The Heart's Wisdom in Relationships

Saturday, 01 November 2008 16:06 Written by Nirmala

As for your questions, one of the challenging aspects of our inner knowing is that it is responding instantly to whatever is in awareness right this very moment, and then in the next breath it is responding to whatever is in awareness then. So in interactions with others or even with your own thoughts or insights, there may be a series of expansions and/or contractions as words are spoken, thoughts and feelings arise, and conditioned reactions or beliefs are triggered. For example if someone criticizes you, your heart or other wisdom center in your body may contract as they are speaking in response to the relative truth of their criticism. But if in the next moment you think "They are right, I am a jerk" then your heart may contract even more. In contrast if you compassionately think "Oh, they just lost their job, it is not surprising that they would be in a bad mood today" this wider perspective on what is happening may start your heart opening. So the responses of your Being are as fast as thought, and lord knows we can have a lot of thoughts in a very short period of time. And yet our heart or other wisdom center in the body will always be responding in that instant to the words as they are spoken, or the thought or reaction you are having in that very moment.

And when it comes to relationships, it can of course be hard to catch what is true and what is not true as there are often so many reactions in both people that are being expressed verbally and nonverbally, and your heart is responding to each one even if only for an instant. That is why I often say it matters more what the overall climate of a relationship is like, than what the weather is like today. One can ask if in the midst of triggering each other all day long into temporary contractions, are there also moments of truly expanded love and joy? Which is predominant? And of course the joy and love in just a moment of true heart connection and celebration can be enough to counterbalance a lot of petty little annoyances that may also be a part of being together...

Same thing is true when it comes to making choices about relative matters like where to live, whether to stay in a job, etc. What matters is the overall sense of a particular direction over time, not just what your heart is responding to in this moment. So when it comes to major decisions, it is best to take some time sensing the overall climate of your being's responses to the various options and all of the reactions you may have to the various options and any related ramifications of each option that you can think of before deciding. And at some point there is enough evidence in your heart to know the relative merit of the various choices. And by the way, your heart is still working fine if there is no overall difference between choices. That just means it really does not matter what you choose in that situation!

Another dynamic at play is that we unconsciously use the contraction of awareness that occurs with a judgement to avoid experiences. By thinking about an experience, we contract our awareness onto the content of our thoughts and in that way we are less aware of the content of the original experience. Anytime you contract your awareness, you expand your unawareness. So this is a good thing to keep in mind as you gently sort out whether you are contracting in response to the relative truth of what someone else does or says, or if you are contracting due to a defense mechanism of judgment arising in yourself. And by the way, there is nothing wrong with defense mechanisms. Thank god for all of our defense mechanisms as none of us would have made it out of childhood without them! But we can simply recognise them as they arise now and notice how true they really are....which is usually not very true. We do not really need to defend against reality especially now that we are adults and capable of responding to the situation. Instead we can recognise the smallness of a defense mechanism and then simply notice what else is true.

And yet in that noticing, we can also at times get an accurate read on how true someone else's actions and behaviors are. If you are always contracting when someone does something, it could be your heart's accurate response to the truth of their actions. The question is really what happens in the next moment. Do you "get the joke" and just laugh it off and move on, or are you still thinking about it an hour later? If the latter, then there is probably something in your own conditioning to look at. But that does not mean that if they are repeatedly triggering you all day long over and over that there is not something in them that needs to also be seen for what it is. You are under no obligation to stay around someone who is always acting without integrity or awareness.

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