Building a Conscious Relationship: a journey of the heart and soul

[CSummer]

What is a "conscious relationship?" Is it two people who are awake and engaging in small talk? I have a different view of it, one that might be termed a "remedial approach," i.e., one with the intention of healing the wounds of past relationships and avoiding the painful pitfalls of building a new one.

I define a conscious relationship as one that supports each person's growth toward inner wholeness and realizing our highest potential. I believe it's also a way to make relationships easier and more enjoyable, and it can make possible the deepest experiences of intimacy. This approach places a very high value on communication and going as slow as we need to go to ensure that all of who we are is included. If I'm feeling unclear, uncomfortable or unready - on any level - my policy is to Stop. Take some time to look at what's true for me and invite the other to do the same.

Building such a relationship requires a commitment to learning new ways of relating and spending time together, and includes the following practices:

We offer our undistracted presence to ourselves and each other. The focus is on what is true for you and for me, what is arising within us as we tune in to what's true for us.

We learn communication skills that enable us to express all our feelings, needs, concerns, wishes, fantasies, etc. in a way that holds no one else responsible for our experience or for meeting our needs. This empowers us to be completely open and honest with each other, owning our truth so we can hear what is true for another without guilt, defensiveness or withdrawal.

We support each other in being completely true to ourselves; never denying, ignoring or abandoning any truth or part of ourselves. To facilitate this, we move slowly, taking the time to tune into and express all that is true for us around any proposed activity beyond simply being present with each other.

As more of our emotional needs are met through clear communication, sharing our truth and nurturing each other, we discover deeper, more inclusive levels of presence. We may even find ourselves becoming - for a time - in a trance-like state as we turn our attention inward to find and follow our inner guidance. My experience is that at such times the potential for healing is maximized as we can revisit old wounding experiences or ways of being/relating and are able to see them from a new, larger perspective. We gain greater self-awareness, acceptance and understanding that can lead to resolving these old experiences and discover new options for ways of being, perceiving and relating.

If you're interested in exploring the power of presence in this way - either in a group or one-to-one, let's meet with an openness to what is possible!

P.S.: I'm a male, early 60's.
With :heart:

[Garden Goddess]

I agree with all of the statements you have made about the huge potential for evolvement of both people in a relationship. Especially when they decide not to blame the other for whatever feelings happen to come up, (usually as a result of simply being open and loving.)

2 things:

1 ) People can have great fun! (while doing the above.)
and 2) I think that the reason many relationships fail is that the reasons an individual is attracted to a mate are the same reasons their issues are dovetailing. Then, when they become intimate and feel safe, these issues rise to the surface.

For most this happens so quickly that they get scared and run away, not knowing that the way out is through. When both people are conscious it can be done, thereby leaving even more time and energy for the aforementioned fun, and never having to revisit the sad, wounded blaming, ego-created flotsam and jetsam that is keeping them apart.

[CSummer]

I appreciate what you wrote a lot, Garden Goddess. Learning how to own one's feelings and needs is so challenging in a world where our very language implies that someone else "makes" us feel as we do. (Like the other day when I opened a door near where a housemate was taking laundry out of the dryer. She turned with a start and said, "Oh! You scared the sh*t out of me!" I replied, "No, I just opened the door.")

> People can have great fun! (while doing the above.

I certainly hope we can! And if we don't have fun at least some of the time - at least enough to make up for the not-fun parts - we may do well to find a new partner to dance with.

> I think that the reason many relationships fail is that the reasons an individual is attracted to a mate are the same reasons their issues are dovetailing. Then, when they become intimate and feel safe, these issues rise to the surface.

Yes, and recently I've had the thought that everything is projection - at least what we call "perception" is almost always our mind's projection. When I look at her/him, what do I imagine is possible? What needs do I imagine could be met with her/him? Then if we start a relationship, we tend to want to realize or validate our projections. We also don't want the other to see who we really are (at least on some levels), so we keep much of what is true for us hidden - even from ourselves. This makes it even easier for us to maintain our projections, imagining that what we believe or hope for truly fits who the other person is.
This game of 'hide and hope' (hide who I am in hopes of my needs being met) may seem to be working for a while - until one person tires of having some important need (even an unconscious one) go unmet, despite their investment of self-denial. Then there is frustration or even anger around the sense of being cheated. When one person expresses such feelings, similar feelings may suddenly emerge in their partner, and things can get pretty difficult.
I want to believe we can support each other in being totally true to ourselves and bringing all of who we are (at least all we are able to be conscious of in this moment) into our relating; in never ignoring, denying or abandoning any of who we are. My theory is that if we can do this from the outset, we can move much more quickly beyond our projections to building a truly deep and inclusive (all of me, all of you) relationship - if that is possible. We will at least gain a much more accurate view of what is possible for us to do or experience together.

> For most this happens so quickly that they get scared and run away, not knowing that the way out is through. When both people are conscious it can be done, thereby leaving even more time and energy for the aforementioned fun, and never having to revisit the sad, wounded blaming, ego-created flotsam and jetsam that is keeping them apart.

For me, it has seemed so easy to get stuck in imagined powerlessness, or feeling sad, confused or unclear, so it's understandable that someone would deem a relationship unworkable and abandon it. And so often I have wondered what might have been possible - what might have been gained - if we could have done all the communication that needed to happen. If we could have expressed everything that needed expressing and been able to hear each other with caring and empathy. Could our relationship have been a means of learning, healing and growing instead of reopening old wounds? Could working through our failure to communicate have brought us closer together rather than farther apart?

There is always a lesson, though, even with the most difficult relationships, and I've wanted to be sure I learned what I needed to learn so I wouldn't have to repeat the same patterns. (Which makes me think relationships are like lives: let's get this one right so we don't have to come back with the same karma and try again!) So I've done a lot of reflecting and processing, come to an understanding (with any luck!) and come up with a new approach, realizing that until I've tried it, it's a theory waiting to be tested. And I eagerly await the next opportunity . . .!

I recognize that - as long as there are wounding experiences to be resolved within me - I want to believe in the healing power of relationships. And for me, the best reason for coming together with another (or others) is to enable the healing that happens as self-awareness, acceptance and understanding expand. Can this journey be - at times - joyful and loving? My sense is that it can!

-CS


I agree with all of the statements you have made about the huge potential for evolvement of both people in a relationship. Especially when they decide not to blame the other for whatever feelings happen to come up, (usually as a result of simply being open and loving.)

2 things:

1 ) People can have great fun! (while doing the above.)
and 2) I think that the reason many relationships fail is that the reasons an individual is attracted to a mate are the same reasons their issues are dovetailing. Then, when they become intimate and feel safe, these issues rise to the surface.

For most this happens so quickly that they get scared and run away, not knowing that the way out is through. When both people are conscious it can be done, thereby leaving even more time and energy for the aforementioned fun, and never having to revisit the sad, wounded blaming, ego-created flotsam and jetsam that is keeping them apart.