connection, love, and acceptance.

Relationships & MindBody Health
Science has proven the benefits of strong, supportive relationships anchored in respect,
trust, and commitment—from boosting immunity, longevity, and mental health to increasing our sense of happiness and fulfillment. It’s the best life insurance ever—creating lifelong benefits. With better relationships, you’re not just surviving, you’re thriving, bolstered by growth, safety, joy, intimacy, and a shared sense of purpose.
The landmark Harvard Longevity Study on Happiness (ongoing for more than 85 years) proves that strong relationships and social connections are crucial to our happiness and wellbeing as we age. It reveals that close relationships, more than money or fame, are what keep people happy throughout their lives. These connections protect people from life’s stressors and discontents, help to delay mental and physical decline, and are better predictors of long and happy lives than social class, IQ, or even genes.
Relationship wellness is an important sub- category of mental health as much of what happens in our relationships impacts our day-to-day stress and anxiety levels.
The current trend shows that people of all ages are seeking preventative approaches to sustain and navigate their relationships. Modern-day relationship wellness companies are gaining popularity. Ours (withours.com) offers virtual counseling sessions, and the Remedy Place (remedyplace.com), known asthe world’s first social wellness club, offers a way for individuals to enhance their health, self-care, and social life through human connections. The experts at these companies serve those seeking relationship- building expertise, human connection, and socializing.
“The roots of a lasting relationship are mindfulness, deep listening and loving speech, and a strong community to support you.”
—Thich Nhat Hanh, How to Love
The Dance of Relationships
How we engage and interact with another, has its own set of steps, tempo, and rhythm that are necessary to negotiate the moves between people.
Throughout my life and career, I’ve spent a fair amount of time and energy reflecting on the “dance” and what makes relationships work. Some have been through observation of couples (like my parents over 60 years together!), through firsthand experience in my relationships (still with my high school sweetheart!), through teaching at The Chopra Center for Wellbeing, through dissecting patterns and trends with my/our therapist (big yes to couples therapy!), and through geeking out at the relationship and couples counselling brilliance of the likes of the Gottmans (gottman.com), Esther Perel (estherperel.com), and Brené Brown (brenebrown. com). It all comes back to mindful loving.

Mindful Loving of Self & Others
Psychologist and author of Mindful Loving and The New Physics of Love, Henry Grayson maintains that transforming less-than-perfect relationships begins with us—changing our attitude, thoughts, actions. From an energetic standpoint, this internal shift in us creates a shift in the energy of others—what my dear friends at the Heartmath Institute call energetic communication. Whereas the science of relationships can often tend toward modifying outward behavior, which Grayson says is like trying to clean up a river downstream rather than at its source, “We have to go upstream to what we’re thinking—to the beliefs and behaviors that come from our thoughts—instead of trying to change our emotions, or even worse, other people’s behavior.”
Ego-Based Love Versus Spiritual Love
Ego-based love is the downfall of many relationships. I’m not speaking of the Freudian, healthy ego that’s indispensable to negotiating daily life but rather the overblown ego that’s chronically hungry, unworthy, unsatisfied—the illusory armor that separates and cuts us off, the self-obsessed me that renders us so unspeakably lonely, stripped of feelings of belonging and connection.
Spiritual love works on the opposite premise where instead of the doomed attempt to “complete” ourselves through another person, spiritual relationships hinge on the knowledge that each of us is already whole. We’re already complete, just as we are. We’re made from the very same energy as the rest of creation—love as it’s called in spiritual texts—in its myriad forms. Our essential nature is divine. In other words, we are already this wholeness, this love, that we seek outside ourselves.
As we open our heart, the energetic center of loving-kindness, compassion, and forgiveness, and send this healing energy to ourselves and others, we become love, we become divine, we become whole.

“We have to go upstream to what we’re thinking—to the beliefs and behaviors that come from our thoughts— instead of trying to change our emotions, or even worse, other people’s behavior.”
— Henry Grayson, psychologist and author of Mindful Loving and The New Physics of Love
Conscious, Compassionate Communication
“The roots of a lasting relationship are mindfulness, deep listening, and loving speech, and a strong community to support you,” says Thich Nhat Hanh,author of How to Love.
Communication is the air that relationships breathe in order to sustain life. When communication breaks down, relationships break down. Conscious, compassionate communication is the antidote to help all relationships flourish— because we learn how to express our unmet needs in a way that respects and honors both parties.
Dr. John Gottman, world-renowned expert on relationships and cofounder of The Gottman Institute, coined the term “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” to describe four destructive communication patterns that can lead to relationship failure: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
He says these behaviors erode the love at the core of a relationship and they’re so lethal that they can predict divorce or breakup if left unchecked. Identifying the Four Horsemen in conflict discussions is a necessary first step to eliminating them and replacing them with healthy, productive and peaceful communication patterns.
A healthy relationship keeps the doors and windows wide open. Plenty of air is circulating and no one feels trapped. Relationships thrive in this environment. Keep your doors and windows open. If the person is meant to be in your life, all the open doors and windows in the world will not make them leave. Trust this truth.
