Building Better Relationships

 Everything in life is relative.  Even our painful relationship experiences

can provide the opportunity to know ourselves better.

Reflection

      Yesterday morning I awoke early to weed the garden.  In between the heirloom tomatoes and patty pan plants were countless weeds.  They were shallow growers, but spread their stems out in a radial pattern creeping under the hairy tomato branches, which I’m allergic to, and the spiny, poky squash plant.  The ground was somewhat dry (low water usage due to the drought), but I was able to yank them out quite easily.   By the time I was done though, I was scratched and itching and glad that it was over. 

     There are many things in life that challenge and frustrate us. Weeding the garden may not be especially irritating or painful, but relationships with colleagues, family and friends, now these do have a habit of taxing our patience and kindness.  Could these become opportunities for learning about ourselves?

     To know ourselves better, we first need to become aware of what we do.  For example, in order to judge others, we must be operating under the assumption that we are able to see them and their habits clearly.  Otherwise we’d just be arrogant fools thinking we are better than everyone else.  And most of us don’t always operate from this space of arrogance.  It is very much a part of our human nature to judge, criticize, assess, discern, deconstruct something we are trying to understand.  Can we use this to our advantage? 

     Often our tendencies aren’t universally wrong or bad.  That is: some things are perfectly okay in specific settings and spaces.  A shoe is in its rightful place on a shoe rack, but could be problematic on an altar.  A weed is ‘bad’ only because it’s stifling the growth of a plant that you choose to have live instead of the weed.  Likewise, the ability to criticize and critique when used against a person is less appreciated, but when used to analyze the pros and cons of a situation is extremely valuable.  Essentially then everything in life is relative. So then, can we exploit our human tendency for judging to give us a glimpse into our own nature, character and attitudes? 

    In psychology, there’s something called projection.  Whenever we criticize or find fault with others, we are projecting our own faults outward onto other people.  This is how and where we are able to see them clearly.  Our failings and weaknesses are hard for us to see because they are so intimately known to us, and very much part of our unconscious habits and reactivity. Much like the person we are criticizing is unable to see their own faults, we are our own blind spot.

A Mirror

    Our unconscious habits, attitudes, beliefs, attachments, desires, and expectations become the hobbling blocks that put us out of step in our relationships.  If having wonderfully fulfilling relationships are important to you, then it’s a worthwhile investment of your time and energy to discover who you are, and how you operate in stressful and challenging situations.  

    Of course, this doesn’t mean others don’t have faults, and you and I are the only ones who do.  It simply means instead of becoming embroiled in feeling bad about judging, we can use it as a chance to begin some interior work of our own.  We can use the feeling of shame, frustration, and despair we feel at being unhappy with someone else and our reaction to them, to examine what in us is causing such a reaction.  We can take a breath and turn the lens inward to see if that exact same fault exists in us.  In this way, we train in becoming smart about ourselves.

     We begin paying attention to what irritates us about our spouse, sibling, friend, and boss and then look for that same irritant in ourselves.  Who knows?  We may discover that sharing similar irritating or worrying traits is sufficient impetus to stall, if not completely eliminate, future tirades against others. 

     Awareness is a powerful tool for change.  Its mere presence is enough to help us work towards fruitful relationships where each person is allowed to be who they are, pursue what is important to them, and grow to know themselves better. 

    

     May we learn to see ourselves clearly.