Article on Relationships and spirituality. What do you think ?

[Aschleigh]

Spirituality And Relationships

by Bruce Crapuchettes

Printed in the journal called, "Psychotherapy In Australia" Vol 4 No 1
November 1997


In a survey of spirituality through the ages, Bruce Crapuchettes
suggests its main contemporary use is to heal the wounded self through
the committed relationship.


A mature man . . . that is what I want to become. But what exactly is
a mature man? How will I know when I have arrived? What will it feel
like? I have a hunch that maturity is one of the outward
manifestations of something much deeper - spirituality.

WHAT IS SPIRITUALITY?

There seems to be some agreement among the world¹s great thinkers that
we are all on a journey, whose objective is described in many ways: to
become whole, mature, centred, grounded, integrated, aware, conscious,
fully human, God-like. Words like soul, spirit, heart, and mind
describe those deepest parts of our being which most excite and
disturb us.

Harville Hendrix (198 says that human beings yearn for their
original essence and wholeness, that they long to become healed, to
feel fully alive, to have access to all their functions (sensing,
acting, feeling, thinking), and to have a sense of relaxed joyfulness,
something he calls "spiritual."

When embarking on a spiritual path, we often start by creating a
mental image of our intended destination. Slaves in the old south sang
about heaven because they believed they would never find bliss on this
earth, never, it seemed, become "real human beings" in their lifetime.
Heaven, the sweet bye and bye, was where some day their spirits would
be free, whole and alive. But while they believed that their hearts
sang of a distant future, I am guessing that their inspiration came
from a long-forgotten past, a faint memory from deep within. They felt
an innate yearning to recapture their birthright - the original
essence with which they, and all of us, were born, that of full
aliveness and wholeness.

Here is my definition: Spirituality is the process of transcending the
self, transcending the limitations of our evolutionary and learned
reactivities, and creating meaning for ourselves through attunement to
the structure of the world (which consists of matter, energy and
interconnectedness). Engaging in love (agape) is the spiritual
discipline that puts us on the spiritual path.

When we approach the world from a spiritually unevolved place, we see
ourselves as all important in the universe and come from an egocentric
perspective which we need in order to experience meaning. But as a
result of our spiritual quest, we can derive our meaning as part of
the whole, not the centre of it, we are able to see ourselves as a
minute particle of the universe, yet fully important because we are
part of the whole, ie. if we were missing, the whole would not be
complete. We move from egocentric to interconnected.

In the religious tradition this act of transcendence was accomplished
by surrendering to God, the centre, who thus forced us off centre
stage. As physicists and cosmologists have grown in their knowledge
and understanding of the universe, we moderns have come to realize
there is no centre of the universe. The first law of thermodynamics
says that everything is moving toward disorder, randomness rules.
While this realization could precipitate an existential depression in
some, others, who choose to live intentional lives and become more and
more conscious, can instead create meaning from their relatedness to
the whole. The process of transcending the self brings about an
awareness of belonging to the whole and makes it possible to create
meaning of every moment of our lives, even in a universe where there
may be no inherent meaning. We can daily create meaning if we choose.
But in order to do this, we must first experience healing.

THE PLACE OF HEALING HAS SHIFTED THROUGH HISTORY

Many significant shifts have developed throughout the course of
history as to the cultural "place of healing." In America, the most
traditional place of healing has been within religion. Christian
theologians say we are created in the image of God but fell into sin
by rejecting His invitation to remain in communion with Him. God
"forgave us our sins" and invites us to rejoin Him and regain our
original God-like image. The Christian path is a call to original
wholeness through "loving God . . . and loving your neighbour as
yourself." Although some religious leaders have fallen sorrowfully
short of demonstrating unconditional love for all people, Christian
scholars agree that a community of believers - the church - is the
place where all are acceptable in the eyes of God and of each other.
The idea is to feel the unconditional love and acceptance of God, and
through His acceptance, to find self- and other-acceptance.

Using a psychological perspective to explain religious language (which
I do not presume is the only or "right" perspective), God can be seen
as the "good parent." He is reliably present, warm, loving, accepting,
patient, guiding, and appropriately angry. In other words, God offers
the ideal parenting that we needed, but never experienced as children.
In ancient Times, God was too holy for the likes of us to speak
directly with him, so "mediators" emerged. Priests and other religious
leaders became the mediators between ordinary people and God¹s grace;
they, representing God, became the instruments of our healing.

The political winds of self-ownership, individualism and democracy
blew strongly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and in the
nineteenth, Sigmund Freud ushered in a shift in our thoughts about
emotional/ spiritual healing. Many people wanted to discuss their woes
with a "real" human being who could relate to their life issues and
respond with timely wisdom and understanding. The place of healing
gradually shifted from the church to the couch. Psycho-therapists
became the secular priests for our society, the new "good parents" our
wounded souls had been searching for. Now we could sit in a room with
someone, face to face, and experience the kind of connection that
would bring us closer to feeling alive. This was an exciting shift for
a society feeling increasingly untouched by the people and
institutions its parents and grandparents had looked to for healing.

But society never remains static and new shifts are ever unfolding.
Many have come to believe that the place of healing is within the
self. Meditation is very popular as a spiritual discipline. While this
has always been true in the Eastern tradition, it represents a
significant shift in Western thought development. Like prayer, it is a
process of quieting the mind, body, and spirit so that one might
connect with a "higher power" or "universal intelligence."

Faced with the limitations of religion, psychotherapy, meditation, and
other paths, along with the emergence of self-ownership,
individualism, democracy, and free-choice marriages, the history of
social and spiritual evolution may be making yet another shift in the
place of healing. Hendrix (198 postulates that the ultimate crucible
for healing and growth is the committed, intimate dyad, the modern
marriage, where the intimate partner becomes the "good parent." First
the priest, then the psychotherapist, and now the intimate other.

RELATIONSHIP TERROR

The disciplines of philosophy, theology, religion, and psychology all
recognize that there is a serious human problem, and are concerned
with finding a solution. Contrary to the conservative theological view
that man had fallen into sin, Freud (1933), Paul Tillich inThe Courage
to Be (195, and others, concluded that the fundamental disturbance
of being is anxiety brought about by our fear of death. Martin Buber
in I and Thou (1952) identified the anxiety that Freud and Tillich
were talking about as basically a relational fear; the ultimate terror
is not the fear of death per se, but the terror of the ³other,² and
the associated terror of annihilation. If we let the other fully into
our presence, we would lose ourselves and essentially disappear.

Hendrix (1994) says that the single most tragic loss to the human race
is the loss of empathy that this "other-terror" engenders; when we
experience physical or emotional pain, we automatically react by
turning our attention inward and focus our energy on trying to
overcome or relieve it. In other words, we become self-absorbed and
become the centre of our world because of the pressing demands of our
pain. This creates an illusion of separateness: them and me, in fact,
them against me. They don't feel my pain, my hurt, my anxiety, my
terror! So we experience alienation from the other and consequently
lose our capacity for empathy, we come to fear others and treat them
as if they were objects. As long as we remain in pain, our deepest
terror is that of allowing the other¹s reality into our presence
because, in doing so, we fear we will disappear, lose our own
perspective, become extinct.

We have had good training in that often parents convey to their
children that there is only one reality, theirs! Children, in order to
remain connected with their parents and become acceptable family
members, must surrender themselves and their reality. Forced to take
on our parents' reality to please them, we began to split the world
into "me" and "them", into good and bad, right and wrong. We worked
hard as children to present a facade of what we thought was acceptable
(good) and to hide what we thought was unacceptable (bad) in us. This
intense desire to please our parents with the ultimate practical goal
of surviving left us often full of rage or profoundly depressed
because of the loss of our real "Self." We became hurt and wounded
children, and our potential goodness, our original wholeness was
chipped away, dismantled.

This damaged relationship with our parents can be called an
object-subject relationship. And later, just as we were subjected, so
will we "subject" others to a reduction of their self to being an
object, in an attempt to protect ourselves from further injury the way
our parents once objectified us. The only solution to the human
condition, Buber claims, is to reach a place where we psychologically
bring the other into equality with ourselves and develop what he calls
a subject-subject relationship, an I-Thou relationship.

The spiritual journey is about bringing healing and wholeness to our
damaged, split selves. To venture purposefully down this road is to
make a commitment to transcend our woundedness, because out of our
pain, we do things that are hurtful and unloving. It is almost
impossible to separate what is hurtful to others from what is hurtful
to the self, because, ultimately, they are one and the same. The goal
of the journey, then, is to find a way to heal the hurts we
experienced as children and move beyond them and make space to
accommodate the reality of the other. This is love (agape).

TWO KINDS OF WORK

On the journey toward wholeness and aliveness, there are two kinds of
work: growth work and healing work. Hendrix (1992) describes growth
work as modifying our character defenses, and healing work as getting
our emotional needs met (i.e., get our childhood wounds healed).

Because the intimate other triggers our terror of annihilation most,
it is in their presence that the deepest level of growth and healing
can occur. The actual growth and healing potential will be in direct
proportion to the level of commitment and intimacy in the
relationship. This concept of healing through relationship is so
important, that Hendrix recommends that individual clients who are not
in a committed relationship work within the context of a group so that
the "work" will remain relational among equals.

In the adult intimate relationship, partners act as mirrors to one
another. As a result of our childhood pain, we often do not feel good
about ourselves and subsequently, we do not like what we see when our
partner holds up the mirror. We look for an escape from the awful
truth that is staring us in the face. We want our masks back. We want
to run behind our fortress again, to bulldoze and "kill".

The committed, intimate relationship brings on the most intense
experience of the mirror because, once we¹ve committed ourselves,
we¹re essentially force fed a daily diet of cold, hard reality,
there¹s no escape unless we abandon the relationship. Here is where
commitment becomes the absolute cornerstone of growth and healing. We
could opt to run away by filing for divorce, having affairs,
committing suicide, or even losing ourselves in work, TV, or children.
The spiritual journey is to move into a process of closing the escape
routes, a far more difficult, yet infinitely more rewarding choice,
for it propels us toward the full aliveness and relaxed joyfulness we
ultimately seek, and what a laborious process it is! What an
agonizing, terrifying experience to face the most hated parts of
ourselves in our partner and choose to remain rather than run! It
demands a desire and commitment to personal growth and evolution; the
spiritual awakening is the growing awareness that instead of focusing
on what our partner has to do to change, it is all about what we have
to do. Our growth work is to search for our contribution to our
problems, and take our share of the responsibility.

As Imago therapists, we begin with "other-reflection", asking each
partner to take his or her best guess as to what it is about
themselves that upsets their partner. This starts a couple on an
amazing path of realization that there are (at least) two independent
and equally valid realities! Next, we work on modifying our own
character structure in ways that free us to become a healer for our
partner, especially by learning to become "safe" for our partner so
they can relax in our presence and let us in emotionally. This is
indeed a spiritual awakening.

In the religious tradition, spirituality means transcending the Self
by worshipping God. For Hendrix spirituality means transcending the
Self by giving the partner's reality equal validity to ours, pushing
through the terror of annihilation and making room for the other's
existence and point of view.

ALIVENESS VERSUS MEANING

There has been much philosophical and theological attention on
discovering the meaning of our existence, of death, and getting into
relationship with the ultimate. In Hendrix' opinion, this is an
interesting academic exercise, but what our souls really thirst for is
to feel alive!

He points out that Madison Avenue is light years ahead of philosophers
and theologians, for it has discovered the way to sell everything from
soap and toothpaste to cars is to tell us that owning these things
will make us feel more alive. "Your scalp will tingle!" "Your mouth
will feel like a refreshing winter breeze!" "Toyota - oh, what a
feeling!" They don¹t try to tell us how these products will bring more
meaning to our lives. That¹s not what our souls are thirsting for.
What we ultimately yearn for is aliveness, energy, the feeling that
the powers of the very heavens are coursing through our veins!

In fact, aliveness feels so good that we can easily become addicted to
whatever brings us those feelings for even a few moments. Sex.
Chocolate. Business deals. Alcohol. Cocaine. Money. What happens is
that when we experience that aliveness for a moment, we may conclude,
"Good sex - that's the answer!" or "Money - that's the answer!" LSD
can break through the mind's defenses and leave one sitting in the
presence of the core. How thrilling! To be connected with our core
energy is truly a moment of ecstasy. So we may conclude, as Timothy
Leary, that LSD is the answer. Meditation can sometimes give us this
feeling as well, because it can actually alter the chemistry of the
brain. So too can such activities as long distance running, aerobics
and Zen, because endorphins are dumped into the brain.

A "conversion experience" is a similarly powerful and energizing
experience. Recently, an older gentleman, a wealthy businessman, was
dragged reluctantly by his wife to the workshop I regularly lead.
Their marriage was in a state of collapse and they were there as a
last ditch effort. The man introduced himself as skeptical and being
there "only by a thread." During the first part of the workshop, he
remained very quiet and distant, as one would expect under the
circumstances. By the end of day one he had posed a question or two.
On the second day, to my surprise and delight, the couple volunteered
to help demonstrate how to handle anger and rage constructively. After
thinking of something in the relationship that he was feeling
frustrated about, he was able to use my coaching to get into very
energized expressions of anger. Suddenly he got in touch with the deep
sadness behind his rage. Finally, during the last stage of the
exercise where the couple is instructed how to hold each other, he
fell into his wife¹s arms in convulsive sobs and remained there like a
baby to be comforted by her.

Truly a conversion experience for this staid businessman. He was so
excited and energized, he had just tasted a kind of aliveness that he
had never experienced before. As with most converts, it was difficult
for him to stop talking about it.

A conversion experience can feel so powerful that it truly can become
life transforming. It can happen through a near death experience,
during a Billy Graham meeting, or with a drug experience. It is so
energizing to the system that we become convinced for the first time
that "the journey" is really worth traveling. Wow, there is life!
Where we once felt hopeless or lifeless, we now have drunk from the
fountain of life itself. And that delicious taste gives us the energy
to get on with the journey to finding lasting aliveness. A conversion
experience is not healing, it is energizing and gives us the
conviction and a cognitive understanding that there is a path, there
is life. Now we know it and we want it!

It is easy to confuse the thing that induces the feeling with the
actual source of aliveness. Peck (1993) writes that "with alcohol, pot
or coke, for a few minutes or a few hours we may regain temporarily
that lost sense of oneness with the universe. We recapture that
deliciously warm and fuzzy sense of being one with nature once again."
A possible explanation is that we, at our essence, are addicted to our
original aliveness. There is an innate craving inside that draws us to
the feeling.

Rather than settling for aliveness in the transient form however, the
ultimate way to achieve lasting aliveness is to become an integrated
human being, a mature person. We need to eradicate the split inside us
by learning to honour the other and withdraw our projections. Nature
supports this agenda via the chemistry of romantic love, the perfect
catalyst to thrust us hearts first into the ultimate crucible for
growth and healing: the committed, intimate relationship with someone
who, contrary to our first impressions, turns out to be incompatible
and least able to meet our needs!

DIALOGUE: THE MECHANISM FOR REGAINING EMPATHY, EQUALITY, WHOLENESS AND ALIVENESS

For Christian fundamentalists, being "born again" is the mechanism for
regaining wholeness. For Tillich (1952), it is "absolute faith", for
Freud "psychoanalysis." And for many new age thinkers, it may be
"meditation," "holistic medicine" or various forms of "body work."
Hendrix (198 suggests that the ideal mechanism for achieving
wholeness, and thus experience spiritual evolution, is the
"Intentional Dialogue", a specific way of being in the presence of
another such that one listens fully to the other's reality (by
reflecting back - "mirroring" - what is heard) and validates its worth
as being equal to the worth of their own (usually opposing) reality.
The dialogue takes place within a blanket of warmth and empathy, thus
Mirroring, Validation and Empathy. It is a simple structure, but must
be adhered to carefully to provide a feeling of safety and validation.
Dialogue is the spiritual discipline needed for the journey.

The fear, of course, is that if we validate our partner's reality, we
may devalue our own. Is there really room for both our realities? Dare
we take that chance? Can we really co-exist with full respect and
equal honouring? The dialogue places us face to face with our
vulnerability, our terror of the other, and our bottom-line belief
that there can be only one truth, one reality, ours!

In their acceptance speeches for the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10,
1994, both Arafat and Perez each mentioned they had discovered that
"the only way to find peace in the middle east is through dialogue."
Not "negotiation," but dialogue. Food for the soul, dialogue may be
the new way to truly transcend our selves and our terror of the other.
It brings about our emotional and spiritual evolution so that when we
encounter the "enemy," we can be mature and centred enough to drop the
need to annihilate, nor fall into the terror of being annihilated.

A NEW PATH

Possibly, with our ability for abstract thinking and self-reflection,
we human beings are nature¹s most complex, wondrous, and sophisticated
creatures, the very apex of all creation. Also, perhaps we are the
most wounded and therefore the most harmful creatures to our ecology.
If there is any hope for this planet, nature needs to figure out how
to make mature men and women out of us and guide us to fulfilling our
birthright, that of becoming whole and complete. This might not only
stop damage to our environment, but might put us in constructive
harmony with it.

The goal of the spiritual journey is not to become saved, perfect, or
even good, it is to become integrated. The only way to become "whole"
and to tap into our core energy and feel fully alive, is to withdraw
the projections we put onto others and become one with ourselves, at
ease with ourselves. As we learn to unconditionally accept the
other(s) in our lives, then we become able to unconditionally accept
ourselves. As we are healed by the unconditional love of another, we
become energized to fulfill our dreams and our potential as mature
adults and our creativity will abound unfettered by our childhood
wounds.

Hopefully this is an attainable goal. I am very aware that other
theorists believe that suffering and anguish is often the dynamic that
nourishes creativity, and that we would not have a Van Gogh or a
Nietzsche without their pain. But imagine what these men could have
given the world if their early wounds had been healed and their
creativity not fettered by their pain. Healing, wholeness, and
integration of the psyche are an attainable goal. It may take five or
ten years of conscious work with a committed intimate partner, but it
is attainable in this lifetime.

Possibly our dreams and visions of eternal bliss are not about some
future day in heaven, but are memories, memories of the original
blissful essence with which we enter this world. It is our original
wholeness that our psyches yearn for. We dream of re-finding ourselves
and of re-becoming who we truly are. Sadly, most of us manage only to
get periodic glimpses, tiny tastes of who we really are, and when we
do it is indeed exhilarating. But alas, the "doorway to heaven" swings
shut, and we become lost once again in the search.

To make room for the "other" as being equally worthy and deserving of
our total respect, to transcend our fear of the others with whom we
share this planet starting with our intimate partner, to honour their
existence without fearing our own annihilation, this is the spiritual
journey into maturity.

[AwdreeHpburn]

I think its way too long to read and there are way too many "god" references for my tastes....thanks for asking!

[Aschleigh]

well if you had read the article you might have noticed that the author was giving a history of healing where people in the past thought that healing came from god or religion but the author himself doesn't think that