The Work is naturally relationship work. As I inquire into my own beliefs and find what is more true for me, all my relationships change - to life, people, myself and those close to me.

If both are interested, there is also another way to use The Work as relationship work.

1. Write down your judgments about the other. How do you want her/him to change? What do you think about them? How do you criticize them? What do you complain about? Don’t hold back. This is our chance to get all of our internal criticism and judgments out in the open.
2. Read your list of judgments to each other. (This is where it helps if the other person is already familiar with The Work! If not, they can easily take it as more solid and serious than it is.)
3. Select the one judgment (among your own judgments)  that has the most juice, and have the other facilitate you through the four questions and the turnaround. Then, go through the turnarounds for each of the other statements. And switch so you facilitate the other in the same way.

For me, this is a beautiful way to find that (a) what the other person wants for me is - in almost all cases - what I want for myself. (b) What I want for the other person is what I really want for myself. The advice is for myself. And (c) that it is all completely innocent. What may seem serious and solid if resisted and kept under cover, is revealed as a simple - and helpful - advice for myself.

The air is cleared. There is a sense of getting to the substance of what is going on. And I get some good pointers for myself.

The long form improv guideline of Yes, And is a great way of meeting people where they are.

We find the grain of truth in their perspective, which is always there, acknowledge it, and then add another perspective to it.

It is a way to meet people where they are, and then gently expand the perspective. We expand our own by taking into account the truth in theirs. And we expand theirs by adding something new.

It is also a quick way to finding common ground, simply by noting the truth in their view.

And it is a way to stay in integrity. I find the genuine truth, for me, in their perspective. And then add something on my own.

It is very simple, almost childishly so as so much else in this journal. But it has a profound impact if we really bring it into our life.

As part of uncovering who and what we are, we need to meet ourselves where we are here and now. We need to take our own immediate experience seriously. Any journey starts exactly where we are. For real results, we need to be real with ourselves.

And the same goes for our relationship with others. For a real relationship, we need to be real with them about where we are, and we need to meet them where they are. We need to take their experience seriously, no matter how different it may be from our own. (If we are honest and look, we can most often find it in ourselves.) And we also need to take their intentions and goals seriously, no matter how different they may be from our own. (Any advice that comes up for us, whether about goals or anything else, is always for us, not for anyone else.)

As we treat ourselves, we treat others, and the other way around.

How do I treat myself when it comes to take my experience seriously? I don’t have to look any further than how I treat those around me.

Someone once said where two or more are gathered in my name, I will be.

Probably anyone who has been doing any form of spiritual practice has noticed this. For me right now, it is especially noticeable when I do Breema.

Doing Self-Breemas on my own is great and has many benefits. But giving or receiving bodywork, or doing Self-Breemas with others, goes far deeper. In terms of an alive Breema atmosphere, and filling up the belly with the rich nurturing fullness, something different comes in when it is done with others.

There is a different aliveness. A sense of being held by the atmosphere that comes in. An experience of it working far deeper in and on me.

Right now, when I don’t have my usual groups available to me, I am very grateful to have just one person to do Self-Breemas with, and a few happy recipients of simple bodywork.

One of the many gifts of families is that they bring relationships we cannot so easily escape. Instead, we are invited to work with them more consciously, as they are, over the long term.

Some of the ways we can do this…

• Inquire into beliefs
• Being with our experience, fully allowing it in a heartfelt way
• Open our heart (to all of us, and all of ourself) through tong-len, prayer, well-wishing
• Working with the others on the relationships, clarifying, engaging, working things through and out as well as we can
• Allowing it all to humble us, wear of the hard edges, become more deeply and fully human, through receptivity at the view (inquiry), emotions (fully allowing and being with), and heart (tong-len, prayer, well-wishing)

And as usual, any of these can invite a shift in any and all of the others. For me, I find the shifts from the heart work especially noticeable.

Also, of course, the one relationship we cannot so easily escape is the one to ourselves. Any other one highlights aspects of this relationship. As we relate to ourselves, we relate to the wider world. (Or said in a more headless way, as this human self relates to itself, it relates to the wider world.)

Our relationships to our ancestors has come up for me in several different ways lately, partly through shamanic sources and partly through Process Work (which has a strong shamanic influence).

The wider world is a mirror for our human self, and the way we relate to different aspects of the wider world reflects how we relate to similar parts of ourselves. The wider world is the world “out there”, in space and time, and our ancestors is an important part of this world. Our relationships, or lack thereof, to our ancestors says a great deal about how we relate to ourselves and the world in general.

When I explore it for myself, I find two main aspects in a more conscious relationship to my ancestors: healing and gifts. A healing of relationships, and a receptivity to and harvesting of their gifts.

There are many ways to do this.

We can use journeying, as in shamanic practices. I can meet some of my ancestors, hear what they have to say, work on my relationship with them, see what I can do for them, and also be receptive to the gifts they may have for me. What insights do they have? What qualities do they express, which I may find and pick up in my own life? 

We can use voice dialog, or the Big Mind process, and do something very similar. I can shift into the voice of particular ancestors, hear what they have to say, see how their relationship to the other voices and this human self is and how these relate to this ancestors, explore their insights and gifts, see what I can do for them, and so on.

We can use group practices, such as Joanna Macy’s Harvesting the Gifts of our Ancestors, where we walk back in time through the generations, tasting how it could have been to live their lives, and then walk forward harvesting their gifts.

We can deepen into gratitude for specific ancestors, and our ancestors in general, for their existence, their lives, their work and efforts, their insights… without which none of us would be alive today.

We can work specifically on healing through any of the above practices, and also healing and for instance tong len.

We can work specifically on harvesting their gifts through any of the practices, and maybe specifically through the journeying, voice dialog, the group practices, and through invoking specific ancestors and their qualities in our daily life, finding it in our selves.

And of course, all of this includes daily life work on our relationship with our own ancestors (including parents) and those we are ancestors to (children, grandchildren), and an awareness of deep time and the passage of generations.

This is going to be another simplistic skeleton post (as so many others here), but that is what comes out these days…

William Harryman, eBuddha and others have had a discussion going on integral relationships, and although I am interested in the topic, I must admit I haven’t read many of the posts (maybe I will in the future).

I don’t really know about integral relationships, but I know what comes up for me around more mature relationships, and I can always filter it through a simple aqal framework…

• It involves working on myself (upper left, inner/one) and directly on the relationship with my partner (two, inner/outer) including in a social and cultural context (many & inner/outer, aware of impacts of norms, expectations, etc.)
• It involves awareness of a range of levels of being, and the impacts and processes going on at each (evolutionary psychology, depth psychology, group processes, social psychology, cultural/social impacts, etc.)
• It involves seeing my partner (intimate and otherwise) as a mirror for myself. Whatever I see there is also here in myself (projections, shadow work).
• It involves recognizing when beliefs and identities are triggered/threatened (contraction, tension, stress, unease, sense of something off) and knowing how to work with it (question/explore the beliefs/identities)
• It involves deepening into the evolving fullness of who I am, as a human being, with a widening embrace of all of what I am, and the shared humanity I find in that way.
• Working with beliefs, identities, projections and shadows invites a more open/receptive mind and heart, and a deepening recognition of (and empathy for) the other and myself, especially for the areas where we are still stuck and blind.
• It involves holding the space for myself and the other to notice and explore all of this (when we are ready for it).
• It also involves recognizing what level each of us operate from in the moment… ego/ethno/world/kosmocentric… which has to do with (a) the type of belief we are caught up in, and (b) the strength of the grasp on the belief (tends to be a lighter touch as the circles widen, allowing for an easier recognition of the truth of the reversals)

According to eBuddhas suggestion, I may be qualified to say something about this as I have been in a committed relationship for about a decade, and have been into (or at least interested in) integral frameworks and practice for longer than that, but I don’t feel all that qualified (not at all, actually).

I can’t even say I know what a successful relationship is. At one point, I thought I did (especially as I was well aware of many of the conventional definitions from psychology, family therapy, etc.), but not anymore. It may sound radical, but the more I explore my relationships (through Process Work, The Work etc.), the more genuinely I see any relationship as ideal, as it is. It is life working itself out, in its immense wisdom. Sometimes it looks beautiful to us, and other times ugly, but neither of those are even close to telling us how “successful” it is…

As useful as frameworks and models are, life is always more than and different from any of them… and sometimes it feels inappropriate to even try to apply neat frameworks and models to life, and especially certain areas such as intimate relationships. It is something that is far too alive, too mysterious, working itself out in ways hidden to me… trying to make it fit into a framework can too easily stifle its life and mysterious unfolding (not really, but it sounds good), which has an inherent intelligence that goes far beyond my own (if there is one thing I have learned about relationships, it is just that).

It is a too technical approach to something far too alive, mysterious and inherently intelligent. I guess it is that way with all of life, but for me it is especially clear in relationships.

How does it look when we embrace both ends of the wanting-to-change-self/other polarity?

One end is to just notice the other as a mirror for myself. Whatever advice comes up is really for myself. And it only takes one, and a good deal of differentiated clarity, to be happy. This is what we do through the The Work, and it does work.

The other end of the polarity is changing the other, or at least wanting and trying to. This can work to some extent, but if this is all we do, it typically brings a great deal of frustration and is not ultimately satisfying.

Including both ends of the polarity

So how does it look when both are included?

Well, I work with the projections, find some clarity, see that the advice is for myself and take my own advice, and resolve the struggle right here.

At the same time, I may talk about it with the other person.

:: Reading our judgements about the other to the other

For instance, in The Work, we write a Judge Your Neighbor worksheet on the other person, and then read it to her or him (if she/he is receptive!)

And what we find, most or nearly all of the time, is that what one person wants for the other (a projection, when it has a charge) is what that person actually wants for her/himself. For each of us, we both want the same. There is no difference there.

So the gift is triple (or more): The person writing and reading the worksheet get to become more familiar with their advice for the other (judgments) and apply the advice to themselves. The person listening gets to see that they - most often, want the same for themselves. And it certainly relieves shadow-pressures in the relationship, and opens for a deeper sense of intimacy.

:: Picking up a dream process in the other

In Process Work, there is a very similar process.

As a facilitator, I may pick up something “in the field” and bring it out through words or movement, and see how the other responds. Whatever I pick up about the other, may be something that wants to come out in them. I may be dreamed up by the other and our shared field, to bring it up and into the open. And the feedback from the other tells me if it is really about the other, or just about me.

So by noticing what comes up in me and bringing it out in the open, I offer the other the gift of seeing if it is also in them. On my end, I will of course relate to it in my own way, so it is also a gift for myself.

At the end of the chapter on We in Integral Spirituality, Ken Wilber talks about how contemporary western spirituality tends to be very comfortable with Spirit as I and it, and less comfortable with it as You, or even you.

This goes at least for Buddhist and Adveita circles. I suspect those practicing within traditionally theist traditions, such as Sufism, Christianity, Sikhism and Hinduism, have more of a familiarity with the You and you of Spirit.

And there are of course several aspects to Spirit as You, and you.

Spirit as You

One is the traditional one of prayer and devotional practice, of praying to Spirit as You, of submitting to Spirit as You. To place myself, as a human being, under and at the mercy of Spirit as You. This itself can be very enriching and speed up the process of awakening and of maturing and deepening as a human being.

Spirit as you, yes you

The other is maybe less familiar from Western traditions, although it seems more common in some Eastern traditions. This is spirit as you, yes you - as a human being, as my partner, my children, my parents, my neighbors, my co-workers, homeless, politicians, those living half-way around the world. This too is Spirit, in all its richness and fullness, the current manifestation of Spirit as form and evolution.

The richness of Spirit as you

This is Spirit as you.

As confused, living from mistaken identity, with its inherent love and wisdom shining through the cracks. As awakened to its own nature.

This is Spirit as you, mirroring exactly myself.

This is Spirit showing me myself, in all my richness, as you. As my partner, my family, my friends, my neighbors, everyone.

This is Spirit as you. As lovable, annoying, as a helper, as a problem, as intimate, as a stranger, as infuriating, as inspiring, as one I want to spend more time with, as one I can’t stand, as one I experience magic with, as one I am bored with.

As one bringing me face-to-face with myself, nudging me along in my own deepening as a human being.