Let’s begin our chamber 6 workout with an important area of every one’s lives: relationships. Why do they become so hard to maintain over time?
Here’s a clue:
While you are dating: “Hi guys, I want you to meet Jane”
When you are married: “Hi guys, I want you to meet my wife Jane”
After a separation: “Hi guys, this is Jane, my ex-wife”
Reflect on how you introduce people who are part of your life today. Does it happen?
Now that you know more about the ‘map’, see what is happening in a new light.
Stage 1: People enter our life as strangers. We do not know who they are, where they came from, what their purpose is and how they changed over time. We are curious. We want to get to know them better. Experience them in our lives.
Stage 2: We then start our relationship with them ‘as’ some one – a ‘friend’, ‘partner’, ‘date’, ‘wife’, ‘husband’.
The relationship begins only when we begin a ‘relation’ between us and them. We then begin to treat them the way we treat the relationship in our mind. We forget them. We begin to treat them only as a partner, as a close friend, as a colleague, as a wife or as a husband. The ‘map’ in the mind has taken over from the person. This sets in motion a sequence of intentions, action and reaction. But we try hard to maintain the map over time. We call it by a fancy name – ‘I am working on the relationship’. We are not. We are working on the ‘map’.
Stage 3: Some day they may leave our lives, when we cease our ‘relationship’ with them – as a close friend or as a partner or as a wife or as a husband.
We then see them again as strangers. We do not know for sure any longer, who they were, where they came from, what their purpose was. Yet, as we reflect on the relationship, we remember only how they made us feel, what we experienced of ourselves. During the relationship, we churned our own selves, brought out the best and worst of us from the hidden depths; brought it up to the surface and experienced it.
So, someday, we are thankful – for they helped us know ourselves, and what we hold within.
And because what we hold within is precious to us,
All relationships are precious.
They are mirrors, after all.
PAUSE.
Won’t we be better off if we see the person and drop the map?
What is more precious to experience, the person or the map?
Drop the map!
See the person
The 1 step change
Let’s now welcome the stranger in the house
Starting now, yes now, introduce everyone close to you everywhere, only by their name, not by their relationship to you.
As you introduce them by just their name, make eye contact with them, to tell your mind that this is how you see them
Because, the truth is that you don’t know who they are, where they came from, what their purpose is and how they will change over time.
What results will you get?
You will start seeing the difference in your own self, every time you drop the ‘wife/husband/son/best buddy’ in your introduction.
If you can get your partner to buy into this as well, that is great. The tango is better with two.
How long will it take to see the results? The map in your mind will slowly wither, when not used, over time.
You will see each other
new every day, even if you have been together all your life.
That was one of our New Year resolutions…remember?
Reflect!
A stranger cannot become your worst enemy
Only a close friend can become your worst enemy
When you have chosen your ‘friends’
You have already laid the ground for your ‘enemies’ to appear some day
In the beginning, they are strangers
In the end, they are strangers
In the middle, how can they be different?
Drop both of ‘them’ from your mind
Then real people appear in your life
Because you now see them as they are, not as you wish they were
Good luck
The Urban Monk diaries 