Here is the third of four parts excerpted from our book Sensual Love Secrets for Couples: The Four Freedoms of Body, Mind, Heart and Soul, by Al Link and Pala Copeland, Llewellyn 2007, Part I The Four Freedoms, Chapter 2: The Second Freedom: Mind.

In this excerpt we explain how you can attract to you exactly the relationship you desire, and how to act to support creating and re-creating that relationship for a lifetime together.

Part III explains how to use the witness consciousness.

Witness Consciousness

Whether positive or negative, your mind approaches life in its own particular and unique way. You may be the only person in the whole world who does what you do exactly the way you do it. If you pay careful attention and attempt to be an objective observer, your “witness consciousness” or “observer consciousness” can identify exactly how your mind operates. Being aware of how you do what you do inside your head enables you to name it. Then, “the truth will set you free,” because naming empowers you. When you name what you are doing, you gain emotional distance from it and so can choose to stop or to continue. This is freedom.

Invite your witness consciousness out to explore. Take a break 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 not so much to your specific actions but to the motivations and patterns behind them.  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.”

The more often you do this the more aware you will become. You will no longer be on automatic pilot operating from sleepy old assumptions but will awake to choices and the freedom choice brings. By engaging your witness consciousness you expand your capacity to eliminate your damaging behaviors and amplify your constructive ones.

For instance, you can use this powerful technique to recognize that your mate is a mirror for yourself. Commonly you may “project” on to your partner, blaming their deficiencies and faults as the cause of problems or difficulties you may be having. But by employing your witness consciousness you’ll likely find that irritation with a mate often has roots in dissatisfaction with yourself. Those traits that are bothering you right now are doing so because you’re unhappy with your own frailties. You can recognize and name this “projection” and turn that piercing gaze inward to make changes where they are really needed.

Celebrating Your Differences

Boredom kills relationships. Celebrating and maintaining your differences keeps your relationship stimulating. It expands your horizons and gives you additional mental capacity to draw on. At the outset of a romance partners are attracted by the opposite characteristics of their new lover as well as by the similarities. But after a certain period of time those differences may begin to lose their appeal.

Whether it is from fear of loosing control of your partner, uncertainty of your own beliefs, a need to win or be always right, or a host of other reasons you may start to complain about your partner’s differences and to demand that they change. You want them to be more like you.

Instead use your witness consciousness to step into your partner’s shoes. Allow each other room to breath, 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”. Try things their way sometimes—you’ll find you may see with new eyes and a broader viewpoint. Your relationship will flourish, retaining its spark and passion over the years.

Continued in part IV

NEXT POST-The Secret in relationship: couples can attract and create relationship happiness for a lifetime together – Part IV

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