Yes, Love CAN survive commitment and in the right environment continue to grow and flourish throughout our life span. Isn’t that just such good news, especially, right now when the divorce rate continues to skyrocket in spite of the fact that many who divorce actually remarry one another again?
Just as plants, vegetables, and fruit, flower, blossom and bloom in fertile ground, human relationships can do the same, when the environment is healthy. Gardens can act as a wonderful metaphor, to convey what I have learned about relating to others. Once I understood how to work with my internal garden of thought, I found my life becoming progressively better and better. All around us, we observe the natural world and its many amazing mysteries. As children, we are shown that seeds grow to maturity and become the nourishment that we put on our plates. This can astonish both children and adults. Why some relationships work out, and others do not, may also pique our curiosity.
The tiny acorn becomes a huge oak tree. How is that possible? We can’t see the principles behind this, yet we know they exist because we bear witness to the process: plant a seed, water it, and watch it grow. We also bear witness to the outcome: our seed becomes a daffodil, an eggplant, a redwood tree. Through observation over time, people learned to work in harmony with these invisible principles of nature. We came to understand that seeds wither and die if they do not receive water. We became aware that if we don’t protect this magnificent growth, it could be eaten, trampled upon or dehydrate from neglect. So we water and pay attention to how much water is the right amount. Too much will drown it and not enough will dry it out. We learned from our elders, passed our knowledge to the next generation, and thus over the years, the cultivation of crops and plants developed into the sciences of agriculture and horticulture.
There are principles behind how we live our lives, as well. Gaining a deeper understanding of three simple principles can open new vistas of harmony for your relationships. The principles of which I speak, have been referred to as Divine Mind, Thought, and Consciousness, because they are spiritual principles that point us back inside ourselves, to a place before thought is even formed. I know that sounds like a conundrum because we have to use our ability to think in order to contemplate that. Yet we recognize that there is something before thought, because we know that the majestic mountain we just saw existed before we were even born and it will continue to exist even when we’ve stopped thinking about it. We know there is more to life than our personal experience of it. We can observe this phenomenon in young children who seem closer to the spiritual aspect of life because they are not burdened by the accumulation of ideas that adults believe to be true. We watch children have their differences with one another and then suddenly drop them and move on quickly. We see their resilience, their ability to be happy and laugh again for no apparent reason and without holding a grudge.
So what happens to us as we grow up? Just as the garden may be mistreated, we too, can get trampled, hurt, neglected, even abandoned, and ultimately perhaps, take on the message that we’re not good enough. The result is that we retract, we become suspicious of others’ intentions, and we may even learn to fight back in order to defend and protect ourselves. The principles show us that all of these events can only be experienced when they are on our mind. Recognizing the temporary nature of thought allows us to feel some relief as we come to know that we won’t be plagued by it forever. We also have access to a healthy thought process and common sense when we’re calm and clear-headed. If we are simply willing to take a moment or two, that sense will tell us how to handle a situation if someone tries to hurt us. Though we cannot always get someone to do something differently, we might begin to see it differently and then the way we respond to it can change. This then leads to a shift in our experience of it.
Children have more direct access to these capacities because they have not learned how to live in the world of thought yet. We adults have learned all too well. We’ve learned to think our way into or out of anything and everything. Some of that has served us and some has not. When we use our ability to think in matters of the heart, we are going in the wrong direction, where dissatisfaction and problems inevitably occur. Our personal thoughts come from ego and intellect, where we compare, contrast, analyze, and judge. None of these skill sets is useful for relationships.
They are useful in calculating our taxes, deciding what to wear, and figuring out the quickest way to the airport. The very same skills will create resentment, anger, and hurt when it comes to relating to one another. Going to our essence; a place that is closer to pure consciousness, before the formation of thought, feels wonderful. In that space it is easy to feel love and from that feeling pours loving-kindness, understanding, compassion, good will and discernment; the characteristics everyone wants and everyone deserves, rather than judgment, which everyone shrinks from and would prefer to avoid.
When people take the time to understand the principles powering the human experience, exceptional things begin to happen. Life experiences become less mysterious, yet more magnificent. Through an investigation of how mind, thought and consciousness play out, we realize that we can bring out the best or the worst in one another and ourselves. We have the choice.
I just heard from a couple who self-reported that they went from overreacting about 50 percent of the time to just 10 percent of the time. As they look further within, that 10 percent will decrease. They did not use a technique to modify their behavior. It was simply the natural outcome of understanding how mind, thought and consciousness work in tandem to make thoughts appear to be absolute truth. Thoughts are not truth, they are personal illusions. When we don’t take our experiences so seriously as though we have no choice, we tend to lighten up and wait for a nicer, kinder, feeling to come forth. Then we know we can trust what we’re thinking (even though that’s also an illusion, it’s one that won’t cause unnecessary pain!)
Lori Carpenos, M.Ed., LMFT. Edited by Jyll Kashmann. Further information can now be heard from people around the globe who have found out for themselves: www.threeprinciplesmovies.com. For more information on local dissemination of the principles, follow the link below:
www.3principlestherapy.com.