What healthy Relationships look like

[integral]

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1054632474409648

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1017313837288136

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1005089649056890

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1618085662627470

Each video is the same situation. One healthy frame, one unhealthy frame.

0. It is very hard to change the narrative long term when one person holds the unhealthy frame. There are physiological, trauma, and habitual reasons they hold it. It is rare to get them to change no matter how well you show up. They default back. Most people do not have the growth mindset to hold a higher frame. So all the work you put into them does not stick.

Two ideas sound like they contradict. They don't.

1. The point of life is engagement. The destination is empty. You get the money, the goal, the thing you chased, and it feels like nothing the second you get it. Being in something fully is the point. Deep in your work, fun with people and friends in the moment. Deep with one person. Deep in training your body. Its in the process.

2 Most people will eat your time and energy and never meet you there. You are in the middle of something that matters and they pull you into noise. You give and give and nothing comes back. You lift someone's frame by putting self-development work into it and they drop it in a week because they default.

People think you have to pick. Engage with everyone, or pull back to protect yourself. That is a false choice.

Selectivity is not the opposite of engagement. Who is worth your energy? You can't go deep with everyone. So you go deep with the few who can actually meet you at your level.

So what you have to do is not engage less but to engage fully and choose wisely. High standards are not a retreat from life. They are how you make sure your full engagement lands on the right people, instead of getting drained by them and there chaos.

Edited Saturday at 06:21 PM by integral

[enchanted]

"let's start with who you are talking to" lol.

Great post. This is exactly what people in unhealthy relationships need. 

One thought I would add is that as men we do have the ability (and duty) to lead our families and partners to higher consciousness. The biggest reason men give up on their partners is because of ego and the inability to forgive and not acting through unconditional love. 

To change someone with an unhealthy frame is difficult but can be done through unconditional love and consistency. It is similar to breaking a feral horse: you out-think them with steady, unshakeable leadership until their mind start to see the benefits of living with a higher consciousness. 

Edited yesterday at 01:17 AM by enchanted

[tsuki]

I disagree on a very deep level.

This whole dynamic where one partner is responsible for how the other party feels is the definition of unhealthiness and is exactly what is wrong with the current relationship market. Nobody has every made you feel anything. You are creating your own feelings in response to what you think is happening. The sheer lack of responsibility towards your own mental state is staggering. And all of this is packaged from self-help standpoint? Ridiculous!

The other thing is the deeply troubling depiction of a relationship where the woman is both:

1. The caretaker, the worrier AND the conflict initiator
2. The child that needs to be hugged and cared for emotionally

All of this is a fantasy packaged as a neat mind-bite that on the surface shows us that it's okay to be vulnerable, but in reality keeps you stuck as a mental child. Really think about this: when things feel difficult, does it really help to be hugged and cry? Or that someone lists the things you might have thought that worried you? Why would it? Why do you need reassurance that what you are feeling is real? I'll tell you why: because it isn't, because you need to make yourself believe that it is real to avoid understanding that you are creating your emotions in the first place. You are not a victim of your circumstances and a victim of your mind, emotions don't "happen" to you. You think that you know with absolute certainty that your spouse will die in a car crash on a trip and your mind obsesses over it and you create fear. Fear is the consequence of this certainty and the truth is that you don't really know. You don't even know if it's bad if he or she crashes! Nobody teaches you the self-honesty required to be at ease with yourself. This is why you are a mental child and why you need reassurance that what you feel is real. You are better than this. 

Edited yesterday at 02:32 PM by tsuki

[Jirh]

32 minutes ago, tsuki said:

when things feel difficult, does it really help to be hugged and cry?

Yes, absolutely.

Maybe it doesn't help you, but it helps tons of other people.

You're not wrong, there's a time for your logical talk. Just not during a sensitive moment while someone is breaking in tears.

Co-regulation is a real biological need, not a fantasy or Maya.

It's called containment, or emotional intelligence. What you're offering is high-quality logical intelligence, applied untimedly.

Edited yesterday at 02:51 PM by Jirh

[tsuki]

Sure, hugging helps to relieve the tension that created alongside emotion, but it is just temporary relief from it and does not address the underlying issue. The issue is that you're confusing objective circumstances with your reception of it and that you have no command of your own mind. You're thinking that feelings happen to you and that it's good that you feel, and that you're trying to opimize life for good feelings. This is a mistake.

I am not speaking from a place of rejection of feelings. Feelings are an amazing, holistic, insight into your beliefs that happens instantaneously. There's nothing like it, really. I appreciate them. But they are only as smart as your beliefs, which is not very smart at all. It's a low quality culture soup, programming and prejudice. 

I'm not speaking about this in terms of the absolute, so don't bring maya into this. This is a practical matter. You will never build a peaceful, loving, relationship based on emotions alone. The content presented in OP is a fantasy.

[Jirh]

@tsuki That's a caricature of human emotions, and a clear lack of emotional intelligence.

29 minutes ago, tsuki said:

but it is just temporary relief

No, it isn't.

The person in distress and seeking validation needs emotional support exactly to regain agency, not to lose it. It's what helps them anchor themselves in a reality that feels threatening to the core of their being.

29 minutes ago, tsuki said:

from it and does not address the underlying issue. The issue is that you're confusing objective circumstances with your reception of it and that you have no command of your own mind. You're thinking that feelings happen to you and that it's good that you feel, and that you're trying to opimize life for good feelings. This is a mistake.

Yes, I get it. I create my emotions. We all create our emotions.

But that knowledge doesn't help you when a tiger is chasing you. If anything, it slows you down.

You are saying don't go near the tiger in the first place. And I agree. But not everyone is at the same place as you are, and not everyone has your genetics or psychology or circumstances. Your truth is not a universal truth.

[tsuki]

3 hours ago, Jirh said:

@tsuki That's a caricature of human emotions, and a clear lack of emotional intelligence.

I've been in therapy for a better part of the last 10 years, been diagnosed with a personality disorder and successfully healed it. I know what emotions are very deeply and intimately. If you read my posts from few years back I think you'd appreciate what I'm saying a little more. Few years back I'd agree what's being presented here but I see it more clearly now. 

3 hours ago, Jirh said:

Yes, I get it. I create my emotions. We all create our emotions.

I don't think you do. You know it, but you don't understand or experience it. You can sit with an emotion and see it unravel into a story rooted in belief and assumption. The truth is that you don't know. 

3 hours ago, Jirh said:

But that knowledge doesn't help you when a tiger is chasing you. If anything, it slows you down.

To be fair, I think being paralyzed with fear would slow you down more 😂. But I'm being cheeky here.

Even relatively speaking, tigers are a real threat - it is reasonable to expect to die when facing one. Most human emotions are reactions to imagined stories that have no ground in reality whatsoever. They are mostly reactions to past experiences that have little grip on what's happening now. I can't believe you don't know this and call me out on lack of emotional intelligence. Preposterous!

[Jirh]

@tsuki Okay.

This clearly isn't going anywhere. Take care.

[enchanted]

7 hours ago, tsuki said:

I disagree on a very deep level.

Nobody has every made you feel anything. 

Hey thanks for the post and if this is a reply to me then I appreciate the dialogue and I will respectfully answer.

You say "nobody has made you feel anything" but how could that be true? The definition of a good leader is someone who changes your life for the better. An amazing dad or husband can make a huge impact on your life. Just as a toxic one can. 

Edited 17 hours ago by enchanted

[integral]

10 hours ago, tsuki said:

Nobody teaches you the self-honesty required to be at ease with yourself. This is why you are a mental child and why you need reassurance that what you feel is real. You are better than this. 

1. You're right that we have to teach people to self-regulate which is to be at ease with yourself as a process of growing up. 

Basically become a mature person 

In practice though It Isn't So Clean, people are in different moods throughout the day and even healthy people can be a different moods and could get into fights or get stuck in a negative frame.

If you're dealing with a partner who is constantly negative and putting you down no amount of self Mastery is going to help you. It's the death by a Thousand Cuts, eventually you need to cut them off or create effective change.

It's possible to create change and to lead your partner to self-regulate but how to do this is counterintuitive.

2. Most people enter relationship trying to get their needs met by the other person, Instead of showing up where they're taking responsibility for the needs of their partner as well as their own. 

Love is taking their best interest at heart, but it's so twisted and difficult to get right. It's so easy to get this wrong because if someone doesn't appreciate what you're doing for them you're actually not giving them any love even though from your perspective it feels like you're giving them love.

For example paying for things may feel like love to you but for them if they don't appreciate it then they're not actually receiving anything. Or if you're being very nice and every time they have a tantrum you comfort them and let them walk all over you and you keep repeating this, while the problem is they don't appreciate what you're doing for them and in fact there demonizing you as the problem of there suffering.

The right way to give love is often boundaries and to not let them dig themselves into a hole where they demonize you to begin with.

3. A big part is for you to focus on yourself and on your own mission in life and you're on happiness and then that will translate to how you show up that then translates to how she feels and her vibe and then she will naturally come back into alignment.

When you focus on being your best self and plowing through life and doing the things you enjoy, it will naturally show up in how you engage in the relationship and through life and people are highly sensitive to this, and they'll follow and go with the best vibe

This isn't perfect and if you have financial problems or other problems like that that can easily be resolved then if your partner is simply isn't mature it's going to be very difficult.

It also makes it very easy to set boundaries because you're not dependent.

4. Side note most of pickup and attraction is just statemaxxing, being in your best state and that effects the entire hallucination including how you make everyone feel.

Your best state is play. 

Edited 14 hours ago by integral

[integral]

22 hours ago, enchanted said:

"let's start with who you are talking to" lol.

😭 im a child

[tsuki]

10 hours ago, enchanted said:

You say "nobody has made you feel anything" but how could that be true? The definition of a good leader is someone who changes your life for the better. An amazing dad or husband can make a huge impact on your life. Just as a toxic one can. 

Notice that the existence of a leader is predicated on the existence of followers - people who are unable to lead themselves and make correct choices that impact their own lives. In this light, I'd say that leading is only authentic if it helps others achieve self-sufficiency and maturity. But then you must notice yourself that by making choices for others (even in the noble pursuit of liberation), you are acting out your preconceived notions of what their life should be, don't you? Why would you let your uninspected ideas direct your behavior to direct others? Maybe looking inward, understanding yourself, being responsible for your own mind is the key aspect of leading? You may inspire one or the other to do the same in the process.

Feelings (emotions) are the experience of participating in a story that you believe in. Various feelings arise when there is a discrepancy between what you see and what you think. Modern Western pop-culture tells you to arrange the world in accordance with what you think so that your feelings are positive. The contemplative traditions tell you to rearrange what you think so that you understand what you see (and in the process, your feelings stop nagging you). Can you see what I'm pointing at here?

Edited 6 hours ago by tsuki

[tsuki]

@integral Practically speaking, I've given up on relationships with just anyone and became at ease with my own presence. After a while, I think that this is the only way to find a healthy relationship - by finding someone that really is okay by themselves. This leaves me at a strange predicament where I can only accept and give love that does not make conventional sense. Because if I'm so okay with myself, why do I want to be with someone else and why would they be with me if they are the same? Love does seem to defy reason, doesn't it?

 

[Schizophonia]

A good relationship is one that doesn't tend excessively towards negative emotions.

[Joseph Maynor]

If I haven't met someone face to face ideally in a physical setting it is hard for me to even think there is a real relationship there.  So that is important but often overlooked.  

[tsuki]

35 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

A good relationship is one that doesn't tend excessively towards negative emotions.

Is a 20-year relationship with your wife that ends with her painfully dying of cancer a bad relationship?

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@tsuki you have a very deep understanding of how we allow things to affect us. 

It's hard for others to hear and reconcile responsibility without falling into the traps of shame and guilt. 

People conflate responsibilty with blame. Increasing agency without self condemnation is the essential contemplative piece many miss.

[Schizophonia]

19 minutes ago, tsuki said:

Is a 20-year relationship with your wife that ends with her painfully dying of cancer a bad relationship?

No because cancer is involuntary. Also hardship makes you want to love, unlike stupid behavior.

[tsuki]

@Natasha Tori Maru Thank you for your recognition, I appreciate it.

As for guilt and shame, our Western society allows us to have thoughts of our own, so it's not too inconceivable to garden your skull with flowers to your own liking. Having genuine insight grounded in spiritual practice oriented towards truth helps a lot. With time, you will feel less need to explain yourself to others and act in your best interest nonviolently. People think in black and white without realizing there are tons of shades of gray in between and it's a very good hiding spot.

Ultimately however, you will need to admit to yourself where you stand in relation to society, to what most people understand about themselves. Standing on your own two feet is less of an ideal to follow but something very practical at that point.

[integral]

1 hour ago, tsuki said:

Is a 20-year relationship with your wife that ends with her painfully dying of cancer a bad relationship?

Nihilism runs along the lines of: why do anything if we're going to die anyway? The answer is: The point of life isn't the destination, it's enjoying the journey.

• Outer game = building the external life (get the hot girl)
• Inner game = the capacity to actually enjoy it
• Outer, no inner → I got everything and I'm still not happy
• Inner, no outer → peace, but nothing built
• Both → I can make the best of any situation

But There are two completely different things that look the same from the outside, both involve stepping back from people:

• Retreat into apathy → "Why engage? It's all pointless, people drain me, nothing matters." This is inner game collapsing into nihilism. It's defeat, a mask of peace.
• Being selective → "I can fully engage, I can enter play mode and enjoy people, and I'm choosing who and what is worth my energy. " This is inner game plus outer game. Fully engaging with life, you can enjoy life and play but you're directing it on purpose to what matters to you.

People mistake apathy for enlightenment/peace. it's about the internal state masquerading as a higher one. "I just don't care anymore" gets relabeled as "I've transcended, I'm at peace, I don't need these things.". We mistake apathy as enlightenment

The deception is apathy pretending to be wisdom. "I don't care" ->  "I'm above it."

Taking a low state (not caring, no energy, given up) and reframing it as a high state (peace, presence, non-attachment, enlightenment).

Edited 3 hours ago by integral