Relationships - the fabric of our life
Relationships… can be a loaded term, so jam packed with stories and emotions, so liable to explode in any moment… And they do. Quite often in the form of angry attacks projecting our perceptions onto others, or tears of pain and hurt emotions. Yet sometimes they can have an energy of imploding where we swear that no-one will ever hurt us again and in order to ensure this, we shut down from others or our own feelings and put on that mask that says I am F.I.N.E while the issue festers in our body as a headache, menstrual pain, back ache, nausea or any number of other feelings of dis-ease. And YES, relationships can also create positive explosions such as that of love making and chemical responses in the body that give us that warm and fuzzy or inspired feeling. They can light up our heart, connect us with our passionate expressions or call us home to be fully present in the moment and in our body.
So how do we foster these soul nurturing relationship that carry us through life and feed us with loving connection, living the fullness of our being? Conversation and communication.
Effective communication has 3 phases, 1. message sent, 2. message received, 3. Feedback to sender that message is received. This simple formula is invaluable when it comes to having those important conversations that we all need to have. I see its value everyday in my clinic practice. I see the body relax as it gets feedback that its tension has been acknowledged and addressed. I see movement enhanced throughout the body when it receives feedback about where it is stuck. Body’s are amazing at self healing. They give us these messages through pain or discomfort and then they mobilise the appropriate body chemistry, blood flow, energy and neural signalling to the area of imbalance when we appropriately acknowledgement the message it has sent. The key is in knowing what that “appropriate” acknowledgement is… that is the bit that can get a bit tricky and blurry, as most of us aren’t practiced at listening to our body. We are more practiced at listening to the mind, and the societal and familial ways of being which generally go something like this…“toughen up and get on with life” or “too busy/not enough time to deal with this”. So many other things can take precedent in our life over and above our body’s wisdom and communication. Over the 20 odd years I have been consulting with people, the key issues that are shared by most people is A. not feeling heard, B. not feeling appreciated or C. not feeling loved. So if we are not giving ourselves these things by ignoring our body’s communication, how can we expect others to do it? When I started taking responsibility for these 3 things in my life, my relationship with myself and others improved immensely.
Relationships are the fabric of our life. Despite what we may think, we are never isolated. We all exist on this web of life and are always in relationship with something, be it our head, heart, body or spirit, our family, friends, nature and even the inanimate objects. By the way, one of my greatest relationships is that I have with food and bed. Eating and sleeping brings me so much health and joy when I have a good relationship with them. In fact, when we have a good relationship with all aspects of our life, it can make the difference between a hollow life and a fulfilled life. I know this ‘hollow’ space well, in fact it has always been a potent change point in my life, so there is no judgement from me about being in this space. So let’s get to these 3 conversations I have for you.
Conversation with the body
Conversation with the heart
Conversation with significant others
What conversations are we having you ask? Simply this, “What matters most?” and “What do you need?”
Allow me to explain with a personal example. I find personal stories useful when it comes to painting a picture and hearing the relevance.
There was a time in my life that I was in a lot of physical pain. My menstrual cycle was painful, I would get headaches and numerous physical pains and it was difficult for me to feel at ease in myself. Despite my vigilence in giving my body healthy food, exercise, plenty of rest and a purpose to be focused on, there was still this sense of discomfort, dis-ease and “unhappiness”. I was extremely unsettled in myself and in truth, the relationship I was in at that time was not what I really wanted, yet I was so fixated on my end result of “getting married”. In short, I didn’t want this 5 years of my life to be a waste of time and have to start all over again to get what I wanted - a husband! I was in my mid 30’s and sure as hell did not want to be “on the shelf” this late in life. So I began a morning practice for myself and sat in meditation and in relationship with myself each morning for many days, months and beyond a year.
There was this sense of perturbation within me. It felt like I was boiling water, ready to turn to steam at any moment. In my daily practice I would sit with some questions “what did I need to heal” and “what did I need to remain on my hearts path?”. Bit by bit I regained a sense of clarity and strength and eventually the transformation occurred. I got the opportunity to do a nursing re-entry course, it happened to be in Western Australia. I was living in Brisbane at the time and every other state had closed the door on me for the nursing re-entry course. I happened to have a “friend” in Perth who I could stay with while I did my training. So I said goodbye to my family and friends in the east and walked away from my Kinesiology and KaHuna massage practice that I had spent 10 years building and embarked on this new journey which in my head looked like the most outrageous move that I could make and looked so wrong, yet felt so right. I am usually a very cautious, calculated, and organised person, so this move was out of character for me. Yet I had developed this very strong relationship with my heart and my body and they were both telling me that it was ok.
My new life immediately gave me a sense of feeling at home and this friend of mine has become my husband. We have had many beautiful moments in life, living a fulfilling relationship because we both have these conversations with ourselves and each other. We are frequently attuning ourselves to “what really matters” and “what we need”. This kind of relationship is like having a mirror right in front of your face where you can’t not notice those tired eyes, or that tension in the jaw etc. etc. And that is a healing gift. When emotions or conflict arises we can be a witness to the other and truly hear and hold a space of love for healing to occur. Disharmony and conflict in relationships are perfect opportunities to call our spirit back from previous unhelpful patterns, stories or pain, so that we resolve the past and become whole again. So next time these moments of disharmony or conflict arise, be it within yourself or with a relationship you have, dare to be fully present and aware and listen deeply to yourself and your needs. That is where we find the gold and walk the path of self mastery. The answers and the resolution doesn’t always come immediately, but at least in the meantime you are developing a loving relationship with yourself.
If this article has brought anything up for you or you wanted to discuss anything with me, I would love to connect with you and see if we can find some gold together.