Who Or What Is Your Relationship With... / June 27, 2014

This is a piece I have avoided for years!  You see I had fallen into a common mistake of thinking you have to master something before you speak on it. However, I was recently inspired by a couple of people currently on the intensive programme and without too much detail will share that inspiration. 

It has been a joy to work with and watch this couple's development and growth, both individually and together. They have shown great maturity and awareness in response to to the challenges they have faced as well as celebratring the wonderful. 

Naturally one of their greatest challenges lies in relationship.  

One of the gifts of this work is creating the space for the most important relationship of all and that is the relationship with self. As people become more self aware (not self-conscious, a very important distinction) and they become a more authentic expression of self, the external can sometimes appear a little pissed off.

Family and friends feel uncomfortable when you drift away from a script which has been familiar for years and they find themselves in a little unscheduled improv. The normal reaction (not a response, again an important distinction) is to up the ante and throw in lines so familiar or hurtful they are almost impossible to ignore, reeling you back into the pattern.

Anyhow in their development and personal expression compromise for this couple seemed unacceptable and at times it looked as though their relationship may not last. But rather than look at changing each other they took a look at changing their thoughts on relationship itself. 

For whatever reason most relationships are based on how people think relationships should look, squeezing them into templates that are often, and rather strangely, based on what people outside the relationship feel comfortable with. (What will xyz think or what will we tell people or even how will God feel about that?) 

To cut a long story short, together they were brave enough to speak their own truth and come up with a structure which was a compromise to neither and in fact positively exciting to both. Whilst being neither conventional nor relevant to others it seems they had pulled something from their collective creative space which is quite remarkable.

When they excitedly shared the news, there was a predictable hostility as those who had obediantly tolerated compromise in servitude to the accepted patterns could not entertain a possibility they had not explored. If they had followed the rules why shouldnt everyone!

Fortunately this couple are way beyond reading from the script and  too busy embracing a new life of improv to be swayed by the noise and we can only watch with curiosity and love to see what unfolds.

What I found fascinating in this story was the way they were prepared to put their relationship with each other above their relationship with the story of how relationship should be. I learned a simllar lesson when my idea of how a father/son relationship should be was clearly getting in the way of my relationship with my son. I had to stop being my idea of a father and get authentic!

If you are having a tough time with someone or something, look where the story is getting in the way of your true expression, and condier where the story came from. It is almost certainly not yours and so why should it work for you?

With love

Bill