In relationship the challenge is staying centered in yourself, putting your cards on the table and recognizing, setting and holding your boundaries. You are concerned with "Will I simply flow into the other?" Hold to your own truth, even when you aren't quite clear what it is; hold to the value of yourself. Say, "This is how I feel. This is how 1 think I feel but I'm not quite sure, etc. etc." You cannot go into the prospect of a deep, long-term commitment, "handling" things - deciding what can be said and what can't be said. Let go of trying to be what you think, what you sense the other person wants. Let go of thinking about what you both need to be is one and the other.

 

In a relationship, there will be actions and tastes and choices that require 'give-and-take'. But, these elements of compromise are not where we compromise our real selves and what we really feel. When you do compromise, own that you are compromising because of the relationship, staying anchored in "who we each are and what we each want."

 

Boundaries are not negative. One learns to deal with boundaries in life, but when a relationship comes along, the inclination is to toss them aside. And at times that can be in accord, if fit is really what you want to do. But the day you really want to do something else and you find yourself saying, "Well, my partner needs me, so I can't do that", we ask you to stop and say, "Now is this situation a true need or have I hit a place where I am uncomfortable owning what I want and need, believing that to love I must give?" Ask, "Can I risk, can I trust that we can both work within this boundary I want and need to set here?" And always you MUST take the risk.

 

Awareness, and the risk inherent in it, is essential -especially for giving, empath-type people who feel vitality when extending themselves to another. If you put yourself aside over and over, you simply drain yourself and eventually begin to disconnect from your Self. In the end, that disconnection grows and often, the only recovery for the Self is to disconnect from the relationship. So your overextending to fill the relationship may be the very thing that erodes it. A relationship with two present Selves. asks you to be willing to be the Guardian of your own wants, your own needs, your Self.

 

Contrary to images of romantic love, there is no need to abandon yourself to relationship. This doesn't mean you cant shift and change, but before you respond to messages either real or perceived, asking you to be what you sense the lover wants, consider instead that the lover recognized that in you which they wanted before the relationship began and this is clearly demonstrated by the fact that you are in a relationship. The question is, when are you modifying because that is what happens in a relationship and when are you giving yourself up?

 

Discernment within relationship is a challenge, but once you bring attention to it, once you know that discernment is what you are dealing with, then you are going to know it. So you can choose to give yourself a little space, a little time and put the cards on the table. This need not be in a defensive, confrontative way. Sometimes people feel they are "holding to the self" what they really want to do is bring the responsibility to the other person. When you say, "You saying that, made me feel like this..." you are really asking the other to be responsible for your reaction, as in "I don't want YOU to feel that way about me, because it makes ME feel this way about myself." That is not "holding to the self." At such times, it is for you to hold the energy for yourself. So what you can say instead is, "When I heard that, I FELT like I was putting myself aside and I want to sit with this because I am not sure this is what I really need to do." What you are doing here is sharing your response. You are holding it for you; letting the other know what is going on. This way you can come to where you both want to be.

 

When you are like this with each other you are saying, "We want to stay with our own truths of ourselves because we will be with our Selves our whole lives and we want our Selves to be together." Being together also asks us to be careful about getting entrapped in principle. Stay in the real truth, the real emotion, the feeling, even if you know that it is paradoxical or mixed up. "I have mixed feelings." Of course, so much of life is mixed feelings. But for instance, if you get sidetracked by principles of the mind, as in, "Well, I don't want to be with someone where I feel like I am compromising." then that can become a red flag that comes up all the time, as opposed to the real times your essence feels compromised, which might be one out of ten.

 

What is real in the situation? For instance, Ann and John are considering moving in together. But Ann wants to draw up an "intent of marriage" before they do so. This is a thought, a concept, not a genuine, heart-linked energy concern. What she is really expressing when she asks for an "intent of marriage" is, "Right now it feels very hard for me to picture making such an emotional 'commitment to only live with John, because what I would really like from this is marriage." That is what the true feeling is. Stay with what is real, because compromises that are at cost to the Self will not allow the relationship to flourish. The risk of loss of the relationship by sharing truth is always worth it. The risk is especially worthwhile to create a relationship that is vital and true; one where you are both each you. Not taking the risk of sharing truth creates relationships where you strive to become YOUR interpretation of what the lover may or may not want.

 

There is a great potential when you focus on what you have recognized in each other, remembering that you felt something which was present before all the ways you try to please and love each other come up; before all the ways you compromise to be together. Embrace the potential to be yourselves and to see yourselves and anchor to yourselves. Be in your truth. Allow being with each other as whole people. Love each other. Like each other. Respect each other. Allow all the feelings, even when they are mixed or at times not fully available. Recognize and affirm each other. Grow to love and be with each other. Allow the full people that you are to feel, to play with, to discover, to work at being full people loving each other.

 

Allow a new paradigm of relationship where you support each other in being, firstly, your own True Selves. You do this by putting the "cards on the table" in all the ways you can - sometimes clearly, sometimes gently, but you can't go on with hidden, unaddressed feelings and issues. At the same time, you have to hold to the commitment that each person has the right to their own feelings. 'Cards on the table' does not necessarily mean you will get the understanding or response you want from stating your feelings. Your impetus may be to say, 'I don't want you to feel bad about this or I want to do something so you don't feel that way', etc, etc. But you can't always have that urge satisfied. In sharing you have to let each person have their "stuff" - their feelings, their reaction - their own needs and concerns and allow them to be with it. If as a couple you are holding the goal, with spiritual awareness, of exploring the Self, and looking at one's own 'stuff', as it were, then that very exploration becomes an active principle in the relationship.

 

Culture tends to not emphasize such clarity in relating. Culture asks us to put things 'on the back burner', in the closet, to put things away. At the end of a relationship people try to get it out of the closet and put it on the table and work it out, but often by then the relationship has already unraveled and working it out is too hard as they are already disconnected and they let go of the connection.

 

The focal point is that you want to be in a relationship where you are still very aware of your relationship with you; where you are the prominent energy in your life. People try to compromise for love in many ways, but. simply, compromises at cost of the True Self do not serve.

 

Let relationships evolve, don’t make them. Sometimes people want to get things 'settled' in a relationship, ie, living together, getting married, to avoid the conscious processing of the relationship as in, 'I love you, I married you, so that tells you where I am with you.' Rather, embrace mindful relationship. Avoiding being conscious leads only to separation.

 

The energy of recognition, of attraction, of passion - all that is love - can support building a strong platform of relating. People can use love to gloss over the differences. Instead, use it to relate consciously and mindfully. Rather than exploring the hard parts, they say, 'We'll just have our love and that will make it all work out.' and it can do that for a while, but eventually the unseen will erode the connection and people will feel they simply did not love each other enough. Use the intensity of attraction and connection to see, saying, "We've got so much connection here, we've got love here, let's use that energy, that power to say, 'Okay, can we look at the scary things? Can we look at that I am uncomfortable about this and you might want that from me.' This is how you can have a wise, spiritually-aware, fun, love relationship.

 

Go with relationships newly, in different ways; exploring the new ways, even though they may feel awkward as they evolve. Share the principles of Aware Love, Being- Present- Love. You can make up the structure of your own relationship together, in ways that might not be what other people do or what you have done yourself before. Embrace yourselves together. Together We Come to Ourselves. 

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