You know what’s the most powerful feeling you can have?

When you can say no to a relationship that’s going to be bad right at the beginning.

That’s right: right at the beginning.

You can end a bad relationship before it even becomes bad because you are paying full attention to what is being presented to you by the other person.

You see, most people have a relationship story. They meet somebody and immediately they form a relationship story about what they want this person to be.

They’ve got an idea of what this person is. They see some of the things that are major red flags, but they ignore it.

Why? Because they have a relationship story. There are things about the person that they like.

There’s things that they want to explore about the person.

The person is a good person. So they think that they can just create a story about that person.

The warning signs are always there.

If you think about every relationship you’ve ever had that has ever self destructed and died the unruly death that it did years later, you basically had all the warning signs right from the get-go.

But you ignored them. You ignored them because you decided to have a story, a story about you and them.

You had some romance story about you and them.

You had a few good moments.

Maybe you went away for a weekend.

In the beginning and everything was great because the representatives were out showing themselves.

But then, a month later the relationship is already on life support.

You go back to the way it was a month ago, and you think to yourself, why can’t it be the way it was when we went to Palm Springs?

The reason why you can’t is because it’s not there.

You see, a story — a real story — is a story that actually starts and ends every single day.

It’s called a chapter of your life.

But the problem is, in relationships, people try to manipulate the story.

Try to make things work the way you want.

You try to get somebody to be what you want them to be.

You try to give them a maturity level that they don’t have.

You figure you possess some amazing power to change another person and to have the outcome of the story that you have inside your mind. But in reality, haven’t we all learned you can’t change anybody. You can only control yourself.

We have this amazing feeling inside our hearts and our mind that we can write whatever story we want.

And that, my friend, is a bunch of bullshit.

The beauty about what is unfolding is that it’s unfolding in front of you. That’s what being present is all about, that’s when relationship story is presenting itself. Every relationship presents itself right from the get-go. You start seeing somebody for who they are, you start recognizing them as a twin soul.

A soul mate.

A friend.

A lover.

An adversary.

Whatever it might be, you start recognizing them in so many different ways.

And that’s what being present is all about. You can’t control, you can’t manipulate, you can’t do anything but see what’s being presented to you every single day.

But the beauty of relationships is that you have complete power to end it before it gets ugly three years down the road.

At this point in my life, I end many relationships before they even get started. Why? Because I see things in somebody that are non-negotiable.

We’re not here to change somebody, we’re not here to make somebody better. We’re here to find love. And if you don’t have an abundant mindset about love, you’re going to constantly be in relationship stories, trying to manufacture and trying to manipulate, and trying to change somebody into something that they are not.

If you want to create a new relationship story, you need to be present every minute of every single day and allow the person to present who they are. Because that’s the beauty about the exploration process, about having a relationship, just allowing them to present themselves and living abundantly.

I know there’s somebody amazing out there for you, I know there’s somebody amazing out there for me.

I just allow people to show who they really are.