LCE and Oprah's Lifeclass Webcast - Lesson 21, Love Doesn't Hurt

As Oprah continues her Lifeclass series online and through OWN, we've discovered our alignment through similar teachings from Life Creations Education. Today was the live stream of the "Love Doesn't Hurt" webcast--view a clip from the episode below, and discover what love looks and feels like for you.

The greatest quote pulled from this class follows the teachings we've completed on relationships, and was stated by Winfrey herself: "people who love you don't treat you badly--love doesn't hurt, it's supposed to feel good."

By definition, a relationship is "the quality or state of being related; connections". But here's another word for us to take a look at, and one that we don't often discuss--entanglement. Entanglement is defined as "to involve in difficulty, to confuse mentally to cause tangled or confused". What current relationships would you say are actually entanglements?

People influence us and help to define us both positively and negatively. Look around yourself, for instance. Are you surrounding yourself with people that lift you up or bring you down? What is missing from your current relationships? What needs are being met and what needs are not?

Consider this series of relationship questions:

• Do you feel that you give while your partner or others take? 
• Do you feel that you need space and time alone? 
• When in significant relationships (partner, spouse, child), do you find that you fight with increased frequency or intensity? 
• Looking back over the past year, do you feel that you have made the most sacrifices in your significant relationships? 
• Do you find yourself frequently apologizing? 
• Do you make excuses for the other person's behavior to yourself and to others?
• Do you feel that your emotional needs are being met? 
• If in a partnership, are you frustrated regarding your physical relations? 
• Do you feel that your relationship takes a back seat to your significant other's job, children, hobbies, or other priorities? 
• Do you feel valued in your relationships? 
• Do you feel that you're the only one working on the relationship? 
• Does money get in the way of your significant relationships? 
• If in a partnership, do you feel that you are simply going through the motions? 
• If in a partnership, is your partner more like a roommate? 
• Do you find that in order to have acceptance and peace in your relationships, you must compromise who you really are? 
• Have you stopped working on some of your relationships? 
• Are you in the relationship today because it is easier than starting over? 
• If in a partnership, do you have consistent, structured time to be with one another (date night, etc.)? 
• Do you have consistent structured time with friends and family? 
• If in a partnership, do you feel threatened or nervous when your significant other goes out with friends without you? 
• Do you trust your significant other? 
• Do you withhold your feelings and emotions from the ones you love? 
• Do you feel appreciated in your relationships? 
• Do you feel respected in your relationships? 
• Do you feel valued in your relationships? 
• How have these relationships impacted your life thus far?

We often put walls up as a way to protect ourselves, but what we're really doing is closing ourselves off to the ones we love.

If the relationship is important to you and you bring love, acceptance, and integrity into every conversation, the outcome can be quite different than originally imagined. The quality of a relationship is a function of the extent to which our needs are being met, as well as the conversation or words we use to communicate and describe each relationship.

Most often, when we have a complaint or concern about someone, it is usually because a need or expectation is not being met. Take time to look at what is working for you and what is not, and uncover areas of opportunity within your own relationships.