In a true you-and-I relationship, we are present mindfully, nonintrusively, the way we are present with things in nature.We do not tell a birch tree it should be more like an elm. We face it with no agenda, only an appreciation that becomes participation: 'I love looking at this birch' becomes 'I am this birch' and then 'I and this birch are opening to a mystery that transcends and holds us both.

Just as our fingerprints are one-of-a-kind, so is our identity. Each of us is a once-only articulation of what humans can be. We are rare, unmatched, mysterious. This is why the quality of openness is so crucial to our self-discovery. We cannot know ourselves by who we think we are, who others take us to be, or what our driver's license may say. We are fields of potential, some now actualized, most not yet.

To be adult in relationship is not to be conflict-free, it's to resolve conflicts mindfully.

True optimism is not the prospect of control over pain or elimination of it but survival through it.

We can actually reconstruct our past by examining what we think, say, feel, expect, believe, and do in an intimate relationship now.

We were born with four words engraved on our bodies and in our hearts: Love me, hold me.

Once we understand that what happens beyond our control may be just what we need, we see that acceptance of reality can be our way of participating in our own evolution.