Deep Relationship

©2009 Carlisle Bergquist, MA, MFCC, Ph.D.c.

“If you’re here because you want the person next to you to change, then you’ve come for the wrong reason.”  I said to the couple sitting before me in my counseling office.  Like many others I have seen, they came for help–help resuscitating a relationship on life-support and already in critical condition.  Getting to the intersection of “screw you” and “kiss off” doesn’t happen overnight, and despite the justifications each person feels, it likely isn’t only one person’s fault.  The descent from oxycitocin driven bliss into strident, high volume, emotional discord, happens in inches.  The fights themselves are often each person’s desperate attempt to reawaken the deep relationship they knew with their partner at the beginning.  Somewhere along the line, their efforts failed and now only add to the deep disappointment and despair.  The good news is that when both parties are willing to take responsibility for their own change instead of monitoring the others, real healing can begin.

We enter relationships–all of them–anxious for an energy exchange with our new partner.  Whether it is a romance or a friendship, we can’t wait to hear the other person’s thoughts and feelings, and share our own in return.  In a healthy relationship, this exchange is a positive, empowering dialogue with energy flowing freely back and forth that builds both people up, even if it includes criticism that is lovingly given.  Unfortunately, sometimes one person does not give equally; they horde the attention and resources of the partnership diminishing the other until they are left wondering why the person they love is bitter, resentful, and angry.

We are also part of another relationship, one that is even more primal than sharing life with a mate.  It came easily with the innocence of childhood.  Once we approached nature with wide eyes, fascinated by every firefly, tadpole, and daisy.  We couldn’t wait to talk to our pet, converse with a passing toad, or find a unicorn in the clouds above our head.  Our storybooks told of adventures shared by fairies, elves, and frogs that turned into princes.  As children, we drank in our surroundings anxious to learn from–and about–the world we had come here to inhabit, not as observers but as participants.  As children, the world was our lover; we cherished every offering it provided and traded our wonderment for the blessings of creation.  We were eager for the exchange.

The cosmology expressed in Andean mysticism describes our personal existence as occurring within a universe of living energy with which we constantly exchange.  Adding to our childlike wonderment, we enter into a deliberate, respectful relationship with this energy at large.  Ayni (pronounced I-nee) is a state of reciprocity, a sacred interchange with everything–yes everything.  In Christian terms, we might think of it as doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.  In the Q’ero culture of Peru this means not only helping the people in your community, but also caring for and respecting your neighbors who may happen to be mountains, forests, plants, animals, or minerals.  The idea is that we are always giving and taking with everything around us.  Therefore, be conscious of the exchange and “give at least as good as you get” to everything.

Now, back to our befuddled couple stranded at the corner of “screw you” and “kiss off.”  Clearly at least one of them has not been giving back as good as they got.  They end up keeping a scorecard of their partner’s transgressions and start holding back emotionally, sexually, and mentally.  This of course gets the other’s attention, worsening of the situation and soon both parties have a long list of crimes against their personhood over which they can fight at anytime.  The exchange of energy has turned negative and will likely increase in volume and violence until the connection breaks apart.  One partner feels disparaged, the other is self-absorbed, and now the relationship starts to get a little noisy.  The ground beneath it begins to shake, dinner conversations turn into volcanic eruptions, and the once blue skies of romance fill with lightning, thunder, and gale force winds.  If only both were willing to give a little better than they got–without keeping score.  That’s what’s happened to so many of the couples I have seen but isn’t it also what is happening in our larger relationship with creation itself?  

As with the troubled couple, disenchantment didn’t happen over night in our relationship with creation either.  Maybe the split did happen in the Garden of Eden or–maybe it crept slowly into our lives as we left childhood behind and begin to redefine what “real life” meant.  In either case, we have slipped inch by inch into isolation staring at the road ahead, or the screen before us walled off from the magic of the world in artificial environments.  We rarely look down to smell the roses or look up to find a billowing unicorn all the while self-absorbed in the belief that we are too busy.  And, all the while we are too busy, our Partner in this greater relationship is being depleted, diminished, ignored and longing for our attention.

If you’re here because you want the person next to you to change, or if you’re waiting on the world to change, then you’ve come for the wrong reason.  Crisis in a marriage ultimately comes down to a spiritual problem but the answer isn’t in a sacred book, it is in acknowledging the sacred Spirit in each other and only you can change.  Crisis on the planet is a bit more difficult.  Perhaps you are one of the lucky ones who can see nature spirits, or sense the presence of a great planetary sentience; you can build your relationship directly.  I have always appreciated the Native American tradition of offering a little tobacco to the Earth, acknowledging and thanking the sacred ground upon which we walk.  One need not change religion to appreciate our place in a creation of living energy, only our attitude.  Whether or not you can frolic with the fairies, or discern an elfin tongue, conceding that this universe has many mansions and respecting where we tread can only enhance our experience here.  The quintessence of global warming and its subsequent climate crisis is also a spiritual problem and only you can change.  When one accepts that sacred Spirit is all around us and respects all the worlds of living energy, solutions begin to appear.  Spiritual crises, whether personal or planetary, is resolved one heart at a time and one pure heart changes everything.  Consider the simple concept of Ayni, let it lead you to deep relationship with all that surrounds you and watch as real healing begins.

“We are stardust, we are golden.

We are caught in the devil’s bargain,

and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.”

(Woodstock – Joni Mitchell)