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