Self Defined Healthy Relationships

You know that soul throbbing pain of feeling dejected, carelessly not considered, and alone? I’m here to remind you that often the biggest hurts and challenges in our lives come with them the biggest opportunity to be there for others in ways that other’s were unable to be there for us. 

Sometimes people hurt us in ways that they themselves had normalized for them BUT regardless of someone else’s actions we each have the self authority on how we react. No one else’s behaviours are the reason we do anything and if we continue to use blame as a reason to perpetuate hurt onto others, we cycle into a behaviour of treating those we care for in ways that undermine our relationships. Our actions demonstrate to others the ways we would like to be treated. Ultimately, we have no effect on how other people choose to treat us. We do have a choice in our own actions and the proximity to which we allow other people in our lives. Our actions influence others by providing the demonstrations of what care and kindness look like.

This is why WHO we choose to be close to is so vital. They mirror to us daily what it means to care for someone. When we surround ourselves with people who prioritize their time to reflect on their relationships and be considerate of their loved ones it brings with it a sense of connection. You are allowed to be selective of those in your close circle. 

Community and relationships are vital — and to be able to converse and communicate with people from all backgrounds enriches anyone who opens themselves up that way BUT your ability to talk with people with different values does not mean you need to disregard discernment on who genuinely deserves your priority. If we treated everyone as we do our lover. We wouldn’t have a love.

You can spend hours and hours trying to rationalize and figure out another person. There is sometimes going to be people that are irrational or whom may just not prioritize or value a relationship (with you or relationships in general). We can ask questions like: why do they act the way they do?  Are they acting this way because they were hurt? Is there a way I can be of service to this person to restore relationship? And while with the right people, this is a beautiful trait and has the ability to invite in deeper connection… If these questions aren’t reciprocated, it simply leads one to devalue their own perspectives. If you find yourself in a relationship continually asking questions, or being the one primarily listening to the other talk this may be a sign of a one sided relationship. 

Listening and allowing another human to just be themselves is so valuable. At the same time, it’s important to remember that each human longs to feel seen and heard. I have grown to know that listening and seeing others is valuable in and of itself. At the same time, if a person is continually making room to understand others and that understanding is not in reciprocation it creates a very disproportional relationship.

Of course, there are going to be circumstances in life, where a friend requires more support. Or perhaps, there are some people that you care for that you know incapable of reciprocal relationship (not because they don’t want to but because of a lack of internal resources, capacity, or just simply don’t know how). You get to discern what is acceptable to you in the agreements you have in your relationships. This is simply a reminder that your actions can impact others AND simultaneously you too deserve to feel seen and heard. 

I’m curious, when you reflect on your relationships. Do you have some that stand out as feeling balanced? Or perhaps others that feel disproportionally one sided? Perhaps you could list them.

There are so many ways to be in this world and what a beautiful thing! Relationship, is complex and dynamic. Healthy relationship is something I’ve been trying to learn and search for— what is it? Can it be universally defined? What are the rules? What are the agreements? Are there any? What are the parameters and how does one BE someone who is in a healthy relationship with joy, sorrow, laughter and conflict?

One thing, I have found immensely helpful is deciding for myself some clear indications of what it is that I value that puts relationships into:

1. Top priority

2. Middle category 

3. Immensely loved but can’t share limited time with

4. Blazing flashing red traffic lights

After doing this practise of naming what values and traits constitute each “level” of friendship, I was so amazed at how it gave me a deeper appreciation for the specific gifts of each relationship. I realized no person is perfect but there are people I was undervaluing because I held onto a misconception that one of their “unfavourable traits” were hurtful when in reality in a lot of cases when I took time to reflect, their “unfavourable traits” in a larger context wasn’t one of my top values. It put into perspective those that required most of my appreciation and allowed me the awareness to act accordingly.

I’m curious, can you name what are your top values for relationship? And if not, how about putting on a cup of tea and naming three things you search for and three things that indicate misaligned values.

Which relationships have you chosen to prioritize? Perhaps even tiering some of your relationships and constituting what that means in regards to time commitments, activities, vulnerability, trust, and shared values. Making these decisions conscious and giving them genuine time to be considered so that you can have an added perspective of who you choose to prioritize and why.

Unraveling on the Mat

When practising yoga we have a choice to move our bodies in loving considerate ways and unravel what it is we have come with TODAY. Some days we will be carrying more than others but if we consistently unravel our knots we become more aware of what it is to be untangled. We eventually build up the capacity to give ourself this kindness of untangling more regularly and with consistency we build capacity. Perhaps with consistency we gain a new normal and learn to move towards untangling the next step of our process. Perhaps consistency means we show up more fully to the woes of our own hearts and become more capable to show up to the problems and hardships of others.

Think of your yoga practise like unravelling a tangled necklace. Each breathe and moment of awareness unravels a knot. These moments you give yourself on the mat unravel stagnant or blocked energy and maintain the vitality of your body. It’s like doing daily dishes. Each day, we know we must eat and part of that process is the care we put into tidying up and preparing our home for the next meal. We can resent the process or we can learn to be mindful and compassionate towards the whole journey. We can appreciate the warm water on our skin and the people present in our lives that we get to share and prepare food for. These are choices. Choices of perspective.

Maybe yoga isn’t your way of “untangling”— and that’s totally okay! I do know it’s been a beautiful strategy for me but you’re unique and the beauty of this life if that you get to decide for yourself what feels good and what feels constrictive. Yoga is a practise —like an art class that teaches techniques, it’s important to keep your own sense of agency, authority and creative expression.

Practising yoga doesn’t mean the body won’t accumulate tension but it means you get better at showing up to what’s present — better at “unknotting” & better at being compassionate to the process. It’s not a war where the tangled need to be eradicated and kept at bay. No. It’s a way of accepting the journey and starting where we are. No one way being better than the other — there are days that we are going to show up a tangled mess but we gain the capacity to accept ourselves as tangled and free — a bit of both. 

Before knowing differently, I would think it best to eradicate knots all together and perhaps my perspective will continue to change— but right now I sometimes like to think that being “tangled and free”  is a more balanced and realistic perspective. When I accept myself as tangled and lovable I can also give others the freedom and  compassion to be “tangled and lovable” in their own ways too.

Reminds me of something my mom likes to say,  “Everything in balance. Even balance”.

How to Start: My 3 Favourite Practises to Help Start Something

The words I wish someone would have told me earlier to help support knowing what it is I wanted and discovering how to get there.

Are you utterly lost in the confusion and overwhelm of indecision and inaction? Do you have an idea but are you lost on where to take it? Or what to do first? Are you tied up in the emotions of overwhelm, sadness, or anger at not being able to do the things you know you are meant to? I’ve been there and what follows is my offering of supports: The words I wish someone would have told me earlier to help support knowing what it is I wanted and discovering how to get there.

First off — I’m an Aries, the first sign of the zodiac. Aries is the sign that charges forward. They are known to be confident, head strong, and energetic while also sometimes naive and not always prone to finishing what it is they start BUT want I want to reiterate is the importance: THEY START.

I’m articulating their faults of naivety and lack of follow through because like everything in life, there is the balance of positive and negative, of light and shadow. An Aries may start but they also need to rely on other skillsets and attributed of their character and the other signs in their chart to see tasks through to completion. Both positive and negative qualities are important so that we can understand ourselves in an integrated and wise way. To become wise, we must fail and we must learn from experience. Sometimes like the naive youth we will make mistakes but the important thing is; is that we CONTINUE, and to do that we must start and often start anew.

Here I will share with you three practises that will help to create your own sense of self. From my experience one of the main blockages that kept me from making any decisions or moving towards starting any actions was fear. The fear that I didn’t actually know what I wanted, confusion over whose voice was my own, and doubt that I had the capacity to achieve any of what I would like for myself. Thankfully, there are tools to learn about how to MOVE THROUGH the fear.

THREE TOOLS I WISH I HAD KNOWN AND USED SOONER & THAT YOU CAN USE TOO:

1. Consistently Journaling:

This is actually a HUGE step. The practise of making time for your voice and to put it on paper is HUGE. It brings the thoughts and ideas you have and makes space for them physically on the paper. To write down your ideas visually reiterated to yourself that you have given your ideas a place in this world. This act represents you  being allowed to take up space and clears out any of the confusion and untruth you may be holding within you. As the words make their way onto the page you have the opportunity to sift through and see for yourself all the muddled ideas or the gems in the rough. The key to all of this though is consistency and one of the most important things is that you treat this time of journalling for yourself as sacred. Like any new skill there will be failure and a day or two that you don’t make time to write down your own words but with time and practise you will get there. Here I recommend being super truthful. Say the things you want to say but that you can’t out-loud. Call out the injustices you witness and see how as you write you come to clearer understanding. Say the outrageous dreams and aspirations no one else will believe. With consistency what may initially be harsh words or unrealistic aspirations will eventually blend into deeper understanding of yourself AND also other people. Let it out genuinely because the beautiful thing about a journal is that you can finally see the things you may have been denying yourself and then you can act from a deeper place of clarity and truth. Often as we get clearer we also invite in a bigger perspective.

2. A Boundary Exercise:

A boundary exercise can look many ways and if you have one you like or already know you can use that one. If you have no idea what a boundary exercise is, I like to think of them as a practise to help discern where you begin and where you end.  Some people find boundary exercises difficult because they are stuck in the one-sided perspective that we are all one. While yes, of course there is truth in this universal concept of us all being connected to actually know this— you also need to define yourself. To define yourself is to know from what place or “who it is” that you are relating to “oneness”. So many people look to relate to the idea of oneness without taking the time to define themselves. It’s like the idea of the positive and negative and how in reality we can’t have one without the other. To have darkness then allows an opposite for the light to exist. If we didn’t have the night how would we know or define what daylight was? We would only know the night and we would not be able to have a term for darkness because there wouldn’t be anything else to help define it. See here how important is is to experience BOTH. To experience your own sense of self so that you can experience wholeness or oneness as something bigger than yourself.

A simple boundary visualization:

1. Sit and close your eyes

2. Take three full breaths

3. Take your awareness above your head and take three full breaths here sensing into the space above your head

4. Take your awareness below you and take three full breaths sensing into the space below you

5. Do the same as above but for infront of you

6. Do the same for behind

7. To your left and then your right (or right and then your left)

8. Take your awareness to your centre and towards your heart and breathe here.

There are many ways you can imagine your boundary and I would recommend connecting to this more fully. The one described about is a tool of orientating yourself in the world. There is deep wisdom in doing this and if this is something you are interested in taking further I would recommend seeking an Elder or meditation coach to help guide you and connect you with the long history and traditions that this practise holds. I am not qualified to share this wisdom and recognize my own limitations in sharing the full extent of this knowledge. The practise I have described above  is profound and yet a simpler version to respect the different traditions and cultural knowledge that must be shared in a very specific, integrated, and holistic ways from someone who holds that knowledge and relationship to those practises.

A boundary exercise has the capacity to create meaningful and impactful change in your life. Like any exercise as you practise and strengthen this “boundary muscle” it will grow and this will start to allow you to set clearer and clearer boundaries on your time and allow you to create genuine time for yourself and for your own self exploration. This means setting aside time for your journaling and self care. This means time for you so that you can become clear on who you are and relate more clearly to the world around you.

3. Connecting with Something Bigger than Yourself

Maybe you belief in God, or maybe you find love and support in Nature. What matters is that you create time and foster relationship with something that is bigger than yourself.  The act of prayer, meditation, or conversation with the divine can look many different ways.  If you don’t know where to start I’d suggest a gratitude practise and thanking your version of Creator each and every day. Name at least three things you are grateful for  and see how as you share your gratitude with something bigger than yourself  it will transform the the relationship you hold with the world!

I honestly know from experience that each of these practises will connect you more fully to your authenticity and therefore expand your capacity to relate to the world in a more genuine and fulfilling way. These practises will move you into a more balanced perspective to make decisions from and will make space for you to move you ideas into action! These practises will act like a bridging force to create relationship to the space that holds duality so that you too can feel balanced and make decisions from a place that is integrated and whole!

Again, like any journey there is the place in which you start out. Like the heroes journey… the important thing is that the hero starts.  So often it is the first step that are the hardest because we have no idea of where it is we are going, what it is we will do, or how we will go about doing it. The first steps are the ones filled with ample falls. Like a child learning to walk and yet we each have the things that call to us and that we are destined to do. I hope this is helps you along your journey. Know that even if you fall— the important thing is that you try, and try again. You too my friend can start.