I showed my husband Rob the title of my previous post and it didn't take him too long to read it! Lol. I was pleasantly surprised by his feedback. He thought that supporting each other in order to become more conscious was a good idea. Great! Now, we just need to figure out how the heck we will do that! Here is my Dummy's Guide to Conscious Relationships...
Why Would We Want To Become More Conscious Anyway?
Basically, we all have two choices. Either we keep living our lives the same way we always have -unconsciously attached to our egos- and therefore we keep perpetuating our cycles of pleasure and pain, positivity and negativity, attachment and detachment, happiness and unhappiness, or we rise above these polarities and considerably reduce our level of suffering once and for all. Option two is only possible through awareness. Without consciousness, all relationships between people are essentially dysfunctional, because they are built upon the superficial and unstable structure of the ego. If we want to experience authentic, harmonious, drama-free relationships, then the key is to grow in awareness. This will allow us to experience compassion, true love, joy and lasting peace. Sound good to you?
What Causes Our Suffering?
We suffer when we resist what is. When we expect things, situations and people to be different from what they are, our inner-resistance causes us great pain. This emotional pain is experienced as anxiety, anger, resentment, jealousy, depression, even illness. The root of our pain is that we derive our sense of self -our identity- from our thoughts, our beliefs, our emotions, our opinions. our physical body, our wounds from the past, our personal "story". Meet the ego! The ego is not our true essence, as spiritual beings, it only keeps us trapped in a very limited perspective. It makes us defensive, reactive and fearful, because we think that we're isolated and separate in our physical bodies, but this is just an illusion.
We're Experts At Fixing the Symptoms of Our Pain, Not The Cause
Instead of learning to accept whatever happens in the present moment (and dealing with it without necessarily having to experience strong negative emotions), we put all our energy towards fixing the symptoms of our unhappiness instead of the deeper cause, which is always an identification with our ego. For example, here are some of the things we do to avoid our own pain: eat, drink, do drugs, become workaholics, become emotionally unavailable, avoid relationships, blame everyone but ourselves, get stuck in cycles of anger, depression or illness, find distractions such as exercise, sports, travelling, television, the internet...etc. It's not that these things are all inherently bad, what's harmful is that we use them to escape feeling and releasing our pain. But what if we went straight to the root of this pain and looked it in the eye? What would happen? The light of our consciousness would start to replace the darkness.
How The Heck Do We Become More Conscious, Then?
It's not an easy task to undo our individual and collective conditioning! We can't expect to just break free from the ego overnight. Changing habits takes time, patience and self-compassion. I've been working towards this for over 10 years now! I go through periods of "waking up from the dream" and falling asleep all over again. We don't need anyone's permission or participation to work on our own awareness, however, if you are able to share this experience with someone willing to support you, it may accelerate the process for both of you.
Becoming the Witness
Essentially, the way to grow in awareness is to become the observer (or the neutral witness) of whatever is going on inside or outside of you. When you notice a strong emotion inside of you, such as fear, simply allow it to be by observing it. When you start to feed the fear with thoughts that increase its intensity, notice the thoughts without judging or resisting them. When you have a strong opinion about something, notice it without trying to change it. What you'll be doing is learning to recognize the power your ego has over you. This road will inevitably lead you to freedom from suffering.
Ganging Up On The Ego With Sign Language
Rob, since sign language is already an important part of our lives, (Rob's parents are deaf) I suggest we use a physical gesture in our family that will remind us to come back to our essence in the present moment. That gesture is the one Emma is doing in the picture above -the hand on the heart. With a simple deep breath, followed by a hand on our heart, we will be communicating to each other "I am present to myself right now, I am present for you, I will do my best to allow you to express what you are feeling without reacting, without being judgemental or defensive." Maybe I'll be the one to place my hand on my heart initially, only to fall back into ego mode a few minutes later. Maybe then, you will reawaken and pull me out of unconsciousness once again! Maybe we both will be arguing, completely under the ego's spell, and one of the kids will walk into the room, put their hand over their heart and make some magic happen! Maybe the kids will enjoy using this gesture with each other! It should be interesting to see how things turn out. What do you think, Rob? Would you like to give it a try?
Warmly,
Lise
Health Coach and Reiki Master
www.lisevilleneuve.com
No comments:
Post a Comment