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consiousness
March 2009 
Relationship and the Power of Words
Anna
A friend of mine changed her "status" on one of those social networking sites from "single" to "in a relationship" and then posted a brief comment about what she thought it meant to be "in a relationship;" in the general understanding of the description.
She essentially said that she didn't like the word because she felt it insinuated ownership of a person.
I disagree.
First, words only have the meanings we give them. For example, there was a time when being gay meant your were happy and having a "fag" meant smoking a cigarette. The word "fat" has morphed into "phat" and being called "phat" is good thing; it depends on the sentence it's used in, right? One can be a swinger in the sense of hip, club-hopping, coolness or one can be a swinger in the sex scene.
Words mean nothing until we give them meaning.
Second, we are constantly "in relationship" with all we interact with. We have relationships with people, animals, and things; even concepts and theories. Relating and interacting creates relationships. I have a relationship with my keyboard as I type this. You have a relationship with my words as you read this. Why is it that as soon as we label a sweet and pleasant, sexual or romantic interaction between two people as "relationship" its innate definition changes? One word - perception. And to be honest, perception is everything.
Words have power, but only that which we give them. We should be cautious of defining a word in a particular way because we then give it that power. If I say I'm in a relationship but think that the word insinuates ownership, then I'm very likely to begin feeling "owned." Yes? But if I say that I think that relationships are the fuel of personal growth; ALL relationships, then won't that create opportunity for growth? Everyone we relate to and with is fueling our experience in this consciousness. It is in our best interest to recognize the relationships we have with others so that we can continue to connect, relate, love, and grow.
Peace.
Access: Public
Yes and it is within our relationship with others that we can discover our hidden darker relationship to all that we are and aren’t.
We are connected to every other Soul whether or not embodied and therefore in millions of billions of relationships eternally.
Our energetic reaction to words give us a glimpse at the next piece of attachment to embrace & release
Blessed IS
It is important to be aware of the subjective power we assign words and maybe your friend was just trying to articulate a new awareness that she hadn’t had before…something that was in her. But I agree, that objectively, words are arbitrary.
Jeremiah - it’s good to hear from you!!
I agree that within our relationships with others we discover our hidden relationship with ourselves. Good point!
Nina….thank you. You may be right. It’s not like she’s a completely oblivious person - quite the contrary. It just bothered me on some level that the use of the word seemed to insight so much emotional negativity in her. In fact, it reminded me of my own fears and insecurites surrounding “relationships.”
Which…bringsme back to Jeramiah’s comment. Ain’t life grand in it’s cyclicle ways?
Peace.