We come into relationship with an activated template of past relational experiences – will it be safe? Can I be fully as I am? What about all of my eccentricities, sensitivities, and historic core vulnerabilities? Can I truly trust them? Will they turn from me? Will I lose myself? Is this all going to be worth it?
Inevitably, ruptures will occur within the relational field, in that tender intersection between ourselves and another. But that rupture is natural, organic, and quantum.
A healthy relationship is not one in which there is never any conflict, but one in which rupture is repaired, by way of empathic linkage, shared resonance, and a simultaneous honoring of our own separateness and integrity. Embodiment to the cycle of rupture and repair allows the relationship to unfold, deepen, and disclose its secret essence.
Each of us arrives into the space between ourselves and the other with biographical, cultural, and archetypal patterning, scripts, and worlds of imagination. Our images and fantasies intermingle and interpenetrate to weave the relational field, along with the mysterious Other, the third who also appears… the Great Weaver of the in-between places.
It is through this intersubjective dance of illuminating, articulating, and making sense of our experience with the other that the templates become ripe for revisioning. But in the core of that ripening it is tender, sensitive, and at times will burn with mysteries of separation and union.
This is why, in part, close personal relationships can be so achingly painful, on the one hand… while being the most unique and transmutative temple on the other.
Photo by Mandy Naleli
My previous book - The Path is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You
My online community - Befriending Yourself: Finding Safety and Rest in Difficult Times
Listen to two recent podcasts where I was interviewed:
