Often we feel frustrated, angry, and bewildered when the person we want to connect with does not respond. They seem to be hiding behind some kind of facade or mask, which can seem difficult to penetrate.  Or perhaps they seem to be avoiding our company. Our longing can propell us into a way of engaging with people that creates a kind of pressure on them—we want to break through their pretensions and get to something real and authentic. The challenge, whenever we find ourselves in this kind of situation, is to learn how to honour ourselves and the other person at exactly the same time.

I honour and respect myself by allowing myself to feel the frustration, and also the longing for connection. Feeling the longing lets my heart soften—it reminds me that there is love at the bottom of all this, a deep and simple caring for the other person and our relationship.

I can honour the other person by realizing that they have a perfect right to be exactly the way they are. If they are not being real with me, if I cannot find their authentic self, it is often because they themselves do not know where or what that is. Or because they feel threatened by me in some way.
If I have an agenda, any kind of agenda with this person, I am imposing something on the openness and freedom of their being, and they will feel it, even if I don’t speak it out loud. These are the silent conversations that go on all the time, especially in families and intimate relationships. I can be having a verbal exchange with someone, and on another level, there is a silent conversation going on that is very different than the verbal one.

So if I am thinking, “I want you to be more authentic, or more open with me, “ I am not accepting you the way you are, and you will feel this, in your body, or in your mind and heart.

There is this possibility of working with the longing for authenticity and deep connection, in such a way that we are not putting that kind of pressure or demand on the other person.

How do I create an environment that nourishes and supports a genuine connection with this person I care about? First of all, I have to be willing to listen to them without any judgment or defensiveness.  If this person says to me, “I feel small and clumsy around you, “ we can really receive that, instead of saying, “No, that’s not how I relate to you.”

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“Radiant mind is where love and wisdom intersect. When we connect with it, we open to an effortless radiance that ripples positively into all of life and supports the natural emergence of compassion and understanding for the human condition

On the level of our conditioned mind, we experience ourselves as separate and quite distinct from the world. In fact the boundary between ourselves and others, even those we are intimate and familiar with, may seem quite solid and indisputable.

If you examine this boundary a little more carefully, you’ll notice that it is quite hard to find. Of course there is a boundary between your body and your environment, which is defined by the surface of your skin. But what about you? Where do you actually stop? Where is the boundary between your self and the world? It can be startling to experience how ephemeral it actually is, when you begin to look at it directly. You move through your days, assuming the existence of this boundary between you and everything else. And yet when you try and find it, it’s not really there.”

(From “Radiant Mind, Awakening Unconditioned Awareness” by Peter Fenner, Phd)

This is an email I have written to a group of people I am working with around our fears of survival. These folks are leaning to take care of themselves, to move through obstacle and challenges, and to trust that they can do this in a good way, in spite of the major challenges we are all facing on that level right now.

There are so many people right now, feeling just the same kind of survival fear that is arising for you. I have this strong feeling that this is a big gateway for so many of of us right now, and that we can really learn to work with this fear, step by step, call ourselves back into the present moment, and start to see how many of our difficulties are based on inner blockages, not what is going on in the outside world. It’s extraordinarily empowering to realize this--in the face of our whole economy unravelling...that if we remain open, and clear, and focused on our goals in a sane and responsible way, we will actually be able to take care of ourselves. And that involves becoming more and more aware of how our thoughts and beliefs create our experience, over and over again.

I was speaking with someone last night about this kind of fear, and she said everytime she thinks about finding a good job, the thought arises, “It’s not going to happen.” I asked her to drop into her body and see if she could feel how that kind of thinking is related to our desire to be in control. She felt that instantly, and replied, “Oh, yeah, these kind of thoughts let me be the boss..because I know what’s going to happen.”

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