Awakenings with David Cunningham
Awakenings is a podcast with David Cunningham exploring consciousness, awareness, love, and the deeper questions that shape how we experience life. Through thoughtful conversations and reflections, the show invites listeners to see themselves, their relationships, and the world with greater clarity and presence.
Awakenings with David Cunningham
The Biggest Mistake People Make in Relationships
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If you’re ready to move beyond understanding this intellectually and actually live it, the Awakening Weekends are where that happens. It’s a space to experience what it means to show up differently and leave a completely different impact on the people around you.
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One of the biggest misunderstandings in relationships is believing that love comes from the other person.
We enter relationships hoping to be loved.
Wanting to feel loved.
Expecting love to come toward us.
But if you look carefully at your actual experience, that’s never how love works.
In this video, I explore a radically different way of understanding relationships and the source of love itself. Love is not something another person gives you. Love is something you experience when you are being loving.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:
◻️ Why love never actually comes from another person
◻️ How your way of being shapes what you experience in relationships
◻️ Why judgment blocks your experience of love
◻️ The real purpose of intimate relationships
◻️ How difficult people create opportunities for deeper love
◻️ What my mother taught me while caring for my stepfather with dementia
The point of a relationship is not to get love.
It’s to have someone in your life who gives you the opportunity to be loving.
👉 Join the Awakening Weekends:
https://theawakeningweekend.com
If you’re ready to move beyond understanding this intellectually and actually live it, the Awakening Weekends are where that happens. It’s a space to experience what it means to show up differently and leave a completely different impact on the people around you.
👉 Watch David’s free video on ending self-criticism:
https://endingselfcriticism.com
If this message resonates, this is the best place to go deeper. It will shift how you relate to yourself and everything else builds from there.
Hi everyone, it's David Cunningham. I'm at my home, Big Sky Ranch in Pennsylvania. I wanted to talk to you this morning about relationships and the source of love in relationships. The pitfall that many couples get into is based in a belief, a false belief, that the love comes from the other person. I go into the relationship wanting and expecting you to love me. Why is that set you up for failure? Is because of this. If you observe carefully, the love never comes from the other person. Ever. If you ever experience love, it's because you're being loving. It has nothing to do with the other person. Your evidence for that is this. Sometimes people have been loving you, really loving you, and you've been cranky or you've been sullen or you've been judgmental. Notice you didn't experience love. If they were loving you and you were being judgmental, you experienced judgment. If they were loving you and you were being cranky, you experienced crankiness, not love. Nobody can give you love. Ever. It never worked that way. If you've ever experienced love for a moment in your life, it's because you were being loving. And it doesn't matter how the other person is. If you're loving me and I'm judging you, you'll still experience love. I'll experience judgment, but you'll experience love. If you're loving me and I'm cranky, you'll experience love. I'll experience crankiness, but you'll experience love. This is really important to get in relationships because mostly where we run into trouble is we think we're supposed to experience love coming from the other person. But it's not the case. Here's what a relationship is really. If you're with me, I'm grateful because you give me the opportunity to be loving. See, that's where my joy comes from. You and I love life when we get to be loving. And if there's nobody there, we don't get to be loving. So the point of a relationship is not to get love. We get to be grateful for anybody that's in a relationship with us because they give us the opportunity to be loving. My husband Bill and I have been together for 31 years. I'm grateful to him. Yes, I love that he's a loving man. But what I'm grateful for is that he gives me the opportunity to be a loving husband. And he's done that for 30-some years now. I'm forever grateful. Now there's a senior lesson to learn here that the more difficult another person is, that's the bigger opportunity for us. So a polite clerk in a store is an opportunity to be polite back. But a rude clerk in a store is an opportunity to be really generous. A great boss is an opportunity to be great back, but a difficult boss is an opportunity to be a real giant of a human being. So the senior lesson is the more difficult another person is, the bigger we get to be. One time I was with him for breakfast and I watched Bob ask her at least 25 times what day it was. You take a bite of cereal, look up, go, what day is it? Should go, it's Monday, Bob. You take another bite of cereal, look up, go, what day is this? Should go, it's Monday, Bob. The last time with no less patience than the first. When it was all over, I asked her, I go, Mom, how'd you do that? Well, she goes, I wish to ask me a different question. But if I wait for the question I want, I don't get to talk to my husband. I'll answer any question he asks me, I don't care how many times. My mom got to love profoundly. A husband who had dementia. So the love never comes from the other person. The other person gives us the opportunity to be loving. And the more difficult they are, the more loving we get to be. They're the ones to be the most grateful for. So if you enter into a relationship, never go into the relationship looking for love to come from them. Go into the relationship grateful that they're giving you the opportunity to be a loving human being. That's where your joy comes from. That's where your effectiveness comes from. All right, everybody. Bless you.