...Starting with the person in the mirror...

The relationship I have with myself, in other words. 

If anyone here is familiar with Ken Wilber's work, and his latest book which names the 8 Zones within the 4 Quadrants, then what I'm talking about is working on the relationship created by doing some serious Zone #2 work.  Zone #2 is the experience of observing and discussing your own interior, subjective experience.  It's not observing your exterior, like your brain, cells, hormones and behavior.  It's observing your interior reactions to things, doing what he calls a geneology on yourself - finding out what the hell happened to make you who and what you are today, and offering honest assessments of yourself in light of this subtle layer of objectivity.  This is in contrast to Zone #1 where you're not observing yourself at all.  You may be observing someone or something else, but as far as you go, you are just feeling everything directly, and thinking without reflection.  No interior inquiry, just reactions, straight from the hip. 

One of the things I want to challenge myself to do more of is take as high a point of view of myself as possible when observing myself.  So, I'm not just reacting, I'm observing my reaction - one step up.  But then I'm not just observing my reaction, but I'm also going to try and observe my observation to a degree.  Not to be silly, but to hold myself accountable so others who may observe something different may feel freer to voice their observations and not be so intimidated by my own blindspots and sensitivity. 

Case in point:
The current b/f has let me know that when he tries to bring certain things up with me, I won't discuss it.  Regardless of the valid reasons for this, I also may have reasons which speak to my own Shadow issues.  I would like to be freer from fear of discussing those things.  And in order to do this, I believe that my attatchment to my identity must be called out into the light and examined.  The fact is, I am still quite clingy to the Personal level of relating. 

I want to be loved. 
“Who wants to be loved?” I ask. 
Well, who's asking? 
Am I asking who wants to be loved, or am I the one who wants to be loved? 
Who's really in charge here? 

The relationship between these two “I's” is what I want to create and do something with!  More later…

~Ww

Re: ...Starting with the person in the mirror...

This excercise makes one aspect of Buddhist Vipassana meditation.  All of it focuses on insight, and on noting what the mind is doing.  I view the sit-down meditation time as practice for actually doing this all the time.

I find it very difficult, though.  It is so easy for my watcher to go to sleep.  But when the watcher is awake, I find that it is able to watch me, and watch emself at the same time!  That is the point at which I become aware of how I am reacting to things, what persona I am trying to depict, and how my body is feeling the world around me.

The results excite me a lot.  They are difficult to achieve, and when the stress piles up I can easily forget all of this, but otherwise… wow.  Actually knowing what I am doing and why I am doing it, or that there is something I need to dig for to find more!

One of the communities I am involved with emphasises this for, I think , for similar reasons to what you are talking about.  We call it “I am my own primary partner”, almost as a mantra, but the idea is that, above all of my other relationships, I must have a strong, healthy relationship with myself.  Once I can do that, and once I can like or love myself with all of my flaws and with all of my shadows, I can really be far more concious with any of my other relationships.

As you said, if I already know a flaw is there, and I have accepted it and maybe I am even trying to change it, somebody else pointing it out to me becomes less threatening.  Maybe it is because it is just one of those things that I can look back and say “yeah, I know”.  It is not something that I must deny.

Re: ...Starting with the person in the mirror...

This is good.  I'm glad that these things integrate with one another.  And I'M SO GLAD THERE IS SOMEONE ELSE WHO CAN RELATE!!  YAY!  YAY!  YAY!!

I have some really tough questions that I need help with really urgently.  I'll post them where I think they'll be most appropriate. 

My first question actually belongs here, so I'll jump in:

I am with a partner right now who is very much grounded in the Personal level of relating.  I love him.  I adore him.  And I want to love more.  Both more of him and more people.  I don't believe that this is bad, however, because he is in such a Personal place, he feels threatened - my loving others diminishes my love for him.  I'm trying to 'splain to him that my love is not grounded in the Beloved, but in something much less changable and temporary - in the Infinite, which then comes through me to him.  The Infinite also comes through him to me, which is what's so great about all this.  It's not about the temporal little me and him.  It's about the Infinite contractng and circulating through flesh.  Is there anything I can do to help him understand? 

He hasn't really been motivated to understand until the last week or so.  Actually less than that.  I had pretty much given up on him ever understanding and was ready to let him go because I didn't want to torment him with this.  There's lots of pressure on me to dump him for two reasons: 1  I'm just leading him along and so I'm a bitch, and 2  he's just trying to change me and keep me on his leash and he's a jerk.  These things are only true in the Personal realm of relating.  He has asked if I know of anyone else who he can talk to about it, someone that isn't a woman, or just someone who isn't me in case he just can't hear it from me. 

LOL   Well, you're not “a woman”…    Actually, it might help if you're both/neither because then you could speak for both/neither, and that's kinda the point.  The point seems to be that separation, exclusion and isolation don't necessarily serve transpersonal love, but can be a barrier.  I don't know.  Whadda ya tink? 

The polyamorous stuff would prolly be relevant for this, and I want it to be grounded in my relationship with the Infinite within myself, and then the Infinite in all of creation. 

What would you say to him, if you could?

~Ww

Polyamory vs. Monogamy vs. Personal vs. Transpersonal

I will start, I think, with a little relationship nitpicking, specifically on the Personal vs. the Transpersonal.  Or, maybe this is not nitpicking.  Or, shoot me down if this does not work for you.

Based on descriptions, I know that you used a monogamous example for Personal, but I do not actually see that as necessarily monogamous.  I view my own relationship structure as a set of Personal relationships.  By this, I mean that I am in a physically and emotionally intimate relationship with each of my partners.  We support one another, build each other up, share space, provide aid when needed, provide aid when not needed, create shared experiences, discuss shared experiences, have and resolve arguments, and do many additional things I have not listed here.

I think (but am not sure) that I would still apply the term “Personal” even if the people involved formed a tight empathic connection.

Transpersonal, though, seems to me to be a relationship with something that is not an individual human, but more of a collective … something.  A collective conciousness?  I am not sure exactly what because I have never been able to touch that, but I wil speculate a bit.

Perhaps somebody who is sincerely doing pathworking on the Tree of Life could be said to fit your definition of forming a Transpersonal relationship.  Kabbalistic teachings (the little that I know) state that all is God and God is all and that the two cannot be separated nor are they even two.  Pathworking would in this context be developing a intuitive or experiential relationship with all of creation.

Maybe I see Transpersonal as developing a set of relationships that softens the boundaries of identity which prevent me from sharing conciousness or even really feeling myself as part of a larger whole.

All of this means that I do not view a polyamorous relationship as Transpersonal, or a monogamous relationship as Not Transpersonal; or that view Monogamy and Polyamory as being a separate categorization system.

I would like to hear your comments on these thoughts before I address anything else.  Especially about your boyfriend.  Addressing that is going to be really hard, even if I do understand your terminology.

Re: Polyamory vs. Monogamy vs. Personal vs. Transpersonal

This deserved a much sooner response, but I've just been too busy.  You're suggestions are great and we're gonna discuss them today.  You're stretching me as well.  Wonderful. I will respond more specifically when I can.  Hopefully later tonight…   not sure.. 

Thank you, so much!

~Ww