The Role of Relationship

The reward of any successful relationship is the experience of love, joy, trust and comfort, but the greatest reward is the experience of coming to know yourself in a whole new light.  Think of relationships as reflective mirrors into your own self awareness.

Wether we become aware of it or not, intimate relationships give us the ability to understand ourselves in a deeper way, in a way that accentuates our current self understanding.  But keep in mind: a successful relationship requires a focused attention within and the willingness to be humble during the times that challenge your perspective.

I was having a discussion with my girlfriend about something that reflects this process.  She stated that "each and every person understands and experiences you in a different way, so therefore there no definite version of who you are."  This got me really thinking.  My first thought, a defensive one at that, was that maybe people just do not fully understand who we are and that their different experiences of who we are cannot touch the absoluteness of who we are.  Yet, in the awareness of my reactive defiance I attempted to see that I often become reactive and defensive when my girlfriend's perspective challenges my world view.  This is what I mean that relationships can become mirrors into our own self awareness.

[*All relationships offer this gift, even relationships to non-persons {for everything is in constant relationship}, but I believe that within the context of an intimate relationship the reflective mirror becomes potent, because a successful relationships requires that we become vulnerable to a degree that no other relationship requires.  Thus our emotional body is most highly sensitive within this type of relationship].

As our conversation continued, I wanted hold onto the notion that I already knew myself and that others just could not understand me in the way I know myself.  But then I realized I needed to humble myself with the same type of medicinal perspective that I write about in these posts...

Yes, I may declare to have a solid defined existence within my own self understanding, but can I really know exactly who I am?  Could the very declaration of "knowing who I am" keep me within this definition and thus keep me from experiencing myself in the realm of deep experiential understanding?  Could this declaration of "knowing myself" only stagnate my own personal evolution?

In my humbleness I stated back to her, "maybe you are right, but what is it that unites people in intimate relationship if everyone you know knows you differently and thus could bring you something unique and different?"  She wisely stated, as she always does, that "you stay with that person because they not only push you to become a better you, but you enjoy those aspects of yourself that become illuminated throughout the course of the relationship.  You enjoy the person you grow into with the aid of that partnership."  I smiled, and in that moment I realized that maybe I have been unconsciously holding onto ideas about myself that I have attached to as opposed to letting life evolve through me.

If you do not believe your relationship is pushing you to grow into the person you want to be, into the person you want to come to know and experience, than I suggest you look deeply into this.  What is going on within you and within the relationship that is stagnating your own evolution?  Maybe your own psychological defenses are disabling you and your partner from seeing how the two of you make each other better people.  We all become defensive from time to time.  I know I do this at times.

Maybe we don't have all the answers, maybe we will never know exactly who we are, but maybe there is someone out there who cares to come to know and experience who you are beyond all the ideas you have about yourself.  Maybe there is someone who simply wants to be with you because of how you make them feel, not because of "who you are" [who you think you are].   If you are currently with someone who pushes you to become a better person, who pushes you to go beyond your fears, and who feels and appreciates the greatness that you are [and are perpetually evolving into], be bold, and tell them you love them...if you don't feel love this person, I suggest you look within.  Something may be blocking you from feeling this love, the love that is inherently there.

We need to be humble to realize how another makes us better because in this understanding we need to see ourselves for what we really are...as a person that still needs to evolve...  This is the path of life.  Realize that any defensiveness that may arise does so because we unconsciously believe that there is nothing about us that needs to change.  Remember, the path is all about changing and evolving. This is how nature works, and you my friend, are as natural and pristine as mother nature herself.