The Path of Relationship

Can relationship be seen as a spiritual path?

In the pursuit of a fulfilled life, to me, two essential keys emerge: establishing genuine relationships and fostering a true spiritual connection. Understanding these complex aspects is an ongoing, lifelong process, rooted in practice and personal experience. Here I would like to share some insights from my own journey, although I don’t claim to fully understand relationships, let alone spirituality.

Up until the age of about 24, a real understanding of both — human relationships and spirituality — was basically absent from my world view. Romantic depictions in songs and novels, as well as religious teachings about loving one’s neighbor and the Divine, all seemed to me equally superficial and detached from reality. The following self-portrait, which I painted in art class during my high school years, gives a good insight into my world as a teenager.

A muted outcry: self-portrait of myself, created in art class during my high school years. The tensed muscles around the eyes and the widely opened jaw clearly communicate anger, probably also desperation. Yet, I do not remember having been an angry person at all at that time. Rather, I recall myself as being a cool person, an appearance I thought of being desirable and I was proud of back then. At that time, I sympathized with the existentialist standpoint, as represented by Camus, that our human existence is inevitably absurd. If life is absurd, why should we care about having any problems at all? Today, I see my coolness as a mechanism of self-protection, a sign that it didn’t feel safe to show my true emotions. This self-portrait shows that one of my emotions I was not aware of at that time must have been anger. What was I angry about? Probably about the very fact that it did not feel safe to show my emotions, about the lack of relationships, and on a broader level also about a lack of sincere curiosity and interest for the world and life in the community I grew up in. (Copyright by the author)

At the age of 24 I decided, without any serious expectation of success, to try my luck in a deeper relationship. And, probably not to the reader’s surprise, but it was a big surprise to me at the time, my world view quickly proved to be of no help at all in this new challenge. So first cracks began to appear in my world view. And although it was not easy to accept my apparent imperfections, somewhere on a deeper level I knew that it was time to start to break out of the narrowing shell of my world view.

As I got more glimpses of the world outside my old view, more spiritual aspects of that world began to appear. The journey became more interesting. Many interesting books appeared. As did many questions. I discovered more and more parallels between the path of relationship and the path of spirituality. What are the connections between relationships and spirituality? What are true relationships? What is true spirituality? Are relationships part of spirituality? Or are they two completely different things, each of which can be pursued without concern for the other?

In this article, I would like to explore these questions. I will begin by looking at four different works that have provided me with many answers on the subject of relationships and that continue to fascinate me: the Polyvagal Theory by Stephen Porges, the Attachment Styles by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, the Individual Psychology by Alfred Adler, and the Resonance Theory by Hartmut Rosa. Throughout these sections I will also draw connections between these theories and spiritual concepts, especially from Yoga philosophy and Taoism. Let’s start by trying to find a more or less general idea of what a spiritual path is, to provide a common ground for the various relationship topics that will follow.

What is a spiritual path?

In different Eastern philosophies there seem to be similar conceptions about how nature and our world have come into existence. For example, in Taoism everything emerges from Wu, the eternal emptiness or infinite potential. Wu splits into the complementary forces Yin and Yang. The dynamic interaction of Yin and Yang are the source of the five elements water, wood, fire, earth, and metal, which again build the basis for the ten-thousand things of nature. The Tao is the unchanging, eternal truth that exists beyond the ever-changing interplay of nature and yet permeates everything. When the opposite forces of Yin and Yang in nature all arrive back into perfect balance, this world fully merges completely back into Wu and becomes pure potential again. And a new cycle begins.

In Yoga and Vedanta philosophy the absolute — Brahman — manifests into the relative, apparent world of mind and matter — Prakriti (nature). Prakriti is composed of the three fundamental forces Tamas, Rajas, and Sattva, together called the Gunas. Tamas is the passive principle, associated with immobility, dullness, and resistance. Rajas is the active principle, associated with activity, desire, and restlessness. Sattva is the pure principle, associated with purity, peace, and calmness. As long as the three Gunas are in perfect balance, Prakriti exists only as undifferentiated potential. Only when the balance is disturbed, the universe is manifested and the Gunas enter into the enormous and ever-changing variety of combinations of nature. Manifestation follows different stages, from subtle to gross nature, starting with the cosmic ego-sense, followed by the intellect, the individual ego-sense, the faculty of memory, the five senses of perception, the five organs of action, and the five gross elements earth, water, fire, air and ether.

There are some differences between Taoist and Yoga views. Taoism emphasizes the complementary but equally necessary poles of opposites at the basis of our reality. Discomfort, disease and conflict can be traced back to an imbalance in some particular aspect of reality. The path to peace and wholeness is to bring all these aspects of life into balance.

The three Gunas in Hindu philosophy, on the other hand, emphasize on a certain order in the fundamental forces of nature. The worst condition is the heaviness and passivity of Tamas. Tamas can only be overcome by the activity and heat of Rajas. The goal, however, is again to overcome the restlessness of Rajas and establish the purity and calmness of Sattva in all aspects of life.

Both views may be useful at some point. But far more striking than their differences is their similarity. They are not just explanations of the physical world, but of all the levels of reality in this universe: physical, emotional, energetic, mental, spiritual and whatever else there might be. Just recently, and through an ongoing process of studying, I just got aware that these views also strongly resemble the processes of outer and inner alchemy described by European and Islamic alchemists, such as Zosimo of Panopolis.

Even more, they are instructions to a truth that each of us must realize for oneself. The process of realization can be described as a path. And it leads in the opposite direction to the evolution of nature. It is a path of involution. And it is a path of discrimination, of knowing reality and knowing oneself. The path begins with the transformation of the gross elements and moves towards the more subtle elements.

We will realize the complementary nature of all things in nature: without night there would be no day, without evil no good, without fear no security, without suffering no joy, without letting go no receiving, and so on. We will realize that of the many things in life — food, activities, relationships — some are tamasic, they make us heavy and immobile; some are rajasic, they make us active and restless; and some are sattvic, they will make us peaceful and calm.

We will realize the complementary nature of all things in nature: without night there would be no day, without evil no good, without fear no security, without suffering no joy, without letting go no receiving, and so on. We will realize that of the many things in life — food, activities, relationships — some are tamasic, they make us heavy and immobile; some are rajasic, they make us active and restless; and some are sattvic, they will make us peaceful and calm.

Table comparing the three fundamental forces of nature in Taoism, Yoga, and the four levels of relationships described in this text: biology, emotions, thoughts, and society. (Copyright by the author)

Level of biology

“Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” — T. Dobzhansky as quoted by S. Porges 2018

Let’s start with the level of biology, where a theory stands and falls with its ability to blend itself into the evolution of species. As far as I can tell, the Polyvagal Theory, developed by Stephen Porges since the 1980s, goes along very well with evolution. The theory explains how a new solution for regulating the autonomic nervous system emerged in evolutionary history within the transition from reptiles to mammals. The autonomic nervous system regulates our organs and keeps our body alive in every single moment. While the nervous system of reptiles knows mainly two responses to life-threatening situations, immobilization and fight-or-flight, mammals have developed a new strategy for dealing with threat through social co-regulation.

Immobilization is the evolutionary-wise oldest response to life-threatening situations, such as, lack of food or oxygen or the presence of an overpowering attacker, shared even by simple single-sell organisms. During immobilization, the functioning of all organs are massively shut down to a required minimum, in order to save energy or feign death until the environmental situation changes again to the better. Fight-or-flight is a more active response to threat, in which the body’s energy resources are mobilized by increasing adrenaline levels to fight back or, if that is not possible, to flee. We try to actively change the environment by either making our enemy go away or by quickly changing location ourselves.

Mammals have evolved a novel strategy to regulate their nervous systems much more efficiently and effectively through social co-regulation. This is made possible by a functional structure termed the social engagement system consisting of the ventral branch of the vagus nerve, the heart, the lungs, and muscles controlling facial expressions, voice intonations, and ear sensitivity.

Mammals are constantly communicating the state of their nervous system with each other through a broad spectrum of subtle signals in the expression of their faces and the intonation of their voices. The language of the social engagement system is the language of emotions shared by all mammals. This is why we can well have emotional relationships with dogs or cats (sometimes even more authentic ones than with humans, who often learn to suppress their social engagement system). The soft purring of a cat may calm our nervous system down, or the faithful look of a dog may make us feel save and happy. Such co-regulating connections will never be possible with a reptile.

The ability to establish emotional connections distinguishes the life styles of mammals from those of reptiles in a wide range of aspects. One of the most fundamental distinctions is the nursing of offsprings. Mammal babies come into the world with a fragile and needy nervous system. They rely completely on their care givers for the regulation of their nervous systems. At the beginning, regulation happens primarily through skin contact with the mother and through the sound of her voice.

The work of Stephen Porges on the Polyvagal Theory started with his discovery of heart rate variability, a physiological marker describing the variation in heart rate in correlation with the breath. Heart rate variability is today a widely used biomarker for measuring the level of stress in our bodies. The connection between heart rate, breath and strength of the nervous system is also an important knowledge in many spiritual traditions. The taoist book “the secret of the golden flower” describes the mutual influence of the heart and the breath, along with a meditation technique about how to use our breath for learning to consciously control the heart-breath-system. Of yogis it is said that through mastering the control of their breath they are able to completely stop their heart rate for several minutes such that their body appears to be physically dead temporarily.

Even long before the ancient yogis have developed techniques to consciously control and purify the nervous system, nature has actually already evolved its own solution to the tedious struggles of immobilization and fight-or-flight: namely, the mammalian abilities of social interaction and co-regulation. In this sense, relationship can be seen as an evolutionary step towards overcoming a stressful nervous system. Interestingly, the methods developed later by spiritual traditions are a somewhat oppositional approach to nature: while the solution of nature was to bring animals closer together, spiritual traditions tend to suggest, that for meditation we should separate ourselves from community and its distractions, and learn to stay entirely within ourselves.

Level of emotions

The fundamental forces on the level of emotions are the four attachment styles, first analyzed and described by the psychoanalyst John Bowlby in the 1950s and further developed by Mary Ainsworth and Mary Main. According to Bowlby and Ainsworth, our attachment styles develop largely in our early childhood years in the emotional relationships to our caregivers. In my personal understanding, we can think of the later introduced disorganized attachment style as a passive pole of complete emptiness and absence of relationship. The avoidant and ambivalent styles are the active poles similar to the fight-or-flight mode. The secure attachment style is the pure, balanced pole that we ultimately want to reach. While in Mary Ainsworth’s original study about seventy percent of United State middle-class babies where classified as “secure”, for myself, I like to think of it as a much more subtle state of relationship that is difficult to fully achieve.

The fundamental experience of the “avoidant” style is a lack of emotional nurturing, e.g., due to parents not being sufficiently physically or emotionally available. These children generally learn that there must be something wrong with them because they are not getting the nurturing they need. They learn that the problem is themselves. They try to find out strategies to cope with their ongoing emotional food shortage. There are two main coping strategies. One being the abandoning of emotional needs and trying to become a “reptile” again, known as the “dismissive” subtype. The other being finding ways to please your parents in order to get at least some sort of surrogate acknowledgment, known as the “fearful-avoidant” subtype.

The fundamental experience of the “ambivalent” style is not a lack of emotional nurturing. They are usually getting enough or more than enough nurturing. However, they are getting food of the wrong kind. Often, parents are projecting their own emotional problems into their children and try to solve them there. The children feel the inadequacy of their nurturing, and learn that they are actually not really meant as a recipient of the nurturing they get. They learn that the others are the problem. They try to find strategies to cope with the problems of their parents. Again, there are two main coping strategies. One being trying to solve the problem of the others, known as the “preoccupied” subtype. The other being moving away emotionally from others and becoming emotionally cool (similar to the “dismissive” subtype), known as the “anxious-ambivalent” subtype.

Recognizing my own “anxious-ambivalent” attachment style was a fundamental discovery for me as well as a great explanation for my cool personality traits described in the introduction. And realizing that I am nowhere as special and “cool” as I thought in my struggles, that I am rather just “one of a kind”, makes me feel humble and relieved.

I further like to think of the two styles “avoidant” and “ambivalent” again as two opposite poles within the active pole, the first being more active and the second more passive, which mostly create activity through interacting with each other. As opposites happen to attract each other, the two poles of “avoidant” and “ambivalent” are often found both represented in adult couple relationships. (I personally even suspect that “anxious-ambivalent” tend to find together with “fearful-avoidant” partners, and “preoccupied” with “dismissive” ones, however, this is speculative.)

A typical conflict can then look something like this: Avoidant has a problem, for example, he doesn’t like the hotel where they just arrived in the holidays. Ambivalent tries to help to solve the problem by finding reasons why this hotel might still be acceptable and how other hotels will have their deficiencies too and so on.

Avoidant: “I don’t like this hotel. It is too dark and next to this big noisy road, and they didn’t put any love into it.” Ambivalent: “Well, it will be just for a few nights. Why don’t we rather want to enjoy our holidays? The big road brings us quickly into town. And look, here they put a flower. I don’t think that we will find any better hotel today.” Avoidant: “Look at these bathrooms, there is only one bathroom per floor and it is dirty. Don’t they have a cleaning lady here?” Ambivalent: “That’s the way they built hotels in the older days, with only one bathroom per floor. And honestly, if I were a cleaning person, I wouldn’t put too much effort either in cleaning for a probably very low salary.”

Avoidant however doesn’t like this kind of help. He only wants to get away from this ugly situation. At some point, Ambivalent has enough. She becomes fatalistic with thoughts like: “if Avoidant will have his problems for ever, there is no way to stay together like this, we have to split up this catastrophe, better now than later”. So Ambivalent turns away. Which stimulates the Avoidant’s fear from lack of nurturing resulting in an emotional breakdown. The breakdown is serious enough for bringing back Ambivalent’s urge for helping, so she comes back. Now Avoidant can get back and reiterate on his initial problems. And a new round begins. This conflict can escalate on and on over several roundtrips, and thereby create an enormous amount of emotional activity. Until everyone is too exhausted to fight on.

Now, a great potential for healing is hidden in this drama of conflict. Once the actors learn to understand the dynamics, they start to recognize the script quicker and quicker. At some point they might even be able to laugh at themselves: “Ah, now I am playing the “avoidant” again”, “oh, now I am playing the ambivalent again”. Until the drama becomes more of a comedy. And hidden there, under this comedy, the actors may at once discover a true emotional connection, and a truly secure home, maybe for the first time in their lives.

Level of thoughts

Our thoughts are good at separating and comparing things. A sharp mind can discriminate what is me and what is not me. Further, our thoughts can split up the “not me”, i.e., the world, into more and more details, and by analyzing them, we can get a clearer and clearer image of what this world is all about. In the process of “creating” the outside world, thoughts create also our sense of being an individual self separated from the world, our ego sense, along with our image of ourselves. And as we should know well, the ego sense is also the source of our problems. If there were no thoughts, there would be no problems.

In our Western tradition, thoughts are also usually believed to be the source of consciousness, distilled in Decarte’s formula cognito ergo sum. However, the more I begin to study Eastern philosophies, the more it seems to me that this belief may be a fundamental misconception and just another great source of problems.

In the context of relationship, the 20th century psychiatrist and founder of the Individual Psychology, Alfred Adler, is of special interest, as he is famously attributed to the words that “all problems are human relationship problems”. He identified three fundamental forces in the dynamics of relationships: feelings of inferiority making us passive and heavy, feelings of superiority helping us to become active, and common sense, a relieving insight into the interconnected nature of reality helping us to overcome the problematic state of the ego sense.

Regarding feelings of inferiority and superiority, it is fist of all interesting that they are called “feelings”. Feelings are usually thought to be part of emotions, not thoughts. What do thoughts have to do with feelings? At this point, it is important to become aware of our thoughts’ power to create emotions, and to know the distinction between mind-made emotions and real emotions. The psychic medium and energy worker Marie Manuchehri explains how mind-made emotions make us feel unhappy whereas real emotions make us feel calm and compassionate, and are often surprising as they are usually the opposite of what our brain has told us.

Alfred Adler describes how mainly throughout our formative childhood years we develop our internal images of ourselves and the world, to which he refers to as our life plan. Our life plan is a somewhat best effort approach to knowing ourselves and the world, however it will inevitably contain misconceptions. The only way for our thoughts to create those images is through comparing ourselves to others (to our impressions of them and their expectations of us). Comparison leads to mind-made feelings of inferiority such as guilt, shame, dependency, incapability, and so on. In order to cover such a painful negative self-image our mind starts to add another layer of a positive self-image to our life plan, leading to feelings of superiority such as anger, sarcasm, overconfidence, envy, resentment, competitiveness, and so on. According to Alfred Adler, these feelings result in what he calls vertical relationships: we can only feel either inferior or superior to others and see them as our competitors in the game of life.

The solution proposed by Alfred Adler is to learn to establish horizontal relationships instead throughout our life. The key to horizontal relationships is common sense. Common sense (Gemeinschaftsgefühl in german) in Adler’s terminology has a different meaning from the usual usage of the expression as “the ability to think and behave in a reasonable way and to make good decisions”. It is rather developing a literal sense for the reality that we are all in this adventure called life together, that there is no real competition, and that our ego sense is mainly an illusion created by our thoughts. Feelings of inferiority arise where our life plan is not in accordance with reality. Developing common sense means to see our misconceptions of being separated from others and adjust our life plan accordingly. In the words of Marie Manuchehri we could also describe it as overcoming our mind-made emotions and start to feel our true emotions. Our true emotions might still be “negatively” connoted emotions like anger, sadness or grief, but they are not accompanied by a feeling of separation but rather a feeling of compassion for others and ourselves.

The notion of life plan also reminds me of the concept of Karma Yoga, where the goal is to work out the impressions stored within us as results from past actions. As long as we don’t act fully in accordance with reality, we are creating karma. As long as there is karma and false beliefs stored in our life plan, we will encounter problems in our lives that that point to our false beliefs. Karma can be destroyed through giving up the fruits of our actions, which means, by not identifying ourselves with the results of our actions. In other words, by doing our actions out of common sense instead of ego sense.

The coolness of my younger self described in the introduction contains both elements of inferiority and superiority. Inferiority mainly is expressed in a latent feeling of inadequacy for this world and that nobody is able to understand me. Superiority then is expressed in a feeling of being too special and complex that normal people can understand me, that I am just too cool for the world. My self-portrait in the introduction from these days suggests that my true emotion at this time might have been anger, not coolness. I don’t remember at all of having been consciously angry in my life as a teenager. I felt rather to cool for being angry. Well, today, anger feels quite right for this period of my life.

Level of society

“Society is built out of the relationship of people; if our relationship is not correct, precise, actual, then we create a society which is not sound; and that is what is happening in the world.” (J. Krishnamurti)

To create a society which is sound, we need people that have learned to have correct relationships, or, to stay within the analogy, learned to play an instrument. If you grow up in a society that is not sound, it is hard to learn to play an instrument. This is the fundamental chicken-and-egg problem of society and its individuals, which continuously bring forth each other.

Sound seems to offer a welcoming metaphor for relationship. It is also extensively used by the temporary sociologist Hartmut Rosa, who in his 2016 published Resonance Theory attempts to build a fully comprehensive social theory based on relationship and resonance as its fundamental elements. He uses for example the two sound forks, where the vibration of one fork evokes a vibration in the second fork in its own natural frequency without the two forks being mechanically connected, to illustrate resonance as a principle of mutual influence fundamentally opposed to the principle of direct cause-and-effect. While our thoughts try to analyze the world mostly in terms of cause-and-effect, Hartmut Rosa claims, supported by an extensive amount of examples, that the fundamental mechanisms of society are based on resonance relationships and not on direct cause-and-effect. It is our cause-and-effect-centered (i.e., rational) thinking that lies at the heart of modern Western societies and their endeavor to control everything: nature, the people, the economy, health, our bodies, our relationships, and so on. One of Hartmut Rosa’s central observations is that this will to control everything is creating non-resonant relationships and is the main source of alienation in our society:

“Resonance remains the promise of modernity. Alienation, however, is its reality.” (Hartmut Rosa, Resonanz 2016)

Hartmut Rosa’s goal with the Resonance Theory is nothing less than bringing the notorious critical theory to completion. One common thread running through the critical writings of European modernity is the description and lamentation of some sort of alienation. Marxism describes the alienation of the worker from work driven by capitalism, Nietzsche describes the alienation of modern man from God, and existentialists such as Sartre and Camus describe alienation as the fundamental reality of existence. While acknowledging the many well documented experiences of alienation, Rosa reframes and clarifies their essence by describing alienation as a mode of relationship, with resonance being the opposite mode to alienation.

Although I cannot claim the expertise to judge whether he has succeeded in bringing critical theory to completion, I can definitely say that reading Hartmut Rosa’s book was a great relief at least for myself. Finally, there was an explanation to these many serious and grumpy characters populating modern European history of thought. Camus’s haunting spell that “life is absurd”, Nietzsche’s haunting spell that “God is dead”, Adorno’s haunting spell that “there is no right life in the wrong one”, they were all broken for me. Before I thought “yes, they are grumpy and critical, but it appears like they are the only ones who acknowledge the reality that this world is fucked up”. Today, I think that the common thread is not that they are the only ones that faced the reality, but that they were all facing a somewhat distorted reality characterized by heavily laden relationship with society and life.

If we want to put Hartmut Rosa’s poles into my table above, we however have problem: he describes only two poles, alienation and resonance. For making his theory compliant, I allow myself to introduce a third pole, namely social activism, which serves as an actual opposite pole to alienation. And resonance would then become the pure principle that we want to attain. Maybe the missing active principle might also explain the voiced critique that the Resonance Theory has lost the “theoretically informed irreconcilability looking coldly at society” of critical theory, the active principle would bring back the irreconcilability.

There are many aspects of our society that are “unhealthy” or “not sound” and are due to change, that is out of question to me. The question is how can we actually transform our society? Through becoming socially active or through changing ourselves?

Here, we should realize that we cannot control society or the behavior of other people. We cannot even control most aspects of our own bodies. What we can control (and therefore should learn to control) is our breath, our emotions, and our thoughts. Learning to control these is difficult enough. However, there we do have an influence on society and society does have an influence on us through resonance relationships. We should also become aware of this mutual influence that is happening all the time, whether we are aware of it or not.

We send every one of our thoughts and emotions out into the world. We influence other people with them and thus participate in the continuous creation of the society in which we live. At the same time, we also receive the world through our thoughts and emotions. Perhaps there is not one society but many “societies” and we receive only those “societies” or parts society that resonate with our own thoughts and emotions. By changing them we do change the “societies” or parts society that we receive in each and every moment. So by changing our thoughts and emotions, we change even the one particular society we live in immediately.

If we come back to Karma Yoga again, the answer to the question would be something like this: become socially active, if this is what your karma is encouraging you to do, but no matter what, most importantly detach yourself from the results of your actions. Otherwise your actions will be the seeds of new karma and hence problems in the future. And remember that a problem becomes problematic only through your thoughts. And, as I may add, also try to create awareness and growth on all levels of relationship in the process.

A practice of relationship

How can we create awareness and growth on all levels of relationship? That’s the question of practice. There is no spiritual path without a practice. Practice is the central aspect of any path. The spiritual path of Raja Yoga focuses on our internal nature, “the control of the thought waves in the mind stuff” (Patanjali Yoga Sutras, I.2) through the practice of physical postures, breathing exercises and meditation. There is also one aphorism about human relationships in the Yoga Sutras:

“Undisturbed calmness of mind is attained by cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and indifference toward the wicked.” (Patanjali Yoga Sutras, II.33)

This verse hints at the tendency of our minds to become envy and jealous when we meet happy people, to despise and criticize unhappy people, to create feelings of inferiority and superiority towards the virtues of others, and to answer with hatred and injury to attacks from wicked people. These reactions however all create confusion and noise in our mind. For a calm mind we should resist these tendencies and learn to react with the thoughts and emotions named in verse II.33.

Aside from examples like this, it seems to me that human relationships have received rather little attention in yoga and the spiritual practices I know. In this article, I tried to give an impression of how relationships are deeply inter-winded on many (if not all) levels of our human existence, and to show that involving in human relationships can very well be seen as a spiritual path on its own.

One possible practice that one can integrate in a daily routine is the method of honest sharing developed by Gopal Norbert Klein, which you can practice in dedicated groups, with your partner, with friends, or even alone in your relationship with yourself. One person starts to observe their bodily sensations, emotions and thoughts, and shares them with the listener(s) starting all sentences with one of the three phrases “I sense in my body …”, “I am feeling …” or “my head thinks …”. This helps you, firstly to become aware of what is happening in every moment on the different levels of your body, emotions and thoughts, secondly to discriminate between the different levels and “yourself”, and thirdly to learn to freely share your internal world with others. The listener(s) actively listen to the speaker without judging him/her and at the same time observe their own sensations, emotions and thoughts occurring as a reaction to the words heard.

This is a simple practice. However, at the beginning it might be quite difficult to discriminate between your sensations, emotions and thoughts. And sharing these things rawly, as you observe them within you, with others might also be hard. You need to let go of your well trained persona and you are making yourself vulnerable. So, it is important to start to practice in an environment and with people you feel save with. With time, you can integrate this practice more and more into your daily relationships and conflicts. And you will learn that there is true power and strength in this honesty of sharing your sensations, emotions and thoughts with others. The power of this honesty can also trigger fears in others, so not everyone will always be enchanted to hear your inner truth. In such a situation, you may feel wrong and ashamed. So, you need to learn when it feels save and correct to share your truth, and when it might be better to just say nothing. Growth is a slow step-by-step process, but with each step you increase your safety zone, your reach of feeling at home in this world, your awareness, and your internal strength and power. And the more you have shared your truth, the more you actually become one with that truth. So at some point, there is less need for you to intentionally share your truth, because you are already doing it in every single moment, just by being you.

In my own experience, I really learned so much about myself and my emotional character and fundamental beliefs and misconceptions by stepping into a relationship with the woman who became my wife today. Part of it was the practice of honest sharing and similar exercises, and a lot of it was just through deciding to share our life together. With time, my interest and curiosity for other spiritual practices started to open more and more. We both helped each other to become grateful for our lives. For that, I will be ever grateful to her.

A symbol of relationship

And last but not least, a path should not miss a symbol. So, here we go (you need to click to play the video):

Video created by the author using JavaScript.

We come into this world as a point of infinite potential; our essence being trust.

We evolve into an open circle, a separated individual; our essence being relationship.

We leave this world as a closed circle, completeness; our essence being knowledge.

Literature

Stephen Porges (2018), “Polyvagal Theory: A Primer”, Chapter 4 from Porges SW & Dana D (2018). Clinical Applications of the Polyvagal Theory: The Emergence of Polyvagal-Informed Therapies. New York: WW Norton.

Alfred Adler (1933), “Der Sinn des Lebens”.

Swami Vivekananda (Chicago 1893), “Karma Yoga”. https://istore.chennaimath.org

Patanjali, “Patanjali Yoga Sutras” with commentaries from Swami Prabhavananda and Chirstopher Isherwood. https://istore.chennaimath.org

Hartmut Rosa (2016), “Resonanz. Eine Soziologie der Weltbeziehung”.