Conscious Relating
There are many ways to consciously relate. How we define it for ourselves in our current relationships is going to vary vastly. The most important thing with conscious relating is that it’s about taking responsibility for oneself and one’s actions in relationships regardless of what the other does as we can’t and should not hope to control the other in any way. That’s not love. Conscious relating also includes taking responsibility for playing out the role of the victim or the inferior if there are issues with power dynamics. It also extends to having an awareness of what the other person is doing and holding them accountable for their actions in relation to you. As for the sake of love and respect, it should apply to the both of you. One must be loved by oneself as the other must be loved by oneself and vice versa for this to work.
“I’m here with you. I’m not going anywhere. I want to work through this with you together. I will listen to you. I would also ask that you listen to me when I need to express myself and be heard.”
“I’m not going to run anywhere. I’m not going to attack you in retaliation to sensitive issues brought up. If I do, I will apologise because that’s a destructive behavioral pattern and I will take responsibility for my reactions. I will then come back to you with sincerity, openness and willingness to grow not only for you, but for myself. Holding myself accountable for my responses and reactions encourages my own growth. Having you be there for me to witness this awkward growing process and my growing pains makes me feel incredibly vulnerable but ultimately I will arrive at gratitude for you doing that and spending your valuable time with me, loving me as I love you.”
“Opening with you and allowing myself to be vulnerable encourages the growth of my heart and its love for you and for myself, even if it feels difficult or frightening.”
Have you ever considered being like the above and expressing yourself like this when in relationships in the middle of heated situations, awkward challenges and general disruptions to the peace and harmony of your relationship?
Conscious relating deals directly with matters of the heart. The heart craves presence and deep connection to be acknowledged, to be felt and heard. When we consciously relate to each other we bring out our awareness of how we love, care for and respect each other. We take responsibility for when we aren’t loving, caring for or respecting the other or ourselves which may influence destructive behaviour. Conscious relating is used to encourage clarity, open communication, honesty, love and integrity in relationships.
I think it’s also important to mention that when we have a solid bond with our partner wherein we can be vulnerable, open and released from emotional binds and depression, this allows us respite from the rigours of the world. Otherwise we have a veil up all the time with everyone be it our lover, friends, family, work colleagues and every other random person we collide paths with across our days. This is utterly exhausting for the nervous system. Home and body need to feel safe and soothed to maintain happiness, health and harmony. The one or ones we are allowing in for direct naked contact and penetration need to be humans we feel safe, loved and supported by. Further to this, veils up all the time means the ego is dominant in the individual rather than their soul. For the soul to shine through, it requires openness and vulnerability with oneself and with others at some point. This enables pure, true, raw and deep connection with ourselves and others.
For a healthy loving relationship to unfold, there should be an even exchange of love, the giving and the receiving of it. Otherwise there is no point in it being a committed relationship. At times the exchange may become imbalanced with life commitments and compromises meaning investment of effort outside of the relationship into work endeavours or education or into making a baby. This can bring its own weighty challenges but if both partners are prepared to commit to the practice of openness and conscious connection with each other, they can navigate through these times far more easily than if both shut down and close off from each other.
Conscious relating steers away from self-entitlement and selfishness in relationships. It steers away from avoidant behaviour and toward healthy bonding rather than clingy and grasping attachment. It acknowledges the individuals as well as the bond the individuals create together. It helps us find the path to opening the heart and learning to love with full acceptance of ourselves and the other.
REACTIONS AND TRIGGERS
In a relationship, of any kind, whether fresh and new or long term, there may often be bright periods followed by upsets or “triggers” within the partners at different occasions and for different reasons. This often creates reactions from each partner. Sometimes a continuous reaction pattern where one is triggered and responds adversely from that trigger, their partner gets triggered by their triggered reaction and so on, which can lead to a whole lot of unresolved issues creating a chasm between the partners and disconnection from love. The partners stay together and try to get back to love and may find some semblance of it but struggle to reach that vibrant, exciting, fresh form of love again they shared when they first met. This is where conscious relating comes in and is an absolutely necessary tool and strategy for dealing with the backlog of unresolved mutually adverse experiences.
The triggers exist in the first place because of trauma and painful or jolting experiences of the past. It’s hard to let go of the past. It defines us in so many ways if we allow it to. So many people don’t realise their triggers are there until they get triggered. Then they don’t always know what to do about those triggers and their partner can trigger them even more without even intending to. It’s like the reactions are involuntary projections outwards. Things get messy, chaotic, dramatic and hurtful. So how to work through this? Look, in some scenarios the cases are so bad that each individual needs psychology and time apart, learning how to exist in a healthy way on their own, clearing tendencies for any codependency. If things aren’t so bad, perhaps the couple may seek out couples therapists, sexologists, Tantra practitioners and the like. If each individual in the partnership holds emotional intelligence and a degree of maturity, they can take it upon themselves to hold themselves and each other to account through the challenges. Then perhaps they may not need anyone, they just have to work together with commitment to conscious relating.
So how to consciously relate? First and foremost, it involves having the capacity to sit and reflect with what you’re feeling about the challenges presenting in your partnership without immediately reacting. It comes down to breathing, connecting with your body and your mind, ideally your soul too, and formulating connections between them to develop the link between what you feel (body), what you think (mind) and what you’re ultimately deeply yearning for (soul). Both partners need to do this for it to work. Their paces of processes will likely differ but as long as they can come to mutual conscious connection and openness with each other to find resolution in relatively congruent timing, they’ll be on track with developing deeper connection and stronger bonds with love.
BOUNDARIES
Another thing to consider is boundaries. Boundaries are crucial for entering a relationship with grace and ease and so that mutual experiences don’t jolt the system and place fresh connections in precarious territories. However, if boundaries are not in place to begin with, emotional triggers present themselves and boundaries can flare up in position with aggression and fear, quite suddenly slamming budding love between two to the ground, even shattering it to pieces. One partner’s boundaries may come up quite suddenly, the other may react in tantrum to this, which is another kind of boundary or protection mechanism coming from the ego and its vain attempts at trying to shield the heart. These shields have us step away from love and deep connection beyond the physical and seen.
Things to be aware of with boundaries:
We have to learn what boundaries are, how they feel and what they look like for ourselves and for others and how they can benefit as well as how they can hinder us.
We have to respect them when others set them. Any attempt at forcing our way through them, disregarding them, having no consideration for them or awareness of them leads to further disconnection from the heart and the boundaries to the heart hardening even more. Or, by doing this we may create more trauma, pain and suffering for that person which is the worst possible scenario if we really are seeking to connect them.
We’d do well not to freak out or rage when a love interest sets their boundaries and bars us from intimacy. This is a poignant time to soften and seek to understand why this is happening, what history may be involved and whether or not they are open to healing and moving forward with you. This approach considers them and where they are at in their processing.
It’s crucial to want to understand why boundaries are put in place by individuals we seek closeness with before getting caught up with fear or judgement at what appears to be rejection. The desire to understand is the desire to care for and love this person.
There are many other areas that I could venture into with regards to conscious relating but the above is a starting point to get you familiar with these concepts. Many of us stumble through relationships or can’t even land a lasting one. Or perhaps we find ourselves in them and we don’t know how they can develop or become more interesting, deep, passionate and exciting. Conscious relating is the gateway to finding these things and other explorations with our beloved.
