- Rabindranath Tagore
Crucial insights can be lost when it comes to relationships. People think they are doing it right, when they believe every feeling and concern must be communicated and continually have “the talk” about what is going on, and endlessly process what happened when an interaction becomes difficult, but
sometimes we can overdue the communication by trying to keep everything out in the open.
Now, an honest, open relationship is a beautiful thing, and we should not accept anything less. But it does not all hinge on good communication. When we do not own our emotional reactions we bring tension, conflict and separation to our relationships.
Own Your Emotions
Instead of taking a breath and meeting our own experience when we feel frustrated or hurt, we blame, criticize, fight, manipulate, and spend our precious time rationalising our opinions to ourselves and everyone around us.
We have moved away from the solo activity of being present with our experience. The effects? We are driven to engage when we are emotionally charged, not calm. (Not a good plan.) Our minds spin in judgment and confusion, trying to make sense of it all.
Is this what you really want? Do you want to foster friction and divisiveness—or do you want to meet the people in your life with an open, loving heart and mind?
Turning Toward Your Inner Experience
The beginning of a bold and courageous way of being is to turn your attention away from the other person and directly into yourself. You stop seeing others through the veil of your own pain.
What happens? Compassion naturally arises—for others and for yourself.
Your reactions to other people are a beautiful invitation for your awakening. They reflect back to you areas of unexplored emotion and show you how you hide from yourself.
Here is what is possible: Being triggered by others becomes a time of celebration. You get to see where you are stuck so you can be free. Then you show up open and kind in your interactions. When you start reflecting on your own inner experience, you make some amazing discoveries.
- If you lash out at your partner in anger, you might realize you are actually afraid.
- If you judge and constrict your children, maybe you feel helpless as a parent or scared about what might happen to them.
- If you are waiting for affection, you may be missing the opportunity to know yourself as already whole and complete.
Take any relationship that causes you stress or discomfort, and like a trail of breadcrumbs, follow your reaction back into yourself to its source. It will guarantee you an illuminating discovery.
Meeting Your Reactions For Harmony In Your Relationships
Often, the strong feelings that arise in our interactions echo an unresolved relationship from our past. If you were criticized by an overly demanding parent, it will not take much for a boss correcting your work to seem like a tyrant in your eyes. If you were abandoned in your youth, a friend calling to cancel plans at the last minute may cause you to feel like you are five again.
Any reaction that seems too intense for the situation at hand has undoubtedly triggered some old, undigested feelings.
What to do when these emotions are revealed? Acknowledge them. Experience how they feel in your body. Own them so they do not complicate your interactions.
Learn how to be with your experience. It is absolutely the most loving thing you can do for yourself and everyone else.
When you meet your emotions within yourself, you bring harmony to your relationships. You are no longer sensitive and reactive. You are available for the deepest intimacy with all that is.
With thanks to Gail Brenner http://gailbrenner.com/2014/12/harmony-to-your-relationships/
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