COC FREE Intro ~ Social Isolation Blues

Social Isolation Blues ~ Recovering Interactive Choices

It is easy to acknowledge that fears and frustrated desires have knocked us off balance. It is easy to see when we feel obligated to do things with others that may not be our best choice. Why do we do this? The answer is that we feel the need to be there for these people if they have been there for us. Relationships often become about repeating familiar choices and not taking risks to improve things. Relationships also become locked in defensive patterns where we feel we have to agree with our partners or face the consequences. What we lack is a sense of spontaneity and curiosity about how to make our relationships better. First off, we can improve them by being able to relate our experience succinctly and clearly to our partner. This means using complete communications that include sensations, feelings, emotions and thoughts, appropriately combined and aligned.

We feel repulsed by people when they dump their experiences on us without refinement or clarity. This reflects that these individuals do not, or will not, process and integrate their own experience so it can be reflected back to them easily. Without this ability, our connections become compromised and tension increases. This represents a growing sense of resentment that our partners are not affirming, acknowledging, or accepting us the way we would like. Repulsions occur to those who objectify, subjectify, and idealize their own self-importance. It creates a desire to measure how much work it is to be with this partner vs. how much they do to help us. These comparisons eventually lead to an unwillingness to deal with specific issues that are problematic.

Alignment in relationship requires the mutual sharing of energy, time, and space. When we operate with abundant life energy, we regenerate ourselves by aligning our intent with a purpose. If our partner respects our purpose, it is easier to work with them. If not, it creates conflict. When we honor our sense of timing it reflects upon our unity of knowing or wisdom. This means we engage others openly without the preconception that we know anything. Our partner, sensing this openness, can make suggestions and offer ideas, which we respond to. As long as we are working together to create a mutual solution and do not get caught in a false sense of defensive urgency then the relationship proceeds naturally. It is important to know that many conscious individuals do not want others to solve their problems or fix them at all. It is an act of intimacy to be present to our partner and reflect their experiences back to them. This allows our issues to be seen in a new way independent of our partner's fears and desires. This capacity relies on the integration of feelings and emotions, which creates a field effect that allows us to transmit our impressions and recreate our partner’s experience. This is how we can feel the waves of pain and despair from those around us in times of crisis.

Only when we are balanced, self-reflective, and measured, can we operate autonomously and contribute creatively. As we integrate our creative nature, we become more unified in our sense of Self, making it easier to differentiate ourselves. Others, sensing this growth may react, because we begin to change the way we relate to them. They seek to re-impose the familiar structures of how we related in the past. Increasing anxiety about these changes can repulse us when our partners start dumping their experiences upon us. This is how we become unconscious caretakers of the wellbeing of others. Unfortunately, it also drains us, reducing our reserves so that we begin drifting in and out between states of conscious and unconscious behavior.

If we have the capacity, we begin to creatively connect, and gradually minimize our personality connections where we caretake and balance their sensations, feelings, emotions and thoughts. Otherwise they can become angry and attempt to impose unrealistic expectations and defensive positions, while trying to undercut our sense of goodness for abandoning them. Many of us have had these experiences in family dynamics and realize just how painful it can be. Individuals caught up in co-dependence use attachments, positions and projections to try and control us, making it seem like they are helping us. Our repulsion reveals their underlying desire to manipulate us and the lack of autonomy they experience trying to express themselves overtly. This is why we need to create a personal boundary around our experiences to keep others from directly impacting us. We recommend creating an independent relationship space outside our personal space where we can make creative connection.

This discussion examines a few of the major costs and circumstances of interacting in this way. It provides a method for questioning our prevailing patterns so we can build new tools to break out of co-dependent patterns. We want partners who reflect, share, and even suggest new ways to creatively connect. We seek partners who are able to be present to their experience and can share without drama. These individuals have the ability to respond and not to react. This allows us to invest in the connections that best serve us and support our growth. Imagine being able to flow with people and see the best in them without taking on their problems. This playful creative interaction is always possible when we consciously connect.