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We have a relationship with everything in our lives. Relationship dynamics are not often discussed and less understood. Our individual perspective/reality meshes with others perspective/reality forming a relationship dance that few understand, are aware of, respect or honor.

This site is about exploring relationships of all kinds so that we can all become more consciously aware of the inner workings of relationships, be they human, animal, nature, or our place in the Universe.

Friday, July 4, 2008

One and One make Three - Relationship Dynamics

When two people meet, they begin to create a relationship creature which is separate than the two of them. They each put into the creature, feelings, thoughts, desires and hopes that they want. Sometimes it ends up looking like a fuzzy, cozy white polar bear and sometimes it ends up looking like a vampire. No matter what it ends up looking like, it is seemingly alive and well and after nurturing (for the best or for the worst), it begins to take on a life of its own. Relationship creatures are created with emotions, assumptions, and non spoken agreements, verbal communications as well as non-verbal communications and the inability to recognize that we are separate individuals and need to keep it that way. Women, especially, have the tendency to forget that last part.

Without spoken agreements, clarity and discernment, the common tendency is to fall victim of the unspoken agreements and often times, begin doing each others dirty laundry (metaphysically speaking and sometimes literally speaking).

We each bring into relationships our own special way of thinking, our own emotional bag of tricks, we pedal our own wares. Some of them belong in the make up of the creature and others do not.

The formation of unspoken agreements leads down paths and creates things that we seldom really consciously comprehend. If you do something once, it is accepted by the other as chance, do the same thing twice and it is noticed, do it for the third time and it is considered by the other person as an (unspoken agreement) - they hire you for that job forever more. Take the garbage, for instance. The first time you take it out, is a nice act on your part, appreciated and is considered considerate. The second time you do it, it is noticed. Gee, the garbage is being taken out, I like that. The third time you do it, you better be prepared to do it from now on because it is now considered your job. You agreed silently to take it on as well. You co-created this job as being yours. And on the fourth day - if you don’t take out the garbage, then you face righteous indignation from the other person. You have been taking out the garbage, why didn’t you do it today, I expected you to do it and had a guest for breakfast and there was the garbage smelling up the house. I was embarrassed and it was all your fault. But, if you were to put a verbal response to that action in the first place - it would be a different story and the creature would be created in a different way. You could have said, I’m taking out the garbage again today, but don’t expect me to do it every morning. I am not agreeing to do it every day. Or, the other person could have said, I see that you have been taking out the garbage for the past several days, I want you to know that I won’t expect you to do it every day as it is our house and our garbage. And the other person might reply, Well, I will take this on as my job. I will be the garbage remover, I will agree to do that. This sort of verbal response and communication sets up a whole different ambiance within the relationship, and creates a relationship creature based on actual spoken agreements, that can be changed any time and adjusted, but can be counted on while they are in place.

There are some personal things that do not belong in a relationship creature. Our personal baggage, our personal trials, worries, concerns, needs and things of that nature. We each have to maintain our own sandbox and we have no business asking others to come clean up our sandbox just as we have no business jumping into someone else's sandbox and trying to fix it, either. As my friend once said to me, this is my problem, I get to fix it and sort it out. If you jump in and try to fix it for me, then you take away the chance of my fixing it myself, learning how to do it and feeling good about it.

A real good agreement to have in a relationship is that the other person agrees not to own your personal stuff and you agree not to own their personal stuff. When you have a problem, and you want to discuss it with someone, you can say, Please don’t own this, it is my concern, but I would like to share it with you in the form of you listening and perhaps giving me your point of view.

After a while, relationship creatures take on a life of their own. They are made of energy, and they get to pull energies from places that humans can’t and they can create magic - white or black depending what energy they have been created of.

When a relationship is over, and there is only one person that is putting into a relationship creature, it starts to die. It pulls at you, nags you, prompts you to hang on. These are the times, when we want to let go of a relationship and find it almost impossible to do so. It is a help to know that it is the relationship creature, going through it’s own stuff. If we recognize this, we can allow it, acknowledge it and say, yes, I sense that you are sick and unhappy, I’m sorry, but it is not mine to fix. Sometimes this is a way of breaking loose from the ‘tie that binds’ us to relationships that are over.

It is interesting to me that people think about relationships as being ‘joined together’ - who wants to be joined with someone else? - I have enough trouble just figuring out my own sandbox.I mean, even Siamese twins are separated - and besides, I like my sand box. I like being able to look at it and say, Oh my goodness, I sure have created a mess this time, so I think I’ll create something else because this doesn’t serve me very well. When I create a nightmare - I try to wrap it in love to remove the sharp edges and send it on its way. I have created many things in my life, I have danced with lots of illusions and I am aware that I can change the agreements and therefore the way the illusions look.

© Prissy Hamilton - 7/2008