What does it mean, to evolve through relationships? In this article, we will explore how the dynamics of relationships can form a testing ground for how much we have grown or evolved. It is within the interactions we have with our partners where we can discover our unfinished business. We can become aware of how we may be carrying forth old stories, wounds, and trauma into the current situation which in turn prevents us from having good, clear communication with one another.
As social creatures, we need connection of some kind with others. As the saying goes, “No man (or woman) is an island.” Although we could survive alone, will we flourish without others? Can we discover the depths of who we can become if we don’t have others to help us plumb those depths? How do relationships assist in this process of Self discovery?
Those who have a social support network are happier and live longer. Whether you are an introvert or extrovert, others are necessary to have in our lives for so many reasons. Introverts generally have fewer relationships, but they tend to be deeper connections rather than just acquaintances. On the other hand, extroverts thrive on having more relationships of various depths. They thrive in the presence of others and seem to need social interactions more than introverts. Either way, we need to have some connection to another person.
What is it about others that informs our journey in life and makes it meaningful? And why is it that our most intimate relationships seem to present our greatest challenges? It is within these partnerships where we meet some of our greatest challenges because archetypal patterns of behavior are activated, or potentiated when we find ourselves in certain situations that activate typical human patterns of behavior that we assume at different times of our lives.
For example, one can only imagine how we will behave when we are first confronted with a new situation. So let’s say we find ourselves alone later in life. How do we adjust to this new way of living? We imagine we will feel this way or that way and we will do x, y, and z. In our minds we imagine how we will be but when the actual time comes when we are faced with this way of being, we may find that we struggle to adjust to this new circumstance and try to find our own rhythm in this new role we have assumed. It takes time. We try this or that and over time we learn what works for us and what doesn’t. We may ask ourselves, “What do others do in my situation?” We thought we would be a particular way, but when actually faced with the situation we had to live through it to find our own comfort zone. We had to grow into our own unique way of “living” in our new role.
Similarly, in relationships we follow typical patterns of behaving for the role we find ourselves in. We became a husband or wife and began to slowly mold ourselves into what we thought we “should” be like in that role. It’s easier and more comfortable to slip into a role if we have an idea of what that role entails. Did you assume typical wifely or husbandly behaviors at first? More than likely we had to start somewhere and then slowly evolve the characteristics we personally felt comfortable to assume, so maybe we started out our role as a husband doing the “manly” things around the house. But what if that male is more naturally comfortable in the kitchen? How do we negotiate who does the shopping and who does the cooking? Who is responsible for the yard upkeep and who mops and vacuums? Although society would divide those chores into men’s or women’s work, that is an archetypal view of those roles. We want to live our lives fully in our own individualistic ways, so we start to negotiate and communicate our needs and desires with each other so that we both become individuals in those roles. I hope this makes sense.
With all the work that is required to grow and maintain a relationship, how many of you have felt that it would be easier to simply NOT be in one!? Wouldn’t that solve much of the turmoil we experience in relationships?
Think of it this way...in the presence of our intimate partner, we are faced with our own shadow-work. You know those places within your psyche…the dark places that we keep hidden from the world and oftentimes, from ourselves as well. It is filled with the wounds, traumas, insecurities, fears, desires, and memories that color our world. It’s also filled with things we have not confronted or met in our life’s situations yet. Our shadow-work requires that we bravely step forward into the conversation in order to separate what IS from what we project onto the situation.
Much of what we experience in regards to our struggles in relationships is a mirror that reflects back to us the work that we still need to do, if we can detach enough to examine what is happening. Most often, we are triggered in the present that evokes unfinished, or “uncooked” seeds in our psyche. Because much of what we need to work out comes from our early years within our family, our uncooked seeds stem from triggers from our past. Quite often, our partner is simply a catalyst to our anger, hurt, confusion, or pain. They say or do, or don’t do something that pushes a sensitive “button” in our minds/hearts/souls, and we react accordingly. We are primed to react but what if we could re-own what is ours and with that awareness, begin the process of healing through mindfulness?
Our partner simply served as the trigger to bring our unfinished business to the surface. When we become aware of that, we can step back and not react, but to observe this time and ask ourselves what underlies our emotional reaction. What did that interaction trigger and/or how was that similar to something from our past traumas or sensitivities? Or perhaps we are faced with our beliefs about how our partners “should” behave? We project the archetypal role on the other and expect them to fit into it! With this awareness, we are conscious that we have been triggered and we take the time to observe what is happening outside of us and within our own psyches to enable us to respond to the situation rather than to react to our reaction. It’s a giant leap.
The past or our expectations are not what is happening NOW, but when we are triggered it can evoke a painful past memory or strongly held belief into our current situation. We bring that past into the present and perpetuate its life within our present. How do we let it all go so that we can stop living from the past? How can we learn to not carry these worn-out stories into our present, convincing ourselves about what should be happening, why something is happening, or what it all means? It is our form of protection, but this protective mechanism to react doesn’t allow us to grow and evolve beyond the past. We remain stuck in our past if we cannot see how it impacts our today. Mired in past beliefs, pain or fear, it is difficult for us to grow beyond reacting to reach a point of self illumination and understanding that we have been triggered. Being triggered we may find that our perception is 20/20, but we may also see that we are coloring the situation with our past or strongly held beliefs so we begin the process to unravel the past from the present to allow us to see the truth of the current situation. When we understand that it is the unfinished aspects within our own psyche that prevents us from seeing or communicating clearly, we bring healing to our inner world and our relationships.
Can we stay grounded and keep the veils from obscuring our vision? When we can remember that our buttons are ours and were simply triggered by the person before us, we can bring that mindfulness into the present and work on that wound. The wound has not healed thus it continues to evoke the internal reaction experienced. As Ram Dass would describe it, these “uncooked seeds” in our psyche need more time and attention to fully process.
Seeing the pain as a wound that needs more healing allows us to proactively re-own our own stuff and stop blaming others. If both people in the relationship work on their individual “dragons in the psyche” we are able to create more harmony within and between. This is where it gets tough, however, because to work through the traumas, we need to share what is going on within our hearts, mind and emotions so that our partner can gain some understanding of who we are. To be seen, we need to reveal the inner Self, but the task is for us who must first see, in order to reveal.
So yes, it may be easier to stay out of relationships because your buttons won’t get triggered—at least not the buttons that belong to the “intimate relationships” category. But think of this: psychiatrist Carl Jung believed that we could never fully discover our true Self without being in relationships. We learn about ourselves through the eyes of other people and their response to us. We are tested in relationships in ways that we are not tested otherwise. It is only within relationships that certain aspects of our unresolved shadow-work are triggered. Maybe intimate relationships are a necessary step in our growth process if we are to fully unfold who we can become. Without the interactions and experiences that tend to be a part of these types of relationships, we are never tested to see how we will react or respond to those moments that seem particularly unique to love relationships. What was undiscovered can be uncovered, updated and resolved in the present.
We could say that most of our shadow work comes from our past—our observations and experiences within our families, cultures and society. Each of our families has unique qualities that either foster or prevent the emergence of our uniqueness. The unique cultures to which we were exposed (e.g., religious training, ethnic identities, geographical location where we grew up, what gender expectations were in force as we grew up, or whether we grew up in the military as well as the socioeconomic level of our parents or caregivers), combined with societal bombardment of ideal images or dictates of what it means to be a man or woman serve to shape our shadows. Do we simply assume the status quo for the roles we find ourselves in, or do we make the choice to Individuate—bring to consciousness what is unconscious— and have the courage to emerge more fully as a conscious, aware and mindful person? The work is there to be done.
🙏🏼 Namaste
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Music Credit Acknowledgment:
- Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/rahul-popawala/north-indian-alleys
