THE SIGNIFICANT RELATIONSHIP 2 : The ‘peaceful waiting’

"I find masturbation to be too intimate quite frankly. In fact, I won’t even masturbate unless I promise myself to take myself afterwards out to a dinner and a film. Which is sad." (Richard Lewis)

versione italiana al link La serena attesa

One day my counselor, that saint of a woman, told me “A significant relationship is something you can only bump into: you can’t look for it and you can’t force it". The immediate objection to a  statement like this can logically be : if I don’t look for it, that’s to say if I don’t actively strive for it, what can I do to make my wish come true? Where is my self-determination power? 

Actually, here it is not a question of passivity but of shifting our attention from the outside to the inside, as it happens in meditation. It’s all about developing a mental attitude I would call ‘peaceful waiting’. This quiet dimension implies the capacity to be alone, to take care of ourselves and to develop the trust that life will surely meet our real needs.

Therefore we can but run into a significant relationship and we can’t but recognize it. This sense of ‘recognition’, of ‘belonging’, goes far beyond merely rational considerations such as “He/she’ nice, he/she has a good job, he/she cares for me - so we can do it”. It’s a deeper movement which, attention please, does not necessarily lead to an idyllic relationship or to a fairy-tale wedding. In fact, such a chemistry could turn out to be ‘significant’ just because it implies remarkable and sometimes arduous comprehension challenges and evolutionary leaps . For instance, it could teach us to become more autonomous or to stay happily single!

I must point out that I’m referring only to the human, not to an  idealized or ‘holy’ level of relationship. In human terms,  ‘sanity’ means accepting the limitations, the contradictions and the imperfection which are hallmarks of our nature and condition. Then, if we are capable to move to a higher level, we might realize that every experience is significant in itself, even the most accidental and seemingly stupid. Our actions, and especially our intentions will inevitably produce effects and reactions which, in the long run (sometimes in the VERY long run) will proved us personal growth and wisdom.

Finally, I’d like to remind everyone of us that the first really significant relationship is the one with ourselves. We’d better take care of it. As Byron Katie says: “There’s only one person I’m sure I’ll always sleep with - myself!”

To have a Counseling Session, also online please contact me at binisara@gmail.com or through the site www.sarabini.com

THE SIGNIFICANT RELATIONSHIP 1 : The search for love

“Thank you. I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it.” (Groucho Marx)

Through my personal experience and through the experiences of my friends, colleagues and spiritual companions, I’ve frequently noticed the desire and the concurrent difficulty to find a romantic relationship which could be truly defined significant and important. Everything, of course, can be a vehicle of value and meaning, even the classical ‘one-night-stand’; however, most of the people around me want something more than a fleeting fling or a momentary  hormonal release. So this reflections are supposed to target those who consider relationships a chance for creating and experiencing harmony, joy, reciprocity and mutual personal growth.

This search can unfortunately be contaminated by anxiety feelings reinforced and accentuated through the social and familiar conditioning. At a certain age you ‘should’ settle down, you ‘should’ find Mr/Ms Right and, especially for   women, you ‘should’ have children. Such diktat stifle that unique beauty in every form of life, especially in human beings. The ongoing homologation of emotions, experiences and thoughts turns the search of this mythical soulmate into something compulsive and vitiated by misleading stereotypes. We frequently get involved in unhappy relationships where every partner hopelessly projects on the other a role or a destiny he/she’s not meant to fulfill, because it’s not his/hers. 

To have a Counseling Session, also online please contact me at binisara@gmail.com or through the site www.sarabini.com