What kind of relationship do you have with yourSelf?

The Twilight Hour* photo by Mark T. Workman Copyright

At a recent gathering of women I was asked the following question. With whom in your life do you have your most important relationship with. Without a hesitation I immediately said.. with myself. I cannot imagine any other answer for anybody. Without self- love, self esteem, self care, self respect,.. whatever you want to call it... without this relationship of self connection we are hard pressed to feel connected to others. After all, we can only give what we have to give, and that includes love. To the extent we have love for ourselves, we can give love to others.

I remember going to my local library one day when my least favorite library employee was there behind the front desk. They would keep the extra movie DVDs on a shelf behind the desk when the regular shelves became too crowded. The only problem was that in order to see the titles on the DVDs I had to get in close. I never had an issue with the other library workers when I walked over to these DVDs to take a glance. The whole point of a library is to make books and tapes available. Not to put them on a shelf and say in so many words, haha,.. we have these but we won't let you see them and if you can't see them, you cannot borrow them. On this day I really wanted to find a movie I could take home and watch. As I approached the front desk to where I could get a better view of the titles, this library employee, without so much as a smile, just said... oh you aren't allowed back here. She did not care to ask how she could be of service. It was like she lived for the moment when she could reprimand someone for doing a bad thing. I just looked back at her and without saying a word, went to the back of the library and found the librarian on duty. I explained to him what just happened. He didn't act surprised and he didn't have to ask which employee I was talking about. He knew. It was the lady who had no love for anybody, probably because she had no love for herself. I know that initially I felt annoyed that this woman would hinder my ability to borrow a DVD. After discussing the situation with an enlightened friend I came to understand the dynamic behind why she would treat me and others like this. Instead of annoyance I came to have compassion. Imagine going through life not smiling all day while at your workplace and not connecting with others. I was lucky. I was just a visitor to this library. The other employees had to endure her energy all day long. I know this because I had gotten to familiarize myself with most of the people working there. When they saw how she treated me, they understood all too well and let me know. Eventually she got transferred to another branch and I could tell how relieved they were. Her energy was heavy and dark. Bottom line: Have compassion for those who do not see that there is a light available to everyone. They just have to know they are in the dark. Would she do better if she knew better?Probably.

In the book, “Living in Process, Basic Truths for Living the Path of the Soul”, by Anne Wilson Schaef, there is a chapter called Being An Individual. This is a quote from that chapter. “As individuals, our lives exist to be lived. We are the process of that living. As we live our process, we become who we can be.”

“We have inside of us from the very beginning everything we need to be who we can be. We have everything we need to heal. We have everything we need to grow. We have everything we need to evolve. We have everything we need to handle the mistakes we make and learn from them. We have everything we need to realize our spiritual selves. We are like the universe in a drop of water, and we are the process of that universe.

We humans are creative and have devised many ways not to live our process, and sooner or later, we long to return to the process of ourselves.”

I have found one good way to return to the process of oneself is to be still. Spending quiet alone time meditating. Its important to create the space for divine guidance to come through. As human beings we may find ourselves alone, but as spiritual beings we are never far from Source. By setting an intention during meditation, the guidance comes through the listening process. If we are too busy throughout the day and never get still enough to be intimate with our process, how are we to learn who we are?

“ When we allow ourselves the space in which to learn truly who we are, the good, and the bad, the acceptable and the unacceptable, we come to know what is and that's what is important. It's only from what is that we're able to move to what can be. If we will not or cannot explore and accept the what is, we are doomed to be stuck. Paradoxically, it's only as we accept our truth, who we are, that we have the possibility of changing. Intimacy with self in an externally focused society is not easy, yet, this is where we must start”. “ Many believe that we find out who we are in relationships. Not true! We must have a self to bring to the relationship in order to establish a relationship with someone else. If we are looking to the relationship to define us, we're simply using it as a quick fix and it is doomed to fail. Relationships aren't meant to tell us who we are.Relationships can add to who we are, they can never define who we are.”

Many thanks to Anne Wilson Schaef for taking on this subject in LIVING IN PROCESS. She has also created the Center for Living in Process in Boulder, Montana.