Relationship as a Wisdom Path

Relationship as a "Wisdom Path"

There's lots of options. You can meditate, study ancient spiritual texts, involve yourself in any number of mystical practices from tantra to Kundalini.  You can immerse yourself in intensive training programs such as Core Energetics, Radical Aliveness, Process Work, or study yoga, tai chi or Qi gong.

The one option you may not have considered though is the highly intensive, radically evocative, omnipresent experience of a life fully shared. The committed relationship offers each person a golden opportunity to evolve, emotionally, spiritually, and socially. Few of us stop to consider just how rife with potential our relationships are as a vehicle for personal development. But what if you were to look at your partnership in this light? What if you brought to it the same attitude your may have already exhibited for any of the above mentioned wisdom paths?

As with any path, your relationship requires a willingness to practice, a level of discipline, and a deep curiosity to learn. Over the length of our 33 years together, with plenty of fits and starts, Marcia and I have gradually come to recognize and appreciate how much we each have evolved through the tempest of full emotional contact. We have learned (often through gut-wrenching interactions) how to show up more and more in our total humanity.

Just as there is no terminal point on a pathway to enlightenment (that is, we don't arrive at Destination Bliss) our relationships continue to afford us endless opportunities to discover ourselves in newer and deeper ways. After 33 years with the same person, I still engage in habits of hiding, pretending, and otherwise avoiding the truth of who I am. In the long term partnership, we all develop "control patterns", or ways of being with each other which only serve to inhibit the truth. We smile when we're pissed, crack a joke when we're afraid, blame when we feel the heat of shame, bully when we worry we won't be given to freely, and disappear into the computer when we don't know how to make contact. Full relationship challenges us to transcend these control patterns and show up in uncomfortable ways. This requires humility, self-responsibility, curiosity, and a healthy tolerance for chaos, as conflict is sure to arise.

The wisdom path of relationship is one where we learn how to be honest with ourselves and at least one other human being. Here is where we can really learn to love - which is to fully appreciate the others "otherness." To openly love another imperfect soul is wisdom personified. If you are willing to meditate twice a day or go on intensive retreats, is it possible you can begin to see your relationship as a valid pathway to your highest potential?