What you are really asking is how can I relate to others authentically.

Authentic relating is transparent in the sense that nothing is hidden or excluded within yourself or the other. It means you feel safe to express your true experience without fear of being judged.

People who communicate authentically have deeply fulfilling and meaningful relationships. They have mastered the art of deep listening and communicate sincerely and wholeheartedly.

Deep listening means to go beyond your thinking mind and listen with your body. It means your whole being is open, awake and present. It means you are in contact with the subtle underlying energy that animates all of existence and you know how your embodied shape moves and changes in response to it.

The key to authentic relating lies in the acceptance of all parts of yourself, including the unpalatable and ‘shadow’ aspects of your personality that are normally kept hidden from view.

Author and mystic, Toko-Pa Turner, sums this up perfectly:

“There is a special quality of stillness in a person who encounters the shadow wholeheartedly. Your body may relax in their company because it understands, in the subtle communications of their presence, that nothing is excluded in themselves, therefore nothing in you can be rejected.”

Our perception of others and the world at large always mirrors the state of our own consciousness.

If you are not engaged in a genuine and straightforward relationship with the whole of your self, you will find it difficult to develop meaningful connections with others.

Cultivate an authentic and transparent relationship with yourself and this is what you will naturally come to manifest externally.