Companionship is an aspect of equanimity.

The relationship you have with yourself and the relationships you have with others are and will be subject to a plethora of phenomena beyond your control.

Sometimes happiness comes. Sometimes anger. Coming together. Needing space. Good fortune. Bad fortune. Heartache. Heart healing. Exuberance. Sadness.

It can be a real mix.

If we have expectations — desire — for what these relationships are supposed to look and feel like, we are setting ourselves up to be thrashed around this way and that when what is happening comes into conflict (as it inevitably will) with our beliefs about what should be happening. We will then find ourselves in a state of reaction, pulled out and away from our centre, where our sense of self lives.

Instead of expecting things to be a certain way all the time, what can happen when we commit to companionship with ourselves? What can happen when we commit to companionship with others?

We can welcome all.

We can welcome all of the experience. The ups and downs, the sudden shifts, the wrong turns, the right turns, and everything in between.

Companionship means we have committed to the journey—not to any one particular feeling, experience, or outcome. It means we are able to weather all storms because we have given up our preferences and expectations.

Of course smooth sailing feels great. However, is it not when the going gets tough that we form our strongest bonds and learn our most beneficial lessons?

Companionship means we live in the moment. We follow the simple instructions of the moment where we see everything we experience as a new puzzle piece and, beyond that, a beautiful gift we have given to ourselves.

In companionship, we can embrace the happiness and we can embrace the difficulty because we have made a commitment to the journey and the process of love. In fact, it becomes difficult to differentiate the two.

If we can start to see everything as love — the light and the dark — we can wonder, “What is not love?”

What or who is not on our side?

What is lacking?