Relational Intimacy in Times of Separation
We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Dear Ones,
Many years ago I had an experience that changed my life and the way I view relationships. My wife Sonia and I were participating in an awareness-raising program. Our task, on this paradigm-shifting day, was to make our home and life impeccable! We were cleaning the kitchen floor of our 60-year-old Victorian home, with toothbrushes to get the dirt out of the ancient cracks in the wood. After several hours of back-breaking work, we stopped to take a pause and do what we called a “Be With”, an exercise where you sit on a cushion and gaze into each other's eyes for 5-10 minutes.
Many years ago I had an experience that changed my life and the way I view relationships. My wife Sonia and I were participating in an awareness-raising program. Our task, on this paradigm-shifting day, was to make our home and life impeccable! We were cleaning the kitchen floor of our 60-year-old Victorian home, with toothbrushes to get the dirt out of the ancient cracks in the wood. After several hours of back-breaking work, we stopped to take a pause and do what we called a “Be With”, an exercise where you sit on a cushion and gaze into each other's eyes for 5-10 minutes.
So, we’re sitting cross-legged, on our very clean kitchen floor, gazing into each other's eyes, when simultaneously we had an identical experience. I found myself looking through her eyes into my own eyes as she concurrently found herself looking out from my eyes, into her own eyes. It was such a startling experience that we both sprung off our cushions. What the f#!% was that!!???? That was over 40 years ago and I still find myself longing for a similar experience! It was so real, that to this day, I remember every detail as if it was yesterday. Could it be that there are ways of being so connected to others that we completely merge and transcend our self encapsulated ego? Was this a direct experience of inter-being?
The state of interbeing is a vulnerable state. It is the vulnerability of the naive altruist, of the trusting lover, of the unguarded sharer. To enter it, one must leave behind the seeming shelter of a control-based life, protected by walls of cynicism, judgment, and blame.
Charles Eisenstein
Charles Eisenstein
We all want to be seen, loved, and appreciated just as we are, and as we’re not, without condition, prejudice, projection, or desire. How wonderful it would feel to be seen through the eyes of pure love and acceptance. Perhaps, the biggest barrier to experiencing this kind of love, is that we aren’t giving it to ourselves? Most of us are so hard on ourselves, it’s amazing that we have any friends at all. We say things like, “You’re so stupid; you will never get it right; who would want to be with someone like you; you’ll never amount to anything; you’re just not good enough…!” All of these self-deprecating judgements keep us separate by creating a self-imposed prison of limiting beliefs.
This journey starts with the deconstruction of our own personal narrative, separating our feelings from our story, and using every circumstance that arises to claim the beauty of our own awakening. As Saint Francis said, “it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” What is dying is our dysfunctional, deterministic past based story. When we move into the world of Quantum Mysticism we enter into a world beyond our personal story, and outside of time, where past, present and future meld into the eternal now. This is the story that is calling us from the emergent future…
Many of us hold self-love as a narcissistic habit of vain, ignorant, arrogant, and pompous self-indulgent people with delusions of grandeur. We want to get away from them as quickly as possible. But, that position in and of itself denies the possibility that perhaps we have a bit of this in our self-protected, judgemental, finger-pointing selves. What is it in them, that calls us to move away, protect ourselves, and hold them as separate? Could it be they are triggering some aspect of ourselves that is calling for love, healing, and wholeness? Perhaps our judgements emanate from our own discomfort with intimacy, authenticity, and vulnerability?
As much as we long for it, most of us are so uncomfortable with the kind of authentic intimacy that leaves us vulnerable, unguarded, and out of control. It renders us defenseless and keeps us from experiencing one of the deepest human needs, the need to be connected, to be truly seen, heard, and known. To face the dark abyss of these feelings of vulnerability, discomfort, and fear is to move to the edges of our identity, where we can find our greatest growth, joy, and courage. Being authentic about our vulnerability and inauthenticity connects us with profound spiritual love, our essential goodness, and our innate connection to everyone and everything...
We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be
deeply seen and known, and when we honour the spiritual connection that
grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness, and affection.
Brené Brown
deeply seen and known, and when we honour the spiritual connection that
grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness, and affection.
Brené Brown
When we allow ourselves to be present with our discomfort, triggers, and reactions to others and circumstances, we are presented with a profound opportunity for healing. In our early development, we come up against fear, trauma, and unwanted experiences. If we had a loving, nurturing, and supportive base in our parents or caregivers we could go to them to be comforted, held, and validated. But, no matter how amazing they were, we will still have overwhelming experiences that we will suppress, dissociate, or deny in some way. This is not a bad thing or something that needs to be fixed. It is actually a miraculous quality of the body and nervous system that allows us to shut down some part of ourselves in order to keep functioning. In shamanism, this is what is called soul loss. Some part of our essential goodness gets shut down in order to protect us from being overwhelmed by real or perceived threats.
These disowned parts stay suppressed until they get the love and attention they needed. If not they will continue on for decades until we are ready to meet, greet, and love them or die. Let’s say you were 5 and you had an experience that frightened you. You come running to Daddy and say “Daddy, I’m scared” and he says, “there’s nothing to be scared of, it’s all in your imagination, grow up” So we suppress our fear and it becomes embodied, frozen energy in our nervous system. Every time a similar incident comes up it takes an enormous amount of energy to hold it down. It robs us of our ability to be fully present, creative, connected, and in the experience of the moment. If the parent had said, “it’s ok to be scared sweetheart, we all get scared, come here and let me hold you.” The energy of fear will dissipate in the loving arms of the parent and support the child in meeting his fears later in life.
But, what if we didn’t get that kind of love and attention? Then we need to learn to give it to ourselves. Begin by noticing that nothing is wrong or broken. It was the response of a very intelligent system. When the fear, discomfort, or trigger responses comes up we can pay attention. What am I feeling right now? Where is it in my body? Does it have a story attached to it? Then we give our little 5-year-old loving attention by imagining him in our arms and telling him that it’s ok, I’m (the grown-up you) here to love and hold you. I will protect and love you, no matter what comes.” What happens when we do this is that we create more space within ourselves, we retrieve the energy that's been holding it down and we digest or integrate the experience into our body and nervous system…
Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.
Pema Chodron
Pema Chodron
When we truly do our inner work and hold every experience as an opportunity for evolutionary growth, we become whole and complete. We are no longer trying to get attention, be right, grasp for love, or live in a condition of scarcity, isolation, and separation. We begin to recognize how intimately connected we are to everyone and everything. Because we have had compassion, kindness, and love towards ourselves, we can more easily have it towards others. We begin to feel their pain, suffering, and struggle because it is ours. Everything we do, say, and are being, touches and affects everyone and everything else.
In this time of great change, we have the opportunity and power to recognize that we are all related, inter - beings, indivisible, interconnected, and profoundly similar in spite of the ways we try to individuate and separate by “othering” those who we see as different in some way. We can and must awaken from the illusion of separation that is at the heart of all suffering. We can move from a “you or me” world to a “you and me world” and rejoice in our differences and diversity. We hope you will join us in dissolving our false sense of isolation and celebrate this time of unprecedented change and opportunity for all life on this planet. In this time of pandemic, we have the real opportunity to pause and focus our attention on the intent of evolution itself to come together in one harmonious, congruent, and sustainable global family.
Thank you for being a part of the Well of Light Family and all you are doing to bring forth Relational Intimacy in your life and the world.
with infinite love and boundless blessings,
Michael, Meriel and the Well of Light Team
Michael, Meriel and the Well of Light Team
It could be the most significant turning point in our evolution because it meant we could move from a you-or-me world—a world where either you or I make it, and where we need to compete and fight to see who wins—to a you-and-me world, where all of us can make it together.
Bucky Fuller
Bucky Fuller
