Our consciousness is evolving. People are unwinding and breaking free from aeons of constraint. It’s a truly wonderful movement to behold. I feel blessed to be here during these times of profound change. But it’s a double-edged sword too. In many cases, it’s generating untold pressure within families and relationships. It’s causing great friction, and at times, even tearing them apart. What is the most effective approach to this unfolding dynamic? I feel strongly in the heart, we need to redefine the very nature of relationships.

Classic Archetypal Relationships

Consider for a moment some of the classic archetypal relationships like marriages, partnerships, parent-child, friends, and work colleagues. These are classic stereotypes that have been fixed quite rigidly in humanity’s collective consciousness, cemented by aeons of conditioning.

What do these relationship archetypes do to the soul?

To me, the soul arises from the inner void of pure presence. In enlightened states, the soul is highly spontaneous. It flows like the wind through the trees, and although has consistency, is never completely predictable. It flows according to the myriad of possibilities within our consciousness landscape.

Prior to this state of course, there is the conditioning of the ego to overcome. The ego builds loops of conditioned programming, based on our upbringing, and the dogmatic beliefs within society. Many take on either a controller or victim-type mentality (or a subtle blend of both). Each behaviourism is like a computer program, it has a purpose and a need to run. All it requires is someone to push the buttons. The risk is to end up living in co-dependant emotional and psychological states. But it doesn’t have to be like this!

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Working with the Law of Attraction

Society has inculcated in people fixed ideas and notions about how our relationships with people should be.

These are not just conscious thoughts, however. I’m speaking of an inner consciousness landscape that impacts our lives, which for many, cannot even be seen, touched or even felt. The ego is looking through conditioned veils.

That’s why embracing the (authentic!) Law of Attraction is so beneficial to us. We draw to ourselves the mirror: one which not only reflects how we are, but also how we could be. The mirror activates all kinds of inner buttons – like that of blame, for example: “why are you doing this to me?” is the classic, disempowered cry.

What’s required actually, and what I’ve dsicovered, is the need for increased selfishness. But what I mean here is not the selfishness of the ego, which truly does only have its own egoic desires at heart. What I’m speaking of is the selfishness of the Higher Self, which has the liberation and freedom of all souls as its purpose.

If I dare to be me, in any given situation, expressing what I truly feel (in a compassionate way), then what actually happens, is that I’m caringly inviting the other to do the same. The greatest gift I can give to another, is the truth about who I am. It encourages them to discover the truth about themselves too.

I would say this is the first essential realisation, on the journey of evolved relating.

Opening Pandora’s Box

It’s going to require much more fluidity and space in how we connect with each other. The courage to say: “No, that doesn’t serve me. You go ahead. I’m going this way instead.” Then to stop projecting at each other because that might trigger some buttons.

If buttons get triggered, then the encouragement is to own them. For these are the touch points of growth. And it’s in relationships especially, where they get activated most.

What I’ve frequently noticed in marriages and partnerships for example, is the challenge of one partner accelerating or having a breakthrough, whilst the other remains temporarily constant. It can place inordinate amounts of stress within a fixed ‘relationship’.

If we get up one morning expecting our partner to be exactly how they were yesterday, speaking to them and treating them as some kind of fixed identity that we rotate around, then in effect, a prison cell for consciousness is being created, to either stifle the unfolding soul, or causing it to rebel.

But you can’t close the Pandora’s box once it’s been opened!

And, of course, in being totally authentic, we provide the possibility for others to see their truth too. If we’re always living according to their expectations, then the mirror we’re supposed to provide is tainted, and so we’re actually disempowering them too, because we remove the possibility of an accurate reflection.

I’ve also experienced the dynamic from the other side. Where I’ve allowed myself to be seen and defined simply as “Dad”. It’s come with all kinds of limiting expectations, within a family, that I simply couldn’t live up to. Yes, I’ve felt compassionately responsible. But I find my soul naturally challenges situations where another would become dependent upon me. Not that I haven’t naturally supported them, but love does not smother, it empowers and liberates.

If you love someone, set them free!

In one of my three paternal/child relationships, which at the time was challenged in true understanding, we jointly ditched the word “Dad”. I encouraged my “son” to call me Open, and to embrace me exactly as he found me, without expectation. Likewise, in myself, I dropped the label of a “son” for him. 

Instead, there was an open invitation to experience and honour each other as we presented. As we each showed up.

I can tell you it had a deeply profound effect, like switching from night to day. Any expectations (including karma on his part) positively broke up, and floated away like a helium-filled balloon, with “Dad” the disappearing label. Although we are both very different – in many ways like chalk and cheese – we came to accept each other, exactly as we each were. 

By ditching the labels, it took much of the stress out of our relationship, leading to a more harmonious relating experience.

The New Relating

My first marriage ended because of my dramatic awakening through a car crash, which my partner struggled to relate to. My personality changed overnight – I couldn’t be so constrained anymore. There was a rightness to our parting – our paths were strongly diverging (it often happens when one awakens and the other doesn’t).

So I don’t see relationships in the ’till death us do part’ manner. I believe we have ‘sacred agreements’, at a soul level, to work out with one another. Once the lessons have been learned, either the relationship will evolve and grow together, or the path of the souls will part, and each go separate ways to pastures new.

I’m blessed to find myself in a loving relationship once more. But it is entirely different from previously. Each affords and grants the other, the space each soul deserves and yearns for. Each lives their own creativity, with their own harmonies – and interdimensional connections, that are honoured.

Yet when pathways afford the opportunity to come together, then there’s total acceptance of the other, with no expectancy of how they should show up. There’s absolutely no need for the other to be a particular way, because fulfillment is already attained within. There’s no need of an external compliment. Especially when you’ve found your Twin Flame within.

What it actually means is that each time you come together, you find yourself in a magical exploration of who the other is. You never quite know. Which provides an extraordinary alchemy. It’s a new landscape to continually discover.

“Rigid relationships are as redundant as building structures on shifting sand. The sand has no fixed relationship with the sea, rather it relates to the ebb and flow of the waves as and when they choose to kiss the shoreline.” Openhand

It means you can truly connect with the other, at a deep soul level. It means you can love them unconditionally, because you don’t need them to show up a particular way. Which means you end up loving them more – because it’s always in truth.

7 Essential Qualities of Evolved Relating

How might we work to attain evolved relating experiences? Of course it’s going to mean we have to work on ourselves.

Here are 7 qualities I’ve found to create the perfect harmony for such evolved relating:

1) Core splitting honesty: Make no mistake, if we’re truly going to commit to the spiritual path, then we will be tested within relationships. Desperately holding things together by belts and braces is just not going to hold. We have to be core splittingly honest with each other. If you truly love someone, do they not deserve to hear the truth from you about how you genuinely feel in any given situation?

2) Compassion: Speaking our truth is fundamentally essential. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do so gently, and with compassion. Let’s create the space for the other to express freely, even if that’s dissonant. Compassion means we can allow an alternative truth to express, even, and especially, where we don’t feel to go with it. Still, the other person’s point of view has validity.

3) Openness: We must become open to the fluid truth of the moment. Being in evolving, close relationships is sometimes just like being caught between the polarity of two magnets. If you hold a rigid position, and you’re not in profound truth, it can tear you apart. So we must be open to the tidal flows of feeling and emotion, always looking for the mast of centred openness.

4) Unconditionality: We must learn to adapt to ever changing moods, intuit the relating experience that is currently being called for, and unconditionally give ourselves to that expression. Sometimes your partner maybe a friend, sometimes a colleague or companion, then sometimes they’ll be a lover. Sometimes you’ll be distant, sometimes close. We’re invited to embrace people the way they are, in that moment. And vice versa.

5) Courage and bravery: To be this way is going to take a lot of courage and bravery. Your soul will call you to say, and do, things the effects of which, the ego might fear – “what impact is that going to have?” The ego will be playing the mind games, frequently wondering what the outcome will be. We must have the courage and conviction to confront the ego, always coming from our highest truth, even if that would possibly lead to confrontation or separation.

6) Self completeness: You’re in relationship – a relating situation – but it’s only truly going to work if you are being whole and complete within the engagement. It’s the same when something gets triggered in you. No matter how the other is being, if you get triggered, that’s yours to deal with. Instead of rowing with the other, work on the inner tightness and find the higher truth to come from. If the relating experience has a future, the other will be encouraged to evolve too.

7) Empathy, acceptance and understanding: And here’s the other side of the self completeness coin. We’re not going to have meaningful and fulfilling relationships if we’re not fully present and giving within them. An evolved relating experience invites us to unveil ever deeper levels of feeling empathy. The more we can feel the other, the more we feel ourselves, and the more a mutually fulfilling energetic feedback loop is created. Both parties are lifted into a state that is so much more than the separate parts. Empathy, acceptance and understanding is the golden chalice from which both can drink.

Spaces in the togetherness

So redefining our relationships into evolved relating offers enormous potential for evolutionary growth. The expansion causes continual confrontation of society’s dogma. It’s like being in a caring crucible, where diamonds are forged.

Now, I greatly value and cherish the relating experiences in my life. And I find that by committing to my truth and allowing the other to honour theirs, means that I feel more committed within these engagements rather than less. Paradoxically, the new openness generates greater respect, unconditionality and commitment to one another.

Just as a wheel is defined by the space between the spokes, it’s the space within relationships that creates the possibility of alchemical motion.

“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.” Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

Resonate?
If you resonate with the content of this article, and would like to develop truly meaningful relating experiences in your life, then explore the evolutionary work of Openhand
 

Bright blessings 
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