How Pure Unconditioned Awareness Will Get You What You Want in Relationships (Or Anything Else)

"I see that you are a meditator?" someone asked me one day.

"I had an opening," I replied. "I use self-awareness techniques that don't require long periods of sitting now.”

“Opening?” He inquired. “Perceiving from beyond the conditioned mind.” I explain. “Some level of unconditioned awareness.”

I suddenly remember that day vividly, me chest feels like it's expanding and I feel light. The world around me feels pristine and my heart feels like joy and pure love. I'm not questioning it or wondering how it happened because my mind is still.

This is what I want.

Figuring Out What you Want

Our minds are so busy with all the things we have to do we are sometimes not completely in touch with what we want or need. We may be resisting reality on some level to where we are unconsciously trying to get certain needs met from outside ourselves and not open to the needs that others can actually fill. This is backwards!

There is nothing wrong, for example, for wanting to be a mother and stay home and raise children and wanting a husband who is a provider so you can do that. Where the problem lies is in you make yourself unhappy because you don't have it. When you resist reality and make your self unhappy because you are not living the life your head is telling you you should have not only are you not living in the present moment but you are going to start creating a story in your head about how you have to fix this unhappiness and you are going to start making bad decisions. We all do this, it's part of human nature. But, in the arena of love in relationships this is especially costly. We may choose partners based on a sense of lack and when we do that we are not relating to the person at all we are relating to the story in our head. Welcome to unhappy marriages, divorce, broken families and lost children.

It's not just women. Men have their stories, too. We all do.

Obviously, this is epidemic in our culture and getting out of this rut is not easy. It's been passed down from generation to generation. We are dealing with a lot of triggers from outside and inside.

So what's real?

The first thing we need to try and do is deal with what is in front of our face. If there is no man or woman right there in front of us then we need to focus on what is in our immediate environment and what our immediate needs are. We need to reel ourselves back in. When we are able to begin to do this we will find that everything is OK right this moment. Then what happens is our inner peace can arise within us and inform us as to what we are really wanting and needing. When we start operating from this place we open up a whole new world of possibilities. Our minds can start working on positive and constructive ways to fill our needs now, not in the future. In this way, we can make ourselves ready for our future.

Feeding the ego

I know a lot of people are hoping for the latest tip, trick or technique that is going to get them what they think they want. And sometimes they work and there is nothing wrong with that. But work for how long? What is it that we are all really wanting deep down inside and are these strategies bringing it to us? It makes me think of certain self-help authors over the years whose strategies blew up their relationships. They feel good for a while because they are feeding our egos but the thing about feeding our egos is that they are insatiable and will always come up with ways to let us, and our partners know, THIS ISN'T IT. And something is wrong. Our minds will begin manufacturing problems, dissatisfactions and reasons why things are breaking down. Sometimes things are breaking down and our minds will help us make it worse.

Getting into relationships based on feeding that “I want” urge is very slippery. It takes us out of the moment and into a story. So, when we have that fantasy vision in our head about what we want and start conjuring up ways on how to get it we attract another person and their story. This happens all the time and it's usually what is going on. It's a skill to learn how to discern then use the body to help us understand what we are really feeling. We also learn about how to recognize what is going on in the two part system of our mind to become aware of what we are doing before we bulldoze into a situation that is not in our best interest.

If this all sounds like a drag and a lot of work. Well it is a lot of work. But what is even more of a drag is to wake up one day and wonder WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING? We've all been there. I know I was there when my last relationship ended. My whole world crumbled and I was completely lost. I had no idea how I had created that life.

Mid-Stream Course Correction

Anytime is a good time to self correct or change course. As self-awareness becomes more and more a part of our ongoing, daily part of conscious living course correction will become second nature. But, as we are just starting in this new way of living it will seems awkward at first. There will be guilt. There will be shame. There will be sadness. There will be anger. We will feel profound loss. But we will get better at this with practice. We will be able to take those inevitable steps backwards without beating ourselves up because we will realize that it is part of the process. We never fully get rid of our triggers we just learn to how respond to them instead of reacting to them.

Reacting to our triggers is a habit and it leads to re-triggering ourselves and thus this cycle beings and goes on. Responding to our triggers and our needs is an art and takes time and is really a skill that evolves over the span of our entire lifetime. When we are learning any new skill it is awkward, we fumble and we may be unsure of ourselves. But if we liken it to any other learning process we can know that if we just stick with it we will eventually see results.

Realizing that we are veering down a road that is not leading us to what we want or if we don't know what we want we know that it is not leading us to peace, joy, love and contentment we can decide at any time to change course. As long as we're alive it's never too late. WE are in the driver's seat. Aren't we?