-We Dance In Many Relationships Throughout Our Lives-

Since Valentine’s Day is upon us, today and tomorrow we take a new look at the Lover archetype as it plays out upon the stage of Life. Our life experiences all result from our interactions with others on many levels; as we learn from our interactions, we understand how to become wise and happy in our choices.

Though I’ve given you this material before, this year I’ll announce that the concepts discussed in these two Valentine’s Day articles are part of a book I’m writing on help mates, Soul Mates, and Twin Flames. These are definitely not the same things, and knowing the distinctions can help us to understand our Spiritual journey in the field of relationships, and why some things happened as they did. For now, let’s begin our exploration of relationships and the signs and signals of healthy v unhealthy ones.

According to a venerable source, we are taught that “Right Relationship” is a foundation of the New Age. So please come along on a brief journey as we revisit some ideas on love, affection, boundaries, loyalties, seduction, and courtship. By identifying and changing unloving patterns, we take command of our Great Work and become healthy Lover archetypes.

The Tibetan offers that understanding and living "Right Relationships" is one of the key lessons we humans are learning throughout our lives on this Earth. All relationships teach us on-going lessons in finding and living our Highest Self. All relationships mirror who we are back to us, since in what we do and don’t do we find self-awareness.

What we say “yes” to and what we say “no” to on every level of life entirely determines the lessons we’re dealing with at any moment. Through our errors we come to an understanding of what we learned; though our successful interactions we become creative builders in both inner and outer space.

Every interaction we have with everyone we encounter throughout our lives teaches us the relationship between our lower self and our Higher Self. In each interaction, either we’re expressing our Higher Self’s intention, or dealing with the errors of the lower self’s desires. Each interaction teaches us about our attachment to perception, as well as obsolete or counterproductive ways of relating to others.

Our interactions with people and with things across time gives us many perspectives. Regardless of the quality of these interactions, it is how we gain experience. Everyone has “an urge to merge.” This keeps us from totally retreating into our “shell of personality” and never leaving our private echo chamber house of mirrors. And of course, our worldly exchanges yield a combination of pleasurable as well as painful experiences.

Navigating the Pleasure-Pain Duality

We all have to deal with a variety of relationships during the course of our lives, and those yield a variety of experiences. Some of these are pleasurable while others are painful. While often these are determined by the fact that we don’t control how others will act, certainly over time and experience we can learn to choose which patterns repeat, and what we can do to change the ones that aren't good for us.

We all like pleasurable experiences with others. However, we seldom find anyone we are totally compatible with. Most of us have a mixture of similarity and differences with others. How we navigate the differences generates dynamic interactive harmony or friction and disharmony.

We all bring attitudes and pre-existing beliefs to every interaction. Obviously some attitudes are helpful, while others are hurtful. Every interaction shapes our attitude in countless ways, which then shapes our future interactions.

To steer our personality into the best relationships we can have, we must become aware of our preconceptions, since they condition whether we’re seeing clearly in an interaction. We also must become aware of our projections, which I’ll discuss later. Here I will offer that occasionally these fall away like shadows in sunlight when we realize we are with a spiritual Sister or Brother and can choose to be the highest Being we can be.

Our individual and mutual awareness when we're with others, and how we both respond to the dance between us, influences our experience with them. That's why examining and honoring "what brought us to the dance" to begin with can be a good reminder of why we're there and what we can bring out of the experience. Often by knowing the cause of entry into the relationship we can examine the patterns around why it unfolds the way it does, and come to know the meaning and lessons it holds for us.

Of course, people being who they are, sometimes what was once pleasurable between two people becomes painful for a variety of reasons. It may or may not be personal, avoidable, or even the "fault" of one or the other. Then the future of the relationship is determined by the willingness of both to move forward in some way that is mutually satisfying to each and both.

Sometimes what is painful to one is not to the other. Sometimes two beings have become more disharmonious than harmonious for whatever reasons. We are constantly moving through countless life experiences in other realms which shape our attitudes. Life goes on, and we all grow in ways we may not have expected. To quote a wise One, “The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on….”

That’s why from time to time we find we have to examine our attitudes about our relationships, and move toward those which promise a greater sense of fellowship and happiness. It doesn’t mean we can simply walk away from people who mean a lot to us, but it does require an honest self-awareness that we need to redirect the old patterns of acting, feeling, and speaking into something more satisfying.

It is in the honest interactions of exploring where each other is at that we find we still have mutual areas in common, or have grown apart and are moving on trajectories which will never intersect again. Some we are close to for a while, and stay close, even though we and they have moved on. Others are with us for a while, and then we both walk on.

Simply because we've danced with a Being for a while, even years, doesn't mean we're necessarily supposed to dance with them indefinitely. Different seasons of life require different ways of living, different skills and realizations, and different people bring out different parts of our inner nature.

Of course, we should always maintain relationships with those who share our Heart Fire. We always can find a greater Love and Wisdom through associations with our Spiritual Brothers and Sisters. We can do that even though others may preoccupy our attention so we both can develop what we need to at that juncture of our life.

Again, examining the dance with new people can help us gain perspective about what's right and/or not right in all of our existing relationships. The dance is endless to the degree we stay open to meeting other people, and the variety of experience that comes with many relationships helps us to a deep and well-rounded understanding of “Right Relationship.” All relationships show us what our ego thinks we are, and also reveals to our Consciousness where we’re at in our evolution.

Karma and Relationships

Often we meet people due to past karmas, while other times it's a choice made in the moment. Not everyone we meet was "destined," and many choices we make along the way create who shows up and when. Even then, we need to know why we’re there, and where not to go.

I believe that many interactions and choices in our life must be chalked up to "it seemed like a good idea at the time." While we can still bring a higher awareness out of painful experiences, it's important to note that it is up to us to know when, to quote a well-known phrase, it's time to "hold 'em, fold 'em, walk away or run..."

How long a relationship lasts is entirely up to how we treat each other, since even apparently good ones can turn sour due to all kinds of reasons. Some relationships are tested through circumstances that aren't the "fault" of either person. Here the trials of life can help us know more about our strengths and weaknesses, as well as knowing what we are and are not responsible for.

All relationships evolve as a result of how people behave toward each other. As we get to know someone, we see them exhibit many types of responses. While everyone has idiosyncrasies, it's important to discriminate between behavior that is harmless and behavior that is a true deal breaker. Regardless of points of view, we are never supposed to put up with non-loving, abusive, manipulative, or one-sided relationships.

An Introduction to Seduction

One thing that is always present in any toxic relationship is some element of seduction, or coercion. These can take many forms, and none will lead to healthy relationships. Seduction can feel very exciting, but as many of you already know, the wreckage isn't worth the price.

You can spot seductions by noticing if there are negotiations that involve you compromising something you believe in, or feel coerced into something that doesn't feel quite right. There may be elements of feeling like you're spinning your wheels, or that something is one-sided to the point where you know something's wrong, whether you can put your finger on it or not.

Other ways that indicate an element of seduction might be present include power games that leave you feeling that something is out of balance or even a sense of increasing powerlessness, or when you struggle with ideas or feelings that aren't ordinarily there when you're happy. These times often involve feeling responsible for something you’re not responsible for.

If there is a perceived agreement we didn’t agree to, or a sense of being blamed for not making something happen according to another’s expectation, it’s a seduction. So is being persuaded that what we remember isn’t true, and what they remember is true, with no comparison of the facts as each remember them. Often there is a lie or misrepresentation in a seduction. Lies and deceptions that are justified by one to the detriment of the other always shows a seduction.

I do not believe any relationship can last where one is undermining the other, creating dependencies or self-doubt, or diminishing the sense of love we have for ourselves. When we feel these are happening, if we dig a little deeper we usually find at least one of various kinds of narcissistic behavior fueling a seduction is being forced on us.

Narcissism is not Self-Love. It is vanity attached to an impermanent form that exalts the false sense of the ego-self over any true feeling of love. Throughout our lives we encounter different experiences of both Higher Love and lower desires. By learning the difference between how these feel, we come to see patterns, and by changing any tendencies that attract the lower, over time we stop being seduced into attachments and affections that leave us feeling badly, or a sense that we’re not being true to ourselves.

As We Embrace A Greater Love, We Become A Greater Love

Remember our true Eternal nature is Unconditional Love, Wisdom, and Intelligence. As we embrace our Higher Self these higher qualities of our Soul-Spirit will become more evident in our actions, feelings, and thoughts.

As we embrace this higher "Self-Love," we find it's directly related to our ability to love "God," our Truth of Being, and our community of loving Souls. These are solid reference points where we find gateways to a Higher Love. When we're oriented toward our higher Love, we cannot be seduced away from that which supports and demonstrates our Soul.

All relationships show us what we do and do not like or admire, or perhaps need to learn to like or admire. In learning about what to embrace and what to refuse, we learn what matters a lot, what matters a little, and what doesn’t or shouldn’t matter at all. Sometimes in our friendships we simply must tolerate some relatively harmless dislikes so we can grow in how we respond to that which is unfamiliar or doesn’t conform to our preconceptions.

Others also go through this in their relationship to us. We usually don't have problems with what we both like; the rub in relationships is what one or both don't like. That's where small frictions become the grist for the mill of Soul, where we both learn the art of give and take. The Lover must learn the give and take in relationships, treating others as equals in the interaction while maintaining both autonomy and fair exchange.

This shows us how to maintain balanced loving friendships with those who share our deeper feelings and thoughts regardless of our disagreement in particulars. Small frictions should never lead to a violation of boundaries, free will, or our sense of loving God and each other. If we feel these are violated, then usually coercion is present in the form of a seduction.

We owe it to ourselves to be treated with respect, love, affection, and friendliness. As we learn to embrace and demonstrate these qualities in our personality, we simultaneously learn to recognize and demonstrate these in a conscious way in our circumstances and relationships. Practicing “Right Relationship” as we are able creates a habit of being that way at each opportunity. Then over time we become more natural in our heart’s expression in our interactions.

As we live these higher qualities the best we're able, it opens opportunities to model respect, love, affection, and friendliness to others, and leads us to an ever-wider variety of ways to practice these appropriate to our interactive magnetism. Ultimately, the more we treat ourselves with these qualities, regardless of how we perceive we’re succeeding or failing, the easier it gets to offer them to our world on a consistent basis.

Whether spontaneous or learned, we can all grow into a greater love, respect, affection, and friendliness toward others with no hidden agendas to mess up the interaction. We may be fallible, but we’re also eternally evolving and growing if we choose to do so. By becoming aware of and renouncing our own hidden agendas, we are naturally able to spot them in our interactions.

When there are hidden agendas, there are usually elements of seduction present. These are never as harmless as it seems, since seduction usually involves forms of manipulation by the seducer. Once we get beyond seducing and being seduced, we neither manipulate nor can be manipulated. This leads to cultivating the virtues of detachment, dispassion, and discrimination even as it allows us to generate whatever good we feel is appropriate for us, another, or our world.

When we have a healthy Lover archetype, we are free to be ourselves, and welcome others to be themselves. That allows us to enjoy the interaction freed from the snares of ego, since we understand healthy and reasonable boundaries and can express a greater Love, both personal and impersonal.

As we change old patterns that attracted the lesser, we begin to live a different way of relating to ourselves, others, our world and experiences, as well as Life itself. Then we ARE the Love we once sought, and can BE that greater Love in our world.

So truly, Happy Valentine’s Day! May you all be inspired to find the Higher Love that attracts truly loving friends and companions so that all may find what they need to nourish and strengthen their Soul connections.

© Copyright 2020 Robert Wilkinson - https://www.aquariuspapers.com
Reprinted on crystalwind.ca with persmission from Robert Wilkinson.