For those of you that have been read­ing Into the Cen­tre and brows­ing the web­site, you’ll not be sur­prised to see a series of arti­cles con­cern­ing the ‘emp­ty­ing’ of body, mind and spirit.

Some­how, peo­ple who are begin­ning to ‘get’ what I’ve been writ­ing about (and by ‘get’ I mean under­stand, and are start­ing to put it in place) still have trou­ble with enact­ing all of this in their relationships.

In other words, there’s noth­ing par­tic­u­larly com­pli­cated about this Zen-ish approach—other than in the appli­ca­tion.

I was just ‘Skyp­ing’ a friend and we were talk­ing about this very issue. I wrote:

Let’s see how this fits in.

Flaws in Self-Examination

Many peo­ple use self-examination as a tool for judg­ing oth­ers. I see this all the time in rela­tion­ship coun­selling, and also get it when­ever we’re talk­ing about work or friend­ship sit­u­a­tions. Let me first describe the ideal, and then the ‘gotchas.’

Notice that the com­mon ideas are:

“My boss came in, and she was upset and angry over a project.”

and

“so I asked my boss specif­i­cally what she needed, and then I got it for her. I then went back to what I was doing.”

The rest of it is non-present, unnec­es­sary, self-created drama.

The Inti­mate Rela­tion­ship Two-Step

In inti­mate rela­tion­ships, the same three pos­si­bil­i­ties apply.

Other-Loathing

Most peo­ple who are in rela­tion­ship trou­ble, say 85%, use the ‘other-loathing’ side of things. I am end­lessly impressed with how good they are at mak­ing the other the guilty party, while they remain the ‘injured party.’ This fits with our con­di­tion­ing, which causes us, first and fore­most, to look out­side of our­selves for who we are, what we should do, and also to locate the ‘enemy at our gate.’ This approach, how­ever, can have but one outcome—isolation, guard­ed­ness, and misery.

(If you want to get past this, read my book,
[tag]Living Life in Grow­ing Orbits[/tag].)

Fin­ger point­ing and blam­ing leads to… you guessed it, fin­ger point­ing and blam­ing, as well as defen­sive­ness. Get­ting hooked on one’s partner’s provo­ca­tion leads to fights. Pure and simple.

Now, this is where clients say, “But if I don’t stand up for myself, he’ll walk all over me.” And Helen Reddy starts singing “I am Woman” in the background.

Stand­ing up for your­self always leads to fights, the silent treat­ment, and a worse relationship.

Self-Loathing

Self-loathing is prac­ticed by the other 15% of dys­func­tional com­mu­ni­ca­tors. In this one, the per­son is end­lessly blam­ing him­self for all of the prob­lems, with the resul­tant behav­iour of apol­o­giz­ing, sulk­ing, and again, noth­ing changes.

Our approach is sim­ple in con­cept. No mat­ter what sit­u­a­tion I am in, the only part of it I can do any­thing about is my part. I never have been able to see how wimp­ing out or blam­ing oth­ers or try­ing to ‘guilt’ another (“You know how upset your frus­tra­tion makes me…”) is a sign of any­thing other than weak­ness. Strong peo­ple are self-responsible people—they never lay their expe­ri­ence at the feet of others.

Have a look at your ‘rela­tion­ship style.’ See who you blame. See what hap­pens if you deal with your­self and only yourself—by doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t. Remind your­self of what you are doing, as we sug­gested last arti­cle, by nam­ing your game: “Blam­ing, blam­ing,” or “Beat­ing up on myself…” Then, let go of the judge­ment, and be how you choose to be.

Your life is always and only about how you see it, judge it, and enact it. Until you get this, and actu­ally live it, you are doomed to what your have. Get this, and every­thing changes, because you have changed the only thing that matters—your per­cep­tions and behaviours.