THE AWAKENED RELATIONSHIP
I have resisted doing a blog until our book, “Falling in Love Backwards” was out in the world. Now I am committing to writing once a week so that I can answer the questions that people have about Diane’s and my book or my earlier book “Living Awake.”
I will also describe some of the upsets Diane and I go through and how we have been able to resolve them. One thing I am clear about is that the Awakened Life or Enlightened Life is not devoid of upsets. Rather it is about resolving current issues so they do not continue to plague you and then being open to deeper, more fundamental issues arising.
An interesting observation is that each dysfunctional pattern, a product of some earlier conditioning or decision made by us when we were children or perhaps even in the DNA of being a man or woman, always first reveals itself in the form of an upset. Even though I am now awake to myself, observing myself in action in the world, the first indication that I am off track from who I want to be is that I am upset. This is the entry point for the process that follows. So do not deny or ignore your upsets. They are the door to freedom. Freedom to be your Self, and to choose how you want to BE.
All upsets have as their nature, being out of present time. In an upset you are reliving or rerunning an earlier incident from your past. You are unconsciously putting your life energy through some programmed pattern. Also upsets (your mind) are telling you, “I don’t like the way it is right now. It should be different if he/she loves me. I don’t like what he or she is doing or what he or she did. If they change I will be happier. I want something different.” So the very nature of upsets is “This isn’t it.”
Now if you are not upset and want something to change then you take some action, from a neutral position, to change the circumstances. But in an upset, we find ourselves a victim to our own programming and it almost always looks like we are victims of the circumstance or the other person’s actions. So there has to be both the “This isn’t it” and “I feel like a victim” for it to be an upset. Of course as evolved beings we don’t want to admit even to ourselves that we are victims, but it is the starting point as I mentioned. And it is “the way it is” right now, so don’t resist it, work with your upsets and they will become a welcomed doorway to your becoming a more refined and evolved human Being.
By way of example, a recent incident. Diane and I were shopping for a couch in IKEA. I entered the store without paying much attention to the store layout on the information board as you enter, as the couch section was fairly near the entrance. After not seeing what we wanted and wandering for a while from display room to display room along this programmed path through their giant store, I was ready to leave. I mostly dislike shopping anyway. My motto is “get in and get out.” I started looking for the exit but couldn’t find any, then we seemed to circle back past the same displays we had seen and still there was not an obvious way out and to top it off, the signs seemed confusing.
About this time I started to feel angry and trapped, a tension in my chest and a kind of panic. I was definitely not in control, a victim in their planned maze, and I hated it. As there was no store personnel around to help, I started to raise my voice, “How the f…. do I get out of here?” Diane who is my angel, and did not make me wrong for being so angry, said “Take a deep breath Landon, this does not seem like you.” I did and started to calm down and then we found a store person and finally got out. My immediate comment was, “I am never going to go to IKEA again.”
Later as we were debriefing the incident in the car, I realized that the feeling of being trapped, in a maze, out of control, all seemed to harken back to being born into a world of chaos and confusion. I also saw that I could have taken more responsibility for knowing the store layout, and of course taken a breath and asked someone how to get out quickly – all without being upset. But at the time, the as yet unhealed part of my birth experience got triggered which allowed me to look at it and see it for what it was – a baby’s confusion and anger and helplessness at being born into a world which “couldn’t be it.” The original “This isn’t it.”
I also saw that IKEA had done a masterful job of marketing, as I was forced to see so many things that I wasn’t looking for, but now when I think, “Where will we get the sinks for the new studio, I think IKEA.” So I am sure I will be going back!!
May our lives continue to deepen through the learning that comes from our upsets.
All the best,
Landon