Allowing our Partner to Be

Many enter relationships wanting to teach their significant other or open them up to “their way” of living and being. This implies that one way is better, and actually comprises an agenda. Any time we have an agenda with our partner we hinder and possibly even completely prevent authentic connection. It also implies that we don’t unconditionally accept them as they are, and that our love for them is based on a projected image of what they could potentially be in the future rather than what they are right now. This is a very bad way to start a relationship.

Many have hidden tendencies to want to “show” their partner themselves, this implies a dysfunctional need to be seen that indicates some element of the inner child has been left unattended. If the inner child is out of balance it will profoundly affect our ability to engage in adult relationships, and whether we want to avoid relationships until we achieve balance or engage in the process of healing with our partner is up to us. Wanting to be seen and spontaneously sharing are entirely different, and can be easily distinguished based on whether or not there is a feeling of peace or of fundamental neediness. We must be honest with ourselves about which this is. Only when we are content to see ourselves can we truly connect with the depths of a partner, and hope to experience the mutual beholding of our divinity in one another.

We can allow our partner to majestically reveal themselves by dropping all conceptions that we could ever know a being as vast as the cosmos having a human experience (which is what our partner actually is). It stands to reason that we would not enter a relationship with a person who has no intention of realising this, and so we won’t even go there on what to do in that instance. We cannot put words to the unfathomable gift of such a revelatory experience as glimpsing life through another’s eyes, and only the most arrogant could fail to see the holiness and sacredness of such an unprecedented opportunity.

We can show the depth of our love for a partner by treating them as a completely unique window into the expanse of eternity, one through which we can only glimpse in humility, not when we seek to grasp at or control them. Absolute reverence in relationship is a prerequisite to mastery, without which our potential to enter Oneness together comes to a total halt.

In favouring sameness and so trying to mold our partner to be like us, we forfeit the gift of the unique perspective that they bring. If we start out by seeking others who mirror to us sameness, or even seek to become the same, we stifle the blessing of diverse expression which
so beautifully characterises the human experience. We greatly limit our ability to expand our own horizons when we connect deeply only with those who share our viewpoints, and greatly expand our own viewpoints when we recognise the gift of exploring the vista of another.

There is a vast difference between naturally inspiring a partner onto something new because this is the obvious next step, and actually seeking to change a person from the off. To have no agenda doesn’t mean we can’t show our loved ones another way, it means we live from the place of innocence which is the moment and allow life to unfold and express dynamically through us. In the stillness of the mind, the heart opens to effortlessly reveal our next step. Only from here can we experience authentic love with another.

Moving Towards Inspiration

Yesterday morning I revisited the feeling of what it’s like to be made to feel by another that your life is of no worth and you might as well just give it up. Like there’s no value to your continuing existence, and nothing beyond the tiny box in which you find yourself in that moment, unable to see the potential beyond the edges. I was surprised to find it there when I got out of bed, and it was very strange to perceive such a foreign sensation from this dramatically different perspective. I realised that the memory lingered like a ghost of my past self , though I had not even known it was there.

Over the years I have come to understand that the feeling came from not knowing that it was another’s reflection merely projected onto the screen of my soul, and nothing in fact to do with me. Not knowing, I took it on as my own and genuinely believed that this is how my loved one felt about me. This time I was struck with sadness not for myself, but to see the full extent of the grief in the other who had fully allowed me to believe that it was so. This time, I watched the feeling fade into a distant echo as I recognised with every cell in my body the inestimable value of my being.

Surprisingly and quite automatically, I found myself speaking out loud to the inner child who was now smiling and laughing, reminding her what a beautiful little thing she is. As I went about the rest of my day, it occurred to me quite how much we have taken on in the form of personal misperceptions having not realised that we lived in a hall of mirrors, and that nobody else realised this either. It is really down to each of us now to set all of these old records straight, and throw out the ones that are scratched and broken and are clearly never going to play again.

Throughout the healing process I have learned that how we perceive everything another says to us is a choice, and where we have played the victim before because we simply didn’t understand any better, we never have to even look again. We tend to hold back on telling others when their behaviour and conduct is unacceptable to us because we fear that they might take it personally. But this too is a choice. Somebody can either take our words of truth as the impetus to pick themselves up and change, or as an impetus to spiral further into the petty drama of pretending that they are somehow unloved and then inflicting this on everyone else. What most people don’t recognise is that we cannot truly love another until we love ourselves, and so if we don’t speak up for our own wellbeing then we are not truly loving our loved ones anyway, all the while fooling ourselves that we are doing the best we can. To allow others to get away with unacceptable behaviour keeps them imprisoned in a box of their own making, and we may well just be the ones who have come along to set them free. The kindest thing for us to do is to speak our highest truth in every moment, whatever the personal cost. This is always the greatest love that we can give.

I have found myself quite recently having absolutely zero patience for those who wish to pretend that life is up against them rather than changing from within, because I know that to do so is possible, and I cannot fathom the selfishness of anyone who wishes to drag those around them down out of sheer laziness and unwillingness to get real about the possibilities that are available to everyone if they choose to become their own energy source. There must always be a balance between inner work and making changes in our external environment, and if either is neglected then life as a whole is going to suffer. There is only so much we can do within to change others, and there is only so much we can do externally without changing within. There comes a point when we have the choice to leave the game of mirrors completely, and if we do this then to attempt to work only with the picture in the mirror no longer has any effect at all. The mirrors are valuable in that they show us the things that we are not, but as soon as we know what we are and have integrated all of the aspects that we need to live at our fullest then looking into a mirror which shows only a distorted view is of no further service. This is the point at which we must look seriously at whether we want to play this game anymore. If we don’t and the others in our environment do, then we are going to have to leave them behind.

On the way to here, we can oscillate between only seeing the flaws in ourselves, and only seeing the flaws in others. The first question to ask always is are we allowing ourselves to get away with unacceptable behaviour? If we choose to live within the game of mirrors, then we must be very careful in detecting what is real and what is merely an illusion that we have constructed for ourselves to suit our own egoic needs. On the other hand, if we have truly done the work on ourselves, then where are others who have invested less in self-change still treating us badly? What makes something unacceptable? Anything that wounds the sacred is unacceptable. Whether this is done by another or by ourselves to ourselves is our own call.

If we’re not happy with our situation, we can always change it. There is always something different, something new, something more in alignment with our purpose for being (which is to explore the potential of love). Our job is to bridge our inner knowing of this with our outer experience of it, and the process of doing so is not likely to come all that easily at first, because the very first port of call is to look at and then move away from all those those places where it is evident the potential is not being lived.

One of the biggest problems inherent among light workers is the concept of martyrdom, and feeling that our only job is simply to see the perfection in what is there. Yes, it is true that there is perfection in everything, and that mastery of our circumstances lies initially in peaceful contentment with what is. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t hope for anything more, and that we don’t dream of a better, more joyful, more inclusive, embracing life. It doesn’t mean that we don’t take any further action than to be internally grateful. It doesn’t mean we have to “put up”, it only means that we first must be glad for the gift of living before we can open the doors for any further blessings to step in. Furthermore, we don’t have to martyr ourselves. To do so is extremely dysfunctional when the highest service we can render is to live in joy. If our circumstances restrict us from living in joy, then the best thing we can possibly do is change them, by first accepting unconditionally where we’re at and then taking the necessary steps to affect real and lasting change externally too. It is such a fine line to tread that it can only be experienced directly, no amount of theory will help unless we pluck up the courage to begin making the changes in practical life just as we have done everywhere else.

On the matter of unacceptable behaviour, behaving unacceptably towards ourselves includes the process of not speaking up when something another does consistently is not ok. Let’s assume that we understand this much and we have already done that. If not, we need to do it, whatever the fallout will be. If it means we need to up our guard and buffer whatever hostility may come at us, then let us remember that we are here as warriors and our task when in battle against illusion is to do just that. Failing to do so means permanent entrapment, speaking up means minor discomfort for the period that it’s going to take to get ourselves straight again. If we have well and truly determined that we are being true to ourselves and others are not and have no intention of doing so, the time has come to begin walking away. There is no point in pretending that this is not going to be painful. But what is more painful, the temporary pain it’s going to take to flip the game on its head, or the pain of living a lie?

One of the very cool things you learn by getting tattooed is that all pain is temporary. It doesn’t make it any less real when it’s there, but if you can somehow manage to muster the courage just long enough to push through it then you’re gonna end up with something very beautiful that you can enjoy forever. I imagine those who’ve given birth recognise the very same sensation. The key is to keep on breathing, knowing that this is the case. What kind of picture will you be left with afterwards, compared to the picture that is there now if no changes are ever made? If you are the artist and this is your chance to create a masterpiece, how much effort are you willing to give?

The hardest part of walking away from unacceptable situations is that the heart cannot understand why it must be so. The heart knows only peace, beauty, joy and love, and so looking into the face of what might be destruction is incomprehensible. The only thing I can say that helps to come to terms with the reality is as follows: that too is a picture of its own, and is perfect in exactly how it is. If life is a gallery of Infinite potential, the choice comes down to which is the picture that we really want to look at forever, the one that makes our hearts sing? Where is that picture being painted? I know what my choice is, and so I will keep looking away from everywhere where my song is not playing until only the echo of what has been remains. I want the expression of my life to reflect my beauty in every regard, and I will settle for nothing less.