Self-Healing and Vital Energy
Self-healing is directly impacted by the levels of our vital energy. Poorly managed relationships are energy draining on all levels: mental, emotional, physical. Dysfunctional relationships exist for only one reason: to balance the energy flow.
In the living world we can find three different types of symbiotic relationships: mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism.
- Mutualism: both partners will benefit, like how Stephen Covey calls it in his book “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” a Win-Win scenario.
- Commensalism: only one species benefits while the other is neither helped nor harmed. This is usually the case of family relationship, a parental non-conditional love for example.
- Parasitism: One organism (the parasite) gains, while the other (the host) suffers. This has no need for an example, as I am sure you will get it.
From an energetical point of view, some relationships can be over-draining for a long period of time, causing harmful emotions that eventually will lead to sickness.
Why would people stay in draining environments? We come back to the same answer again and again: beliefs and values. When your health and sanity becomes your priority number one in your system of values and beliefs, everything changes.
Evolution of the Living World
The Living World has evolved from a single-cell to complex organisms. When the consciousness of a cell reached the higher limits of development, the cell reunited with another cell and so on, until they formed bigger organisms.
Following the same algorithm, individual humans may only develop more if they start coexisting together. The human next level of evolution is humanity as a whole. Beautifully said by Dr. Bruce Lipton in his documentary on Gaya – Inner Evolution, the humanity is our next evolutionary step. Should we choose to develop further as individuals, we must start thinking about the others and the humanity in general.
The Yin and Yang of Relationships
If we would be in perfect balance at all times, we would not require to engage in relationships. One becomes a true Master of Energy when he or she is wise enough to flow his own energy and the energy of the surroundings, including the energy of people around. The Duality expressed through Yin and Yang exists in our relationships. We engage in a rapport with someone else, purely because we need to receive or give energy. The word energy must be translated within the context of human relations. For some it means love, for some it means material objects, money, sex desire, thirst for knowledge.
The world as it stands today seems to be unbalanced because of an excessive Yang energy, expressed through a fast speed communication and action. People are more absorbed by the momentum. They are running faster and faster in the race towards happiness. The goals have been set higher and higher, harder and harder so only a few may achieve it. But where is this carrot called happiness? Where is that we are heading? And why some are thinking it must be a race?
The excess of Yang energy is visible in relationships. People look for their happiness outside themselves, placing a huge burden on their partner, friends, family and others. They don’t take responsibility for their inner feelings because they expect to be understood and comforted by others – just another human illusion part of a set of beliefs and values incorporated in our collective consciousness. We all look for something, we are driven by desires. Relationships are supposed to help fill in the blanks for those unachieved desires. What we can’t do alone, we dream in accomplishing with a partner (I don’t mean only wife/husband or boyfriend/girlfriend.)
This is great as long as synergy is place, but true synergy happens when the sum is bigger than the individuals. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always happen, and as a result the blame game starts.
Paper Clip – Synergy Experiment
Within my training career, I have delivered many courses on team building. The exercise I am about to share now, works every time, being one of the most powerful and in the same time simple experiments showing how synergy works in relationships.
Let’s imagine we have a group of more than three people. We give each one a paper clip and we ask them to take 2 minutes to individually write as many purposes they can think of for a paper clip. After 2 minutes, you group them in pairs of 2 and give them another 2 minutes. After that in groups of 4, and so on until you give the entire group the very same exercise.
The number of ideas is growing exponentially from few ideas to tens of ideas.
In a relationship – between two or more people, the main purpose is to synergize so each one, may have the chance to evolve, finding the balance between Yin and Yang, or simply called: Inner Peace.
Bin-Basket-ball – the Anti Synergy Experiment
Unlike the previous game, the Bin-Basket-ball experiment is a game based on a characteristic specific for human beings: competitivity.
We split the group in two small groups. Each person from the group has the right to throw a soft ball into the dust bin. Each one has three throws, one from 5 meters, one from 3 meters and one from 1 meter. This sets the premises for competition, but at no point, me as a trainer, will say that they must compete against each other. The goal of the game is: to score as may points as possible.
The first round goes on, everyone is already implying that they compete against each other.
The second round, I am adding a new element, where I say that the other team can act as well while the other team is throwing. I AM NOT SAYING THAT THEY MUST PREVENT, I AM GIVING THEM THE FREE WILL TO ACT. But all of them, they act against the other team, preventing them to score. The second round goes significantly worse comparing to round 1.
The third round: I make it clear that they have to work together to achieve as many points as possible. And this is when the magic happens: the non-throwing team helps in such a way, that maximum points is achieved by both teams, and everybody wins.
The moral of the story is that we are not in a race against each other, but we are together in the (Human) race.
Art of Negotiation
Every relationship involves a certain degree of negotiation. Unfortunately, negotiation has gained a negative aspect in general maybe due to the fact that it is used in commercial or political areas of life. Negotiation is the art of obtaining the best deal out of any relationship.
Some of the best negotiators are children of early age. They try their limits to see how far they can go in their relationship with their parents. They seek to understand how far they can go in pushing their boundaries. When a parent is saying no is setting limits and boundaries that children would not dare to cross again in the future.
One of the reasons we have two ears and only one mouth is that we should listen 2 times as much as we talk. Without listening carefully, we won’t be able to have the full picture of the situation described by our counterpart. No matter how idealistic we want to be, we must admit that in a relationship, each part has an agenda (but not always with the same objective). As long as you understand the agenda of the other side, you can come up with your own strategy. If you strip all the nice clothes, all the nice aspects of any relationship, at the end there will be an agenda, a plan, a purpose from each part.
The greatest relationships partners in love, friendship, business, are the ones that don’t need much from you.
Throughout life we have different relationships. In the first stage of life we meet older people: family, teachers, siblings. As we grow up, we start experiencing same age connections with friends and colleagues. The more we age, the more complicated relationships become. Relationships are defining us. We are bound to others to grow.
Art of feedback and communication
Many conflictual relationships are born from the incompetence of giving or receiving feedback. Learning and applying feedback giving/receiving laws have the capability to turn anyone in a relationships master. Applying simple feedback rules will save you time, energy and many times even money. Yes money! How many times it happened to any of us to pass by opportunities and we didn’t even consider to benefit them just because we are not the best communicators. How many people have been in love with someone and never had the courage to say it? How many people are suffering because they don’t know how to communicate their feelings?
Being Invisible in a relationship
I often remember my first days of work in hospitality industry. The Food and Beverage Director used to tell everyone that most important quality of a perfect waiter is to be able to become invisible. When it comes to relationships, knowing when to become invisible will give the others space to make decisions without feeling of being judged. Being invisible does not mean you are not there for the other. It doesn’t mean that you are compassionless or careless.
I see invisibility more as a way of detachment from others, allowing the relationship to synergistically unfold while being in an observer mode. At a higher level, Switzerland became invisible and neutral during the world war 2, turning the country into an oasis of inner peace which is maintained even at present. If you ever visited Switzerland, you can feel the inner peace. What if we become at least sometimes invisible in relation with others? How does this affect us and others?
Lessons from Animal teambuilding
I love people and I believe they can change their beliefs and values if inspired at the right time and place. That is why I chose to end close this article with an idea that came to me while I was leading a multinational team with numerous dysfunctional relationships between its members.
Diversity is great as soon as you can work out the cultural differences. Having in my team colleagues from Europe, Africa, Middle East and Asia was a cup full of surprises when it came to achieving goals. The main issue was that they were all thinking they are right from their point of view. I had to find a way to do a teambuilding to inspire them to work together better. My main goal was to upgrade their communication skills from business to genuine personal level.
When researching online, I started to watch different videos, reading various materials about ways to determine people to work together better. In my random search process, I have found a few videos about strange relationship of very different animals. I mean really different. A panda bear is a very close friend to cat. An elephant is a very close friend to a duck. A tiger and a brown bear. A cat and a goose. It sounded exactly like how my team members were. Really different in every way.
All the unusual animal bonds described in those videos had in common four basic conditions:
- They met when they were young – so not much of a developed Ego yet
- They spent a lot of time playing with each other
- They ate together which meant they are not seeing each other as food 🙂
- They grew up with each other
I find these brilliant ideas as an antidot for building great relationships.
When it comes to relationships, Ego is the main obstacle in communication. Someone always thinks of being smarter. Have a look in the mirror: you have 2 ears and 1 mouth, which means you probably have to listen twice as much as talking. The best thing you can do about relationships is to find ways to play and have fun. Anyone wants to be close to you if you are fun and joyful. Better eat together than eat each other.