Relationships are like rivers, flowing and changing, sometimes over rocky rapids, sometimes deep and calm, but always moving forward.

One of the most interesting lessons I’ve learned in this game called life is to allow change to happen — to accept that life is best lived when viewed as a river where the water moves forward, not as a pond where the water sits still.

It hasn’t been an easy lesson. I’ve had to learn and re-learn over again to let cycles flow, to stop clinging to the rocks, to release my hold and move forward, to flow with the current and even enjoy the ride.

My relationships with other people benefit too, when I allow them to have the freedom to flow in their own natural rhythm — to accept that there will be periods of closeness and periods of distance, times when we click and times when we don’t.

Maybe some people just intuitively understand these things, but for me, it’s taken a lot of surrender and then acceptance to see that change, including change in my relationships, is a normal part of life.

Before, if someone seemed to be pulling away, I viewed it as my fault or at the very least, my responsibility to fix. Poke. Prod. What’s wrong? Let’s talk. Please explain. I don’t understand …

It never dawned on me that relationships, all relationships, have an ebb and flow to them — that relationships transform, just like the seasons. Can you imagine trying to stop spring, or stop winter, just because you like summer better?

That old saying: “If you love something let it go, if they come back to you, the love is yours” is a scary proposition because it requires taking a risk. It requires letting go of what we think we need and what we think we want.

When we become truly singular, we realize that our fear of change is just another one of those fears that have nothing to do with reality. We can say goodbye to summer and welcome the fall, knowing summer will come again, when it’s time.

Copyright © Kim Calvert / 2010 Singular Communications, LLC.