We live in a world where each day we are making some form of agreement, whether it is in business, organizing our personal financial budgets, preparing for marriage, or when lovers are in a dialogue about their values. Agreements create a structure for relationships to be created in and grow.
Agreements can be funny things though. We create them from our minds with the intention of creating a sense of safety and security for ourselves. They reassure us of what to expect with regard to the direction a business deal or relationship is going. Agreements help us evaluate,“Is it worth my investment?”
On the other side of agreements is the Shadow side. Most of us mean well when we set out to create a relationship structured from shared values and vision. Our intention is that it is worthy of our investment of time and energy. However, even with good intentions, most often what happens is that we unconsciously create agreements from old emotional fears. We don’t do this deliberately. Our story runs the show. A relationship structure built on such a fragile foundation puts us in a box. The box is confining but safe. We create it in order to stay in control of the situation, to create a guarantee of a return on our investment. It is created from old core limiting emotional patterns of insecurity. However, consider this, “Can another person truly ever provide us security?” We hold on really tight to the illusion that perhaps they can. What usually happens is we end up disappointed. Ultimately, it causes the death of that relationship, because the foundation it was built on was fear-based. It had nowhere to go and no space to breathe.
Do your agreements create a trap to feed your insecurities? Or, are they a key you use to unlock your fears and limitations in order to grow beyond them? Are you willing and able to create a safe structure for exploring and exposing your limiting e-motions, thoughts and patterns, so that you can return to love and celebration with yourself and your partner? The latter requires courage and willingness to be present and take nothing personally.
Consider this. Often when I am feeling I “need” an agreement, it is because some part of me feels unsafe. Instead of being fearful and avoiding, I enjoy diving into this with my partners. Thinking out loud is a way I am able to deconstruct a belief to see where the fear is coming from. I ask myself, “Why do I “need” an agreement? How will this agreement support me in moving through this old pattern?” Ultimately, when I have safe partners to process with, thinking out loud with a lover or lovers who are present and holding the space and willing to be a part of my process, it supports me in realizing what is TRUE for me NOW. It helps me separate the past patterns and experiences from my present reality. With that awareness in the present moment, I can discuss and agree upon what I need and want with my partner, in order to move through something. It gives me the opportunity to go deeper into love, celebration and freedom within the container of that relationship. We are able to co-create the container of our relationship from choice rather than fears based in the past.
I believe relationships are as infinite as the universe. There are so many possibilities. I don’t desire to put any of them in a box. I want to explore, expose and choose from present moment awareness and freedom, so that my relationships can breathe in a wide open space.
As I mentioned before, many agreements are created out of a need to feel in control because control helps us feel safe. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It is just something to be aware of. Observe if you are stuck in the fear cycle of fight or flight. Fear-based controls can affect your relationships negatively and cause separation.
Agreements that are made from your unconscious and unexplored fears can become a trap. If you are unaware of your old programming, limiting emotional patterns and agreements, your relationships may seem like a locked cage where the key has been thrown away. You or your partners may feel trapped. However, agreements can also be a means of creating a safer space together with your lover. Agreements can help you move through fear, rather than allowing the fear to trap you both.
Sometimes we make agreements with a partner out of a fear of not wanting to lose them. In the long run, we feel resentful for saying yes to something that wasn’t right for us because we end up losing so much more. The box becomes tighter, neither of us is breathing. Perhaps the one of us who needed the agreement is not willing to do the work or make any changes. All the fear inside us is running the show. It is an agreement that feels like it is cast in stone, never to be broken or rewritten. It is suffocating us because it is very limiting. It has created a false sense of safety, not a real one. It is not empowering us.
But, what if we created agreements out of awareness, to use as a key to unlock the door to empowered relationships? What if we consciously utilized agreements to uncover our old emotional patterns, to get to know the feelings buried underneath? What if we made agreements that helped us discover our needs and helped us to commit to shifting our patterns? Yes, it may feel scary. It may bring up a lot of old stuff that is uncomfortable to deal with and feel. But, that is where the freedom is! Isn’t freedom what we all want?
When we make unconscious fear based agreements, our partners feel caged in, because we are caging in ourselves. When we are stuck in our own cage of fear and don’t see a way out, we unconsciously want our partners to join us so that we aren’t suffering alone anymore. They are now prisoners in our cage with us. Is that love? No, that is fear, not love.
I have and continue to have the opportunity to work with many people worldwide, supporting them in shifting old emotional patterns. In my work I use a specific integrative breath work tool, along with tantric life coaching and communication tools. I have witnessed multi-dimensional approaches which have supported empowering changes and shifts with thousands of people and relationships over and over. Imagine being free of the fears that cage you in. Imagine being able to have everything you ever wanted with ease. Imagine being able to consciously and confidently create an open container to meet your lovers, friends and family members in that is free from the cage of the past. Imagine finding the key that unlocks the cage and sets you and your partners free. Now that is love!
Close your eyes and feel into the first moment you met your partner, lover, friend, business associate. For me, there is usually a deep feeling of love and connection, before any words are ever exchanged. It is a feeling connection that goes beyond words. Then over time, old patterns may begin to rise up. But don’t be concerned, because this can actually be a beautiful thing. It is an invitation to reveal and discover something within you. This is possible because now you have a container to witness and transform in through love. Your mind-based rules and fear-based control agreements do not prevent love anymore. Love has been there all along, since the very first embrace, waiting patiently. Working through your fear-based controls helps expand and empower the container of your relationships, in order for you to grow in love rather than fear.
Food for the heart: “Where do you use agreements to cage in yourself and your partners and then throw away the key? Or, do you consciously choose to create agreements in relationships that support you in uncovering your blind spots, so that you can move through your fears? Ultimately, what is available is finding the key that gives you access to unlock even greater love, connection, intimacy, celebration and freedom in all of your relationships. That key is awareness and the courage and willingness to be free from the cage of old patterns of the past. Use this key to unlock, uncover and expose all the hidden patterns that will set you and your partners free to co-create a container of empowered communication, love and relating.
Leave A Comment