With all the songs, poems and books dedicated to love you would think everyone would have this area of life down pat. Perhaps there are endless songs to write because every human being on the earth can relate to the topic, but the mystery is how good relationships work. Love can make you do funny things, like “turn fool” (as my mum would say), allow people to do things to you that you wouldn’t normally allow, make you stop eating, turn you into a stalker, or even commit crimes of passion. The question today is should we be educated on how to love? Should this be something we learn in school or should our family teach us? Ideally we should receive the blueprint of love from our families or our surrounding relationships and most of the time this is the case, but what if you haven’t experienced healthy relationships?

I work in a school and before I had a an interview their unique selling point that stood out to me was their Education in Human Values  taught through 5 strands (love, peace, truth, non violence and right conduct). I thought that it was good that it was incorporated into the curriculum, even though most schools do something similar called PSHE or PSED (what ever the acronym these days) but thats usually an allocated time on the timetable, such as an hour a week and not embedding into the curriculum.

Beyond school, the next place to receive relationship education would be a religious establishment such as a church, mosque, or temple. Unfortunately with the high rate of divorce in christendom means its not the forerunner for exemplar relationships. Maeve Crawford a relationship healer and educator stresses the importance of relationship education to not only heal the pain that divorce brings but to help individuals make the right choice in choosing a mate, through a spiritual healing course, you can access her site here.

In my recent post about Soul Mates I made a point about relationships being a mirror reflection and that most of the time you attract the people you have a around you. I want you to try this simple exercise to see if its true. Choose a person you are close to (not a family member) and list about ten things that you like about them. Next write down ten things that you don’t like about them.

Done…?

Ok chances are that everything you liked about that person are the attributes you possess yourself…but so are the things you dislike about them too. How accurate was it? Tell the truth and don’t just say that the good things were correct but the bad things were not. Being able to recognise the not so desirable parts of ourselves can lead to embracing and loving ourselves (flaws and all) which will lead to others loving you completely too. Relationship education is important because it’s essential that we understand the people around us (…In all thy getting, get understanding. Proverbs 4v7). I guess the reason why I started this blog was to be educated and to educate on relationships. We are all under construction, but are we willing to gain the tools to be completed?