You are the channel
You may wonder from time to time what the most important thing about your life is, such as what energy you give the most time to, your job, your sex or intimacy, your race, gender and identity, your screen time, your income, you dreams, your home ownership-or lack thereof.
You may wonder about your health, your addictions, and the ramifications of these. You may wonder about schooling and training, whether you and your kids/family have enough or too much. You may wonder about your relationship to food, consuming, shopping, and what you live with, or without.
Spend some of this time reflecting on the idea of what all aspects of your life have in common. All aspects of your life have one crucial thing in common.
You are the channel through which relationships flow.
At the end of your life, you will empty into an ocean of belonging, and become part of a much greater system of constantly flowing information and forms.
This is important to think about because we so often are distracted by our internal and external emotions and thoughts, that we forget we are the central river through which everything in life streams.
It’s important for our relationships to realize they are not based on a single self, but on an ongoing currency of living systems around us.
You may feel upset because your spouse did not clean up his or her dishes and left a mess, but they may not have noticed. When this happens repeatedly, we built up defenses and resentments and this is a primary source of misunderstanding, hurt, and breaking up.
There is a reason bitterness and resentment are called “hard feelings,” they are like a dam, or blockage, to letting love and tenderness flow.
It happens not just with our partners, but with employers, retail people, home projects, our parents and kids, our extended family, and so much more.
It happens, even with the natural, wider world itself. We lose touch. We need those relationships.
“Finding the river” means to find yourself and your loved ones
It may sound philosophical, and in a deeper way maybe it is.
But to “find the river” — just as in the old REM song — you can find meaning, purpose, drive, and most of all love.
That is, when we ignore that air, water, food, and more are provided by our internal and external systems that sustain us, we take them for granted.
We are conduits of everything that happens within and external to us.
We take for granted the things we expect to be there, or to be done. We fail to appreciate the flow of what others feel. When I forget to thank my spouse for making dinner or painting the tools, he feels taken for granted. When he forgets that I worked all day on maintaining the washer or dryer, then I feel taken for granted.
But, when we both acknowledge that we are actively seeking to progress forward in view of knowing all behaviors involve connections and relationship to persons and the world, we are more mindful, more present, and more appreciative.
Senses, and the sensory flow of information through the tube that is you.
If it helps, think of it the same way that data flows through Wi-Fi, internet, and our devices. The machines are not the real “things” they are the terminals, storage ports, and pipelines through which everything progresses.
What is the most fundamental action to experience a full life? I would argue that it is being aware that all our senses, our sensations, and our thoughts are streams of conscious and unconsciousness that move through us, but are completely connected to all the things beyond and within us.
Honoring what we experience with all our senses, both cognitive, emotional, and external is key. Even the preservation of our life support system — our home world — is dependent upon knowing that some of our sensations are real, some are just perceived, and some are actively supporting relationships, while some are detrimental to relationships if we misinterpret the information provided.
The water is not just a metaphor. It’s important to realize that water is an actual part of all we are, just as our actual “self” is a long continuation of relationships in flux and molecules in motion.
Perception and purpose
To work on being mindful of the flow of constant information and sensation through you is called a “perceptual practice.” It means to check in with your partner, (or other love/ object) not just in what they think, but what they feel.
This can not happen constantly and continually, obviously, but it is worth the effort to check in with how his or her relationship flow is feeling from time to time.
Each of us, in this sense is a “tube” through which information, feeling, emotion, knowledge, spirituality, and much more drift and move.
The inward looking perception practice of reflecting “in-here” or “out-there” is called endogenous or exongenous. But you don’t need to master these terms. You just need to be attentive. These help us to navigate the world by being able to distinguish what is relevant and what is extraneous, or even harmful.
In every relationship we are in, whether it be to the world that sustains and provides for us, or the people we love who in their own ways do the very same thing, behaviorally, we can make an effort to choose what we pay attention to, and to set our separate selves aside for a moment to check in with the proven reality of our non-separate selves.
Just remember that knowledge, information, feelings, sensations, and yes, even LOVE is fluid and dynamic, never static, never stagnant. It does feel that way at times, and these are the times to perceive that although you may feel like a sluggish pond, or puddle, — or even an angry white waterway — your life experience does in fact progress.
Things like reciprocal healing, adaption to change, active perception, and acknowledgement of all our relationships, whether intimate or exterior, is fundamental to understanding our role in life and and major twists and turns, as well as tiny seeps and rivulets.
So, take a deep breath, look at life’s continuity, and remember all of life is connected through you.
When you realize that you are the channel through which your whole life, and all your love flows, you will have a greater advantage in mastering the often challenging rapids and currents of every relationship that courses through you.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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