Why Being in Continuous Connection is Vital for Peaceful Relationships

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PHIL: What we are trying to do in these posts is to describe how we are in as much detail as possible so that you, dear readers, can share our experience of living in peace.

We have said before that this happens because we are on the same side, and these words offer a vivid image, but how does that actually happen? It comes from our sense of connection, and this is very much a sense; something that I do not question any more than I question the fact that I am sitting here typing.

Let’s talk about the Grand Canyon. Having seen it, you would not later confuse it with Bryce Canyon, and similarly, once you know someone, you do not confuse them with someone else; they are unique, just as the Grand Canyon is. This knowledge of another is a sense of who they are.

My sense of Maude is of openness, caring, and sharing. It makes it easy to be with her. You may call this grace or luck, but there is also an intentionality about how we are together. We know what to avoid, and that is being rude, being short, being catty, being disconnected, out of reach, snippy. It is (relatively) easy to avoid those attitudes because I know her essential goodness; such criticism would not be justified. And how do I know? To repeat myself, I have a sense of who she is that comes from (or maybe is) our sense of connection.

This sense of connection has great power. Firstly, it has this strange property that we are both drawing from the same well; we have always been able to make our own choices and path through life mesh. By now, we understand that this is always the case. Or to be more woo-woo about it, there is an us, neither me nor Maude, that we become aware of by setting our egos aside. After all, what else could the connection between us, the mid-point, be, except that? By both of us tapping into that, we can proceed together through life.

I know that sounds fanciful, metaphorical, but I suspect that identity is not just bound to our physical body; it can spread out to sports teams, groups, family, culture. It’s not so improbable that two people form something that is unique, in the way that a molecule is more than its constituent elements.

Because we have a situation where there is no resistance to being with each other, it is easy to move in and out of that awareness, and this has created the strange sense of being myself and being connected with Maude at the same time.

MAUDE: Phil and I were both feeling jazzed about having just made exciting plans for our anniversary of meeting trip. We had just used our creative process of finding mutuality, not for finding a solution to differences, but for finding a plan for mutual enjoyment. It was so much fun to arrive at this plan by sharing back and forth what we both wanted out of the trip. It started us looking at the way we move through space and time together in such a peaceful and fulfilling manner. We centered in on the depth of our connection and the continuous nature of it.

There are many aspects to this kind of connection. One of the most important is that it is unbroken. We have, at all times, a strong sense of our individual self, and at the very same time, a strong, ever-present sense of the ‘we’ that embodies that sense of connection.

This is not about being in each other’s presence constantly. In all the relationships I have with friends where there is this kind of special depth I am referring to, an aspect of continuous connection underlies the relationships. There is no withdrawal or stepping back from that connection. It is ever-present, and a disconnect never even comes up as a possibility.

Whenever this kind of relating occurs, it takes place in the present by its very nature. In that kind of presence, there is a deep attention to the other person, without losing the sense of yourself. It involves openness and abiding trust, well-wishing, and a true interest in the other person.

There is also no behavior that involves stepping away or separating from each other emotionally. We avoid this intentionally. There is no talking with strident tones, being snippy, thoughtless, or angry. These are all forms of removing yourself from the connection, even when that is not done consciously. They reflect a closed-off rather than a connected way of being together.

Relationships with relatives and romantic partners suffer the most from these kinds of behaviors, often by taking for granted a sense of safety with each other that involves a form of withdrawal from the connection.

In continuously connected relationships, there is no resistance, no holding back. There is a freedom and gentleness that provides fertile ground for peaceful relationships.

Photo credit: Vanity Portrait Studio
Photo note: Connected couple

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