“For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.”
Rainer Maria Rilke
The saying above is one of my favourites…. and with an escalating divorce rate, less singles getting married than ever before, perhaps it is time to rewrite the relationship rules and look at some new possibilities. Carolyn Myss said that the deaths of Princess Grace of Monaco and Princess Diana actually meant the archetype of marriage as we knew it, had died. In its place needed to be the archetype of partnership. I agree. Gone are the days of women staying home, having kids and putting dinner on the table at 6pm sharp. Here are the days of more equality in relationships… more commitment to parenting together, men who are willing to stay at home while their wives or partners go back to work. Also there is more willingness to explore relationships and what they mean to each partner. However like any time in history that brings forth change, it is not an easy time. The labour of birthing new relationships is something most people want, but we haven’t been given the tools in the past to know how to do it well; so much of it is trial and error.
If I had a dollar for every person who told me they wanted to be in the perfect relationship, I would be a millionaire!
Jokingly I often say that almost half the world is in a relationship that doesn’t work the way they want it to…. and the other half are not in a relationship…. but attempting to get into one. What a dichotomy! If we took all those people, put them in a huge barrel and shook it up, perhaps we would find some perfect matches! Do you think so? Actually I don’t…. because perfection doesn’t exist… except in the mind of perfectionists (who are not that easy to live with! Perfection seems to be what people are looking for though and that doesn’t allow for tolerance of the other person. Each of us have idiosyncrasies that in the beginning are “cute” but after 20 years they are THE most irritating thing about our partner. How come we change how we see each other? These days it is so easy to walk away. It is the staying that is hard, but in the staying comes the growing and in the growing comes the deepening of the love.
How many of us have brilliant, loving role models in our lives that fully embody all we want to have in a ‘loving relationship?” It is
time for all of us to bring in a new paradigm shift in relationships. I would like to share some thoughts on the subject.
If we dug over a garden bed and planted all of our favourite flowers, herbs and plants and then we didn’t take care of it, before long it would be a mass of weeds and our beautiful flowers would be choked to death. Relationships are a bit like that. To have a beautiful garden, you need to do a little bit every day and a relationship is exactly the same. Relationships require daily work. Most people put a lot of time and effort in to begin with while we woo and court each other and then once we live together we get on with the business of making money or being a parent…. and forget about what it took to create the magic in the first place. So much money, effort and time spent getting together, then the relationship is put on the shelf, rarely dusted off and it wilts, like our flowers that haven’t been watered!
Here are some simple tips that work for us. Every night before you sleep you acknowledge each other for three things that have been done for you by your partner that day. What does that mean in real terms…… well it means you have to pay attention…. you cannot take your partner for granted if you have to be conscious of what they are doing for you every day. It is nearly impossible to go to sleep upset if you have just heard your partner acknowledge you for making you a cup of tea or whatever it was. Acknowledgements said from the heart, touch the heart and when your heart is open then the love can come in and flow out with ease.
Talking about upsets, what do you do when they happen… and they will! You need to find a way to diffuse them before they turn from a mild storm into a cyclone. You need to do this before the storm starts. Like today! Figure out ways of handling upset, knowing it is going to happen.
Some people have a term or a phrase that is humorous that they have both agreed to use when one gets upset. The deal is that when the upset occurs the “enlightened one at the time one” remembers to say the phrase, then both people must stop….. stop the arguing… stop the ranting….. stop whatever is going on….. and breathe! For some they need to go into a separate space to think and cogitate on what happened; for others they need a hug, right now; Some need space others need closeness. It is up to you to find out ahead of time what serves each of you at these moments and then share it so you can have a plan. It is kind of like living in the hills and needing a bush fire plan in case of a fire. Many relationships go up in smoke for want of a fire extinguisher! There is a really good recipe for conflict which looks like this:
1. Have Mutual Respect
2. Look for the common ground.
3. Establish both people’s needs and wants
4. Redefine the problem or point of disagreement if necessary
5. Focus on a result which is acceptable to both
6. Give options and absolutely remain flexible.
The work we do on ourself via reading books, listening to tapes or going to seminars is the best money we can spend in the world. Conception, birth and early childhood are known to create certain patterns in humans, creating layers in us. We need to continually peel off of the layers of our onion in order to be whole. Very few of us escaped unscathed. Most carry the wounds of not getting what we wanted, being hit or blamed for something we did or didn’t do etc. Many of our childhoods were filled with ‘unsaids.’
How many of you remember walking into a room where your parents had been arguing… the room was silent… you could have cut the air with a knife it was so tense? However, nothing was said or explained yet we knew something was amiss… our intuition wasn’t given any credibility. This and other experiences can result in distrust of ourselves. We often carry that into relationships and more often than not, the fights are about the past and nothing to do with the toilet seat being up or toothpaste lid being left off. There is a saying I love from a seminar: “For things to change, first I must change!” So continue to grow and learn what makes you tick inside… in order to have your outside world change.
We need to learn to distinguish between feelings and emotions. Know that when you feel something it is an expression of what is happening at this moment in time versus an emotion which is an unconscious expression of the past. Feelings operate on a conscious level… we know we feel sad. Emotions operate on the subconscious level… our partner just did or said something, that at another time and place wouldn’t cause a ripple in our consciousness yet suddenly we are angry and have no idea why because we haven’t connected the dots (our father/mother used to do or say the same thing… only we were little and there was nothing we could do about it at the time). Feelings are expressed freely (bursting into tears) as against emotions which are often repressed (I feel angry but it is not safe to express it) and so it then turns into blame/illness/ judgement etc. How many times in relationships do we have an upset over something that at the end of the day, was completely meaningless? Understand that what has not been healed from your relationship with your parents and your childhood will come up again in relationships. There is a saying in rebirthing which is: “Love brings up anything unlike itself for the purpose of healing.” What does that mean? Basically whenever you get into relationships it is an opportunity to heal the past, see the truth and allow the love in. What is unlike love?
Hate, jealousy, distrust, fear, anger…. all those emotions are unlike love and they come from the past. They are coming up in order to be cleared once and for all so that you can be the truth of who you really are and live in the present. In relationships living in the present is a gift which is not that easy. Most of us spend a lot of time thinking about the past (wish I had done it differently) or dreaming about the future (this is what I will do when xyz happens). Few of us stay in the actual present. Women in particul are have memories akin to elephants and we have been known to bring up the past 10 years later! Why do we do this? Dr. Phil says it is to score brownie points but I think that as long as the past is murky and there are past issues there to deal with, then this ‘stuff’ will keep coming up and getting in the way of love. It is not a difficult concept. Think of the analogy of a person in the 44 gallon drum.
There is thick mud which is solid up to their knees. However, they are unaware of the mud because it has been there as long as they can remember. Sure it is hard to walk and be passionate and have lots of energy, but then it has always been the same… so they don’t really know what is missing in their life. Someone or something (a seminar, a book, a CD) comes along and whatever the words are, they have the effect of pouring pure water into the drum.
Suddenly the mud starts thinning out and the person can move with more ease…. however the thick brown mud has become thinner and it has filled the drum, it is rising up and the person feels that they are drowning. “Why did I do that seminar or read that book” they say. Their friends/parents say: “You were fine until you did that course, read those books etc.” What is the truth? The truth is that if we keep pouring in the pure water, then the mud will eventually disappear altogether and the person in the drum will be free but… it is here we have the wonderful word called Choice!
Choice 1 is denial. The experience that was brought up made them scared and they decide it is easier to not look any further and thus
they pretend it didn’t happen, it wasn’t real and so they shut themselves down. The choice sounds good in theory, but unfortunately “if it is on its way up, it is on its way out” and sooner or later it will erupt. Better off to continually pour in the water and release/peel off a layer at a time.
Choice 2 is to keep trusting that no matter what it feels like when you are in it, eventually if you keep breathing and doing the work, (pouring in the clean water) it will be healed and you will regain a part of yourself and thus feel whole.
A friend of mine says the hard road is the easy road. That means the “easy” road is to go into denial but it ends up being the hard road. Whereas the hard road… doing the work, peeling off our onion layers one at a time, is actually the easy road in the end… and in the end it is the only road!
Our relationships with our lovers is often determined by our relationships with our parents. There are 10 major relationship/life patterns (Sondra Ray) so let’s look at a few of them.
1 Since you established your first relationship with your parents, you tend to recreate their personalities as closely as possible in your other relationships.
2 You will tend to recreate the kind of relationships you had with your parents in your other relationships.
3 You will tend to copy the relationships your parents had with each other.
4 Since most of us are used to a heavy dose of parental disapproval, we will tend to create upsets that will make our partner disapprove of us.
5 You will tend to get even with your parents by using your mate or another. If your mate won’t allow this, you might use your children.
6. You will attract someone who fits your patterns. That is if you have a pattern that says - men/women leave me - then you will attract a man/woman who has a pattern of leaving.
If you can figure out which pattern you are repeating, then you can also figure out where it came from and do something to change it. (Affirmations, visualizations, rebirthing, EFT, deep body work, NLP – it doesn’t matter which modality you use was long as you get results).
Agreements are really important things to have in relationships. What do you want a) from yourself; b) from your partner; c) from this relationship and what are you willing to do to ensure you move toward those things. The truth is an asset you cannot do without if a relationship is to flourish. It is never easy to speak it…. but without it there is nothing. There is a feeling of discomfort in our bodies when there is something we need to say and haven’t found a way to get it out yet…. there is huge relief when we finally find a way to express what is in our heart. Also when our hearts are closed it hurts us… as well as the one we are pushing away. My experience is that if we have the courage to look at what is really happening in our lives, and speak the truth about it, then we can start to heal it.
If you can understand the mirror principle, that everything in our life is there for us to learn from, grow through and heal, then we stop being ‘victims’ and start creating the life we want to live. Then we can also create relationships that speak of trust and truth and learning together and healing together without the need to be like the trapeze artist and jump from one relationship to another, staying long enough for the mud to get stirred up but not long enough to let it disappear!
In the end the most important relationship is the one we have with ourselves. It is imperative that we learn how to be gentle on ourselves and to love and respect ourselves. When we make a mistake (and we will), look upon it as a learning experience rather than beating ourselves us over it. It is important to honour our path, where we have been and where we are now and keep working on ourselves so that we find the courage to move into the future that we dream about. Until we heal ourselves, we will continually recreate the same patterns over and over again so, if the love is there, if the respect is there, then we may as well stay and get it right…. with ourselves and with our beloved. This is definitely a time of redefining relationships and I believe it is a great opportunity for everyone to take our relationships to the next level so that we can be role models for our children and grandchildren.
After all, in the end, love is all there is.
Diane McCann facilitates The Goddess Within seminar for women and together with her husband Robert, facilitates Man’s Inner
Journey for men and Tantra for couples.
www.goddesswithin.com.au
www.mansinnerjourney.com
www.tantraaustralia.com
They can be reached via email on beyondtheordinary@adelaide.on.net
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