The achy, direct path of close personal relationship

In any close relationship, we open ourselves to an encounter with the two archetypal energies of abandonment and fusion. As relational beings wired to love and be loved, the invitation into states of separation and union are seeded into the interactional field.

At some deep core level there may always be some hesitancy in moving into this territory, which is a valid concern, and ripe for exploration.

We come into the here and now with a rich template of past relational exchanges – will it be safe? Will I be seen… not just as an object in the awareness of the other, but as a subject with my own interiority, emotional flow, and ways of organizing my experiential world? 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. Especially when we truly allow the other to matter to us. This rupture is not evidence of error or mistake, but 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, right-brain attunement, and a simultaneous honoring of our own separateness and integrity. We must respect that we are both connected and separate simultaneously, and not merge into some homogenized leaky middle.

A conscious, embodied, and kind navigation of the cycle of rupture and repair is what allows the relationship to unfold, deepen, and disclose its secret essence.

We arrive into the space between 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. 

It is through this intersubjective dance of illuminating, articulating, and making sense of our experience with the other that the templates yield for revisioning.

This is why close personal relationships can be so achingly painful and disappointing, on the one hand, and the direct path into the temple of Being on the other.

Photo by Pezibear

Learn more about my new book - A Healing Space: Befriending Ourselves in Difficult Times - and read Editorial Reviews here. For a full list of online retailers, see the book's page at my website here. 

To learn more about and purchase my previous book - The Path is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You - please visit the book's page here.