Conscious Relationships that Serve Your Spiritual Development

Posted On September 20, 2016 / Written by Dr. Linda Gadbois

 Spiritual Sciences, which is all about personal growth and development, doesn’t view the idea of relationships in the same way that many other spiritual or religious traditions do. Being of a scientific nature, it looks more at the true nature of relationships, and what they serve to produce in us as a cause and effect relationship, and how that develops certain aspects of our character as a result. To gain awareness of the nature and value of our relationships, we have to notice how people affect us, how they interact with us as a dynamic, and how they influence us by directing our mind to certain types of ideas fashioned out of specific attitudes. Our relationships tune us to certain types of energy, attitudes and perspectives (the one they naturally employ), and we take on the same feelings and emotions and begin experiencing life from a similar point of view. Sometimes this forms insights that come from looking at things in a whole new way, and other times it can be degrading, irritating, or discouraging, because it causes you to step into parts of yourself or ways of being that you don’t like, and so it can have a repulsive feeling. Either way, just pay attention to it.

Conscious relationships are engaged in with full awareness of not only the dynamics being played out in a subliminal manner, but also what the interaction is acting to bring out in you, how you’re feeling, and what kind of person you become because of the relationship. As a general rule, you should set standards for yourself, for your own growth, development, and well-being that you commit to always honoring no matter what other form of temptation may be involved. Usually what happens, is we have no real vision or idea for ourselves and our life, we’re not clear on our values and what type of things are important to us, we haven’t set standards for ourselves, and we haven’t really ever learned the lesson that previous relationships offered us because we didn’t know how to properly look at them.

The only true value of a relationship of any kind, is how it serves to develop you by way of the psychology involved, and what parts of you it serves to naturally bring out and develop into a habitual state through the nature of the interaction that takes place. Our mental paradigm as the vibratory structure of our mind that forms our inner nature and how we’re always being naturally, acts in a natural fashion through resonance, to activate, bring to the immediate foreground, and interact with the same qualities and characteristics in everything else that we ourselves possess. We’re always acting on and influencing everyone else to be like us, to vibrate at the same frequency because that’s the only thing we’re capable of. Whatever we vibrate, we serve to awaken and bring out in everything else, both unconsciously and consciously.

When we intentionally try to pretend and come across as though we’re different than we really are, put our best foot forward so to speak, we send mixed messages that become confusing, and therefore revealing. Even when we pretend to be something we’re not, we still act subconsciously to bring out in others the complementary aspects of our own true nature, through how we feel, what our energy is communicating and what emotions we appeal to in them. So anytime internal feelings don’t match external appearances or how someone’s presenting themselves, we know it’s a false front design to create an illusion in place of the truth. We always know if somethings true and therefore real by how it feels. Feelings never lie. The lie comes into play when we sense what’s really going on, but choose to lie to ourselves about it by playing along with the illusion or false front being presented in place of the truth.

Nobody ever really has the ability to lie to us, because we’re always sensing the energy about people, things, and places, and we agree to lie to ourselves and build a make-believe reality around it that becomes shattered at some point when what you knew subtlety becomes obvious and you can’t deny it any longer. Then you feel as if the other person committed a crime against you, when in reality, you’re the one who chose to play along and pretend not to notice what was coming up as constant red flags or subtle nuances, or moments where the truth came through in an unsuspecting manner and you glimpsed it briefly. We often doubt our own intuition and inner knowing about things in favor of trusting the false facade being fabricated, then create the illusion of being deceived by the other, when in truth, we agreed to let them deceive us and actively participated in acting it out as a joint experience.

Different relationships also serve different stages of our growth, while not serving others. So certain relationships may only be valuable to us through those stages of our life, which we then dissolve when moving into other stages where they no longer serve our growth, which will require a different type of relationship that’s appropriate for the qualities and aspects of our character we wish to develop through those stages. Often, the relationship which is ideal for raising children, for example, is appropriately maintained during the family years, and has run its course when the children are grown and gone, and as you move into a stage of your life where your main focus is your spiritual growth, that same relationship may not serve that at all, and it may require a new relationship that will serve to stimulate and develop in you the qualities necessary. Likewise, relationships where one person continues growing and the other one doesn’t, or one grows in a different direction than the other and a disconnect takes place, the relationship may not be of value any longer for either person.

In order to become fully conscious in your life and in your relationships, you have to first have a very clear idea of what your goals are for your soul’s development, and what it is you want to intentionally engage in developing in yourself in order to meet those goals. You have to have a clear idea of what your standards are and your moral code of conduct, and you have to be prepared to honor it at all times, no matter what. Once we begin compromising standards and negotiating values, we begin building an illusion in place of truth, internal conflict sets in, and it never works for very long. We have to always be prepared to honor ourselves above all others, because we’re talking about our soul and our soul development is the only real purpose to life in the ultimate sense.

In terms of romantic or long-term relationships, lifestyle needs to be a major consideration. Most spiritual practice has a very distinct lifestyle associated with it, and if your lifestyles aren’t compatible, it’s going to be problematic, especially as time goes on. Naturally, you have to make sure your values are in alignment and that you’re aware of each others spiritual and life goals. Anytime we go against someone’s values, or have different values that contradict and undermine theirs, we’ll have serious problems, and of course the relationship will only serve to pull us away from our goals instead of taking us deeper into them. Our goals don’t have to be overly defined or distinct in material terms, but rather in personal terms of our soul’s growth and development as our character and identity. Life merely acts to set the stage and provide the means for us to create ourselves by who we become in relationship with it. In every moment we’re deciding who we are and who we’re going to be in relationship with others and our environment. How we create ourselves is the only thing that’s eternal and permanent, everything else in the material world is temporary and transitional.

So as a few general rules as guidelines for a relationship:

• Work on becoming self-aware before you look to get into a relationship. Don’t look for your identity in a relationship, or try to wrap yourself around the other person in hopes of finding your identity. Know yourself first and above all.
• Create an ideal for yourself (qualities and characteristics), and design goals that are necessary for their achievement. Let those same qualities and characteristics be your guide for consciously choosing the other person because they possess those same qualities and will act to bring them out and develop them in you.
• Set standards for yourself as necessary levels of consciousness, character traits, or behaviors the other person must possess. As correlating to the ones you naturally possess and uphold in your own life.
• Develop a moral code that you hold yourself to in regulating your own behavior and what you will or won’t participate in, and never be willing to compromise it.
• Get a very clear idea of your lifestyle and what daily practices are important to you. The other person must be compatible and into the same type of lifestyle.
• Let go of any preconceived ideas about what they need to look like or how they need to show up, and instead tune into how you feel when you’re present with them.
• As you begin interacting, get a feel for their moral values by how they conduct themselves with you when you’re first getting to know them, not by what they say, but by what they actually do, how they do it, and why.
• Stay aware always of how you’re feeling inside in response to them.
• Notice what qualities they bring out in you, and what kind of person you become when you’re with them.
• Allow yourself to intuitively recognize the dynamics that become established almost immediately, this will show you what the shared issues as theme or story expressed through the relationship will be.
• Pay close attention to how they conduct themselves in the beginning (do they hit on you, are they flirtatious, is sex and intimate affection immediately involved), it’ll not only reveal their values, but it’ll show you what they’ve done in previous relationships or as a general rule.
• Listen carefully to how they describe their previous relationships. This will tell you what their relationship style is, what their model naturally acts to create and participate in, what their issues and tendencies are, and what type of relationships they’re conditioned to and will act to create with you. Notice the quality of people they’ve been with, because you’ll be in that same category, and they’ll act to bring out those same qualities in you (although they may not be aware that they’re doing that).
• Resist the tendency to be infatuated or fall in love to quickly, so you can stay of a rational mind and good judgment until you get to know them well enough you can see how they really are, and what they’ll serve naturally to bring out in you.
• The minute red flags come up, acknowledge and address them, don’t glaze over, choose not to notice, or explain them away. Gain clarity around them in order to understand what they’re about, and openly discuss them to create a feeling of awareness and intimacy. Don’t ever make assumptions, get the facts.
• Only be with people who elicit a feeling of reverence, admiration, respect, adoration, compassion, and so on. These feelings produce very positive state of mind, and you act to bring out in them only the character traits that warrant these feelings, as well as create experiences that give you more of those same feelings.

Always view an intimate relationship as a tool for transformation, and go into them in a cognizant and aware manner. Always be open and discuss things freely as a way of establishing and understanding between you. True love comes only through understanding, relating, and feeling like you honestly know the other person. Always be honest and forthright, and don’t hide things. Trust is the foundation the relationships is built on, and once trust is violated, it can never really be established again. You have to take care of the relationship right from the beginning, and always nurture honesty and being above board, and transparent. Never be afraid to be yourself as you truly are, because that’s the most basic form of honesty. If you can’t be who and how you really are, then that alone tells you everything you need to know about yourself and the other person. Stay within your own class or league, engage with those who are equivalent, because this will become an important factor as the relationship goes on.

Above all, know yourself and who you’re in the process of becoming, and only associate with people who act naturally to facilitate your growth and bring out your very best traits, and cause you to want to be a better person because of them.

Dr. Linda Gadbois

Transpersonal Psychologist, Personal Transformation Coach, and Spiritual Teacher