Deeply Aligning Your Relationship With Growth and Love

 

There are relationships where two people do things together. They go out. They travel. They watch shows. They sleep in the same bed. They buy a house. They have kids. They go on holiday.

The relationship appears functional — on the surface. People might even say:

“Wow, they have such an awesome life. Look at all they are doing. They are both doing well with their careers, their finances are sorted. They travel. They have such an active social life. I want that!”

But things are often not as they appear. To truly understand something we must look deeper than the outside and travel within. We may ask ourselves — how do these people feel and what is the relationship like emotionally?

This is where we look deeper than how things appear on the outside — the having and doing — and we look at the heart of the relationship.

The Heart of a Relationship

We all deserve loving relationships where we are with someone who sees us deeply. Many relationships have love and care however, there are also many other patterns that cloud that deeper love.

In an aligned relationship, there may be challenges however, the baseline of the relationship is founded upon care, love, and willingness.

Love is flexible and kind. It is willing and open. It doesn’t cling to anything and is completely free. Relationships founded upon this kind of love are incredibly supportive and liberating. We become the best versions of ourselves within these relationships.

Every relationship has the potential to become an incredibly loving, open, and warm environment which uplifts everyone within it.

We can nurture this potential by making an internal commitment to communicate kindly, honestly, and clearly with our partner.

Loving Communication

Some people say:

“I tried loving my partner no matter what they did and it ended up terrible.”

This is a misunderstanding. Love is not letting someone walk all over us —we let someone walk over us out of fear and feelings of unworthiness. Let us say our partner doesn’t get what they want and we feel passive aggression from them. We notice the way they look at us — as though they want us to suffer for not giving them what they want. They may not say anything out loud but we can feel it and it is not very pleasant. Or perhaps they shut a door very loud and storm out. This is also aggressive and destructive behaviour.

Feeling threatened, we may feel the temptation to be rude back to them, but when we do so, we end up hurting everyone. We feel more distant and disconnected and suck the joy out of the relationship.

We may also feel a temptation to ignore that part and shrug it aside. We might say or think:

“That’s just how they can be sometimes.”

We are afraid of addressing it directly. Perhaps we would like to avoid conflict. Perhaps it seems easier to pretend as if nothing happened — even though we can feel it.

But when we choose this, we are actually enabling that behaviour.

To love someone is to be willing to hold them accountable and have faith in them — that they can handle the feedback and we can both grow together. Love is not passive, it is courageous.

Love includes ourselves. If a certain behaviour or attitude feels misaligned with us and is bringing us pain, to love is to invoke the courage to address that attitude and behaviour vulnerably and honestly with our partner. To love someone is to hold them accountable and speak to the part of them that is willing to grow.

We may say:

“Dear one, I see the way you look at me and although you don’t say anything — I can feel your anger and resentment are directed at me. This doesn’t feel good and when you do this you are pushing me away. I ask that you have a look at that anger and deal with it kindly and respectfully for both of us. If you need help with that, I am here for you.”

This conversation is an invitation for growth and sets up a loving and supportive environment for our partner. If they then respond with anger and defensiveness, that is on them. We can directly address that defensiveness with calm and compassion. This tends to melt everything.

“When I defend myself I am attacked.” — A Course in Miracles (Workbook Edition)

When an animal feels threatened, it will bark and claw at whatever comes near it — even if what comes near it means no harm and is trying to help. The animal doesn’t recognise that. Its body is full of fear and it sees a fearful world.

When the animal barks and claws, barking or clawing back will only agitate the animal further. What is most helpful in this situation, is to approach the animal with calm and compassion. Then, the animal starts to see that there is nothing to fear and our calm and compassion transfer to the animal. They start to feel calm.

It is the same with humans. In fact, humans have an animal brain and those same responses. Instead of clawing and barking humans will attack with vengeful looks, slamming doors, and words.

On an unconscious level, we are all connected and can feel exactly what we are thinking about each other. We tend to mirror each other. If someone feels bitterly towards us, we know it.

That is to say, we can feel what is coming up in our partner whether we are conscious of it or not. So it doesn’t matter whether they say something to us or not, we can feel that their anger is directed at us.

It is helpful to recognise that someone will only attack us if they feel threatened. Someone will only defend themselves if they feel threatened or attacked.

So when we feel defensiveness arise within someone — whether that is our partner or ourselves — if we look deeper we can see the scared animal within. Recognising the scared animal, we know that reason and logic will not work. Instead, what is most helpful is calm and compassion.

We may address the defensiveness directly if we feel our partner can handle it:

“Would you like to let go of your defensiveness?”

My partner has addressed my defensiveness directly many times and it has been incredibly helpful. When she did, I could feel the temptation to snap back and attack. But I was able to recognise the scared animal within and bring calm and compassion to it. I was able to do so with the help of my partner — she did not want to punish me but rather, help me see clearly.

Many of us are very fragile on the inside and can not handle directness. I know that is what I was like and I am constantly letting go of the threatened animal within who easily feels threatened and attacked — for a long time it felt like the world was attacking me and no one understood me.

Actually, it was my choice to see it that way and I preferred to feel like the victim than take responsibility for the way I felt inside. If I defend myself, then I feel attacked and threatened inside. If I felt secure and calm, nothing could threaten me. Therefore, I am no victim and have the power to bring calm and compassion to the scared part within rather than attack or blame anyone for feeling the way I do.

We may feel the person we are with cannot handle that kind of directness. In that case, we may ground ourselves and neutralise any upset emotions by breathing in calm and breathing out compassion:

Stopping for a moment, we can allow ourselves to feel the agitation arise — we can imagine breathing it in.

Stopping deeply, we can allow the agitation to ease and relax — we can imagine breathing it out.

If we deeply stop, we can touch the deep calm within us in a moment.

Then we may say:

“What you just said and how you looked at me / spoke came across as quite rude and defensive. I can see that you feel hurt and angry and that is ok. Perhaps we can learn how to bring calm and compassion to the hurt, anger, and fear with us both because it doesn’t feel very good when you speak to me like that and I don’t think you would like it if I spoke to you like that. I’d like this relationship to be a loving and safe place for both of us — could you please help me?”

Or we may say, a little more directly:

“When you respond with defensiveness and aggression, you push me away. How would you feel if I spoke to you the way you are speaking to me?”

We look at our loved one deeply and calmly as we say that, looking through their reactions and into their heart.

What we say is one element and how we say it is another element of communication. When we respond to our loved one, we recognise their pain and hold a clear mirror to it. Our intention is loving and courageous. We are not afraid to call them out on their behaviour. We are free of the fear of losing them and being alone. If we are fearful of loss and of being alone, we are limiting the growth potential of the relationship and harming ourselves. We must truly be willing to let it all go. As was mentioned earlier, love is free of attachment.

It is ok to be afraid of losing our loved one. We are used to being with them. Naturally attachment forms. This is totally normal and ok. We can be aware of this tendency and look deeper into it to see if it may be helpful to release this attachment.

Releasing attachment to our loved one — a key element of loving communication

When we are attached to someone, we bring anxiety and pressure into the relationship. Our partner feels this attachment as pressure and unconsciously resists it.

To recognise this, we need only look at how we feel when we know someone wants something from us. Automatically there is a part of us that feels pressured and is repelled by that.

We think that attachment is helpful in a relationship and without it we wouldn’t be together. In reality, we are in a relationship in spite of our attachment not because of it. We don’t recognise this until after we release the attachment and notice how free and liberating the relationship can be.

Our attachment brings pressure and anxiety into our communication. These don’t feel great for our partner or ourselves. We may not realise it but we are making it harder for them to respond lovingly and compassionately to us. We are also clouding our own joy and inner freedom. It can be tricky to recognise this pressure until we release it or until the damage has been done and there is a bigger wedge between us.

So it is incredibly helpful and important to recognise our attachments and release them if we would like to enjoy a peaceful and supportive relationship.

Most of the time, our attachment has to do with three things which we are seeking from the relationship because we have forgotten how to generate it from within ourselves:

1. Control: We want to feel in control. We want things to be a particular way because we are scared of what might happen if they are not. This is really coming from a lack of faith in life. We cling to what is familiar because we do not feel faith and trust in life. We feel that it is up to us. Would we try to control anything if we felt that life was here for us and we are always taken care of?
2. Approval: We want to be liked and don’t want to be disliked. We want approval from society, from our family, from our friends, and from ourselves. We feel a deeper sense of disapproval within ourselves and our behaviour is influenced by what we think will give us approval. We do not recognise that the more we want approval, the more vulnerable we make ourselves and the easier we are to manipulate. We don’t recognise that we can simply let go of wanting approval and be a source of approval for ourselves and others.
3. Security: We feel unsafe or like the future might not be safe. So we seek safety from the relationship and from factors that seem to be under our control. When we seek security externally, we bring a feeling of insecurity into our relationships. Our relationships are founded on weak ground and are not very strong. When we recognise that security is found within and always has been, we start to bring security into our relationship. We don’t need anything for our safety — we are solid, safe, and calm. We bring this into all areas of life and our lives blossom.
   For each underlying motivation, we can flip it around and ask:

“Would I rather want control or would I rather feel happier, lighter, and freer no matter what is happening?”

Wanting is not the same thing as feeling calm and choosing freely. When we want to control this is generated by feeling out of control. The more out of control we feel, the more we want to control. The more we let go of wanting control, the calmer and happier we feel regardless of anything. We have freed ourselves from being dependent on circumstance and embraced our true power.

“Would I rather want approval or have it now instead?”

Wanting is lacking. Even when we get what we think we want, the energy of wanting and lack is still present within us so it will not feel enough. It never does so long as we hold onto the feeling of wanting and lacking. As we release the desire for approval, we find that approval is already here — everything is already ok the way it is but we were not seeing it because we believed that we lacked approval and needed it from outside of ourselves.

Even if the whole world approves of us, this is nothing compared to the solid and unshakable peace of completely allowing ourselves to be exactly as we are. No one can give us that feeling, it is up to us to decide whether we would like to let go of believing it comes from outside and allow it to arise from within.

“Could I welcome the safety that is already here and let go of believing the future might not be safe?”

When we want safety in the future, we believe that the future is unsafe. We choose to believe in an unsafe world. We ignore the fact that right now, we are safe. We ignore that we have always been safe — we are still here aren’t we? Safety is always present. This is solid and clear. What is unclear and imagined is that the future might not be safe. Yet we choose to have more faith in that than in the safety that is already present. We actually ignore all the ways in which life has worked out and is working and instead choose to look for ways in which it might not work. All it takes is noticing that you are already safe and the lack of safety starts to dissolve. Now, you can bring safety into the relationship. You can be a source of deep safety and calm to your partner. Naturally the relationship blossoms.

A big component of the feeling of a lack of safety is the belief in death. Yes, the body can end but it is helpful to recognise that we do not truly know what happens at the point of death until after the fact. In fact, researching Near Death Experiences (NDEs) we can see that the people who actually go through it commonly experience incredible peace, love, and indeed that life extends far beyond this physical world. So for deep safety there must be some spiritual aspect to life, at least a curiosity to discover what the truth of life is and the humility to recognise “I don’t actually know what happens”.

What if death is just an idea? What if life continues in a different form that is beyond conceptualisation? There is a temptation to refuse this possibility due to a fear of total accountability for our lives; we are totally accountable for our lives and in the end, we are going to be faced with every decision and every consequence of those decisions. Many of us are afraid of that and carry a lot of guilt so we would rather believe in a world of death. The benefit of considering this possibility is that we can start making different decisions right now. We may not be able to change what happened in the past, but we can clean up our mess now and become beacons of light and upliftment to all of life right now.

No one is bound by the past. We are free to choose differently at every moment. Therefore it is of great benefit to face the fear and the guilt once we feel that we have a way to deal with it. Perhaps that is a subject for another piece —let me know if that’s something you’d like.

When a relationship is hurting you

It’s completely natural to have misunderstandings and for our egos to be challenged in a relationship. However, in a relationship where both individuals align with growth and each other’s happiness, those moments help us grow, become more humble, and feel closer and more connected.

In relationships that are misaligned and driven by lack, wanting, and attachment, those moments of egos being challenged lead to big fights, arguments, and drifting further apart.

Regardless of how a relationship appears on the surface, it really comes down to a simple question:

“Does the relationship feel overall easy, uplifting, and empowering?”

Aligned relationships are incredible catalysts for growth. They feel easy. They help everyone heal. They tend to be very simple. When we are in an aligned relationship, we feel peaceful and fulfilled within ourselves — we don’t feel the need to prove that we are happy or show anything off on social media. Each moment is perfect as it is and there is nothing more that is needed.

We all deserve these beautiful relationships. Why should we settle for anything less? However, we can only enjoy these relationships if we are willing to look within and grow.

It starts from within. As we bring warmth and love to the parts that feel unseen, unheard, and uncared for, we will find that the relationship will start to change. We are able to be there for our loved one in a much deeper way.

If you liked this piece then you may really enjoy the 5-part Mini-Course Incredibly Loving Relationships. I dive deeper into my own experiences, the pain, and the growth. I hope that in reading about that, you see that anything is possible with willingness.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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