Consciousness
Go Kill The Chicken
Ram Dass (formally Richard Alpert) tells
the Sikh story of the Holy person who gave each of
two of his disciples a chicken and said " Go kill
the chicken where no one can see." One of the
students went behind a fence and killed the chicken.
The other walked around for many days and then came
back to the teacher with his chicken still in hand.
The Holy one said, " You didn't kill the chicken!" To
which the student replied, "Well Master, everywhere
I go, the chicken sees!" The point, for those
of you wondering what chickens have to do with relationships,
is that there are also unlimited opportunities for
creating joy in relationships when we are conscious
and willing to see them.
Most of us sleepwalk through life and our relationships.
Somewhere about the third year benchmark we begin to
take our partners for granted. The romance diminishes
and is replaced with unconscious beliefs like, “ Well
I work hard and come home every night don’t I.” Or, “My
partner knows I love her. I don’t have to keep
saying it” We stop speaking about the times we
glance across the room and instantly notice all the
reasons, once again, we fell in love in the first place.
We stop laughing and spending sacred time, free of
life’s demands, together. We assume we know everything
there is to know about our partner and life slowly
slips into status quo. That’s a dead place and
the beginning of the death process for a relationship.
A lack of joy in relationship comes from a
lack of aliveness and that is from a lack of connection
to ourselves or each other. In some sense, one or both people
in the relationship make conscious or unconscious decisions to maintain the status
quo or keep things superficial. When you are conscious, there is always another,
deeper level to which you can go and going there brings back aliveness and joy.
Frankly, you could keep right on going into growth and deeper connecting until
you both leave the planet, without a moment’s boredom. What are your partner’s
dreams, hopes, fears, and visions for the future? What makes your partner feel
safe, afraid, powerful, or powerless? What is your partner’s purpose and
soul work? What dreams has your partner given up that he or she needs to go back
and retrieve and revive?
Most of us really want an authentic and profoundly present relationship in our
life. However, there aren't many of us who have ever experienced that kind of
connection, even from our parents. This means we are charting new territory.
It feels safer to get to familiar levels of intimacy and then put the process
on cruise control because going deeper may feel unfamiliar and frightening. Other
reasons why we make contracts to avoid going deeper are usually based in fear.
For instance, you may fear that going deeper will result in change and change
could result in abandonment. Perhaps, you feel ill equipped to deal with your
intense feelings or those of your partner. You may fear hearing your partner's
real feelings because you are worried that those feelings will reflect negatively
upon you or something you are doing. Or, you may not be sure how to get out of
the painful dynamics of control, manipulation, or shaming that get triggered
when issues become heavy.
The first step in bringing the joy back into your relationship is to open the
communication back up and begin talking to each other about your real
feelings.
There is a wonderful communication exercise you can download from my site that
will assist you in this process.
If you commit to the process, you will find you are able to go more deeply into
feelings each week. The result? More joy and a renewed feeling of closeness,
and by the way, better love making. One gentle reminder! Be willing to laugh
at yourself and the ways you each take yourselves out of the process. We have
all invested great amounts of time and energy learning to stay safe and protected.
Peeling the layers of protection off, if done without blame, can be amusing and
exciting. Go for it. It’s a New Year and a new beginning.
Arizona Together
January 2003
Dr. Dina Evan
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