October 29, 2007

Developing Perspective and Celebrating Differences – Mind Freedom (Part 7 of 8 )

Developing Perspective and Celebrating Differences – Mind Freedom

Part 7 of 8

Invite your witness consciousness to explore what you’d like to heal through your relationship practice. Stand back when you are involved in some activity and watch yourself as if you were a character in a movie. What are you doing right now? Why and how are you doing it? Pay attention to the motivations and patterns behind your actions. For instance, the next time you find yourself in a heated discussion with your mate, call on your observer to take a close look at what’s really going on. Are you steaming ahead into a quarrel because the issue itself is really important to you? Or are you pushing your point because you really want to be in control, and not just in this situation but in most?

Soon you will be able to recognize your own thought habits such as “Oh, right now I’m in my worrying mode,” “Mmm, here is my loving state,” “Yikes, I’m taking a wanting-to-be-right stance,” “Aha, this is my conciliation manner.” You will no longer be on automatic pilot, operating from sleepy old patterns, but will awake to choices and to the freedom choice brings. By engaging your witness consciousness, you expand your capacity to eliminate your damaging behaviors and to amplify your constructive ones.

Use the power of your observer to recognize that your mate is your mirror. A partner acts as a mirror by reflecting back your own less than stellar traits so you can polish them up and by helping you find aspects of yourself that are lying hidden, undeveloped, and waiting to be brought to light.

In the first instance, you might psychologically project onto your partner, blaming his or her deficiencies for your problem. However, by employing your witness consciousness, you might well find that irritation with your mate often roots in dissatisfaction with yourself. Your partner’s traits that are bothering you right now are doing so because you’re unhappy with your own frailties. Observe and name this projection, and turn that piercing gaze inward to make changes where they are really needed.

At the outset of a romance partners are attracted by their opposing characteristics as well as by their similarities. The shy wallflower falls for the playful extrovert, the spendthrift is attracted to the financial planner, and the risk-taker swoons for the cautious considerer. Your higher consciousness looks in the relationship mirror and recognizes these differences as opportunities to bring forth new aspects of yourself, to become more than past experience and learned behaviors have so far led you to be. However, your ego might fall into the romantic shadow trap of “I have found my other half. My lover, who is so different from me, completes me.” The opportunity for growth is lost, and, after a certain period of time, because there has been no self-expansion, but rather a contraction through dependency, those differences begin to lose their appeal.

Whether it is from fear of losing control of your partner, from uncertainty of your own beliefs, from a need to win or to be right always, or from a host of other reasons, you might start to complain about your partner’s differences and to demand changes. Rather than wanting your lover to be more like you, use your witness consciousness to step into your partner’s shoes. Partners must allow each other room to breathe and to be. Ask “What can I learn from how she thinks about this?” rather than “Why doesn’t she just agree with me?” Consider “What benefits are there in his approach to this situation?” instead of “I wish he’d learn to do it my way.” Celebrate and learn from your differences. You’ll see with new eyes and a broader viewpoint. Your relationship will flourish, retaining its spark and passion over the years.

Take a look at things from your partner’s perspective.

Excerpted from our new book Sensual Love Secrets for Couples: The Four Freedoms of Body, Mind, Heart and Soul, by Al Link and Pala Copeland, Llewellyn, 2007

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