It is no secret that, for many, intimate relationship is
one of the great amplifiers of the unlived life. We can count on our partners
to relentlessly illuminate everything that is unresolved within us. Not because
they have some agenda to do so, but simply by the nature of the crucible that
is formed when we allow another to truly matter to us.
We come to our relationships with an already-existing
patterning that formed long ago. While this template longs to be updated, until
reconfiguration it looms over us and colors our perception. It functions by way
of a time machine where, when activated, it is as if we have left the “here and
now,” crossed the liminal, and found ourselves back in the “there and then.”
There are aspects of ourselves that are aching to come out
of the shadows and into the warmth of holding awareness. Not to harm, but as
emissaries of wholeness. There is nothing like a close relationship to remind
us of the orphaned feelings and vulnerable parts that have lost their way in
the tangle of somatic and psychic pathways. They are exhausted from a long
voyage to reach us, but have not given up.
The reminder of this truth can at times be a bit agonizing,
as the other seems to have extraordinary powers to open the raw, tender, and
naked dimensions of our being. But this achiness is sacred. Inside the ache is
a jewel. Go there.
Please be kind to your partners and the inevitable conflict
that will arise as you make this journey together. Training ourselves to
harness the energy of conflict – and engage it directly, skillfully, and with
an open heart – is the activity of inner and outer revolution, and requires the
encoding of new circuitry.
The transformative art of rupture and repair is one that is
endlessly profound, revealing that relationships of vast depth and meaning are not those free of conflict, but ones where working through conflict is
embraced as path, where the participants are transformed into an alive vessel
of purification, love, and healing.
This is a difficult realization to come by, and one that is
unfortunately not all that popular in a world that has forgotten the gold
buried in the dark. But here we are. It is up to us to bring these fruits into
the collective.
Photo by h.koppdelaney by way of Flickr
