# Relationships > Relationships are co-created agreements where each person learns their own lesson through reflection - Canonical: https://sassani.app/topic/relationships # Relationships A relationship, in Bashar's teaching, is fundamentally a mirror. Its purpose is to reflect to everyone in it what they need to understand to become more of themselves — not to complete anyone, not to fix anyone, not to remain in a fixed form. The first relationship is always you with yourself: if you do not understand who you are and are not in touch with your beliefs, you will be confused by any relationship you attract. Once a relationship is formed it never truly ends — only its definition and the positions of the individuals within it can change. ## The first relationship is about you with yourself Before any other relationship can clarify, the primary one must. A confusing or painful relationship points back to an unclear relationship with yourself: what areas of yourself are you unclear about, who do you prefer to be, what is your excitement, and are you acting on it? Without that inner clarity, the outer relationship can only mirror the confusion. The first step is always to clarify who you are and to develop the relationship between your physical and higher mind; that inner alignment then clarifies every other relationship in your life. This reframes the usual search. The question is not "how do I fix this relationship?" but "what beliefs did I hold before I attracted and created it?" The relationship is the reflection of a prior inner state; changing the inner state changes what the relationship can mirror back. ## The purpose of a relationship is reflection The function the relationship serves is mutual mirroring. Everyone in a relationship is in it to help the other people in it — to give them opportunities to learn to be who they are more and more. This is true of every kind of relationship: romantic, parental, friendship, adversarial. The other person is not the source of your completeness; they are the surface on which your beliefs about yourself become visible. A subtler distinction: the reflection is not one-to-one. Another person is a reflection in your life, but not necessarily of the same issue you reflect for them. Each of you is in the relationship for your own reason, learning your own lesson; you may be getting something entirely different from the connection than they are. Assuming the reflection must match — that what they show you must equal what you show them — collapses the space the relationship was built to provide. ## Completeness, incompleteness, and the attraction of soulmates Because belief creates reality, the belief that you need a relationship in order to be complete can only attract a reflection of incompleteness. The shift is to know you are already complete and to operate on a vibrational level that attracts someone of equal vibration to reflect that completeness back to you. The formula Bashar states is exact: not "if only my soulmate were here I'd be happy," but "since I am happy, I allow someone to be in my life to reflect that happiness to me." The transformational life is one in which you are as powerful as you need to be as an individual to create anything you desire without having to hurt anyone else to get it or rely on anyone else to have it. Even the partner you attract is not fixed. When you change the vibration you are, the other person must either change to match you or leave your experience; if they change their vibration they are, literally, no longer the same individual. The being you were partnered with was a frequency, and a different frequency is a different person — even when the body looks the same. ## In-love as multiple orientation, not separation The disorienting physiology of being "in love" is reframed as multiple orientation rather than evidence of a separate self. The feeling is the blending and integrating of more of yourself, connecting into more levels; the disorientation many experience is the signature of that expansion. When a relationship is created from more of yourself, the partner who is attracted can share more of themselves in turn. All you need to do is be that kind of being and act like it, and that is what you will attract. ## Negative relationships: the lesson is validity, not understanding When a partner invalidates you, the work is not to make them understand you; it is to allow yourself to choose to know you are valid whether they understand you or not. The frustration of needing patience comes only from your own impatience — itself a signal that a choice is ready to be made. The pain of feeling invalidated is the choice to believe in your own lack of validity. Take responsibility for the version of them you have created in your reality: there is something you are learning, and often that lesson is to know you are valid regardless of them. When another's harsh words land, the instruction is not to take them personally. Even when they are presented in a negative way, what they say is about their own fears, not about you; assuming it has anything to do with you requires a belief in your own lack of validity to accept it as truth. ## Honesty, position, and feedback Teaching — and by extension any relationship's gift — is said to come from being the true self, not from subjugating oneself to remain in a relationship. A change of position can itself offer the other person feedback, and that feedback is a form of service. Honest, open communication with all involved lets a relationship complete itself according to its real purpose. The relationship is also said to continue as a reflective context even when people are not physically near one another: it can still help each person discover who they are in relation to the other. That claim does not settle what action either person should take; it locates the stated value in the reflection itself. ## Practical implications Clarify the primary relationship first. A confusing relationship points to an unclear relationship with yourself; identify what you believe about who you are before trying to fix the outer form. Read the relationship as a mirror, not a verdict. Its purpose is to reflect what you need to understand; the other person is learning their own lesson, which may not match yours. Know you are complete before seeking a partner. Believing you need a relationship to be complete can only attract reflections of incompleteness; knowing you are already complete attracts a reflection of that completeness. Expect the partner to change when you do. When you shift vibration, the other must shift to match you or leave your experience; a different frequency is a different person. In invalidating dynamics, the lesson is your own validity. The work is to know you are valid whether or not the other understands you, not to make them understand. Do not take another's harshness personally. What comes at you in a negative way is about their own fears; taking it as truth requires believing in your own lack of validity. Boundary note. Bashar's framing of relationships as mirrors is metaphysical teaching about reflection and self-knowing. It is not direction to remain in abusive, coercive, or unsafe situations, to forgo professional support, or to treat another person's harmful behavior as something you must simply reinterpret. ## Representative passages The purpose of a relationship is to reflect to all the others in the relationship what they need to understand to become more of themselves. Everyone in a relationship is in it for the purpose of helping the other people in it, giving them opportunities to learn to be who they are more and more. The first relationship is about you with yourself; if you don't understand yourself and you're not in touch with your beliefs, then you're going to be confused about any relationship that you have attracted in your life or will attract.— Bashar, The First Relationship Is About You With Yourself (the-first-relationship-is-about-you-with-yourself#qa-2) Since belief creates reality, you can only attract someone into a relationship that will reflect your sense of incompleteness about yourself. Your so-called soulmates can appear in your lives when you know you are already complete and are operating on a vibrational level that attracts someone of equal vibration to reflect to you that you know you are complete. … The idea is not, if only my soulmate were here I'd be happy, but since I am happy, I allow someone to be in my life to reflect that happiness to me.— Bashar, Relationships (relationships#qa-3) It doesn't mean it's a one-to-one reflection. It just means that it's in your life for a reason. And you need to get something out of it, but it may not necessarily be the same thing that he is getting out of it.— Bashar, Understanding The Reflection In Negative Relationships (understanding-the-reflection-in-negative-relationships#qa-1) Take responsibility for the things that you create, the perceptions that you choose. I created him. You created a version of him in your reality for your own reasons, take responsibility for the co-creation … There is something that you are learning. … So he is teaching you how to allow yourself to choose to know you're valid.— Bashar, Understanding The Reflection In Negative Relationships (understanding-the-reflection-in-negative-relationships#qa-4) Even if he does present it in a negative way, it is up to you. It's your duty to yourself to not interpret it in a negative way by taking it personally. Because it's not about you. It's about his own fears.— Bashar, Understanding The Reflection In Negative Relationships (understanding-the-reflection-in-negative-relationships#qa-5) ## Related - [Unconditional Love](https://sassani.app/topic/unconditional-love) - [Reality As A Mirror](https://sassani.app/topic/mirror-nature-of-reality) - [Definitions & Beliefs](https://sassani.app/topic/definitions-and-beliefs) - [Grief](https://sassani.app/topic/grief) Markdown twin of https://sassani.app/topic/relationships. The HTML page is the source of truth.