by Cheryl Petersen

Relationships can sometimes turn into a tangled mess. They can sour, or they can be so sweet they become addictively numbing to personal progress. The relationship may be between another person and our self, or it may be between food and our body. And in order to avoid a tangled mess, it is important to streamline our relationships. Shaping our relationships in a way that they flow naturally can be done by analyzing our expectations. 

First, our expectations need to be defined. For example, when dealing with personal relationships, do we expect another person to appreciate us? Or, do we expect to be appreciative? These expectations come from two different standpoints and produce two different effects.

If we expect someone else to appreciate us, we may end up doing things that resists our spiritual growth; whereas when we do appreciative things, the state of appreciation is self-fulfilling. To think an appreciative thought, or to do an appreciative deed, is unbreakably connected to universal appreciation. There is no need of human approval, and consequently no reaction to human disapproval. Relationships transform to pattern an appreciation fully sustained by universal Goodness. 

When it comes to the relationship between food and our body, do we expect food and the body to make the one another feel good? Or, on a more congenial path, do we expect health to determine how food and the body relate?

When I volunteered at an orphanage in Thailand — where we only had rice and spicy sauce to eat — the relationship between food and the body flared, because of the unfamiliar food. Instead of trying to appease the relationship by expecting familiar food to make the body happy, I challenged my expectations to improve. It was a mental effort. I realized that health is a state of mind, not a condition of food or body; therefore I regarded healthy thoughts. My expectancy of health naturally resulted in an improved relationship between food and the body.

Relationships transform for the better when we streamline them with expectations based on universal appreciativeness and health.

Cheryl Petersen is a freelance writer who lives in New York. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Follow Cheryl on Twitter, @CherylPetersen