My wife is a busy therapist who spends her days working as a high-level executive in a mental health services company.

Every morning she builds sandwiches and snacks, tucks them away in a cooler and hits the road. Most mornings I go into the kitchen after she leaves and find the container of mustard she used out on the counter – mute testimony to the rush of her leaving.

This used to irritate me no end. I’d round the corner into the kitchen, revving up for my own busy day, and my teeth would clench at the sight of that mustard. I would mutter to myself as I put it away and cleaned the counter, "I’m not her servant… why can’t she clean up after herself? She just keeps leaving a mess!" That mustard jar was the trigger for many a day to start with a little downer.

Then something interesting happened. I came into the kitchen one day and saw the jar in its usual place on the counter. But this time, instead of the usual litany of complaint, I experienced a spontaneous upwelling of love for my wife, the mustard perpetrator. I felt an overwhelming sense of how lucky I am to have her in my life. Somehow, my inner self had decided to put a different picture on my emotional screen. It was such a strong wave of feelings, and from that day forward, when I see the mustard jar out on the counter, the sight of it connects me to feelings of love instead of irritation.

Something shifted.

I believe this happened because my wife and I enjoy a very conscious and intentional relationship, and we’re always looking for ways to strengthen our connection. We're glad to see each other and spend time together. Our inner attitude toward our relationship is that it is precious and valuable.

I think this allows deep, positive unconscious shifts to occur inside of us, and from time to time we get to experience the emergence of sudden, surprising shifts and solutions to old problems and old irritations. Those shifts appear to just come out of nowhere, but I think they start building and forming around the core of our inner attitude and intention about the relationship, just like a pearl forms around a piece of sand.

They can even show up looking like mustard love.