Relationships That Work: The Power of Conscious Living

A Transformative Communication Approach to Self-Realization

In Relationships That Work, David B. Wolf, provides practical exercises and principles for you to master strategies for high-level communication. You will learn empathic listening and conflict resolution skills, and ways of assertion that align with principles rooted in your spiritual truth. This book shows you how to be in more honest, satisfying relationships, enhance self-awareness, and live a life of purposeful action. You will be guided to recognize patterns of assumptions by which you’ve been living your life, and to replace unhealthy and ineffective belief systems with truths and values rooted in your core identity. Wolf reveals an effective and accessible model for realizing our spiritual essence while creating trust and connection. Through processes of courageous introspection described in this book, you are empowered to connect with what is vitally important and live with intentionality to manifest your highest purpose while helping others do the same. Relationships that work begin with the relationship with our self. On the first page, we distinguish the self from the body. To cite Teilhard de Chardin, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” The process of reading this book is meant to facilitate a connection with your authentic personality—the spiritual core that is not defined by any role you play or possessions attached to your name. As confirmed by the great wisdom traditions, this consciousness is the foundation for a life of peaceful existence, powerful vision and purposeful action. Living from truly spiritual consciousness, our qualities of compassion, vitality and love naturally radiate. Sharing confidences with others is a heartfelt way to exchange affection. Such exchange engenders change, as we embody genuine love by supporting and challenging each other to grow. Love is the greatest wealth, and like material wealth, it can multiply. Cultivate mastery of the methods of transformative communication and you will possess the currency to express the richness of your soul in every situation and to create relationships that work. Each of us seeks to expand our consciousness, perhaps through a study of history, philosophy, or maybe through the politics and economics of the day. We strive for happiness, knowledge, and eternity in so many ways, but often do not find the joy and fulfillment we seek. This indicates that our activities may be misdirected with respect to spiritual development, and leads us to wonder, “What is my essential activity as a spiritual being?” From observation we can understand that our dharma is to serve. As sugar cannot avoid being sweet, so we too cannot avoid serving. It is our constitutional nature. Where there is a human being, there is service. Paul Tillich once remarked that "the first duty of love is to listen." And, as a drowning person needs and wants only air, a person experiencing emotion needs to feel understood. In this mode of illuminated, compassionate nonattachment, we are alert and attentive to the other person and support our respective journies of self-realization. In both practical application and philosophical foundation, this second edition provides substantially enriched opportunity for experiencing the power of conscious living. Concepts that further support the readers self-realization have been expanded, and more real-life examples to enhance understanding, added. It was inspired by the experiences of reading groups to practice skills and self-discovery using the principles and processes in the first edition. In order to increase the accessibility of experiential aspects of the book, more exercises and summaries of material have been added as well as reference sections including detailed index and table of contents. Beautiful illustrations now enrich the experience of the transcendental purpose of this book.