A Lifestyle Lesson in Relating
According to Anne’s Anatomy, we humans exist in the form of consciousness across at least ten dimensions. Consciousness is the eternal, original, and single state of I AM. Here everything in existence is ONE.
However, consciousness itself participates in the process of differentiation, branching itself out into individualized experiences meant to be experienced individually.
This first happens at the dimension of the sacred mind (i.e., the soul). Here we are our absolute ethereal selves and we pay no attention to time and space. But as we move through the manifestation “down” into more individualized states, we become more and more differentiated.
We are most familiar with this phenomenon in our skin at the third dimension. The skin is what separates my body from yours, and it’s at this level of differentiation that most humans exist.
Yet, there’s more.
If we move down to the second dimension, we begin to experience more consolidated parts of ourselves. Physically this exists as bones, but more specifically, this experience happens when we create “if-then” contracts with other people around us.
If I deliver your newspaper, you’ll pay me x number of dollars.
If I rub your back, you’ll rub mine.
If you make all the money, I’ll take care of the kids.
These relational contracts delineate how others’ individual actions will relate to your individual actions. Bankers and business people make conscious contracts all the time.
The rest of us are usually making invisible, unconscious contracts with family and friends daily.
Sometimes these contracts are beneficial and feel good. But sometimes these contracts are imbalanced and feel bad.
The key to nurturing healthy relationship with family, friends, pets, places, and other people lies in our ability to create balanced, empowered, and boundaried contracts with other individual selves of the planet.
Here are three ways to do just that.
SEE: Examine your relational contracts.
This will be easy for some aspects of your relationships, and more difficult for others.
Some contracts are surface level.
Because you’re my child, I’ll buy you clothes, food, and other things that nurture your development.
Because we are married, our financial lives will be woven together.
Because you’re my parent, I’ll help you with that tricky IT dilemma.
But some of them are not so surface level.
Because you are my child, I allow you to be harsh, abusive, and to take up more of my time than I would normally allow anyone else.
Because we are married, I will have sex with you even when I don’t want to.
Because you’re my parent, I won’t take my vacation out of state because you need me here.
Before making any changes to your relational contracts, you need to know what they are.
STOP: Practice waiting when someone asks something of you.
Our relational contracts usually exist unconsciously, so we give our energy freely and automatically. Sometimes the other person doesn’t even have to ask.
For better or worse, people are allowed to make demands on our time and energy however they see fit. After all, it’s their responsibility to make sure their needs are being met.
But it’s not ours.
So whenever someone asks something of you, stop impulsively going along with it. Instead, take a little extra time to go inward and determine if it’s something you are able to give graciously and without resentment.
START: Identify things you need from other people and find ways to write those details into your relational contracts.
Contracts feel good when they’re balanced - when we receive as much as we gain.
Contracts feel bad when they’re imbalanced - when we give more than we receive.
In order to write good contracts, we need to be honest with ourselves first about what we need.
Identifying needs isn’t always easy, but one way to identify a gap in our energy field is to examine places in our experience where we feel frantic or fried.
Are your mornings or evenings chaotic?
When do you feel most pressed for time?
Who are you most resentful toward by the end of the day?
Answering those three questions will help steer you toward self-reflection that may reveal details of your contracts where your needs aren’t being met. This is always a good place to start in a renegotiation.
MAGIC MANTRA: I deserve to be filled up.