This is the second Don Miguel Ruiz book I’ve recommended (the first was The Four Agreements), and I have many of the same feelings toward this book, The Mastery of Love, that I had for that one. It is a great book full of important, meaningful points; however, it is a little “woo-woo” at points (that is just how Ruiz writes) and it can be a bit repetitive.
My suggestion is to read this book with an open mind. Some of the things said will sound a little (or a lot) out there, but underneath the layer of woo-woo are some really insightful observations about the way humans act in different types of relationships, including the relationship with the self.
Although the full title, The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship, may lead you to believe it’s a book about how to be with a romantic partner, this book is actually a helpful read for anyone, regardless of relationship status. The pointers it gives can be applied to any type of relationship – friendship, familial, etc. – and it also has a fantastic portion on self-love (which can help everyone!).
Here are my favorite points/ideas from the book:
Unconditional Love
How many movies out there are based on the premise of the bad boy falling for the good girl, and the good girl changing the bad boy into a good boy? I don’t know an exact number, but I know I’ve seen a lot of them. A Walk to Remember, Dirty Dancing, 10 Things I Hate About You, Crazy, Stupid Love, She’s The Man, Grease, Step Up…I could probably go on.
These movies paint this idealistic picture of falling for someone essentially just so you can change them into the type of guy you really wanted in the first place. Guess how this usually works out in the real world…not well! Sure, people can change, but the point is they shouldn’t have to in order to deserve your love.
Ruiz asserts the importance of loving someone exactly as they are, rather than trying to change things about them. He uses the simplistic example of pets. If you want a cat, get a cat. Don’t get a dog and spend hours trying to teach it to use a litter box. And if you want a dog, get a dog. Don’t get a cat and spend hours trying to teach it how to fetch (although, side note, my cat actually does play fetch!).
“You cannot change other people. You love them the way they are or you don’t. You accept them the way they are or you don’t. To try to change them to fit what you want them to be is like trying to change a dog for a cat, or a cat for a horse” (Ruiz, 74).
In a relationship, we must love unconditionally (i.e. without conditions). Everyone is different, and no one is perfect, but another person is not responsible for fitting into your mold of what a perfect partner should look like. You must accept your partner, warts and all.
You Are Only Responsible For You
This topic is one that I’ve had to come to terms with in many of my own relationships (including familial relationships and friendships). So often we want others to do things our way, because we believe we know what is best for them. However, people don’t all think the same way, feel the same way, or deal with things the same way. So our loved ones may want to do things in a different way than we do, and we have to respect that.
“There is no way you can be responsible for what is inside another person’s head. You can never know what that person feels, what that person believes, all the assumptions she makes” (Ruiz, 66).
Ruiz makes the important point that there are two halves to each and every relationship, and each person is only responsible for his or her half. You can give advice to your partner and you can support your partner, but ultimately the decisions your partner makes are his or her own, and you are not responsible for them. All you can do is respect your partner’s decisions, by respecting that he or she is responsible for his or her half of the relationship.
“Every dreamer is going to dream his own way. That is why we need to accept the differences that exist between two dreamers; we need to respect each other’s dream” (Ruiz, 57).
Self-Love
You must love yourself before you can love others. I’m sure you’ve heard this one before…It may be a wee bit cliché, but it is every bit true. You have to love yourself in order to be in a functional, healthy relationship. When you enter into a relationship, you shouldn’t do so because you need another person’s love, but because you want it and it would make life more enjoyable and fun. It should be a choice. You should be able to live happily a single person first, and then choose to have a relationship.
Ruiz had a fun, yet valuable way of explaining the value of self-love called “The Magical Kitchen.” In your magical kitchen, you have access to any quantity of any type of food that you could ever want. You can always go to your kitchen and know that you will have food, and have bountiful amounts to share with others.
Imagine someone comes to your door with a pizza and says he will give you the pizza if you promise to do whatever he wants. If you have a magical kitchen, you would be like hell nawww, I can get pizza any time I want! But now imagine someone comes to your door with the same pizza, but you don’t have a magical kitchen, and you’re starving. Then you might take the deal.
Ok, now replace the pizza with love, and the magical kitchen with your heart. If your heart is full of love enough for yourself and enough that you can share it with others, you would never need anyone else’s love. When you are full of love, you would look at the pizza man and say, “‘thank you, but I don’t need your love. I have the same love here in my heart, even bigger and better, and I share my love without condition'” (Ruiz, 94).
We’ve all known those people that are always in a relationship. They can’t seem to stay single for longer than a few weeks. And it’s probably because they can’t stand to be alone with themselves. They need someone else to make them feel happy and whole. They have no self-love, so they seek love outside of themselves, and they become very needy.
Of course it feels wonderful to be loved by someone else, but we shouldn’t need that person to be our sole source of love and happiness. They should be an added bonus that makes life that much more wonderful!
“In a relationship, as in a game, it’s not about winning or losing. You are playing because you want to have fun” (Ruiz, 69).
Forgiveness
I wrote about forgiveness once in a piece called “Less Then Whole,” and Ruiz’s thoughts on forgiveness are very similar to mine. He says giving your forgiveness to others is an act of self-love.
“You must forgive those who hurt you, even if whatever they did to you is unforgivable in your mind. You will forgive them not because they deserve to be forgiven, but because you don’t want to suffer and hurt yourself every time you remember what they did to you…Forgiveness is for your own mental healing. You will forgive because you feel compassion for yourself” (Ruiz, 169-170).
Truth
In this section, Ruiz talks about the importance of discerning what is truth and what is a lie. He has three rules for this:
- Don’t believe me
- Don’t believe yourself
- Don’t believe anyone else
Now I know this sounds a little out there (what are we supposed to believe, then?), but here’s what he means by this:
Don’t believe me – only believe what I tell you if it resonates with you and makes sense to you. Ruiz writes, “I am responsible for what I say, but I am not responsible for what you understand…What I say, even if it is absolutely true for me, is not necessarily true for you” (165). I love this point because this is how I feel about my blog. Every time I post I am sharing my truth in the hopes that it will resonate with and possibly even help someone else. But just because something is true for me, doesn’t mean it will be true for everyone else!
Don’t believe yourself – note that this doesn’t say don’t believe in yourself (because you should definitely do that). It says don’t believe yourself…and more accurately I think it should be don’t always believe yourself. This point is about questioning your own beliefs and realizing that not everything you think is true.
“Don’t believe all the lies you tell yourself…Don’t believe yourself when you say you are not good enough, you are not strong enough, you are not intelligent enough. Don’t believe your own boundaries and limitations. Don’t believe you are unworthy of happiness or love. Don’t believe you are not beautiful. Don’t believe whatever makes you suffer” (Ruiz, 165).
Don’t believe anyone else – this one is pretty self-explanatory. Don’t believe everything you hear. People lie all the time, whether they know it or not. Many people have internalized poisonous belief systems from society and they naïvely try to impress them on everyone else. You do you, and don’t believe anyone else.
You might be asking: “Why is it so important to find truth? What does that have to do with relationships?”
Here’s why: we humans tend to create these stringent belief systems and put up certain boundaries and limitations based on these beliefs. No two humans’ belief systems (or ideas of what is “truth”) are ever going to match up perfectly. So we have to be willing to both reevaluate our own beliefs at times, and respect that the other person in the relationship may have beliefs from our own.
Ruiz says “that is the healing. Three simple points: the truth, forgiveness, and self-love” (178).
Once you learn to incorporate these practices into your life, you can responsibly handle your half of any relationship. And just like with anything else, these practices are ones that you will have to work at every day. You will not be perfect, and neither will any relationship you’ll ever be in. However, these suggestions and advice can certainly help make your relationships happier and healthier!
