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Re: Transpersonal Love within Committed Relationships

Pantergnosis said Feb 16, 2007, 12:05 PM:

Hello!
A very common psychological theory is that to fall in love is to be attracted to our shadow and projections, and that it can help us be more conscious about those aspects of ourself. This means that we are basically fooling ourselves when we are loving an other person, and that we will stop to love them when the spell is removed or the illusions are resolved. Or that some “truer” love might appear, as the first “superficial” love has evaporated.

There is probably a lot of truth in that, but there is an other theory that I like even more, that I heard from Sandra Maitri, my teacher within the Diamond Approach/ Ridhwan School.

They say that we in the first experience of love actually are seeing and responding to the soul, and then feel immense love in seeing them more or less as they are. Then we are becoming less and less in love as our defences gradually will build themself up again. So that after a while we will iin fact often be more of the illusion of our personality than in the beginning, when it was a more “pure” perception.

Somehow a more or less oposite theory! In the eyes of the Diamond Approach the struggle is to keep our first perception open, and not let all our fear and stuff overtake us. Or, since it is more or less impossible for this not to happen, at least we should do our best to work with all of these sheets of our personality as they are becoming present.

The first theory of more normal psychology somehow thinks we are seeing things more clear when the magic of the other disappears, and we are all becoming dull again, while DA thinks that this magic is always within reach, but must be worked for.

Love from Øyvind in Norway!

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Re: Transpersonal Love within Committed Relationships

savanni [no longer around] said Feb 17, 2007, 11:28 PM:

My opinion is closer to the normal psychological approach than anything else.

“Falling in Love” is something that most of my community views as a drug. We call it “New Relationship Energy” and it is that period of infatuation that begins a relationship. This is the euphoric phase of first meeting this bright, shiny new person, who fits every wish we could ever want filled!

Many of us have seen people make horrible, disasterous decisions during this phase.

The thing is, this phase really is just us projecting ourselves onto the other person. As we get to know the other person better, we get to know that person's quirks and failings. We learn how the person truly lives eir life, and all of the layers of joy and hurt that makes em.

Somewhere in there, we either form an emotional attachment to the other person, or we do not. Either way, somewhere in there, as we learn about the person and learn how to truly open up, that is when we find out who e really is. Should all goes well, and should we not hurt each other too much in the process, an actual loving relationship begins somewhere in during the NRE, and then survives or even thrives when the euphoria wears off.

Re: Transpersonal Love within Committed Relationships

Whitewave said Feb 18, 2007, 12:48 PM:

Greetings, Pantergnosis.

I'm very familiar with Shadow Hugging and I love to talk about it now with the other person while it's happening. It's thrilling. I love understanding why I'm feeling what I'm feeling. I don't necessarily feel any impulse or motivation to stop the process simply because we've taken the masks off and now we understand that it's an “illusion”. The process automatically becomes less charged when we both take the masks off, and that's wonderful! But I enjoy putting them on and taking them off and on and off. It's like a game of “peekaboo”, and it makes me laugh. It also creates a space, much like Voice Dialog does, where fear falls away and all form and contraction is just as precious and holy as emptiness. This, to me, is a space I want to share with an other. Preferably all others, but just one would be a huge improvment over alone. I cannot describe the joy of being in the presence of another without fear or shame. “They were both naked and felt no shame…”

The sexual act creates this field for a few moments, but if the partners can't consciously expand into it, then it can't be held and it collapses again.

I find the other theory compelling as well, and ironically, equally true. It seems familiar to me, prolly because it resonates with something I remember from one of C. S. Lewis' writings. “The Weight of Glory”. It would take too long to find the quote, but it is essentially that each of us has the capacity to expand into what would seem to be like an angel, or contract into what would seem to be a demon. That we are always walking around teetering on the edge of these, all the time, and we each have the power to push one another further towards one side or the other.

I have to go for a while. Extreme exhaustion…

~Ww