Have you noticed that over the last six months, everyone you know has been in a Growth Period around relationships? Relationships with the other gender, the same gender, the kids, work-mates; relationship with their car and computer, their bodies, the critters in the house, the houseplants, everyone and everything? What the heck is going on?

The planet is evolving at an incredible speed, as are all her inhabitants. We are releasing pictures and disrupting patterns in a big way. Everything not created in integrity is being challenged. Humans are intrinsically social beings and the desire or need (there is a difference) for relationship is at the very core of this spiritual evolution. How we create and experience relationships directly mirror our relationship with our Self. Everyone I cross paths with is seeking information and assistance in healing, changing and taking command over their outer relationships, and are ready therefore to heal their inner relationship. It's time to celebrate this movement toward wholeness.

Sometimes, however, this movement doesn't feel like something to celebrate. Our physical and emotional bodies are energetically denser and slower than our spiritual bodies and sometimes this change manifests somewhere between slightly uncomfortable to downright painful. That's where the mettle of our personal commitment is challenged. How important is it really for me to be aligned with my inner guidance? How much do I really want to be in command of my life? Is all this emotional and physical upheaval really worth it? Isn't there an easier way?

Getting from here to there can sometimes be an interesting journey. So - what makes it uncomfortable sometimes? Only one thing: our level of resistance. Our habits of thought and behavior are very familiar and comfortable, especially in the relationship arena. In fact, these relationship patterns have been part of our operating style for our entire lives. Changing them may sometimes feel like moving a 20 ton boulder with a spoon. It's actually a lot easier than that. Eliminate the internal resistance and that boulder will just tumble and crack into a zillion, spoonable pieces. Viewing the entire boulder sometimes appears overwhelming and we stop before we even begin. Let's take baby steps toward the crumbling of this relationship boulder. Keeping it simple and at kindergarten (the Avalon way) makes the entire process of shifting toward healthy relationships easier and more amusing.

Let's begin by looking at one of your current relationships...no not the biggest, baddest one right off.....let's begin with one that carries less charge. Noticing where you are with it right now, in this present moment, will give you enormous information about your resistance and patterns. See if you can do this observation from a neutral place, as if you were watching someone else's drama. Notice the words that fall out of your mouth and the thoughts that run through your head. Simply noticing what you notice about it right now, without doing anything about it, creates a huge step toward the changing, healing and re-patterning of the relationship.

A very telepathic cat lives with me and we developed some patterns of relating. Actually, it was me who had some patterns of relating which were based upon some very old habits I collected while growing up. She simply mirrored them back to me....quite clearly. When our relationship began many years ago, I would enter the house and she would run into the back bedroom. When she did this, I would automatically say, out loud, "You better run." I did this for "no reason." It would just fall out of my mouth. As part of my own spiritual path, I enjoy looking at my patterns, particularly my relationship patterns. When I noticed this one, I immediately heard my father say the same thing to the chickens we kept out-back when I was growing up. There it was, an ancient habit of behavior that affected the relationship I had with my cat-friend, present-time.

I didn't beat myself up about sounding like my dad. In fact I found it quite amusing (an important and necessary component to the healing process - amusement). Since this discovery, I have noticed those words have effortlessly stopped falling out of my mouth when I enter the house, and Bel, my cat-companion, now rolls around on her back, belly-up to greet me, instead of running away. What a shift! All it took was to notice the pattern from a neutral place. It was utterly effortless and simple. That's the way it is supposed to be! We humans make it so difficult sometimes.

Roxane Burnett is the author of "Spirit Matters: Down-to-Earth Tools for a Spirited Life" and has been teaching "Tools for Intuition", "Feminine Alchemy" and "A Way of Life" nationwide, since 1994. Roxane is a credentialed teacher, personal coach, director of Avalon Institute and has been featured on television, radio and in national publications in the US and Australia. The Tahoe Center for Wholeness (TCW) is hosting Roxane and the 6-week course, "Spiritual Abilities and Tools for Intuition," beginning June 8.

Please call TCW 530-583-9553 or Avalon 550-1508 for more information. www.avalon1.org

See our Events Calendar for class schedule. Books and supplies available at The Rainbow Bridge.