Mar 14, 2017
WHAT DOES A SUCCESSFUL, THRIVING, PASSIONATE RELATIONSHIP LOOK
LIKE?
In this episode, I share with you a little about my
personal story and what led me to studying this topic. I also share
with you three of the nine themes that came out of my dissertation
research.
(Please listen to the podcast episode or read the transcript to hear
more explanations, stories and examples.)
3 BUILDING BLOCKS FOR A CONSCIOUS INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP
Here are three themes from my dissertation research:
1. ESTABLISHING A RELATIONSHIP IN UNKNOWN TERRITORY
Little Support:
- Old paradigms didn’t work.
- Little guidance (i.e.“no one ever shows them how to create
it”)
- Little modeling. One participant commented on having difficulty
recalling any successful relationship that he admired at all.
Creating a Conscious Intimate Relationship:
- Many partners had done a level of personal growth before
entering into relationship.
- They had very clear, defined desires of what they wanted in a
partner and the type of relationship.
- They were not willing to settle for “another ill-conceived
relationship”
Developed Relationship Model:
- Most partners experienced unresolved conflict and/or
disillusionment with other approaches towards relationship.
- One participant reflected that before he gained more
self-knowledge, awareness, and development, he was primarily
focused on protecting himself in relationship.
- Many participants seem to agree that the notion of an easy,
romantic relationship was largely an illusion, and that love and
relationship require choice and conscious effort to cultivate and
maintain.
- All of the participants experienced doubts, fears, or hardships
within their relationships and concluded that facing these
challenges brought them to deeper levels of love and intimacy.
Change in Relationship:
- While many couples entered into relationship with an existing
personal commitment to growth and spirituality, other couples
developed a growth orientation during the course of their
relationship.
- Many couples reported that engaging in therapy, meditation,
workshops, and readings had a significant effect on their
relationship and assisted in the formation of a more growth
oriented model of relationship.
- One couple spoke about attending a lecture where they felt a
deep connection had been made, and that they now of this as a
turning point in their relationship.
- For couples who developed a growth orientation within their
relationship, this change was sequential in that one partner
changed, and then in turn the other partner began to change their
perspective over time
- Regardless of when partners developed a growth orientation, the
process is very similar. Many couples shifted their perspective
into a growth perspective by dealing with either personal or
relationship difficulties or disillusionment with other
models.
2. RELATIONSHIP AS A JOURNEY PARADIGM
Growth Orientation:
- Partners recognized their relationship as a vehicle for both
individual and relationship growth and discovery.
- “Our relationship is a process through which we grow and
expand. At our better moments, we use whatever comes forward in our
marriage as an opportunity to expand our sense of who we are and
deepen our capacity to forgive and love.“
- A growth-oriented relationship was often associated with a
sense of richness and aliveness because life events and
difficulties were defined as opportunities for learning and
transformation.
- Couples viewed their relationship as a laboratory for growth
and support “We will use our experiences for us instead of against
us. Our goal is to use everything for our advancement, upliftment,
and growth.”
- Through relationship, couples had the opportunity to meet the
challenges “with skillful softening and slowing down and opening it
up and being a little more loving and thoughtful about how it gets
navigated”.
- Through staying together and facing challenges, couples
reported being better people. Couples also spoke about the process
of growth, which helped them expand and open up to a greater
capacity of joy, love, and happiness.
“intimate interactions, such as love, connection, passion,
and any other desired relational experience is a self created
choice that may take various degrees of arduousness to maintain,
such as challenging and restructuring aspects of one’s belief
system. This differs from a more conventional notion that intimacy,
which often is viewed as a passive, uncontrollable, instantaneous
romantic emotional exchange or feeling that happens to one’s self,
such as those indicated by the common clichés “love at first
sight” or “swept off one’s feet.” (p. 103) “
- The majority of participants acknowledged that in the process
of their relationship, their unconscious patterns, shadow material,
wounding, and deeper conditioning came up.
- Partners reported experiencing challenges, difficulties, and
struggles along their journey, but the “friction” always led to
growth.
- To realize one’s true self, one had to work with one’s
unconscious material, “where all of one’s emotional wounds, fears,
and self loathing/rejection reside.”
Relationship as Teacher:
- Partners viewed their relationship as a “workroom” in which
healing and growth can take place.
- Couples expressed using their interactions as a source of
information to gain insight and understanding about areas of
potential growth for themselves.
- Couples claimed to value the instructive potential of conflicts
and challenges because they were able to recognize qualities about
themselves to which they would not have otherwise had access.
- When a partner is in pain, both partners have the opportunity
to work with the issue in a productive and constructive way. As
partners confront their shortcomings and pain, there is an
opportunity to free themselves of habitual reactions and ultimately
deepening the experience of one’s self.
Companions on the Path:
- Partners expressed seeing and believing in each other’s
potential, strength, and basic goodness.
- Couples also expressed a confidence in being able to handle
life’s hardships together.
- Partners were able to work together as a team and allies within
their relationship rather than against each other.
- Couples viewed their relationship as a support base, where they
could both empower and support one another along their individual
journeys.
- “I’m really for you being you.” I don’t want to stand in your
way even if that means I have to learn some difficult things about
myself. And I am asking for you to be for me the same way. Even if
it is difficult for you or it hurts in some way.
- Couples acknowledged their willingness to learn from one
another. partners were able to learn from each other’s strengths
and opposite qualities.
CREATING A FOUNDATION OR CONTAINER
Commitment:
- Commonly, people have fears about commitment and these fears
often result in restriction and loss of freedom, whereas couples in
these studies claimed that their commitments offered them a sense
of freedom.
- Partners reported feeling more confident and free to explore
themselves and their relationship more deeply. They shared feeling
empowered to fully express themselves and to be who they truly were
without feeling pressured to change.
- Additionally, couples expressed feeling safe to move beyond
their fears, and the freedom to take new risks, as well as question
and change old patterns and beliefs.
- One coresearcher commented, “I don’t think a lot of people will
have that understanding that commitment isn’t something that’s a
chain around your neck. That it’s still a very living, breathing
thing that has a very strong foundation, that is kind of like the
place . . . you soar from.
- Commitments were not considered to be static and unchanging,
but that they were dynamic, changing, and evolving.
- Commitments were seen as conscious and continual choices.
Values and Vision:
- Couples had a high degree of shared values together as a
couple: having a similar spiritual perspective, truth,
openness, and cultivating higher principles together. kindness,
compassion, and service to others were priorities. loving, honesty,
respect, and responsibility.
- Couples expressed feeling a sense of harmony and joy as a
result of being aligned in the most meaningful aspects of
life.
- A participant explained that a shared vision offers direction
especially during challenging and stressful times helping partners
keep a larger perspective.
Willingness and Work:
- Growth and development takes work and the process can be
extremely difficult and painful, especially during times of
relationship conflict.
- While a strong commitment and relationship container helped
hold space for the couple, it was essentially up to each individual
to choose to do the work
- The process of growth often involved partners’ confronting
their unconscious fear and emotional triggers, which ultimately
gave them the opportunity to transform themselves, but this process
can be terrifying.
- Oftentimes partners wanted to stay contracted in fear,
rejecting the opportunity for joy and expansion because it was too
scary.
- This process required a willingness to commit, as well as
strength and courage to do the hard work necessary for growth and
development of self and relationship.
- Couples talked about the importance of being willing to do
whatever it takes, rather than avoiding or running from
challenges
participant claimed that it sometimes takes work to have a loving
response, and that love is “more than just a feeling. It’s a
decision.”
Relationship Container:
- The relationship container was seen as providing the “emotional
‘ground,’ protection, or feeling of safety which might not
otherwise have existed.”
- A relationship can then be viewed as a safe place to practice
learning new skills, confront challenges, and to allow healing to
take place.
- Feelings of safety and trust helped partners feel safe enough
to be vulnerable and open their hearts (i.e. “sharing what is of
real value to me with my partner, and having a safe place to be
open and honest is a true gift”).
- With safety, partners began to build trust.
- To trust is to trust in the “essential goodness” of one’s
partner and belief that they would not cause intentional harm and
that they care about the growth of their partner.
- A participant talked about safety, in saying“In other
relationships, I think I stayed more on the periphery, so I could
never really feel the safety or the acceptance to just go in and
really connect more deeply in myself. And since to me that’s a
prerequisite to being able to open up and connect with anything
bigger, it was a necessary step for me in a spiritual sense to be
open to any greater force.“
“the relationship deepened as we were really able to trust
one another in terms of holding the person’s experience. Now there
is no concern. A person steps forward, the other person holds them,
and the next person steps forward and the other person holds them.
Really just promotes a deepening, being able to be in the
relationship unconditionally in your entirety and trusting knowing
whatever comes up, even if it may promote some kind of conflict,
that the relationship can hold whatever kind of individuation is
necessary for each person. (p. 108) “
MENTIONED:
TRANSCRIPT:
Click on this link to access the transcript for this
episode: ERP 100: 3 Building Blocks For A
Conscious Intimate Relationship [Transcript]
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