There are needs in the human experience that can only be met by divine providence, what we might call, “An act of God.” Those needs, though expressed through our physiology, are not satisfied through mere encounters with the physical world, rather they exist through our awareness and engagement with the relational substrata that exists below it all. This dynamic area of our experience is the place where the soul of an individual, though deeply affected by its embodiment in the flesh, is not satisfied by the means of the flesh alone.
The rational mind, however, is bound and determined to figure things out for itself, yet the rational mind is bound to the system of the flesh in which it belongs. So essentially we have a part of the problem trying to figure out the problem. Something that is part of the problem has the nature of the problem within it, therefore how can it be where the solution lies? Indeed, we face an impossible problem in our efforts to save ourselves without engaging the spiritual — relational substrate, a source of energy and information that is frightening to encounter because it shows us more of the truth about ourselves and the complexity of the world we are a part of.
Yet as relational beings by nature, it is the very place we are called to plug into and encounter the divine. Detached from this, we are caught in a rational feedback loop in which solutions lead to problems which lead to more solutions, and so on. People of sincere faith are aware of this unseen realm of human existence that I’m calling the relational substrata.
I have set up that baseline description to call one’s awareness to this neglected area of our experience which the rational mind would prefer to leave in the unconscious. Failure to draw on this source of information leads to unnecessary suffering. And so we come to the point of this writing which is for those individuals who are caught up in a relational feedback cycle that is draining their lives despite their continual efforts to fix it.
This rational feedback loop fails to accept the sad fact that solutions are not rationally figured out until they are relationally understood. Relational understanding requires us to understand that we are first a part of the problem before we can decide if and how we can be a part of the solution. Unbeknownst to many good-intentioned persons, your efforts to fix are part of the problem.
The fact is that you are being driven, in part to help the other person/relationship, but mostly you are driven by a source of fear and insecurity that must be arrested and understood so that the energy can be redirected by faith toward life-giving paths of behavior that act directly on and from the relational substrate. What you have to come to terms with is the reality of the cycle in which you are living which continues to produce the same evidence proving to you that there are some people that you are compelled to help, but for whom nothing can be done.
Some people are driving 100 mph towards a cliff, and your attempts to get in the way will just cause you to get run over. For those of us who favor the hero role, we just can’t comprehend how someone won’t listen to reason, or see things falling apart in their lives as they accumulate the loss of people and opportunities. We can not imagine how someone’s evident misery doesn’t drive them to discard the façade of “I’m OK.” Yet, we do not have direct access to another person’s relational substrate that exists in their own subjective experience and through their subjective lens.
It’s especially hard when these truths apply to your spouse or child. It’s as if a part of you is attached to parts of them. Yet, therein lies the real nature of the problem and I would argue that we need to look closer at those parts of us that are attached to the parts of them. We should examine those parts of us and determine whether we need to hold onto those parts of us. If we dig through all the sentimentality with our bare hands, we might find that what we’re holding onto needs to die as well and perhaps go over the cliff with them. Those parts of us, which are ego-driven illusions, are what we are really trying to save; and our motives, shrouded in love and concern for another are more about us and the desperate preservation of the illusion.
But you might challenge me and ask how can this be. How can it not be right to put all of our efforts into saving someone or our relationship with them? Because in actuality, we’re not saving the other person, we’re saving the parts of us that are lost in that person. This is a truth that is deep and could be written about much further, but I’ll let it rest. Because when we stumble upon this truth, the real work begins, and the conversation can then go on productively. The look on someone’s face having this revelation for the first time is priceless. It’s both a look of relief and despair because, for the first time in their lives, they are seeing how they’re relating to the underlying dynamics of their relational being. They’re seeing how they got where they are, they’re seeing that they have a sense of responsibility and choice in where they’re going for the future. However, in the immediate time, things look dim, if not pitch black, and shrouded in fear, they are encountering the “unreasonable” and falling in faith in to the truth of their existence and realizing the complexity of life which we would rather deny in order to maintain a sense of rational control which we know in our hearts we do not have.
The future that feels uncertain at this moment is only uncertain in terms of circumstantial measurements. But when we have a hold of this truth, the future is more certain than we know. Because we’re able to enter into the process of growth, and identity development in a way that we’ve never experienced. In some ways you could say that for the first time, we are plugging into the place where life is to be lived from, where happiness is achieved, and we are participating with instead of against the dynamic divine nature that created the world. We find this nature working and moving and inviting us to rest in its currents and to move along with it. So we enter in, and we rest in that which we have been called. We have found the current, that will carry us down the river, and the only effort that we have to make is to let those parts of ourselves which resist its currents to die along the way. Even if those parts are attached to those we love, who continue to fight the current much to their detriment.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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Photo credit: Fynn Geerdsen on Unsplash