Sacred Relationship as a Mirror

Every relationship, especially those closest to us, are windows into our own psyche. They help reveal the dynamics of how we relate with different parts of ourselves.

When a relationship is new, it often is exciting, enlivening, an adventure, and a portal into a mystery of infinite potential.

As time unfolds, we start to experience familiar patterns and unresolved challenges arise. Yet with the right perspectives, a committed partnership can be one of the most healing and transformative containers for growth, helping each individual see and resolve internal conflict and deep causes of limitation.

These type of conscious relationships, based on conscious agreements, allows for the harmony of togetherness to be a guiding force that ceaselessly carries the couple through the thick and dark woods of familial and cultural conditioning – all that gets projected outwardly onto the world around us.

In this perspective, relationships are sacred. The togetherness offers a palpable presence of unity – a pure emanation of the same unity of creation and creator / all life. This force of togetherness offers a pathway back – again and again to our own experience of the sacred.

True freedom is independent of any outward condition, there is no-thing required to grant permission for its experience or expression. In an ultimate sense unconditional love is freedom – the highest form of love is allowing another form of life to be itself completely, to explore and enjoy the wonder of creation.

This is in one sense an inner posture, in another sense our unbound nature. Through conditioning emotional bonds form, subtle forms of dependency which construct a sense of self that tries to preserve its existence just as any form of life – based upon feelings, dependent upon emotional attachment to conditions.

Co-dependency means that our sense of wellbeing or “normal” is dependent upon conditions. This concept reaches from the very most outward expression to the very subtlest forms of dependencies – such as upon emotions and feelings.

If a sense of self depends upon anything for its existence then it is oriented and motivated (by design) to preserve that sense of self – and the conditions that create it. It’s not truly possible to experience freedom if there is a subtle bondage to anything within the moment.

This is an existential truth as well as a very practical reality within relationship dynamics.

* * * The Depth of Triggers ***

Relationships mirror back to us our own internal dynamics. Interactions elicit feelings, but often these situations are just replays of early childhood experiences and family / parental dynamics. Echoing the insecurities, angers, frustrations of our past and feelings of not being loved or good enough as we are.

The pain points are caused by the insecurities / wounds of our most formative years – when we were still forming our sense of self during the ages of 0 – 7.

We don’t need to know exactly where the pain comes from – we just need to understand that our feelings are uniquely ours and not produced alone by the external events and thus unentangle ourselves from the outward situation. The world is simply portraying itself in similar ways to the past that creates a psycho-physiological “trigger” and sense of danger to the nervous system. The outer situation isn’t the cause, it’s only reminiscent in some way of the wound of the past and produces an urgency of potential danger – then fight or flight response shutting off the capacity to empathize and make neutral decisions – it prepares the psycho-physiological system to fight.

The places where we are most triggered are the places in greatest need of healing. Healing requires a deep willingness to feel uncomfortable and explore / bring a sense safety to these places with care and compassion. In other words, healing is rewiring the nervous system’s automatic instinctual responses to perceived threat with a psycho-physiological assurance of safety while maintaining consciousness and sense of connection. That connection is mainly with ourselves and our own feelings, yet translates outward to our ability to empathize with others as human beings having dynamic experiences – shifting from the me to the we.

Spiritually / biologically we are wired to seek our essential nature – interconnected wholeness and unity with life. From the womb our every need is provided for. Upon leaving the womb our journey of sovereignty unfolds, with complete dependency upon our caregivers to provide for all our needs. If these needs are not met, including psycho-emotional, there are feelings of something being wrong or a wound that forms. It’s painful to not have needs met, especially when there is not the biological capacity to comprehend nor meet these needs oneself. These moments create a sense of disconnect, aloneness, separation and lack of intimacy / unity with life.

These core wounds are stored deep within the psycho-physiological instrument as a felt sense of self.

That felt sense of self is a layered filter through which all experiences pass through. The psycho-physiological system is constantly on guard for circumstances that similarly correspond with the core wounds. Thus the world is filtered through this sense of potential danger and threat and the daily interactions / relationships, especially those we cannot get away from at will, can / will trigger defenses mobilized around those core wounds.

If we have a clear context for whats happening and tools / resources for how to “do the work” – then these triggers are opportunities for healing and growth. Otherwise they trigger psycho-physiological fight or flight reactions that mobilizes resources to get away and defend the “ship” at all costs.

* * * The Sacred Relationship * * *

A committed conscious relationship creates a safe container of togetherness, the safety of interconnection and intimacy – when we drop all defenses it provides the experience of what it means to be one with life. But these relationships will also present moments that are reminiscent and triggering of wounds.

It’s important to maintain even a single thread of awareness of the sacredness of the relationship and how valuable that interconnection is. It needs to be more valuable than the sense of survival and defenses that instinctively arise.

This is the power of consciousness within the human being and the potential to rewrite our past.

Naturally there is a desire to get away from the pain and our fluctuating psycho-emotional state will reflect that. Upon being triggered the brain’s centers for logic and reason are impaired or shut down. The resources are instead mobilized towards defense. 

It’s entirely up to each individual to navigate the internal storm and choose to return to the sacred center of remembrance within. It WILL NOT be easy, it WILL NOT necessarily be an immediate felt experience of “connection”. But the stronger the conviction / orientation towards the sacred, the easier it will be to re-align and navigate towards it.

This center is literally found in the heart. Not in a mushy or dependent sense of feeling a certain way – but in the sense that the heart offers a perspective / perception of unity beyond the conditions of the mind and nervous system’s orientation towards survival.

The heart offers a safe space for connection and genuine feeling. This is a place where healing happens, especially in the moments of feeling unsafe. The heart provides a refuge, right at the center of the raging storm.

It’s not seeking anything, it goes on beating and doing its part. We can consciously turn our attention towards calming our psycho-physiological state by breathing in a calm and rhythmic way. Breathing deeply with full inhales through the nose and exhales through the mouth. 

It’s important to want to heal more than “win the battle”. 

In this way, with consciously re-establishing a sense of safety and calm, the reactive patterns of survival that surround the pain points are dismantled. The tension that surrounds and holds the reactive patterns in place relaxes and creates more space.

Over time the unconscious / subconscious patterns lose their strength and the core wounding / story that defines the feelings, create a context and underlying beliefs are seen without charge.

These core beliefs that surround the wounds are the final shell that isolates the felt pain held deeply within the psyche as a core aspect that makes up the sense of identity. When that belief is seen and reconciled as incoherent with ones deepest truth, it will fall away.

It requires conscious effort to change the automatic repetition and internal dialogue that upholds the internal structure of self, but once it’s seen, the illusion of solidity is no more. The house of cards will come down.

The more conscious we can be about how these core beliefs and the stories that grow out of them and how this plays a role in how we interpret the world and our role within it – the more deliberate we can be in affirming our deepest truth moment to moment and disentangling the internal conflicts. Thus creating an internal harmony which manifests as resilience regardless of the external circumstance. The core sense of self is not dependent upon transitory feelings – it is truly sovereign and whole in itself.

Painful moments are opportunities to dismantle the reactive patterns and choose new responses reflecting safety, freedom, and unconditional love. Consciousness guides the show and naturally aims to produce the greatest expression of harmony and togetherness as possible – which is the internal truth of our existence.

* * * Sacred Partnership * * *

Within a context of a committed sacred relationship, we again and again choose harmony over comfort. Not at the expense of wellbeing on any part – and standing upon fundamental agreements such as honesty and respect along with a commitment to authentically communicate needs.

Each partner meets the other where they are at, instead of trying to change the other, we instead lovingly accept ourselves to create the internal freedom to be able to better serve one another and nurture the sense of safe warm caring respectful container that evolves and endures through even the most challenging experiences.

Only time reveals unconditioned love – true freedom which translates into every dimension of life.

If a relationship is based upon appearances, lifestyle or even preferences, it will inevitably be shaken from its foundation as changes transpire.

Yet if the relationship is seen and cherished for the gift that it is, it will blossom forth into greater maturity and freedom to be oneself and accept others as they are as well – orienting deeper purpose towards the appreciation of the sacred within all and revealing the opportunity to serve its unfoldment every moment.

* * * Sacred Relationship Counseling * * *

Sacred relationship counseling is for individuals who wish to use their partnership as a vehicle for personal growth. Who understand that challenges are opportunities which reflect one’s own limitations and invite healing, integration and / transformation evolution.

Allowing greater capacity for freedom and presence, not just within the relationship but every dimension of life.

Although it takes two to maintain a healthy relationship that may endure and nurture throughout all the ups and downs of life… It only takes one to neutralize conflict and catalyze a deeper sense of understanding, safety, the ability to deepen into unconditional love and strength of togetherness.

These session are focalized upon the partnership yet really reveal patterns that run throughout the life as opportunities to transform the deepest unresolved wounding and sense of self, connection and wholeness.