Routine in your relations with others

Certainly you will have noticed that your relationships with other people tend to follow a certain pattern after a while. You have 'placed' the way the other person expresses himself (you judged it and labeled it), you know what to expect and how you want to react to it. You also have worked out a 'workable' or even pleasant way of dealing with each other. At this point in your relationship it is likely that the essence of the other person is likely to diminish in your awareness. And it does not matter whether you are talking about a partner, children, family, friends or business contacts.

And before you know it, you react in a routine way on the things you perceive, you react to them with standard reactions and ways to experience it and repeat your standard judgments. This is simple, does not cost too much energy, so this allows you plenty of time to spend on other things your personality considers to be important too. Actually, you do not even need the essence of the other person in your relationship, you react to your routine perception, 'you know it' by now, and you are more or less satisfied with the overall picture that you have created from the other person, whose essence would, according to your personality, only spoil this convenient picture and routine. This is why it is so easy for people to grow apart over time: they do not really pay attention anymore, they no longer relate to the essence of a person, only to what can be perceived of him (or what he does not do).

Is it possible to escape this pitfall? From the viewpoint of your personality this can partly be overcome, for example through introducing new elements 'to keep things exciting'. Or by 'talking about it', which allows you to adjust to things that are told you. However, as you can see from the solution itself, this is something that you have to do over and over again. People call this 'working on your relationship', and the focus is still personality-oriented.

Recognize that this is what personalities do, and that you want to renew your relationship with the other person. Invite your inner Self into the relation and ask him to use it for yourself and the other person involved to remember better who you really Are. This question itself will shift your focus of awareness to 'something else' what you can then rediscover. Allow as many contact moments as possible to be 'new' to you, which means that you open up to the essence of the contact, rather than 'dealing with it' according to your standard routines. Be not surprised to find that this will cost you quite some effort and practice, combined with having to face all expectations and limitations that you have projected onto this relationship.

The essence of a relationship can often be remembered through your first contact, or a difficult period in time where certain things seemed to give a more intense experience that could not be attained through your personality. This can be with a partner, but applies to a job as well (it simply felt good, the right thing to do). When it comes to family ties, it is often established through contacts during childhood years.

Each contact you have with a person you approach through your inner Self is an open meeting with someone, and even though you seem to meet with a certain frequency, the essence of the contact may vary each time. And the essence can be found and experienced in the moment itself alone. Being able to choose to experience a contact through your inner Self is a thing that will evolve by itself as well, since in order to be able to do this, you need to have a lot of attention span available in the moment itself, which is impossible when your personality is mentally occupied with all kinds of things, or feels unsafe or whatever. So you will find that once you learn to become more aware of your personality and you let go your investment in it, you will automatically get more mental space available for your inner Self to deal with this as well. However, let this not stop you from beginning with it now: each small step along the way is one, and will bring you closer to realizing that there is a difference between your personality and your inner Self in the first place. You may enter each contact with the mental question: what is it that your inner Self has to offer Mine (and reverse).