Intimate relationships are powerful teachers and indicators of what we ought to focus on healing in our own lives. When we are intimately involved with another, that intimacy pulls from the most hidden depths of our beings the wounds, the obstacles and the knots of samsara. These wounds and obstacles may have been buried under layer-upon-protective-layer of conscious or unconscious defences, suppressed memories, pain and fear; yet through the bonds of intimacy, are suddenly ripped up through all of that ego, and brought to centre stage, where we have no choice but to confront it.
When intimacy is built upon genuine compassion and love, then it provides us with the ideal environment for working through those difficult and painfully embedded knots and wounds. We sense that the love itself can tolerate the struggle and provide the strength to move through the pain, rather than try to avoid it any longer.
In A Course in Miracles, we teach that one’s task is not to seek out love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within ourselves that we have built against it.
We will be hurt in relationships, no matter what. It’s part of the journey of life. Even those we perceive as being closest to us will do things which trigger pain and sadness. How we choose to move through those experiences, however, is the greatest indication of where we are in our spiritual journey. This doesn’t mean allowing yourself to be used as a doormat, by any means. It is one’s responsibility to let others know when they have experienced pain or sorrow, due to actions or inactions. And there will be times when relationships cease to be healthy and will have run their courses. But there is never a time when we can allow ourselves to condemn another person, for that is nothing more than an attempt to justify ourselves… and self-justification is neither necessary nor useful. What need have you to justify yourself? Why rally against someone who hurt you by demanding that they recognise your worth?
Perhaps the other person is hurting, weak, immature or simply made a bad decision. The very fact that an intimate relationship exists between you ought to be evidence enough that this person recognises your value, and may perhaps be a better indication that the one whose value they do not recognise is their own!
There is a story among the writings of the Desert Fathers, in which someone asks one of the monks to define humility. The ascetic sage replied simply, “Humility is when you forgive someone who has wronged you before he expresses regret.” My Teacher, Tenzin Yangchen Ma, taught me: “When you have an angry reaction over anything big or small, you begin to open up new trails, or new grooves of unworthiness, within yourself. You also begin to deepen these grooves every time you have another angry reaction…” But she explained further than when we begin to touch that place, where we are wounded, with awareness and the pranic breath, we soften those grooves, releasing the fear and the pain, and giving rise to compassion. Love is deeper than anger. Love dispells fear.
Namasté!
-- dharmacharya gurudas sunyatananda
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