“Selfishness” Nourishes Your Relationship
We in the West hold a strong cultural mythology regarding the “loss of our freedom” once we commit to relationship. Our language is full of phrases that allude to the loss: “ball and chain”, “ ‘til death do us part”, “My wife/husband won’t “let me.” ” The loss of personal autonomy within a committed relationship is seen as an inevitable part of the package, the sacrifice we are forced to make if we want to enjoy the comforts of a long-term partnership. This loss of freedom goes unquestioned, and the yoke of slavery-to- relationship is donned willingly. The trouble with the scenario, as it is generally imagined, is that slavery breads resentment. Slavery breeds revolt and discord, just as it should. The belief system we have built around our relationship culture is a blueprint for unhappiness, the unhappiness that plagues so many of our relationships.
"Everything you ‘have to have’ owns you." That is a quote from Wayne Dyer’s Staying on the Path. If you are in a relationship that you believe you need then you are indeed enslaved, but not by your relationship. You are trapped by your own culturally-re-enforced beliefs about what it means to be in relationship, and even more importantly, trapped by your beliefs about your self.
Most people look to complete themselves in a relationship, and by approaching a committed partnership with that intention, buy into the belief that they “need” their partners. We have a host of popular culture re-enforcement that glorifies the feeling of need (songs, romance novels, Hollywood movies), as if the strength of the “need” is the true measure of the depth and strength of the love. The trouble is, it isn’t. The strength of the “need” is only a measure of the depth of the fear of losing the relationship: fear of being alone, feeling rejected, feeling unwanted, or sometimes being poor. Your need is about you. It has little, if anything, to do with your actual partner. The strength of your need measures only the level of your willingness to give yourself away and sell yourself into slavery to the relationship (or partner). "We are everyone of us full of horror. If you are getting married to try and make yours go away, you will only succeed in marrying your horror to someone else’s horror, your two horrors will have the marriage, you will bleed and call that love.” - Michael Ventura (Meeting the Shadow)
What if commitment did not have to spell slavery? What would it be like to be both free and in loving partnership at the same time. Does that sound like a paradox to you? Is it even possible? It is. The answer lies in being true to yourself. The answer lies in personal integrity, moment to moment. It is only when we feel whole and true unto ourselves that we can choose to be in partnership with another from a place of free will. Being mercilessly true to yourself is the only way to avoid the resentment-generating loss of autonomy that kills the life of relationships. Getting to a place where your life course and actions are generated from being true to yourself, is the only path to developing the capacity to choose a commitment with your partner, rather than feeling tied to them out of a sense of need.
Sometimes people stay together because they once promised to. They keep to the word they once gave and continue to live in the same house, and share the same bank account, the same bed. But the sacred partnership is dead. The MARRIAGE is dead. You will see those couples in restaurants across from each other. They are just eating and eating. They aren’t talking. Years of living in slavery, giving away their true selves, their needs, their dreams, their integrity of Self, in misguided service to the relationship, has sucked the life out of the partnership. The reason those couples don’t talk to each other is that the only thing left to talk about is the resentment and the loss that has accumulated over the years because neither partner was true to their own life’s calling.
Personal integrity opens the door to having both freedom and loving partnership at the same time. Being absolutely true to yourself in each moment means that when you want to act autonomously, you do just that, without being swayed by fear of repercussions from your partner. “But s/he’ll say I am selfish!! S/he’ll think I don’t love her!!” Doing what your partner wants you to do, when you don’t authentically want to, does in no way prove the depth of your love. It only proves how fearful you are of your partner’s anger, disappointment and judgement. Living from a place of wholeness-unto-yourself, from a place of personal integrity, allows you to face repercussions from a centered place that will not allow other people to pressure you back into your self-made trap. And there is no law that says that you can’t do what you must do for yourself while at the same time being kind, loving, and understanding of your partner’s feelings about it.
Being absolutely true to yourself in each moment also makes room, not only to act autonomously, but for you to choose your partner out of a real wanting for partnership, rather than need, or because of an agreement you made in the past. Real commitment, the true giving of self FROM THE HEART, is something that only exists in the present moment. It is something that must be chosen again and again as you check in with yourself and ask “is this what I am wanting now?”. Being true to yourself in each moment means you will pursue connection with your partner when you want it, and not be swayed by your fear that any repercussions (punishment in response for the time when you were acting from a place of autonomy) will provoke rejection from your partner. Partners are often shocked when you start putting personal integrity before the relationship, even though being true to yourself is in the long term health of a loving partnership. Coming from a place of wholeness lets you know that your partner’s acting-out is about him/her, and not about you, so there is no need to feel responsible for your partner’s fear/anger/rejecting behaviors or be defined by their judgments.
Don’t buy the “You are so selfish!” guilt-trip any more! Ask yourself this: Do you want to be bound to your partner out of fear and need? Do you want a partner who feels bound to you? Or do you want a partner in your life who chooses you, a partner whose commitment to you is alive in the present moment? If you want the love you are co-creating in your relationship to be a living thing that grows and grows, then being true to yourself in each moment will be the highest value you hold in your relationship. You will focus on doing the work it takes to feel whole unto yourself so you don’t make choices out of need. And you will support your partner’s autonomy, and wholeness as well.
We in the West hold a strong cultural mythology regarding the “loss of our freedom” once we commit to relationship. Our language is full of phrases that allude to the loss: “ball and chain”, “ ‘til death do us part”, “My wife/husband won’t “let me.” ” The loss of personal autonomy within a committed relationship is seen as an inevitable part of the package, the sacrifice we are forced to make if we want to enjoy the comforts of a long-term partnership. This loss of freedom goes unquestioned, and the yoke of slavery-to- relationship is donned willingly. The trouble with the scenario, as it is generally imagined, is that slavery breads resentment. Slavery breeds revolt and discord, just as it should. The belief system we have built around our relationship culture is a blueprint for unhappiness, the unhappiness that plagues so many of our relationships.
"Everything you ‘have to have’ owns you." That is a quote from Wayne Dyer’s Staying on the Path. If you are in a relationship that you believe you need then you are indeed enslaved, but not by your relationship. You are trapped by your own culturally-re-enforced beliefs about what it means to be in relationship, and even more importantly, trapped by your beliefs about your self.
Most people look to complete themselves in a relationship, and by approaching a committed partnership with that intention, buy into the belief that they “need” their partners. We have a host of popular culture re-enforcement that glorifies the feeling of need (songs, romance novels, Hollywood movies), as if the strength of the “need” is the true measure of the depth and strength of the love. The trouble is, it isn’t. The strength of the “need” is only a measure of the depth of the fear of losing the relationship: fear of being alone, feeling rejected, feeling unwanted, or sometimes being poor. Your need is about you. It has little, if anything, to do with your actual partner. The strength of your need measures only the level of your willingness to give yourself away and sell yourself into slavery to the relationship (or partner). "We are everyone of us full of horror. If you are getting married to try and make yours go away, you will only succeed in marrying your horror to someone else’s horror, your two horrors will have the marriage, you will bleed and call that love.” - Michael Ventura (Meeting the Shadow)
What if commitment did not have to spell slavery? What would it be like to be both free and in loving partnership at the same time. Does that sound like a paradox to you? Is it even possible? It is. The answer lies in being true to yourself. The answer lies in personal integrity, moment to moment. It is only when we feel whole and true unto ourselves that we can choose to be in partnership with another from a place of free will. Being mercilessly true to yourself is the only way to avoid the resentment-generating loss of autonomy that kills the life of relationships. Getting to a place where your life course and actions are generated from being true to yourself, is the only path to developing the capacity to choose a commitment with your partner, rather than feeling tied to them out of a sense of need.
Sometimes people stay together because they once promised to. They keep to the word they once gave and continue to live in the same house, and share the same bank account, the same bed. But the sacred partnership is dead. The MARRIAGE is dead. You will see those couples in restaurants across from each other. They are just eating and eating. They aren’t talking. Years of living in slavery, giving away their true selves, their needs, their dreams, their integrity of Self, in misguided service to the relationship, has sucked the life out of the partnership. The reason those couples don’t talk to each other is that the only thing left to talk about is the resentment and the loss that has accumulated over the years because neither partner was true to their own life’s calling.
Personal integrity opens the door to having both freedom and loving partnership at the same time. Being absolutely true to yourself in each moment means that when you want to act autonomously, you do just that, without being swayed by fear of repercussions from your partner. “But s/he’ll say I am selfish!! S/he’ll think I don’t love her!!” Doing what your partner wants you to do, when you don’t authentically want to, does in no way prove the depth of your love. It only proves how fearful you are of your partner’s anger, disappointment and judgement. Living from a place of wholeness-unto-yourself, from a place of personal integrity, allows you to face repercussions from a centered place that will not allow other people to pressure you back into your self-made trap. And there is no law that says that you can’t do what you must do for yourself while at the same time being kind, loving, and understanding of your partner’s feelings about it.
Being absolutely true to yourself in each moment also makes room, not only to act autonomously, but for you to choose your partner out of a real wanting for partnership, rather than need, or because of an agreement you made in the past. Real commitment, the true giving of self FROM THE HEART, is something that only exists in the present moment. It is something that must be chosen again and again as you check in with yourself and ask “is this what I am wanting now?”. Being true to yourself in each moment means you will pursue connection with your partner when you want it, and not be swayed by your fear that any repercussions (punishment in response for the time when you were acting from a place of autonomy) will provoke rejection from your partner. Partners are often shocked when you start putting personal integrity before the relationship, even though being true to yourself is in the long term health of a loving partnership. Coming from a place of wholeness lets you know that your partner’s acting-out is about him/her, and not about you, so there is no need to feel responsible for your partner’s fear/anger/rejecting behaviors or be defined by their judgments.
Don’t buy the “You are so selfish!” guilt-trip any more! Ask yourself this: Do you want to be bound to your partner out of fear and need? Do you want a partner who feels bound to you? Or do you want a partner in your life who chooses you, a partner whose commitment to you is alive in the present moment? If you want the love you are co-creating in your relationship to be a living thing that grows and grows, then being true to yourself in each moment will be the highest value you hold in your relationship. You will focus on doing the work it takes to feel whole unto yourself so you don’t make choices out of need. And you will support your partner’s autonomy, and wholeness as well.
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