Relationships are energy equations. Your energy field interacts with another person's energy field to create a dynamic or blended experience. In the same way that two liquids join to create a third form, a sort of cocktail, our relationships with others form a delicate balance that we experience as 'the relationship'. With some people in our lives, interaction can be effortless, while with others, no matter how hard we try, it involves confrontation. While it is easy to blame the other person as difficult or undesirable, the truth is that our joint experience of the relationship is a mutual creation - developed no more or no less by one than the other.
The beginning of understanding and improving your relations with others is to come into awareness of the energy you bring to your interactions. While you cannot control others, you have complete command over yourself. There is a common saying that is relevant to this energy dynamic: What is the definition of insanity? The answer is of course, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Think about this. When you change your response, you automatically create a different experience. The very fact that you can control your own thoughts and feelings gives you immediate power to change the experience of your relationships simply because you have shifted one part of the energy equation - you.
Rather than projecting distortion into the other person and wonder why they are the way they are, the question to ask yourself is; 'What is it within me that feels discord around this person?' This is why you can have the experience of attracting the same kind of relationship partner in consecutive situations. Your experience of attracting similar partners is created through the same looping energy pattern.
Dependent Relationships
In a dependent relationship two or more people come together to create a dynamic where each person expects the union with the other person or group to make them feel better about themselves, — less insecure, more protected, or elevated in some way. In other words, dependence is when a person forms dependency or reliance on another person to provide his or herself with something they are not able to provide. The illusion is that we can experience self-completion through another; however, only through complete acceptance of ourselves can we experience self-completion.
Dependent individuals operate from a place of deficiency which never allows their relationships to flourish. Dependent relationships experience constant conflict because the relationship contains dependent individuals who do not feel a sense of self-containment and are therefore unable to provide any real support or respect for the other person in any sustained way. If dependent people do not believe in themselves, how could they possibly believe in others? The feeling of dependency and need for the other person perpetuates their own feelings of unworthiness.
Although there is less expectation these days in 'forever' relationships, people stay involved with each other even when their feeling of well-being is not enhanced and their life force is being drained. People blindly sacrifice intimacy for protection of self because they prefer to be with someone (anyone) rather than be alone. They fail to see that they can only cultivate peace from within themselves by making self-honouring (self-respecting) choices as opposed to continually compromising their values for outside approval (a no-win situation).
One of the common excuses people use for living in dependent relationships is that they are waiting for their partner or situation to change into something better. If you don't fully accept someone the way they are and are waiting for them to change something about themselves, you will always be unhappy with them and with yourself.
What do you think will change the relationship? More space, more money, more time, the right job, marriage, children, etc., only provide short-term relief because on an energetic level they fail to address the issue of dependency versus self-reliance. Obligation also marries us to people through how we compromise ourselves. We think the fact that we owe others something gives them the right to treat us disrespectfully.
Conscious Relationships. Now That's Better!
A conscious relationship is one in which each individual is self-contained and whole unto his or herself such that they maintain autonomy and responsibility for their own sense of well-being. For this reason, they are free to objectively look to the relationship as an enhancement to their life, not because they feel weak and incomplete. Also, a consciously motivated person only seeks to be in a relationship with someone of the same consciousness. They do not seek to be in a relationship with someone who is insecure or dependent. Neither do they seek to control that other person nor seek their approval. They are self-contained.
In a conscious relationship, each person puts their personal core values before the needs of the relationship and honours those values — they don't justify compromising what is important to them for the sake of keeping the relationship together. That doesn't mean they don't lean on each other from time to time. The difference is that each person commands the support and respect of the other and seeks to respect their partner's choices as they respect and honour their own.
So, the next time you feel an energy disruption involving another person, realize that the disruption comes from you and not them. Change the way you process your own feelings, get to know who you truly are - a person who is coming from a place of unconditional love. Once you have accepted yourself in this way, conflict and misunderstandings with others disappear and if they crop up from time to time, they are easily resolved and you will exude positive vibration that is clear and not confusing to others. And, you will also experience much more harmony and positive energy within yourself.
