Heart & Soul. Daphne Rose Kingma

and communicating about it, is of the utmost importance. It will keep you real. It will also keep you in conscious contact with each other-and with all the changes your partner may be going through as his or her individual life (and your mutual one) unfolds. This keeping in touch (and being aware of each other's feelings) is the stuff that intimacy is made of. If you stop paying attention (or communicating), you may lose the feeling of connectedness that lies at the heart of love.

      But paying attention also has a larger purpose. Life is shaping us all the time, and we are being constantly invited to move toward the deeper layers of ourselves—and of life itself-through all the experiences that life doles out to us. In a similar way, as your relationship unfolds, it is asking you to expand. For example, you may be being asked to express yourself more-to cry, to get angry, to say the things you were afraid of saying-or to find a way to go deeper together-to join a discussion group, to meditate, to pray.