Conscious Relating
A.What is Conscious Relating?
“When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them.” - Martin Buber
“Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.” - Pema Chödrön
The Toltec word for friend is Icniuhtl (nee-oot) which means “my other heart.”
Consciously relating means recognizing that other people are having the same human experience as you, just from a different body and perspective. It means communicating, relating and interacting on a level of awareness of one’s own and each other’s inner worlds.
The paradox we have to hold with relationships that we are one, but we are also individuals, and if we just assumed each other’s boundaries and desires, and we might miss out on connection or accidentally cause people harm when we make assumptions instead of asking and expressing ourselves authentically with one another.
Some of the obstacles in consciously relating are:
Not knowing our own or each other’s fears, boundaries and desires
Not knowing how to communicate our fears, boundaries and desires effectively
Feeling too scared to be seen or reveal inner truths about ourselves for the possibility of rejection, ridicule, or whatever someone else might do in reaction to revealing your inner world
B. Awareness of Your Inner World: Interoception
If you struggle with knowing what your boundaries or desires are, it helps to practice listening to your inner world.
Interoception is the 6th sense of the human body which is our faculty of understanding and feeling our emotions, our energy, our physical sensations and needs, and also our boundaries and desires.
Interoception is strengthened when we focus on sensations in the body, used in meditation when we focus on the temperature of our breath coming in and out of our noses, doing body scans bringing our attention to how the body feels, and in yoga and ecstatic dance, when we focus on the sensations of the body as we move, but it can be as simple as focusing on any part of the body and what it feels like or paying attention to our emotions.
C. Nonviolent Communication
In Buddhism and many similar practices, one of the core values is Ahimsa, which means non-violence, which applies to every living being.
When we don’t know each other’s boundaries, we might accidentally cross them and unintentionally harm each other, so learning how to communicate our boundaries and desires effectively is extremely important in consciously relating and practicing non-violence or Ahimsa.
In nonviolent communication, we practice understanding:
That we are responsible for our own emotions and actions, no one can make us feel or do or say anything, we feel or do or say things, that is our power and our responsibility.
That connection is more important than being right or better or more powerful than the person or people we are communicating with.
We don’t blame or shame others or ourselves, we are striving for compassion always, and moving forward, constructively, with whichever path is the most loving to all parties involved.
This is an example template sentence of non-violent communication:
I feel x when x happens/you/they do x because I value/desire/fear x. Would you be willing to x?
For example, if you are feeling lonely because your friend didn’t answer your text messages for a day and you desire closeness and assurance of your connection with them, you would say:
“I felt lonely and worried when you didn’t answer my text messages yesterday because I value our friendship and I’m scared you may be angry with me. Would you be willing to chat with me today?”
And when you want to connect with someone else or understand them you can ask:
Are you feeling x because x? Or How are you feeling?
For example, if you have a hunch that you might have said or done something insensitive the other day with your friend, and that might be why they’re not engaging with you as they usually do, you can ask:
“Are you feeling upset because what I said/did the other day made it seem like I didn’t care about you?”
Often, people will be more willing to listen to you and connect with you when they understand that you are interested in their inner world and see them as a person with feelings. Even if you aren’t quite accurate about what the issue really is, opening the door for connection in a nonviolent way is really important in maintaining healthy relationships.
Read more about Nonviolent Communication in my full article on it or read “Nonviolent Communication” by Dr. Michael B. Rosenberg.
D. Vulnerability
Vulnerability, or revealing your inner world, is the key to connecting to each other, but it’s also scary as hell. It’s common that people can mishandle your inner world through rejection, ridicule, ignoring, etc. There are many ways your inner world could be disrespected, and that’s why vulnerability is so scary even though it is so important in conscious connection with others.
What we want to do is practice resilience with vulnerability, centering within ourselves and our truth so we are not dependent on other peoples responses or reactions to our inner truths.
It’s very scary to reveal your inner world by expressing your feelings, needs, desires, and boundaries, so it’ll take bravery to be scared and do it anyway, standing up for your truth and what you want to see in this world. It’s about choosing yourself and the reality you want to exist.
The key is understanding your worthiness doesn’t change depending on how others respond to you. You’ll find people who will love you for exactly who you are and you’ll find people who dislike you for exactly who you are, so it’s not about changing yourself to be liked by others, but rather about being more yourself and focusing on the people who allow you to be your most authentic self and even enjoy and celebrate you for it.
Not everyone deserves to see or hold your inner world, but we can’t let fear keep us from opening up to people who could be great connections. If you open up to someone and they mishandle it without compassion consistently, they either might not be ready to receive your truth, or they never will be ready and they are not worth your time or energy. There are plenty of other people who will see the same inner world and hold it with compassion.
E. Wheel of Consent & Experiential Practice
In every interaction, there are four different modes a person can be in. Server, Taker, Allower, or Accepter.
The Server is doing an action for the benefit of another person (the accepter) who requested that action
The Taker is is doing an action for the benefit of themselves and is asking for permission (of the allower) to do it
The Allower lets the taker do the action
The Accepter asks the server for an action and received the action
The Accepter can say, “would you be willing to do this?”
The Server can say, “yes I will” or “no, I don’t feel like doing that”
The Taker can say, “May I do this?”
The Allower can say, “yes you may” or “no.”
F. Experiential Exercise:
Sit in front of another person. Do one minute of centering meditation (conscious breathing and nonjudgmental observation of your thoughts, feelings and sensations) with your eyes closed, feel into the sensations of the body, feelings, and thoughts you are having in relation to this person in front of you. Practice letting go of all the stories, attachments, judgments you have made about this person in your mind and just visualize them as a human being, a heart, a spirit, just like yours.
Open your eyes for one minute of eye contact with the person in front of you. If you feel as though you don’t want to make eye contact with them, you can close your eyes. Practice noticing how you feel and why you feel that way. Are you closing your eyes because you have a boundary? Where do you feel that boundary in your body? Is it coming from fear? What story, judgment or attachment in your mind is causing this fear? Do you want to open your eyes but are scared to? Can you be curious and see what happens if you open your eyes? For those whose partners have closed their eyes, practice not taking it personally and try to feel as though you are respecting and happy that they are setting boundaries that feel comfortable for them. It’s not about you, so try to let go of stories, judgments and attachments in your mind making you feel a certain way about their closed eyes.
Now, open your eyes and express to one another what your fears, desires and boundaries are with one another. You can also just let them know what you’re feeling and if you don’t feel like opening up.
Now, use the wheel of consent questions to ask for either a hand hold, a hug, or a massage, letting each other know exactly how you feel, asking for clarity when needed about how to make each of you feel comfortable and safe.
Now sit on your own again, close your eyes, center yourself, come back to yourself. Reflect on the exercise in your mind or with journaling.
