Conscious Relating Guidebook
7 Keys to a Conscious Relationship
7 Keys to a Conscious Relationship
Copyright 2012 Conscious Relating Now
Smashwords Edition
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Table of Contents
Thank
you for downloading the Conscious Relating Guidebook. We hope
you find these practices as useful for your relationship as we have
found them for ours. Samadhi and I have condensed many years of
relationship experience into this work, from our coaching practice
with couples and individuals as well as our own relating experiences.
Something we have noticed over the years is that very often there are
simple reasons behind conflict and relating stress, which can be
resolved if you have the right tools and information.
One of the most essential ingredients to any happy relationship is Intimacy, the lack of which can lead to the end of an otherwise functional partnership. Intimacy is something that flowers over time, when both parties in the relationship feel safe, heard, seen and loved.
Intimacy is the art of mutually revealing yourself to another, such that greater depth, empathy and understanding is brought to the forefront of your relating. Intimate connections foster trust, respect and safety - the platform upon which love grows and flourishes. Intimacy is essential for Conscious Relating, and if there were only one Key on this list, it would be Cultivate Intimacy!
Developing intimacy in any relationship can be a challenging process, which is why we have chosen to focus on 7 practices that each on their own assist with and develop your ability to be intimate with your partner. Together these 7 practices or Keys (as we like to call them, for they unlock the doors to intimacy), give you a clear step by step approach to enhancing your relationship, regardless of whether you are current single, wanting to attract the right person, just starting out, or have been together for many years.
In order to present this material as concisely as possible, we have eliminated much of the fluff that you would normally find in a relationship manual. We have chosen to dive directly into the material, addressing the issues that are most likely at the heart of the matter, so as to get to the point as deep and quickly as possible. In doing so, we have sacrificed some of the subtler points and nuances along the way, in order to give you and your partner the best possible chance for making shifts and changes in your relationship immediately.
We have included examples from our own life to share with you our own learning, challenges and vulnerabilities in our relating with each other, and to let you know that we are also going through the same experiences as everyone else. We are not offering magic and big promises, rather, the magic of us offering our gifts as a conscious couple, our real life experiences and the wisdom that came out of this journey together.
For us conscious couple means - the willingness to go though the deepest challenges with a strong sense of commitment that no matter what, we are going to be there when the other come out from his or her ‘dark night’. We have had the chance to test each and every one of these Keys as a result of our own efforts to move consciously through the challenges that arose between us and for each of us separately.
We assume that if you are reading this, it is because your relationship is ready for transformation right now, and we want to offer you the most efficient means of making changes that will be effective and will steer you and your partner towards a Conscious Relationship!
Each of these Seven Keys describes a practice, and gives you one or more exercises that will give you a deeper understanding of that Key. Just reading this material is only of partial value if you don’t integrate it into your life in a real and tangible way, which is why we emphasize the practical aspects of implementing these tools into your life.
The way we suggest you use this guidebook is to take one Key at a time, and do the exercises with your partner (or a close friend, if you are currently single) and then write about your experiences and any feelings that arise in your journal. One way to do this is to set aside some time to focus on one Key per week over seven weeks, writing in your journal your feelings both after the exercises and also in the morning of the following day.
However you approach this material, the main point is to persist each and every day, making progress in many small steps, without expecting to change the whole course of your life overnight. Forgive yourself and each other for your ‘mistakes’ (learning experiences); allow your partner to learn from you and vice versa, and most importantly, make an effort to bring fun and joy into your process of creating a Conscious Relationship!
Conscious Relating and Conscious Relationships
It is essential to know what we mean when we talk about Conscious Relating, as this notion forms the foundation of our work and underpins our approach to this material. It is nothing other than awakening to the true experience of love in our relationships. In each moment, we can choose whether to relate consciously or unconsciously to that moment.
Most of the time, many of us are going through life on autopilot, hardly present enough to ourselves to know what we really feel, let alone what anyone around us is feeling. In order to communicate about ourselves and our feelings clearly, we need to spend time cultivating an inner sense of presence and clarity from which we can express ourselves. Without that, we spend most of our time communicating from a place of inner confusion (which will occasionally masquerade as clarity).
Choosing to relate consciously is rarely like flicking on a switch, where there is a dramatic awakening and suddenly all is illumined. It will more likely be a process, one of gradual unfolding and deepening through a consistent application of awareness to the moment. (Those who do have ”sudden awakenings” usually do so after years of gradual process). What can be sudden is the realisation that to engage in a process of evolving yourself and your relationship is the same thing, and that it is a choice!
Each of the Seven Keys presented here are methods designed to bring greater clarity, compassion and gentleness to your process of relating with your partner, and ultimately, with yourself. It is only through healing the pain, separation and disconnection within, that we can experience a healthy and joyful reflection in our external world.
It is all about Love, as is so often expressed by songwriters, poets, mystics and lovers the world over. In order to experience the love we all long for and deserve, we need to keep exploring, deepening and connecting our capacity for Self Love. This is the balm that heals all wounds, and if we continually seek outwardly for the love we inwardly need, we miss the fact that what we most long for can only be found within.
Relationships give us an amazing opportunity to explore ourselves and to deepen our connection to something real, as it is in relationship that we come face to face with our biggest challenges. When we choose to delve into the process of being present in each moment, to find that which is real, we are embarking on a journey we call Conscious Relating.
We hope you find something useful in the words that follow to support your journey towards a full, nourishing and joyful experience of love, life and relationship!
With Love,
Siddhartha & Samadhi
# 1
Listening
“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” - Robert McCloskey
There is nothing more critical to any relationship than your communication. Everything stems from how and what you communicate with each other. The word “Relationship” refers to the fact that you are together for the purpose of “Relating”. To Relate means to communicate.
Easily said, but how to do this in a way that works, especially if communication often seems to lead to miscommunication?
There are two parts to the communication process, Expressing and Listening. Both are important, but without someone to truly listen, all the expression in the world will fall on deaf ears.
Communication is redundant if you are not able to hear and deeply understand what your partner is trying to express both verbally and nonverbally. There is only one absolutely sure-fire way to cultivate intimacy in relationship, and that is to take the time to actively listen to each other.
When you feel heard, you relax. Your expression becomes less tense, less urgent, more gentle and easier to understand. If this is true for you, imagine how it might be for your partner.
Samadhi and I are from two extreme ends of the communication spectrum. She grew up in Israel in a large, family where being loud was a basic survival instinct (for getting attention) in her boisterous family unit. She learnt communication strategies based on growing up in an atmosphere of competition, criticism and conflict. There was little respect for individual choices in an environment based on a ‘survival of the fittest’ mentality. Emotional energies ran at 10+ most of the time, as everyone struggled to get his or her basic needs met from day to day. Living together and loving each other was a loud and dramatic event.
I, on the other hand, grew up in a sedate Australian suburb where even the sound of a loud motorcycle riding past felt like a violation to the senses. Anger, conflict and uncomfortable feelings were not to be expressed, as that would disturb the veneer of peace that was so studiously cultivated. There were ‘white elephants’ in each corner of every room, but they were not to be talked about. Expressions of love were never overt, but were disguised in the way we showed our care for each other in the practical aspects of life.
By the time Samadhi and I met at the age of 39 we had both spent a large part of our adult lives working through various patterns of conditioning. We knew what our tendencies were, and had a reasonably high degree of awareness around our style of behavior and communication. Nevertheless, we naturally have a different approach when it comes to communication, and it has taken us time to find a healthy way to express with each other and feel deeply heard. Both of us long for gentleness and deep honesty in our communication with each other, and have a high degree of sensitivity to feeling judged by the other. Understanding this, we actively encourage a style of communication based on the principles of NVC (Non Violent Communication), which we will talk more about later.
Like many of the Keys in this Guidebook, it may appear obvious that listening is an essential ingredient for your relationship success. It is, however, in the implementation that real benefits are achieved. It is easy to listen to someone you feel safe with and deeply connected to, and with whom you feel great rapport, love and mutual support. But what about the moments when you feel challenged, when what that person is saying is driving you up the wall? The times when you feel like you want to run out of the house screaming with frustration at the overwhelming feelings arising within? Or hide back in your cave when you feel shut down, abused and in a state of shock?
Those moments are the ones that count, and this where you can make or break your connection with each other. Exactly when you feel it is hardest to hear your partner, is exactly when you need to step out of your comfort zone, take a deep breathe and find a way to stay connected and present with them. It can feel extremely challenging at first, but with practice, and when you notice positive results, it will come much easier over time.
“It has happened before that I was triggered by Siddhartha while he was sharing with me something that I felt was criticizing or judging my behavior. In those moments I felt hurt, misunderstood and unloved and my defensive pattern was to immediately attack back. When I was caught in my reaction I could not hear what he was trying to communicate with me. My inability in the moment to create a space for him to share, built more stress for him and he felt that he couldn’t open to me safely. With time and conscious practice I learned to share with him that I was feeling triggered by something he said and that I need a moment to come back to myself.” (Samadhi)
An important step in building up the ability to listen deeply to another is what we call holding presence. This is an amazingly powerful skill that will support you in many aspects of your life, as it is key to what we all seek, without even necessarily knowing it.
We all long to be heard, seen and loved for who we are, just as we are. And most of us have experienced being judged as not OK, not good enough, or not acceptable for being ourselves as we are. These experiences are often the reason we find it challenging to stay present to someone who is saying something that reminds us of unpleasant feelings we have from our past. Most of us carry suppressed memories from our childhood, when we experienced painful feelings at not being loved in the ways we needed at the time.
Often in relationship, we meet and attract partners who are likely to remind us of some challenging aspect of our past, (they may remind us of one of our parents) in order to bring us an opportunity to heal ourselves in the present moment and to come back to ‘wholeness’. We usually don’t deliberately choose our life partners on this basis, but with the benefit of hindsight it will become apparent that each person we have been involved with intimately has had something of great value to share with us.
However it happens, and whether your partner is deeply triggering you or not, there is nothing to be lost and much to be gained by deepening your ability to hold space for the other, refining the art of presence and deep listening, especially in moments that are challenging. You will find that what also happens when you hold space for the other is that you will stay connected to your Self and remain more clearly centered. This is important when it comes to sharing from a place of clarity, rather than reacting from a place of impulsiveness and wounded inner child *.
When I am feeling triggered about something going on in my relationship, it usually manifests initially as a feeling of contraction in my energy body. My felt sense of the world gets tight, and I am no longer as open or responsive to my partner in these moments. Energetically, I become hard to be around, and (to my partner) it’s painfully obvious that something is required to shift the energy.
In these moments, Samadhi will notice my contraction and depending on her own degree of reactivity, will either support me to express what I need to in order to shift the energy, or will express from her own place of wounded inner child, which is when it gets challenging for both of us. If we are both triggered into a pattern of reactive communication, it becomes very hard to find the space to actually hear each other.
Which one of you is going to hold the space, when you both feel reactive and need to share?
The answer is simple - You Are!
In the real example above, the responsibility for my communication is always mine. And the reason I know that, is because even though I may be feeling stressed and vulnerable and need to share something important and valuable to my inner process, if Samadhi is not able to be fully present for me and my need to share, there is no point to go there. But, if I can stretch myself enough to be able to create a space for her to share, then she will most likely be able to come back to her center, and be able to hold a space for me to share. And if not, it is important to recognize that we are both in a reactive mode and we need some time out to cool down.
In these situations, give yourself, and each other, the gift of taking the time you need to prepare for safe and mature communication.
In each and every moment, there is only one person you can work on, change, modify, tweak and evolve towards more conscious behavior, and that person is you, each and every time, without exceptions! You are the only one responsible for your own life.
In his book ‘Face To Face With Fear’, Krishnananda suggests that responding from a centered space is the spontaneous outcome of clearly knowing what we want, feel and need. The purpose of communication is not to hurt, put down, attack, blame or punish the other person but to bring more awareness into the situation and to respond from a space that comes directly out of integrity and self-respect. You may still feel angry, but the anger is not clouding your clarity.
Inner child is a concept used in psychology to denote the childlike aspect of a person's psyche, especially when viewed as an independent entity. Frequently, the term is used to address subjective childhood experiences and the remaining effects of one's childhood. The inner child also refers to all of the emotional memory and experiences stored in the brain from earliest memory.
A Note about Nonviolent Communication:
Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is a communication technique often used as a conflict resolution process and is considered very effective within personal relationship dynamics. It focuses on three aspects of communication: self-empathy (defined as a deep and compassionate awareness of one's own inner experience), empathy (defined as listening to another with deep compassion), and honest self-expression (defined as expressing oneself authentically in a way that is likely to inspire compassion in others).
NVC is based on the idea that all human beings have the capacity for compassion and only resort to violence or behaviour that harms others when they don't recognize more effective strategies for meeting their needs. Habits of thinking and speaking that lead to the use of violence (psychological and physical) are learned through culture. NVC theory supposes all human behaviour stems from attempts to meet universal human needs and that these needs are never in conflict. Rather, conflict arises when strategies for meeting needs clash. NVC proposes that if people can identify their needs, the needs of others, and the feelings that surround these needs, harmony can be achieved.